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Seven years after it was commissioned, the Chilcot Report | :00:34. | :00:39. | |
into the Iraq War is finally published. | :00:40. | :00:44. | |
This is John Chilcot speaking live at the launch of his report | :00:45. | :00:46. | |
He says his report will criticise individuals and institutions, | :00:47. | :00:51. | |
and says he hopes it will answer questions for families of British | :00:52. | :00:54. | |
It was one the most controversial foreign policy decisions | :00:55. | :01:02. | |
179 British lives were lost in the invasion and its aftermath. | :01:03. | :01:09. | |
So what are the lessons of Iraq and what will it mean for British | :01:10. | :01:13. | |
The Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition will make | :01:14. | :01:19. | |
their statements on the Chilcot report after their weekly sparring | :01:20. | :01:22. | |
contest at Prime Ministers' Questions. | :01:23. | :01:25. | |
We'll have all the action and reaction live from midday | :01:26. | :01:34. | |
Yes, it's going to be a busy 90 minutes and to help us digest it | :01:35. | :01:37. | |
all we are joined for the whole programme today by Charlie Falconer. | :01:38. | :01:41. | |
He was, until recently, the Shadow Justice Secretary | :01:42. | :01:43. | |
and in a former life he was Lord Chancellor | :01:44. | :01:45. | |
And we also have the Conservative MP Julian Lewis. | :01:46. | :01:48. | |
He currently chairs the Defence Select Committee. | :01:49. | :01:51. | |
Now, the Chilcot Report is obviously the big story in Westminster today | :01:52. | :01:58. | |
and it's being published more or less as we come on air. | :01:59. | :02:05. | |
Has been under embargo, actually, until 11.30 three. | :02:06. | :02:18. | |
So we are just going to give ourselves a few minutes to digest | :02:19. | :02:21. | |
the headline findings of the report and get some reaction. | :02:22. | :02:23. | |
But first, Jo has been keeping an eye on the other big running story | :02:24. | :02:27. | |
in Westminster - the Conservative leadership election. | :02:28. | :02:28. | |
So there are now just three contenders for | :02:29. | :02:30. | |
Liam Fox came last in yesterday's ballot amongst MPs, with 16 votes | :02:31. | :02:34. | |
Stephen Crabb, who came fourth with 34 votes, | :02:35. | :02:38. | |
Both contenders threw their weight behind Theresa May, who was already | :02:39. | :02:45. | |
way out in front with 165 supporters, half of the total votes. | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
So it looks like Theresa May will be one of the top two to face | :02:51. | :02:54. | |
the Conservative membership, but who could be her biggest threat? | :02:55. | :02:59. | |
The Daily Politics has been given exclusive access to a new Survation | :03:00. | :03:03. | |
poll of Conservative councillors showing that whilst Theresa May | :03:04. | :03:07. | |
is way out in front with 46%, Andrea Leadsom has the support | :03:08. | :03:10. | |
of nearly 22% of councillors, compared to Micheal Gove, | :03:11. | :03:12. | |
Julian Lewis, it is Theresa May's to lose? Yes, but it is a very | :03:13. | :03:30. | |
different electorate at the final stage. I must declare my interest, I | :03:31. | :03:34. | |
am a supporter of Andrea's. I believe if she can get to the final | :03:35. | :03:39. | |
stage, she will impress significantly and may well win. Do | :03:40. | :03:44. | |
you agree with Stephen Crabb, who has dropped out, that with Theresa | :03:45. | :03:48. | |
May so far ahead there needs to be a new leader quickly? No, not | :03:49. | :03:53. | |
particularly. We constructed our electoral system with these factors | :03:54. | :03:58. | |
in mind. It was decided it was for the members of Parliament to whittle | :03:59. | :04:01. | |
it down to the last two and for the membership of the party to make the | :04:02. | :04:04. | |
final decision. That should be done when the membership of the party has | :04:05. | :04:08. | |
had a chance to listen to the two remaining candidates at a series of | :04:09. | :04:13. | |
hustings around the country. Do you appreciate the argument that these | :04:14. | :04:17. | |
are very uncertain times and there is the potential for turbulence, | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
politically, economically, it may not happen, but there is that | :04:21. | :04:24. | |
potential and a new Prime Minister is needed quickly? Not if it is | :04:25. | :04:29. | |
going to result in a foreshortening of the democratic process. What is | :04:30. | :04:33. | |
more important than settling even short-term turbulence is making the | :04:34. | :04:36. | |
right decision in a democratic manner. I think the contest, which | :04:37. | :04:42. | |
is set to go through to September, is perfectly adequate in terms of a | :04:43. | :04:49. | |
timeline to be able to adapt the two remaining candidates and make the | :04:50. | :04:52. | |
right decision. You are supporting Andrea Leadsom, what you make of Ken | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
Clarke, caught on camera yesterday, he probably would say he would say | :04:58. | :05:01. | |
it anyway, he said he didn't believe Andrea Leadsom wanted to leave the | :05:02. | :05:06. | |
European Union? It interesting, he is someone who never wanted to leave | :05:07. | :05:10. | |
the European Union so he would have an interest in dissing the prospects | :05:11. | :05:16. | |
of somebody who does. Margaret Thatcher herself, once upon a time, | :05:17. | :05:22. | |
wore a jumper festooned with European Union country flags and, | :05:23. | :05:25. | |
yet, subsequently toughened her line. The point that made me realise | :05:26. | :05:31. | |
that Andrea was the candidate for me, while I realised all along she | :05:32. | :05:35. | |
had poor is, expertise and versatility, what I didn't know is | :05:36. | :05:39. | |
whether she had political courage. By joining the Brexit campaign at a | :05:40. | :05:43. | |
time when it didn't look good, she showed she had political courage. | :05:44. | :05:48. | |
Julian appears to be suggesting that Ken Clarke's off-again intervention | :05:49. | :05:53. | |
was a calculated attempt to undo Andrea Leadsom. One thing I can say | :05:54. | :05:57. | |
about Ken Clarke, it would not have been calculate it, it would have | :05:58. | :06:01. | |
been spontaneous. Thank you for announcing that intervention. You | :06:02. | :06:06. | |
say somebody like Margaret Thatcher changed her mind when it came to her | :06:07. | :06:09. | |
enthusiasm for the European Union, and that is true. On this programme, | :06:10. | :06:15. | |
in 2013, Andrea Leadsom argued leaving the EU would be a disaster | :06:16. | :06:19. | |
for the economy. What makes you so sure that she is the right person to | :06:20. | :06:24. | |
lead the UK out? I'll tell you what makes me so sure, the fact is, at | :06:25. | :06:28. | |
the time that she made those comments, she still believed, and | :06:29. | :06:34. | |
was driving, to see if a deal could be reached that could make it | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
permissible and acceptable to remain within the European Union. A | :06:41. | :06:45. | |
disaster for the economy? She did her best to see whether the European | :06:46. | :06:49. | |
Union was reform at all. She came to the conclusion, which a lot of us | :06:50. | :06:53. | |
have had, who had been more actively involved for a longer period, that | :06:54. | :06:57. | |
it wasn't and she nailed her colours firmly to the mast. She impressed | :06:58. | :07:00. | |
enough people to put her in the commanding position she is in. In | :07:01. | :07:08. | |
the last few minutes, John Chilcot has finally published his 12 volume | :07:09. | :07:11. | |
report of his inquiry into the Iraq war and its aftermath. It is 2.6 | :07:12. | :07:19. | |
million words. Now, a select group of journalists | :07:20. | :07:20. | |
has been in a so-called lock-in since 8 o'clock this morning looking | :07:21. | :07:23. | |
at the report and we can now report Page 1 of the inquiry report states, | :07:24. | :07:27. | |
"The UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options | :07:28. | :07:32. | |
for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
a last resort." The inquiry also published a memo | :07:37. | :08:07. | |
between Tony Blair and George Bush, That was just about nine months | :08:08. | :08:10. | |
before the invasion. Well, Sir John Chilcot | :08:11. | :08:46. | |
has just finished making a statement - here's | :08:47. | :08:47. | |
a flavour of what he had to say. It is now clear that policy on Iraq | :08:48. | :09:00. | |
was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They | :09:01. | :09:05. | |
were not challenged and they should have been. The findings on Iraq's | :09:06. | :09:14. | |
WMD capabilities, set out in the report of the Iraq Survey Group in | :09:15. | :09:20. | |
October 2004 were significant, but they did not support preinvasion | :09:21. | :09:23. | |
statements by the UK Government which had focused on Iraq's current | :09:24. | :09:29. | |
capabilities. Mr Blair and Mr Straw had described them as vast stocks, | :09:30. | :09:37. | |
and an urgent and growing threat. In response to those findings, Mr Blair | :09:38. | :09:41. | |
told the House of Commons that, although Iraq might not have had | :09:42. | :09:46. | |
stockpiles of actually deployable weapons, Saddam Hussein retained the | :09:47. | :09:52. | |
intent and the capability, and was in breach of United Nations | :09:53. | :09:57. | |
obligations. That was not, however, the explanation for military action | :09:58. | :10:04. | |
he had given before the conflict. John Chilcot, a few seconds ago. | :10:05. | :10:07. | |
Let's get initial reactions from both of you. Charles Faulkner, Tony | :10:08. | :10:12. | |
Blair's statements on the threat posed by WMDs were not justified. Mr | :10:13. | :10:19. | |
Blair took Britain to war before the peaceful options had been exhausted. | :10:20. | :10:24. | |
That's pretty damning? Era yes, and it is a very serious criticism. The | :10:25. | :10:28. | |
first one, namely that he, in effect, overstated the extent of the | :10:29. | :10:34. | |
risk, this is about the intelligence assessments. As far as the | :10:35. | :10:38. | |
intelligence bodies in the world were concerned, the Western world, | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
they all thought that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction. | :10:43. | :10:49. | |
With lots of caveats. What Mr Blair said, was not corrected by the | :10:50. | :10:52. | |
agencies, though they knew differently, he said at the time | :10:53. | :10:55. | |
that the intelligence was extensive, detailed and authoritative. We now | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
know from the Butler report, not one of these three words was true. | :11:01. | :11:05. | |
Scrappy and patchy were the words used. It was also very clear that | :11:06. | :11:09. | |
they believed they did have weapons of mass destruction. The dossier you | :11:10. | :11:15. | |
are referring to, I don't know if it is the dossier or the statement in | :11:16. | :11:21. | |
Parliament, it was authored by the intelligence services. Of course, | :11:22. | :11:24. | |
there might have been imprisoned in a way they shouldn't have been. What | :11:25. | :11:28. | |
about the broader point that we went to war, we were taken to war before | :11:29. | :11:32. | |
the peaceful options had been exhausted? People told us that at | :11:33. | :11:38. | |
the time? And a choice had to be made about whether or not, and this | :11:39. | :11:44. | |
is March 2003, you gave Saddam yet a further opportunity to comply with | :11:45. | :11:50. | |
obligations to make disclosure about what his weapons of mass destruction | :11:51. | :11:53. | |
were, and a judgment had to be made. A judgment was made by the USA and | :11:54. | :11:57. | |
the UK that he should not be given more time. That is in the context of | :11:58. | :12:02. | |
somebody that had been trying to stall the weapons inspectors since | :12:03. | :12:08. | |
1991. All right. Let me come to you in a minute. We will hear first from | :12:09. | :12:14. | |
Norman, our political correspondent. Let's go straight to him in | :12:15. | :12:17. | |
Westminster. He has been following this. Norman, you are outside the | :12:18. | :12:22. | |
QE2, where the report is being unveiled. There are demonstrations | :12:23. | :12:26. | |
going on. What are the immediate take aways from this? Well, it seems | :12:27. | :12:33. | |
to me that this report is much, much more damning than anyone had | :12:34. | :12:36. | |
suspected. It is basically a din and see a not pretty much every aspect | :12:37. | :12:42. | |
of the war, from the reasons to go to war, to the threat posed by | :12:43. | :12:47. | |
Saddam Hussein. The claims he had weapons of mass destruction, the | :12:48. | :12:50. | |
intelligence provided by the intelligence services, the legal | :12:51. | :12:56. | |
case for war, the equipment the troops were sent to fight with, the | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
lack of planning any aftermath. The only people that emerge with any | :13:01. | :13:03. | |
credit our soldiers and civilians that were deployed in Iraq. What | :13:04. | :13:07. | |
strikes me most about the report, the summary, is the figure towering | :13:08. | :13:12. | |
over it who runs through the whole report, Tony Blair. What becomes | :13:13. | :13:17. | |
clear is that he had become personally convinced that Saddam | :13:18. | :13:21. | |
Hussein had to go months and months, and months, before the war, before | :13:22. | :13:27. | |
telling Cabinet colleagues, before telling the country. He was | :13:28. | :13:31. | |
personally signed up to getting rid of Saddam Hussein. What changed his | :13:32. | :13:38. | |
mind seems to have been 9/11. A few months after that, in December, he | :13:39. | :13:41. | |
is writing to President Bush, already discussing regime change in | :13:42. | :13:46. | |
Iraq, albeit floating the idea that it could be through an uprising in | :13:47. | :13:49. | |
Iraq which the British and Americans would support militarily. There is | :13:50. | :13:55. | |
then that credible meeting in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, | :13:56. | :14:00. | |
where the two men pretty much firmer the military option. In July, and | :14:01. | :14:04. | |
the known to the Cabinet for anyone else, Tony Blair writes to President | :14:05. | :14:08. | |
Bush saying, I will be with you, whatever. He cites what has happened | :14:09. | :14:16. | |
in Kosovo, Afghanistan and the last Gulf War. That seems to me to be the | :14:17. | :14:20. | |
moment when he signalled that he is prepared to remove Saddam Hussein by | :14:21. | :14:24. | |
British military intervention. We move forward to January 2003, three | :14:25. | :14:29. | |
months before the outbreak of war. Tony Blair, again right into | :14:30. | :14:34. | |
President Bush, saying the military option looks the most likely and | :14:35. | :14:40. | |
commits to three British divisions being deployed in southern Iraq. As | :14:41. | :14:46. | |
I say, the central story, I think, is Tony Blair parishing, deriving | :14:47. | :14:53. | |
this whole drift to war. -- pushing. It accelerates as the days, weeks | :14:54. | :14:58. | |
and months ago one. His cabinet, by and large, out of the loop or mere | :14:59. | :15:00. | |
spectators. Thank you very much a superb summary | :15:01. | :15:09. | |
the initial report or Doppler may get a reaction from you. I haven't | :15:10. | :15:13. | |
yet had the chance to hear the full conclusions but I must say, it | :15:14. | :15:18. | |
doesn't look as if that -- does look as if there was a preordained | :15:19. | :15:21. | |
agenda. I must declare interest, I was a shallow defenceman struck the | :15:22. | :15:25. | |
time and I strongly supported removing Saddam Hussein but what I | :15:26. | :15:30. | |
did not support was the use of the intelligence services as a shelter | :15:31. | :15:36. | |
behind which the government was secretly trying to mitigate events, | :15:37. | :15:44. | |
-- manipulate events, and that soon became a situation where the joint | :15:45. | :15:46. | |
intelligence committee was nothing more than a political football. The | :15:47. | :15:50. | |
position ought to be that the secret agencies do their business, advice | :15:51. | :15:54. | |
the government and the government then makes the decision. The | :15:55. | :15:57. | |
government should not be pulling them into the limelight and saying, | :15:58. | :16:01. | |
"If you don't believe us you'd better believe them," particularly | :16:02. | :16:04. | |
when it had Alastair Campbell trying to get them to rewrite their own | :16:05. | :16:11. | |
conclusions took we are going to continue discussing this in a moment | :16:12. | :16:12. | |
but you have some other guests. Joining me now from College | :16:13. | :16:15. | |
Green is Mark Seddon - he was on Labour's National | :16:16. | :16:17. | |
Executive at the time of the Iraq War and fought internal | :16:18. | :16:20. | |
battles with Tony Blair - he presented his evidence | :16:21. | :16:22. | |
to the Chilcot Inquiry. And Dr Alan Mendoza | :16:23. | :16:24. | |
from the Henry Jackson Society. Welcome to both of you. Mark Seddon, | :16:25. | :16:33. | |
first of all, it's a damning report, certainly when you look at it | :16:34. | :16:36. | |
initially in every aspect of the war. Does all the blame for | :16:37. | :16:40. | |
Britain's involvement in Iraq now rests on the shoulders of Tony | :16:41. | :16:45. | |
Blair? No, it doesn't did good is hugely damning report and you do | :16:46. | :16:48. | |
wonder because the process of challenging this whole idea of there | :16:49. | :16:52. | |
being weapons of mass destruction began about a year ago and you have | :16:53. | :16:56. | |
to ask yourself the question, if it's possible for a journalist such | :16:57. | :17:01. | |
as myself or other people to interview the former head of the UN | :17:02. | :17:04. | |
weapons inspector Scott Ritter and him to tell us that there were no | :17:05. | :17:06. | |
likely weapons of mass destruction because they've done their job, that | :17:07. | :17:10. | |
would then ring alarm bells. There were three resolutions and at the | :17:11. | :17:19. | |
Labour Party conference, essentially we were trying to establish that no | :17:20. | :17:23. | |
action should be taken by the British Government without the full | :17:24. | :17:27. | |
support of the noted nations. I had to be security Council backing. Each | :17:28. | :17:31. | |
one of those was shot down and it has to be said that the late Robin | :17:32. | :17:39. | |
Cook and the former president of the UN assembly helped me write them. So | :17:40. | :17:42. | |
it does make you wonder what on earth was going on and I'm afraid | :17:43. | :17:48. | |
that the inquiry does tell us what was going on, which was essentially | :17:49. | :17:54. | |
that there was a drive for regime change. That's what it was. Except | :17:55. | :17:58. | |
when you look at the declassified memo from Tony Blair to George Bush, | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
it also shows that Tony Blair was convinced that Saddam Hussein was a | :18:03. | :18:06. | |
potential threat and Batty had weapons of mass destruction and was | :18:07. | :18:09. | |
prepared to use them. So does that not dispel the argument that Tony | :18:10. | :18:13. | |
Blair went ahead with his intentions knowing there were no weapons of | :18:14. | :18:18. | |
mass destruction? Hans Blix, if you recall, who was somebody else who | :18:19. | :18:21. | |
was underlined along with the Security Council, was arguing for | :18:22. | :18:25. | |
more time. The previous head of the UN is weapons inspectors had said | :18:26. | :18:28. | |
that they had done the job. There was real doubt as to what the Iraqis | :18:29. | :18:33. | |
might have if anything, really, so if that was the pretext it was an | :18:34. | :18:37. | |
incorrect pretext and I think that has come through in this report in a | :18:38. | :18:43. | |
very polite way. It's a very, very powerful report it You say it is | :18:44. | :18:48. | |
polite because some of the language that is used actually doesn't pin, | :18:49. | :18:52. | |
if you like, the Lehman Tony Blair in quite the way some his critics | :18:53. | :18:56. | |
would like to see. Do you think Tony Blair now was wrong to go to war, | :18:57. | :19:01. | |
Alan Mendoza? Ideye Mickey was wrong to go to war. I think what is clear | :19:02. | :19:06. | |
is that he exaggerated things. -- I don't think he was wrong to go to | :19:07. | :19:12. | |
war. Everyone knew that Saddam was a threat. Everyone knew, including his | :19:13. | :19:15. | |
own generals, it seems, that he had a programme of some kind of weapons | :19:16. | :19:19. | |
of mass to structured, everyone knew he was a barbaric leader. It wasn't | :19:20. | :19:22. | |
wrong to go to war and try and remove such a person who did | :19:23. | :19:25. | |
threaten our security, but it is clear the report has laid bare some | :19:26. | :19:29. | |
of the contradictions and problems of foreign policy decision-making of | :19:30. | :19:33. | |
the time and that is what we should be focusing on, looking at how we | :19:34. | :19:38. | |
can better improve our foreign policy-making process in the future | :19:39. | :19:42. | |
so that if there is a similar conflict that looks like coming, we | :19:43. | :19:44. | |
do properly analyse data and make sure we make an informed decision, | :19:45. | :19:48. | |
rather than one which takes bits and pieces and concoct them into a | :19:49. | :19:53. | |
theory. But Alan Mendoza, there is the line that says, "I will be with | :19:54. | :19:58. | |
you whatever," Tony Blair to George Bush, which is the charge that was | :19:59. | :20:01. | |
put to the then Prime Minister, that he had already decided to go to war, | :20:02. | :20:06. | |
he had already decided to support the Americans in going into Iraq | :20:07. | :20:10. | |
without the UN security resolution and without, at that time, the | :20:11. | :20:15. | |
say-so of the House of Commons. I don't think anyone would think in | :20:16. | :20:18. | |
their right mind that Saddam Hussein would ever comply with the UN. He | :20:19. | :20:23. | |
hadn't done so since 1991. At some point, as he states, a political | :20:24. | :20:27. | |
decision had to be made. It is clear that Tony Blair came to that early, | :20:28. | :20:31. | |
he decided early to do that. It doesn't mean that in 2003 or 2004 he | :20:32. | :20:35. | |
wouldn't have made the same decision. Mach seven, what about the | :20:36. | :20:40. | |
calls from some parts of the Labour Party and certainly Jeremy Corbyn, | :20:41. | :20:44. | |
the Labour leader, who was reported to want to accuse Tony Blair of | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
being a war criminal. Is that they're? Gove it is the | :20:51. | :20:52. | |
International Criminal Court to investigate that. I think the damage | :20:53. | :20:55. | |
has been done and needs to be repaired to the United Nations, to | :20:56. | :21:00. | |
the Security Council, to Kofi Anand. I think if you asking me my own | :21:01. | :21:07. | |
personal view that Tony Blair has to reflect very long and hard on this | :21:08. | :21:14. | |
report and I hope that he can see that he was wrong to push for | :21:15. | :21:19. | |
unilateral military action without the support of the United Nations | :21:20. | :21:23. | |
and I hope that he will apologise to all of those people who lost sons | :21:24. | :21:30. | |
and daughters, both from Britain and Iraq, and I hope, more importantly | :21:31. | :21:34. | |
than Tony Blair, that this is never allowed to happen again. We do not | :21:35. | :21:38. | |
have unilateral military action taken by this country. Thank you | :21:39. | :21:43. | |
both very much. Charlie Faulkner, Chilcot says we | :21:44. | :21:49. | |
rushed into war prematurely, we haven't exhausted all the options. | :21:50. | :21:54. | |
Casts fresh doubt on the legality of our actions, it makes clear the | :21:55. | :21:59. | |
intelligence was deeply flawed and that the aftermath of it all was a | :22:00. | :22:04. | |
disaster. Where is the good news in this? I haven't read the report and | :22:05. | :22:08. | |
we visit the need to learn the lessons of it. In a way, though, | :22:09. | :22:13. | |
looking at it from the point of view of what was going on at the time the | :22:14. | :22:18. | |
decision was made, as I said earlier wrong, the dilemma for the | :22:19. | :22:21. | |
government was what to do about Saddam Hussein and the extent to | :22:22. | :22:28. | |
which he posed a threat to the region and may be wider. These are | :22:29. | :22:32. | |
difficult decisions. The threat to the region came subsequently, didn't | :22:33. | :22:37. | |
it? The region ended up in chaos. We now know that Saddam was not a | :22:38. | :22:42. | |
threat. He had been a threat to the region. We tabby Iran war, the | :22:43. | :22:46. | |
Kuwait intervention, but by that time he wasn't. The whole threat to | :22:47. | :22:52. | |
the region came after our invasion. At that time, in 2003, what it | :22:53. | :22:56. | |
appeared, and this was the view that was widely held, was that he was | :22:57. | :23:01. | |
trying to avoid having revealed what the extent of his weapons of mass | :23:02. | :23:05. | |
destruction were. Subsequently, as you rightly say, there were no | :23:06. | :23:09. | |
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Wasn't just hindsight | :23:10. | :23:12. | |
it topped the French at the time told us not to go down this road, | :23:13. | :23:15. | |
they warned us that this was a dangerous thing, that things were | :23:16. | :23:18. | |
not as clear-cut as the Blair government was making out. Hans | :23:19. | :23:22. | |
Blix, the weapons inspector, he said you needed more time, he haven't | :23:23. | :23:26. | |
found anything yet. You don't need hindsight to have been right at the | :23:27. | :23:32. | |
time. People were right and the government was wrong. You have to | :23:33. | :23:36. | |
make a judgment in March 2003. That was the dilemma that the government | :23:37. | :23:41. | |
faced. The UN had passed countless resolutions between 1991 up to and | :23:42. | :23:48. | |
including 1441 in November 2002, all posited on the basis that he had | :23:49. | :23:53. | |
weapons of mass destruction. Why would he be evasive? Why had he | :23:54. | :23:58. | |
thrown out the weapons inspectors in 1998? Why was it that he would not | :23:59. | :24:01. | |
provide full cooperation? Because he was terrified that his own people | :24:02. | :24:04. | |
might rise up against him if he didn't have these weapons of mass | :24:05. | :24:09. | |
destruction. It was an act, we know that now. It was all an act and he | :24:10. | :24:16. | |
fooled us. Here is an issue, with your defence hat on. You can have | :24:17. | :24:20. | |
arguments about the policy of the time, about the aftermath and so on | :24:21. | :24:23. | |
but I think a lot of people watching at home, when they get to see more | :24:24. | :24:28. | |
of this Chilcot Report, will come to this, which is that even though the | :24:29. | :24:32. | |
situation in Iraq was far from resolved by 2006, indeed things were | :24:33. | :24:37. | |
going from bad to worse in Basra, the bit that we were occupying, we | :24:38. | :24:44. | |
opened a second front in Afghanistan and began to ramp above forces there | :24:45. | :24:48. | |
and the Chilcot Report is quite clear, we did not provide our forces | :24:49. | :24:54. | |
with the resources to fight on two fronts. Indeed, and the problem that | :24:55. | :24:58. | |
we have is that in peace time we never wish to invest as much in | :24:59. | :25:04. | |
defence as we should so that when a conflict breaks out, we never have | :25:05. | :25:08. | |
adequate resources and we only develop those resources as the | :25:09. | :25:12. | |
conflict goes on. But can I just put two point of your consideration? The | :25:13. | :25:17. | |
thing that meant that it was more dangerous than normal to adopt a | :25:18. | :25:21. | |
policy of containment with Saddam Hussein, which would normally be the | :25:22. | :25:25. | |
correct policy, was the appearance on the scene of Al-Qaeda in such a | :25:26. | :25:33. | |
terrible way in 2001 because the fear was that if, for any reason, | :25:34. | :25:40. | |
stocks of mass destruction weapons, by which I mean anthrax, not | :25:41. | :25:43. | |
lower-level weapons, weapons that could kill, hundreds of thousands of | :25:44. | :25:50. | |
people by deployment of relatively small quantities of these weapons, | :25:51. | :25:55. | |
if for any reason a dictator chose to supply those to the terrorists, | :25:56. | :25:58. | |
you couldn't use the deterrent option. Syria could have done the | :25:59. | :26:04. | |
same, we didn't invade Syria. Al-Qaeda was almost nowhere to be | :26:05. | :26:08. | |
seen in Iraq. Out only when it appeared, after we'd invaded, then | :26:09. | :26:12. | |
it was everywhere. Indeed, and that leads me to second point I wanted to | :26:13. | :26:20. | |
make. It was perfectly possible for a dictator who is faced with an | :26:21. | :26:25. | |
enemy to supply the enemies of his enemies with deadly weapons that | :26:26. | :26:31. | |
they would unhesitatingly use. But on the second point, in relation to | :26:32. | :26:36. | |
what happened in Syria, was that those of us who had learned the | :26:37. | :26:41. | |
lessons of Iraq, and I was one, and who voted not to allow Assad to be | :26:42. | :26:47. | |
brought down, realised that the main problem was that there was optimism | :26:48. | :26:53. | |
that if you pulled down these dictators, democracy would emerge, | :26:54. | :26:57. | |
whereas in reality what Iraq showed was that you either have a | :26:58. | :27:00. | |
repressive dictatorship or you have bloody Civil War of 1000 years' | :27:01. | :27:05. | |
standing between the different branches of Islam and that is the | :27:06. | :27:09. | |
real lesson that we applied to Syria. Many people said that at the | :27:10. | :27:12. | |
time and it turns out now, it's not quite clear that the Bush | :27:13. | :27:15. | |
administration even knew the difference between Sunni and Shia. | :27:16. | :27:19. | |
They knew nothing of the history of Iraq at all. The British may have | :27:20. | :27:23. | |
known a bit more but it looks like the Americans knew nothing and they | :27:24. | :27:26. | |
have prepared almost nothing for the aftermath, which is probably the | :27:27. | :27:30. | |
biggest unforgivable thing, because they didn't attack us, we attacked | :27:31. | :27:34. | |
them supposedly to make a better society, and we had no plans to do | :27:35. | :27:38. | |
so and Mr Blair did not insist that the Americans had that. These are | :27:39. | :27:42. | |
things that are clear and the Chilcot Report. Laura Coombs BOE, | :27:43. | :27:46. | |
our political editor, has joined us. You were in the lock in. That is | :27:47. | :27:51. | |
just the Executive summary, which is a big enough document on its own. Is | :27:52. | :27:55. | |
it clear to you yet, Laura, what the political fallout is going to be | :27:56. | :27:59. | |
from this? It seems now to be a pretty damning report. It is under | :28:00. | :28:03. | |
people were worried that there would be a whitewash, if there were any | :28:04. | :28:07. | |
suggestions of that, it is not. Impolite technicolour, this is a | :28:08. | :28:11. | |
very, very damning verdict on exact what happened. In terms of the | :28:12. | :28:14. | |
political consequences, there is one very important thing, most of the | :28:15. | :28:18. | |
main actors criticised in here, and there are many of them, have gone on | :28:19. | :28:22. | |
to pastures new. They are not people who are in the political front line | :28:23. | :28:26. | |
any more, they have moved on, but the question of Tony Blair's | :28:27. | :28:30. | |
reputation will, to some extent, rest on this, and in the last few | :28:31. | :28:34. | |
minutes he has released a statement looking for the positives, I suppose | :28:35. | :28:38. | |
in this, saying that this should lay to rest any idea that there was | :28:39. | :28:41. | |
deceit or there was bad faith or it was deception in any way and he | :28:42. | :28:45. | |
will, I'm sure, through the day, certainly hang on to a very clear | :28:46. | :28:49. | |
conclusion in there, but there was not evidence that Number Ten do | :28:50. | :28:52. | |
liberally manufactured evidence. Of course that has been one of the most | :28:53. | :28:58. | |
controversial claims all along. -- deliberately manufactured evidence. | :28:59. | :29:01. | |
This is a remarkable document because this is not fractions of | :29:02. | :29:04. | |
what happened, this is not scraps. This is probably the most | :29:05. | :29:07. | |
comprehensive analysis of a conflict in modern times and I think for any | :29:08. | :29:11. | |
politician who is thinking about military action in the next few | :29:12. | :29:16. | |
decades, they'll think of this because here we are, almost all of | :29:17. | :29:20. | |
the details about the decision-making, all of the details | :29:21. | :29:23. | |
of so many of the mistakes, out in public view. It is felt like it is a | :29:24. | :29:29. | |
long time coming but in historical terms, this is an astonishingly | :29:30. | :29:33. | |
rapid and damning conclusion of what politicians who are not on the front | :29:34. | :29:38. | |
line, but they are still around, did wrong. We are going to go over to | :29:39. | :29:43. | |
PMQs in a minute but lets to see if we have time. On the legality of the | :29:44. | :29:46. | |
issue, Chilcot talks about the circumstances being wrong. I'm not | :29:47. | :29:51. | |
quite clear, perhaps you are. He's not saying, though, it's illegal. He | :29:52. | :29:54. | |
pulls his punch or doesn't come to that conclusion. It is very | :29:55. | :29:58. | |
important that our viewers to understand this. Chilcot was not | :29:59. | :30:02. | |
constituted to give illegal verdict. It was not a court, they were not a | :30:03. | :30:08. | |
jury. -- a legal verdict. However, my reading of what he says is that | :30:09. | :30:13. | |
he goes almost as far as he could in suggesting that there may be caused | :30:14. | :30:15. | |
to show that the decision was potentially... Let's go straight | :30:16. | :30:20. | |
over to the House of Commons for PMQs. | :30:21. | :30:37. | |
Chloe Smith. Mr Speaker, I am a Conservative because I believe it is | :30:38. | :30:47. | |
not where you are coming from, it is where you are going to. Does my | :30:48. | :30:53. | |
right honourable friend agree? Does my right honourable friend agree | :30:54. | :30:55. | |
that the opportunities to succeed no matter what your background is what | :30:56. | :31:06. | |
we want for Britain? I absolutely agree, making sure all citizens have | :31:07. | :31:10. | |
life chances to make the most of their talents should be the driving | :31:11. | :31:13. | |
mission for the rest of this Parliament. Yesterday we were | :31:14. | :31:18. | |
talking about boosting national citizens service, which I think will | :31:19. | :31:22. | |
play a key role in giving young people the confidence and life | :31:23. | :31:24. | |
skills to make the most of the talents they have. I think today it | :31:25. | :31:33. | |
would be appropriate if we pause for a moment to think of those people | :31:34. | :31:37. | |
who lost their lives in the bombings in Baghdad in recent days. The | :31:38. | :31:43. | |
people that have suffered and their families, the end of Ramadan, it | :31:44. | :31:48. | |
must be a terrible experience for them and we should send our | :31:49. | :31:53. | |
sympathies and solidarity. I join the Prime Minister in wishing Wales | :31:54. | :31:59. | |
well. I'll be cheering for them along with everybody else. That's | :32:00. | :32:06. | |
quiet, isn't it? There is life after all! 30 years ago, Mr Speaker, the | :32:07. | :32:19. | |
Shire Brooke colliery employed thousands of workers in skilled, | :32:20. | :32:25. | |
well played, unionised jobs, digging coal. Today, thousands of people | :32:26. | :32:31. | |
work on the same site. The vast majority are an zero hours | :32:32. | :32:39. | |
contracts, no union representation, the minimum wage is not even paid. | :32:40. | :32:47. | |
Doesn't it sum up Britain? Let me join the honourable gentleman in | :32:48. | :32:54. | |
giving my thoughts to those killed in these terrible terrorist attacks. | :32:55. | :32:59. | |
On the issue of what has happened in our coalfield communities, to see | :33:00. | :33:03. | |
new jobs and new investment come, we have made sure that there is not | :33:04. | :33:06. | |
only a minimum wage, but now a national Living Wage. Yes, he talks | :33:07. | :33:14. | |
about one colliery. I recently visited the site of the Grimethorpe | :33:15. | :33:24. | |
colliery, there is a business there, Asos, employing 5000 people. We are | :33:25. | :33:27. | |
never going to succeed as a country if we try to hold onto jobs in | :33:28. | :33:30. | |
industries that have become uncompetitive. We have to hold onto | :33:31. | :33:36. | |
jobs of the future. The problem is, if you are on a zero hours | :33:37. | :33:40. | |
contracts, the minimum wage does not add up to a living wage. He must | :33:41. | :33:45. | |
understand that. Can I take him to the Lindsey oil refinery? In 2009, | :33:46. | :33:50. | |
hundreds of oil workers worked out on strike because agency workers | :33:51. | :33:54. | |
from Italy and Portugal were brought in on lower wages to do the same | :33:55. | :33:59. | |
job. Just down the road in Boston, low pay is endemic. The average | :34:00. | :34:08. | |
hourly wage across the whole country is ?13.33. An East Midlands, ?12. In | :34:09. | :34:16. | |
Boston, it is ?9. Isn't it time the government intervened to step up for | :34:17. | :34:20. | |
those communities that feel they have been left behind in modern | :34:21. | :34:24. | |
Britain? We have intervened with a national Living Wage, we have | :34:25. | :34:27. | |
intervened with more fines against companies that don't pay the minimum | :34:28. | :34:31. | |
wage. We have intervened, for the first time, something that Labour | :34:32. | :34:35. | |
never did, naming and shaming companies involved. Those | :34:36. | :34:38. | |
interventions help and can make a difference. The real intervention | :34:39. | :34:44. | |
that you need is an economy that is growing and encouraging investment. | :34:45. | :34:50. | |
What we want are the industry the future. Record numbers are aware, | :34:51. | :34:55. | |
and the British economy has been one of the strongest in the G7. Mr | :34:56. | :35:00. | |
Speaker, this Government promised it would rebalance our economy. It | :35:01. | :35:07. | |
promised a Northern Powerhouse. Yet half of 1% of infrastructure | :35:08. | :35:09. | |
investment is going to the north-east. London is getting 44 | :35:10. | :35:15. | |
times more than that. Does he not think it is time to have a real | :35:16. | :35:19. | |
rebalancing of our economy and invest in those areas that are | :35:20. | :35:25. | |
losing out so badly? I think he is talking down the performance of | :35:26. | :35:29. | |
parts of our economy that are doing well. If you look at the | :35:30. | :35:32. | |
fastest-growing part of our economy, it has been the north-west, not the | :35:33. | :35:37. | |
south-east. If you want to see where exports are growing faster, it is | :35:38. | :35:40. | |
the north-east and not London. There is a huge amount of work to do to | :35:41. | :35:44. | |
make sure we feel that North-South divide. For the first time, we have | :35:45. | :35:50. | |
a Government with a proper strategy, investing in infrastructure, | :35:51. | :35:52. | |
training and skills that will make a difference. For years, regional | :35:53. | :35:55. | |
policy was just trying to distribute a few government jobs outside | :35:56. | :35:59. | |
London. Now we have a strategy about skills, training and about growth | :36:00. | :36:05. | |
and delivery. The idea of this redistribution is a very | :36:06. | :36:08. | |
interesting. The investment in London is more than the total of | :36:09. | :36:13. | |
every other English region combined. Does he not think these issues | :36:14. | :36:19. | |
should be addressed? In March, the government investment was cut in | :36:20. | :36:23. | |
order to meet its fiscal rules. How does the Prime Minister think the | :36:24. | :36:26. | |
economy can be rebalanced when investment is cut and what little | :36:27. | :36:31. | |
investment remains reinforces the regional imbalances in this country? | :36:32. | :36:36. | |
Well, first of all, again, he is talking down the North in the | :36:37. | :36:40. | |
questions he asks. The unemployment rate in the north-west is lower than | :36:41. | :36:44. | |
the unemployment rate London. I think, actually, his figures are | :36:45. | :36:48. | |
wrong. In terms of investment, yes, of course, we need to have the | :36:49. | :36:53. | |
Government investment. We got it in HS2, in the railways, the biggest | :36:54. | :36:57. | |
investment programme since Victorian times, the biggest investment in our | :36:58. | :37:01. | |
roads since the 1970s. You can only invest if you have a strong and | :37:02. | :37:05. | |
growing economy. We know what Labour's recipe is, more borrowing, | :37:06. | :37:09. | |
more spending, more debt, trashing the economy, which is what they did | :37:10. | :37:15. | |
when in office and that is when investment collapses. The Chancellor | :37:16. | :37:19. | |
finally did this week what the Shadow Chancellor asked him to do in | :37:20. | :37:22. | |
the Autumn Statement and what I asked the Prime Minister to do last | :37:23. | :37:26. | |
week, abandoned a key part of the fiscal rule. We now know the deficit | :37:27. | :37:30. | |
was supposed to vanish by 2015, and it will not even be gone by 2020. | :37:31. | :37:37. | |
Isn't it time to admit that austerity is a failure and the way | :37:38. | :37:40. | |
forward is to invest in infrastructure, invest in growth and | :37:41. | :37:47. | |
invest in jobs? What he says is not the case. The rules we set out | :37:48. | :37:50. | |
always have flexibility in case growth didn't turn out the way... | :37:51. | :37:54. | |
Well, the point I would make to him, I would take his advice more | :37:55. | :37:57. | |
seriously if I could think of a single spending reduction that he | :37:58. | :38:02. | |
had supported at any time in the last six years. The fact is, this | :38:03. | :38:07. | |
Government and the last one, the Coalition Government, had to take | :38:08. | :38:10. | |
difficult decisions to get our deficit under control. It's gone | :38:11. | :38:14. | |
from 11% of GDP that we inherited, the biggest in the entire world, | :38:15. | :38:19. | |
almost, to under 3% this year, because of difficult decisions. If | :38:20. | :38:22. | |
he can tell me one of those decisions he has supported, I would | :38:23. | :38:26. | |
be interested to hear it. Mr Speaker, concerns about the fiscal | :38:27. | :38:35. | |
rule investment are obviously spreading on his own ventures. The | :38:36. | :38:37. | |
Work and Pensions Secretary and Business Secretary have seen the | :38:38. | :38:39. | |
light. They agree with my honourable friend the Shadow Chancellor in | :38:40. | :38:41. | |
backing the massive investment programme we have been advocating. | :38:42. | :38:44. | |
Isn't it time that he thanked the honourable member for Hayes and | :38:45. | :38:47. | |
Harlington for the education where he has been doing in this house? | :38:48. | :38:51. | |
Will he confirm that the Chancellor's fiscal rule is dead and | :38:52. | :38:55. | |
invest in the north-east, in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, all of | :38:56. | :38:59. | |
those places that feel, with good reason, that they have been left | :39:00. | :39:02. | |
behind and the investment is going to the wrong places, and they are | :39:03. | :39:06. | |
ending up with few jobs on lower wages, and insecure employment to | :39:07. | :39:12. | |
boot? If the investment was going in the wrong places, we would not see | :39:13. | :39:16. | |
2.5 million more people in work and we would not see a fall in | :39:17. | :39:20. | |
unemployment, and a rise in employment in every single region in | :39:21. | :39:25. | |
our country. The only area where I think the Right Honourable Gentleman | :39:26. | :39:27. | |
has made a massive contribution is in recent weeks he has come up with | :39:28. | :39:30. | |
the biggest job creation scheme I'd ever seen in my life, almost | :39:31. | :39:38. | |
everyone on the benches behind him has had an opportunity to serve on | :39:39. | :39:42. | |
the front bench! Rather like the old job creation schemes, it has been a | :39:43. | :39:47. | |
bit of a revolving door. They get a job, sometimes for only a few hours, | :39:48. | :39:50. | |
and then they go back to the backbenches. But it is a job | :39:51. | :39:54. | |
creation scheme, nonetheless, and we should thank him for that! | :39:55. | :40:01. | |
On a day when significant questions have been levelled at the collective | :40:02. | :40:10. | |
decision-making of politicians, military leaders and intelligence | :40:11. | :40:13. | |
services, many of our constituents will be seeking reassurance that the | :40:14. | :40:18. | |
lives of their loved ones were not given in vain. That the mistakes | :40:19. | :40:25. | |
made will never happen again. Can I ask the Prime Minister, will he | :40:26. | :40:27. | |
ensure that the lessons learned will be fully examined and acted upon, so | :40:28. | :40:34. | |
that there can never be a repeat of the tragic mistakes made over a | :40:35. | :40:39. | |
decade ago? Well, I am grateful to my honourable friend for his | :40:40. | :40:42. | |
question. I can certainly give that assurance. We will have plenty of | :40:43. | :40:46. | |
time this afternoon to discuss the Chilcot Report and Sir John Chilcot | :40:47. | :40:49. | |
is on his feet at the moment, explaining what he has found. I | :40:50. | :40:53. | |
think the most important thing we can do is to really learn the | :40:54. | :40:57. | |
lessons for the future. The lessons that he lays out, quite clearly. We | :40:58. | :41:02. | |
will want to spend a lot of time, I'm sure, talking about the | :41:03. | :41:05. | |
decisions on going to war and the rest of it. The most important thing | :41:06. | :41:09. | |
for all of us is to make sure we find out how to make sure government | :41:10. | :41:13. | |
works better, legal advice is considered better, those things are | :41:14. | :41:16. | |
the best legacy we can sit from this whole thing. Angus Robertson. Today | :41:17. | :41:23. | |
is hugely important for Muslims at home and abroad at the end of | :41:24. | :41:36. | |
Ramadan. I am sure we wish them all Eid Mubarak. Our thoughts today are | :41:37. | :41:42. | |
with those who have died in Iraq, and the families of those in Iraq | :41:43. | :41:46. | |
who have lost loved ones. The Chilcot Report confirms that in | :41:47. | :41:52. | |
2002, Tony Blair wrote to President Bush, saying, I will be with you | :41:53. | :41:55. | |
whatever. Does the Prime Minister understand why the families of the | :41:56. | :42:00. | |
dead and the injured a UK service personnel, the hundreds of thousands | :42:01. | :42:04. | |
of Iraqis, feel they were deceived about the reasons for going to war | :42:05. | :42:09. | |
in Iraq? First of all, let me join the Right Honourable Gentleman in | :42:10. | :42:12. | |
wishing Muslims in this country and all over the world Eid Mubarak at | :42:13. | :42:17. | |
the end of Ramadan. In terms of the report, we will discuss it in detail | :42:18. | :42:21. | |
later, and I don't want to pre-empt all of the things I will say in my | :42:22. | :42:25. | |
statement. Clearly, we need to learn the lessons of the report, we need | :42:26. | :42:29. | |
to study it carefully. It is millions of words, thousands of | :42:30. | :42:33. | |
pages. I think we should save our remarks for when we debated in the | :42:34. | :42:39. | |
house after the statement. The Chilcot Report catalogues the | :42:40. | :42:44. | |
failures in planning for post-conflict Iraq and then | :42:45. | :42:48. | |
concludes that, and I quote, the UK did not achieve its objectives. That | :42:49. | :42:54. | |
lack of planning has also been evident in relation to Afghanistan, | :42:55. | :43:01. | |
Libya, Syria and, most recently, with no plan whatsoever, for Brexit. | :43:02. | :43:08. | |
When will the UK Government actually start learning from the mistakes of | :43:09. | :43:11. | |
the past, so we are not condemned to repeat them in future? First of all, | :43:12. | :43:16. | |
he is right that what Sir John Chilcot says about the failure to | :43:17. | :43:20. | |
plan is very, very clear. I can read from his statement, that is | :43:21. | :43:24. | |
something he has given. He says when the invasion began, UK policy rested | :43:25. | :43:27. | |
on an assumption that there would be a well executed, US lead and UN | :43:28. | :43:32. | |
authorised operation in a relatively benign environment. He told the | :43:33. | :43:37. | |
inquiry that the difficulties have been known in advance, Mr Blair. | :43:38. | :43:44. | |
What I would say to the Right Honourable Gentleman in terms of | :43:45. | :43:49. | |
planning is what I put in place, following what happened in Iraq, a | :43:50. | :43:55. | |
National Security Council, a properly staffed and national | :43:56. | :43:57. | |
Security Secretariat, all of those things, including listening to | :43:58. | :44:02. | |
expert advice on a National Security Council, all of those things are | :44:03. | :44:06. | |
designed to avoid the problems that the government have in the case of | :44:07. | :44:12. | |
Iraq. The only point I would make is that, actually, there is no set of | :44:13. | :44:16. | |
arrangements and plans that can provide perfection in any of these | :44:17. | :44:21. | |
cases. Military intervention, we can argue whether it is ever justified, | :44:22. | :44:25. | |
I believe it is. Military intervention is always difficult. | :44:26. | :44:28. | |
Planning for the aftermath, that is always difficult. I don't think in | :44:29. | :44:32. | |
this house we should be naive in any way that there is a perfect set of | :44:33. | :44:35. | |
plans or a perfect set of arrangements that can solve these | :44:36. | :44:38. | |
problems in perpetuity. There aren't. Would my right honourable | :44:39. | :44:43. | |
friend join me in congratulating Southend Council, once again under | :44:44. | :44:50. | |
the control of the Conservative Party, for swiftly acting to sort | :44:51. | :44:56. | |
out the mess left by the previous, hopeless administration? And would | :44:57. | :45:01. | |
he agree with me that Southend-on-Sea, being the | :45:02. | :45:04. | |
alternative City of Culture next year, will produce a considerable | :45:05. | :45:09. | |
boost to the local economy? Let me pay tribute to my honourable friend | :45:10. | :45:13. | |
for his long-standing efforts to promote Southend and all it has to | :45:14. | :45:18. | |
offer. While Hull is the official City of Culture next year, I am sure | :45:19. | :45:22. | |
that Southend will benefit from the tireless campaign he has run. I join | :45:23. | :45:25. | |
him in encouraging people to go and see this excellent seaside town for | :45:26. | :45:26. | |
themselves. Is the Prime Minister aware that two | :45:27. | :45:36. | |
miles north of Shire Brooke, already mentioned today, is a town called | :45:37. | :45:44. | |
Bolsover and at the same time they were seeing the notices on the bus | :45:45. | :45:54. | |
saying ?350 million for the NHS. At that time, they decided this | :45:55. | :45:59. | |
government, with the help of the local people, to close the hospital | :46:00. | :46:06. | |
Bolsover. We need the beds. I'm sure he understands that. When the | :46:07. | :46:11. | |
hospital is closed, it is gone forever. I want him here to date to | :46:12. | :46:17. | |
use a little bit of that money, not very much, to save the Bolsover | :46:18. | :46:24. | |
hospital, save the beds, save the jobs and the press might have a | :46:25. | :46:30. | |
headline saying, "The Prime Minister, dodgy Dave, assists the | :46:31. | :46:37. | |
beast to save the Bolsover hospital". What a sensation! I will | :46:38. | :46:47. | |
look very carefully. I don't have the information about the exact | :46:48. | :46:50. | |
situation at the Bolsover hospital. I'll look at it very carefully and | :46:51. | :46:53. | |
write to him. What I would say is that we are putting ?90 billion | :46:54. | :46:57. | |
extra into the NHS in this Parliament. As for what was on the | :46:58. | :47:01. | |
side buses and all the rest of it, my argument has always been, and | :47:02. | :47:05. | |
will always be, but it is a strong economy you required to fund the | :47:06. | :47:13. | |
NHS. -- ?19 billion. Last week I held my first apprenticeship is fair | :47:14. | :47:16. | |
in my constituency. Does my right honourable friend agree with me that | :47:17. | :47:20. | |
apprenticeships are an absolutely vital part of economic develop and | :47:21. | :47:23. | |
in our proud northern towns and cities? She is absolutely right and | :47:24. | :47:29. | |
that's why we've set the target for 3 million apprentices in this | :47:30. | :47:31. | |
Parliament. I think it is achievable, just as we achieved the | :47:32. | :47:35. | |
2 million apprentices trained in the last Parliament, and I wish her well | :47:36. | :47:39. | |
with what I hope is the first of many apprenticeship fares in her | :47:40. | :47:45. | |
constituency. Mr Speaker, before I ask my question, can I thank the | :47:46. | :47:48. | |
Prime Minister for the support he gave my campaign about getting an | :47:49. | :47:55. | |
inquiry into a certain drug which is given to pregnant women, resulting | :47:56. | :48:01. | |
in thousands of babies being born with deformities. I thank him for | :48:02. | :48:06. | |
supporting the campaign. Our universities, the global success | :48:07. | :48:09. | |
stories, outward looking, open for business with the world, and | :48:10. | :48:12. | |
attracting the brightest and the best students and researchers to | :48:13. | :48:19. | |
reduce ground-breaking research on cancer to climate change. In the | :48:20. | :48:25. | |
last year, the... I need a single sentence question. Forgive me but | :48:26. | :48:28. | |
there are a lot of other colleagues who want to take part. The | :48:29. | :48:36. | |
University has received ?836 million last year. What assurances can the | :48:37. | :48:39. | |
Prime Minister give us that in light of the fact that we are now out of | :48:40. | :48:44. | |
the EU, that money will be saved? First of all, let me thank the | :48:45. | :48:47. | |
honourable lady for her thanks because she has raised this case | :48:48. | :48:52. | |
many times and I can tell the Medicines and health care Products | :48:53. | :48:54. | |
Regulatory Agency has been gathering evidence for a review by expert | :48:55. | :48:58. | |
working groups on medicines and they have met on three occasions so I | :48:59. | :49:01. | |
think we're making progress. The point she makes about universities - | :49:02. | :49:05. | |
until Britain leads the EU we get the full amount of funding under the | :49:06. | :49:10. | |
programmes as you would expect. All contracts under that have to be | :49:11. | :49:13. | |
fulfilled, but it will be for a future government, as it negotiates | :49:14. | :49:17. | |
the exit from the EU, to make sure that we domestic league continue to | :49:18. | :49:21. | |
fund our universities in a way that makes sure they continue to lead the | :49:22. | :49:27. | |
world. As my right honourable friend will know, the potential closure of | :49:28. | :49:30. | |
the BHS store in Torquay town centre with the loss of over 100 jobs as | :49:31. | :49:37. | |
again raised the need for urgent regeneration of town centres. Would | :49:38. | :49:40. | |
he outline what support will be made available by the government to | :49:41. | :49:45. | |
ensure plans can be taken forward? It is worth making the point that it | :49:46. | :49:50. | |
is a very sad moment for those BHS staff who have worked so long for | :49:51. | :49:54. | |
that business. For them, it was simply a high-street brand, it was a | :49:55. | :49:58. | |
job, it was a way of life, it was a means of preparing for their | :49:59. | :50:00. | |
retirement and their pensions and we must do all we can to help them and | :50:01. | :50:05. | |
find them new work and there are many vacancies in the retail sector, | :50:06. | :50:08. | |
and we must make sure we help them to get those jobs. What we've done | :50:09. | :50:12. | |
in terms of high street is around ?18 million has gone to towns | :50:13. | :50:15. | |
through them of initiatives and we should keep those up because keeping | :50:16. | :50:19. | |
our town centres vibrant is so vital that this sits alongside the biggest | :50:20. | :50:22. | |
ever cut in interest rates in England, worth some ?6.7 billion in | :50:23. | :50:26. | |
the next five years and I think we need to say to those on our high | :50:27. | :50:29. | |
streets to make the most of that business rate cut. One of my | :50:30. | :50:35. | |
constituents who I've been working with for some time has had her | :50:36. | :50:38. | |
mobility cart removed after falling victim to a flawed assessment by | :50:39. | :50:46. | |
Atos. Atos have admitted their error and yet my vulnerable constituent | :50:47. | :50:50. | |
still remains housebound and without a car. Will the Prime Minister of | :50:51. | :50:54. | |
his full assistance to rectify this cruel situation and will he look | :50:55. | :50:57. | |
again at the regulations which allowed this situation to come | :50:58. | :51:01. | |
about? Let me congratulate the taking of this constituency case. | :51:02. | :51:05. | |
Many of us have done exactly the same thing with constituents who | :51:06. | :51:07. | |
have had assessment that haven't turned out to be accurate. If she | :51:08. | :51:12. | |
gives me the details, I'll look at the specific case and see what can | :51:13. | :51:19. | |
be done. A report recently commissioned by transport for the | :51:20. | :51:22. | |
North, a body created by this government, highlights the | :51:23. | :51:25. | |
opportunity to uphold the growing divide between the north and South | :51:26. | :51:29. | |
and creates several new jobs and billions of pounds of growth by | :51:30. | :51:36. | |
2015. -- 2050. Does he agree that to build an elegant and prosperity we | :51:37. | :51:40. | |
need to continue to rebalance infrastructure spending from London | :51:41. | :51:42. | |
to the regions, particularly to the north of England? I think he is | :51:43. | :51:48. | |
absolutely right. What that report shows is if we don't take the | :51:49. | :51:52. | |
necessary actions, you are going to see a continued north-south divide | :51:53. | :51:57. | |
and that's why we are committed, for instance, to seeing increased | :51:58. | :52:01. | |
spending on transport infrastructure go up to ?61 billion of this | :52:02. | :52:04. | |
Parliament and in my right honourable friend's area, we're | :52:05. | :52:08. | |
spending ?380 million upgrading the A1 from Leeming to Barton, which | :52:09. | :52:12. | |
will be a big boost for the local economy. I recently met a | :52:13. | :52:19. | |
constituent whose husband, a British citizen, has been an Ethiopian's | :52:20. | :52:24. | |
death row for two years and was kidnapped while travelling in and | :52:25. | :52:27. | |
illegally rendered Ethiopian. You are sentenced to death six years ago | :52:28. | :52:31. | |
as a trial he was neither present that nor able to present any defence | :52:32. | :52:36. | |
in direct contravention of international law. Given it has been | :52:37. | :52:43. | |
accessed two legal wrappers and Titian, and has not spoken to his | :52:44. | :52:50. | |
family, there are reports he's suicidal. In your last few weeks in | :52:51. | :52:57. | |
office, will you make the case for him to be allowed him to be | :52:58. | :52:59. | |
re-elected with his wife and children? We are taking a very close | :53:00. | :53:04. | |
interest in this case. The Foreign Secretary was an Ethiopian recently, | :53:05. | :53:09. | |
our consul has been able to meet with the man in question on a number | :53:10. | :53:13. | |
of occasions and we are working with him and the Ethiopian woman to try | :53:14. | :53:18. | |
to get this resolved. One of the reports that won't get so much | :53:19. | :53:21. | |
attention is the CQC report into North Middlesex Hospital, which | :53:22. | :53:26. | |
confirms that emergency care is inadequate. Why has it taken so many | :53:27. | :53:29. | |
years, and why does it need the regulators to know what many of my | :53:30. | :53:33. | |
constituents will know, that there has been another quick effort to | :53:34. | :53:37. | |
long, too few doctors, to view consultants? And the Primus assure | :53:38. | :53:40. | |
me that we now have in place the right plans on the right number of | :53:41. | :53:43. | |
doctors and consultants to ensure my constituents get the care they | :53:44. | :53:48. | |
deserve? I think he raises an important point, which is that I do | :53:49. | :53:54. | |
think the CQC is now acting effectively at getting into | :53:55. | :53:57. | |
hospitals, finding bad practice, reported on its 50. In some cases | :53:58. | :54:01. | |
that bad practice has always been there but we haven't been as | :54:02. | :54:05. | |
effective in some cases as we should be at shining eyed and. What we have | :54:06. | :54:08. | |
seen in North Middlesex is one of the busiest emergency department of | :54:09. | :54:11. | |
the country, the practice was an acceptable. We've now got a new | :54:12. | :54:15. | |
clinical director of the trust, additional two doctors in A and we | :54:16. | :54:20. | |
have been the ones that have set up the role of the Chief Inspector of | :54:21. | :54:23. | |
hospitals to have a zero tolerance approach to practice like this and | :54:24. | :54:30. | |
make sure things are but right. The Secretary of State for Business, | :54:31. | :54:33. | |
Innovation and Skills has stated he wants the UK to borrow tens of | :54:34. | :54:36. | |
billions of pounds to create a green Britain fund worth up to 100 | :54:37. | :54:41. | |
billion. Can I ask the PM whether this is a formal plan or whether | :54:42. | :54:45. | |
this is merely an attempt to come up with a plan amid a vacuum of | :54:46. | :54:50. | |
government? We are spending billions of pounds on the British economy and | :54:51. | :54:54. | |
an investment and that has clear consequences under the Barnett | :54:55. | :54:58. | |
formula for Scotland but clearly my colleagues during a leadership | :54:59. | :55:01. | |
election, and at least the side of the House we're actually having a | :55:02. | :55:07. | |
leadership election, rather than the never-ending... I thought you wanted | :55:08. | :55:13. | |
one. You don't want one? Hands up who wants a leadership election! Oh, | :55:14. | :55:18. | |
they don't want a leadership election! I'm so confused. One | :55:19. | :55:23. | |
minute it is like the Eagle is going to sweep and the next minute it is | :55:24. | :55:27. | |
Eddie the camera crew eagle at the top of the ski jump, not knowing | :55:28. | :55:31. | |
whether to go or not. Anyway, in case you hadn't noticed, we're | :55:32. | :55:37. | |
having a leadership election. Right from the start this United Kingdom | :55:38. | :55:41. | |
has been an outward looking, international trading nation. I'm | :55:42. | :55:43. | |
very glad to see the Trade Minister... The honourable gentleman | :55:44. | :55:48. | |
the Member for Worcester is entitled to be heard and his constituents are | :55:49. | :55:54. | |
entitled to be represented. And glad to see the Trade Minister out in | :55:55. | :55:57. | |
Hong Kong today talking up the prospects for investment in the | :55:58. | :56:00. | |
British economy but what steps can the Prime Minister take to bolster | :56:01. | :56:03. | |
the resources available to UKTI and the Foreign Office to make sure we | :56:04. | :56:08. | |
attract as much trade and investment from the wider world is possible? P | :56:09. | :56:12. | |
Maytin important point and a very clear instruction has gone out to | :56:13. | :56:18. | |
all our embassies around the world, to UKTI, that we should be doing all | :56:19. | :56:21. | |
we can to engage as hard as we can with other parts of the world start | :56:22. | :56:25. | |
to think about those trade deals, those investment deals and the | :56:26. | :56:28. | |
inward investment we want to see in the UK. Business is very clear to us | :56:29. | :56:32. | |
as well, whether they agree or disagree with the decision the | :56:33. | :56:35. | |
country is made, they know we've got to go on and make the most of the | :56:36. | :56:42. | |
opportunities we have. With the real prospect of a recession on the | :56:43. | :56:47. | |
horizon, the offer from the Chancellor is cutting corporation | :56:48. | :56:52. | |
tax, yet companies worry whether they will make a profit in the UK, | :56:53. | :56:56. | |
not how much tax they are going to pay on it, so can the Prime Minister | :56:57. | :56:59. | |
tell us what immediate action his government would take to protect | :57:00. | :57:03. | |
people's jobs and livelihoods right now? Immediate action has been | :57:04. | :57:09. | |
taken, not least the Bank of England decision to encourage bank lending | :57:10. | :57:14. | |
by changing the reserve asset ratios that they insist on and I think | :57:15. | :57:17. | |
that's very important because that's a short-term measure that can have | :57:18. | :57:21. | |
some early effect. Clearly what the Chancellor was talking about is now | :57:22. | :57:24. | |
we are in this new situation, we need to make sure that we configure | :57:25. | :57:28. | |
all our policies to take advantage of the situation that we're going to | :57:29. | :57:31. | |
be in and that's going to mean changes to taxes, changes to the way | :57:32. | :57:36. | |
UKTI works, there's going to be a change in focus for the Foreign | :57:37. | :57:39. | |
Office and the business department. All these things we can make a start | :57:40. | :57:42. | |
on irrespective of the fact that she and I were on the same side of the | :57:43. | :57:48. | |
referendum campaign. Further to my honourable friend from Worcester's | :57:49. | :57:51. | |
question about UKTI, may I remind the Prime Minister that next Monday | :57:52. | :57:55. | |
the greatest airshow in the world takes place at Farnborough in my | :57:56. | :57:59. | |
constituency, to which all honourable and right honourable | :58:00. | :58:04. | |
members are expected to attend! And may I remind my honourable friend | :58:05. | :58:10. | |
that last time, two years ago, deals worth $201 billion were signed at | :58:11. | :58:13. | |
the Farnborough airshow and may I prevail upon my right honourable | :58:14. | :58:17. | |
friend, who may have some time on his hands, to come and open the show | :58:18. | :58:20. | |
on Monday and encourage all other ministers to attend? I think I'm one | :58:21. | :58:25. | |
of the first prime ministers in a while to attend the Farnborough | :58:26. | :58:27. | |
airshow and I'm very happy to announce that I will be going back | :58:28. | :58:32. | |
there this year because I think it's very important. We have the second | :58:33. | :58:35. | |
largest aerospace industry in the world after the United States, and | :58:36. | :58:39. | |
it is a brilliant moment to showcase that industry to the rest of the | :58:40. | :58:43. | |
world and to clinch some important export deals, both in the military | :58:44. | :58:46. | |
and in the civilian space and I will always do everything I can, whether | :58:47. | :58:50. | |
in this job or in future, to help support British industry in that | :58:51. | :58:57. | |
way. The UN committee on economic social and cultural rights have | :58:58. | :58:59. | |
recently joined the UN committee on the rights of a child in expressing | :59:00. | :59:02. | |
serious concerns about this Tory government's brutal welfare cuts. | :59:03. | :59:06. | |
How much more international condemnation would it take for this | :59:07. | :59:10. | |
Prime Minister to scrap his aggressive to child policy and his | :59:11. | :59:16. | |
rate" we've seen under this government many more people in work, | :59:17. | :59:21. | |
many more households... Many fewer households where no one works and | :59:22. | :59:24. | |
many fewer households where there are children when one works. All of | :59:25. | :59:30. | |
this has been a huge success but she and her party now have the | :59:31. | :59:34. | |
opportunity, now we've made some huge devolution proposals, including | :59:35. | :59:38. | |
in the area of welfare, if you don't feel that what we're doing on a UK | :59:39. | :59:42. | |
bases... I don't know why you're all shouting. You're getting these | :59:43. | :59:45. | |
powers. Instead of whingeing endlessly, start to use them! Sir | :59:46. | :59:52. | |
John Chilcot finds that the only people who come out of the 2003 | :59:53. | :59:57. | |
invasion of Iraq well our servicemen and civilians. Will the Prime | :59:58. | :00:02. | |
Minister look at how he can make sure that the precedent he set last | :00:03. | :00:07. | |
autumn for transparency and scrutiny ahead of military action becomes the | :00:08. | :00:12. | |
norm for his successor? I think we have now got a set of arrangements | :00:13. | :00:16. | |
and also a set of conventions that put the country in a stronger | :00:17. | :00:21. | |
position. I think it is now a clear convention that we have a vote in | :00:22. | :00:27. | |
this House, which we did on Iran, before military action, but it is | :00:28. | :00:31. | |
also important that we have a properly constituted National | :00:32. | :00:33. | |
Security Council, proper receipt of legal advice, a summary of that | :00:34. | :00:36. | |
legal advice provided to the House of Commons, as we did both in the | :00:37. | :00:41. | |
case of Libya and Iraq, and I think these things are growing up to be a | :00:42. | :00:44. | |
set of conventions that will work for our country, but let me repeat | :00:45. | :00:48. | |
again, even the best rules and conventions of the world doesn't | :00:49. | :00:52. | |
mean that you always going to be confronted by easy decisions or ones | :00:53. | :00:55. | |
that don't have very difficult consequences. The Prime Minister | :00:56. | :01:02. | |
will no doubt be aware of my constituent Pauline Cafferkey, a | :01:03. | :01:07. | |
nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone in 2014, and was there as part | :01:08. | :01:15. | |
of the DFID response to the outbreak. She and around 200 the NHS | :01:16. | :01:20. | |
volunteers have not received an equivalent bonus of ?4000 that was | :01:21. | :01:27. | |
awarded to 250 Public Health England staff. Wilbur Prime Minister agreed | :01:28. | :01:34. | |
to meet with me to discuss how DFID can rectify this situation. -- will | :01:35. | :01:40. | |
the Prime Minister agree. Roll Pauline Cafferkey is one of the | :01:41. | :01:43. | |
bravest people I've ever met and it was a great privilege to have come | :01:44. | :01:46. | |
to Number Ten Downing St and I'm proud of the fact that she and many | :01:47. | :01:50. | |
others, I believe, have received the medal for in Sierra Leone. It is | :01:51. | :01:53. | |
something Britain should be incredibly proud of. We partnered | :01:54. | :01:58. | |
with that country to deal with Ebola and it is now free of Ebola to talk | :01:59. | :02:01. | |
I will look specifically into the issue of the bonus. I wasn't aware | :02:02. | :02:05. | |
of that and I will get back to her about it. | :02:06. | :02:14. | |
That is very much a warm up act today, because they are moving onto | :02:15. | :02:20. | |
statements on the Chilcot Report, published this morning. The Prime | :02:21. | :02:24. | |
Minister will make the opening remarks, followed by the Leader of | :02:25. | :02:27. | |
the Opposition. There will be particular interest in what Jeremy | :02:28. | :02:31. | |
Corbyn has to say. Jeremy Corbyn was strongly opposed to the action in | :02:32. | :02:37. | |
Iraq. He will therefore speak as a labour leader who was not | :02:38. | :02:40. | |
complicated in these decisions. We are going to keep across both of | :02:41. | :02:44. | |
these speeches and we will bring you highlights of them, if we can, | :02:45. | :02:49. | |
before one o'clock. Meanwhile, we return to Chilcot. Laura, are we any | :02:50. | :02:55. | |
clearer what the political fallout will be? I think it will become | :02:56. | :02:59. | |
clear today, in the coming weeks and months. As we were saying before, | :03:00. | :03:03. | |
the strange thing about this is that the people that are criticising it | :03:04. | :03:08. | |
are not really around any more. -- criticised in it. Jeremy Corbyn's | :03:09. | :03:12. | |
response is likely to be strident. There is an expectation he might | :03:13. | :03:15. | |
even call for Tony Blair to face legal action in his role in this. It | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
is not clear he will do this. He will not just respond in the | :03:20. | :03:22. | |
Commons, he will also make a big speech later on this afternoon. It | :03:23. | :03:26. | |
has been a key part of his principal for many years. He was one of the | :03:27. | :03:30. | |
foremost opponents of the war in Iraq. If he goes that far, it will | :03:31. | :03:33. | |
be something that further heaps pressure on the Labour Party. Many | :03:34. | :03:38. | |
MPs, many people like Charlie, sitting here, were very involved in | :03:39. | :03:41. | |
the decision and supported the war in Iraq. Overall, as we were | :03:42. | :03:47. | |
beginning to catch on, this is a document that shows that in future | :03:48. | :03:51. | |
no government will be able to go into anything like this without | :03:52. | :03:56. | |
feeling that there will be held to account, without feeling that their | :03:57. | :04:00. | |
internal conversations, their private memos, all of their | :04:01. | :04:03. | |
deliberations will, at one point in the future, be made public. There | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
may also be consequences for our relationship with the United States. | :04:09. | :04:12. | |
This document shows clearly that Tony Blair basically chose the | :04:13. | :04:15. | |
United States rather than the United Nations, although he did try very | :04:16. | :04:19. | |
hard to get the UN on board. We have had more than 20 private notes | :04:20. | :04:22. | |
between Tony Blair and George Bush published today. Huge controversy | :04:23. | :04:26. | |
about whether that should have happened or not. Now it has, it is a | :04:27. | :04:30. | |
very serious precedent that has been set. Indeed, it will have lots of | :04:31. | :04:35. | |
applications for future foreign policy. Let's go to the Central | :04:36. | :04:42. | |
Lobby, Tony Blair's special envoy of the time, Ann Clwyd, joins us. For | :04:43. | :04:50. | |
those that favoured the war, it is not happy reading is it? I have not | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
had a chance to read it, unlike journalists who had it since 8:30am, | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
we had to depend on Chilcot making his statement. I have not read it, | :04:59. | :05:02. | |
but I know what some of the main points are. The main points were | :05:03. | :05:06. | |
that the intelligence was unreliable, that we went to war on a | :05:07. | :05:11. | |
wrong basis, it was premature because options have not been | :05:12. | :05:17. | |
exhausted, and that the aftermath of the invasion was largely a disaster. | :05:18. | :05:24. | |
That, we do know is in the Chilcot Report? We also know there were 17 | :05:25. | :05:29. | |
UN resolutions which Saddam Hussein had not complied with. He had used | :05:30. | :05:34. | |
chemical weapons against the Kurds, and also against the Shia in the | :05:35. | :05:41. | |
south. He had the capability and he had used them in the past. I went to | :05:42. | :05:50. | |
Iraq in 2003, February 2003, I was with the Kurds. The Kurds were | :05:51. | :05:53. | |
frightened that chemical weapons were going to be used again against | :05:54. | :05:58. | |
them. They were already fleeing the city 's of northern Iraq. So, there | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
was very real fear amongst them that Saddam would use those again. I was | :06:04. | :06:08. | |
taken to the border with Iraq, the Kurdish Iraq border, and I was shown | :06:09. | :06:13. | |
rocket placements in the hills where the Kurds told me they were going to | :06:14. | :06:19. | |
be used against them. So they have their intelligence as well. Of | :06:20. | :06:22. | |
course, but the Kurds were anxious for their own reasons, for us to | :06:23. | :06:28. | |
intervene. That's what they wanted us to do. In the end, they couldn't | :06:29. | :06:31. | |
have been in danger, it turned out he didn't have any chemical weapons | :06:32. | :06:34. | |
to use against them any more. We went on to war on the basis that he | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
did? Andrew, not only had he used weapons against the Kurds, he killed | :06:41. | :06:51. | |
about 500,000 Shia in the south, mass graves, 10,000 people were | :06:52. | :06:55. | |
buried there. I have been to the marshes, and he tried to eliminate | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
the Arabs there. How many have been killed since we invaded? Well, we | :07:00. | :07:10. | |
don't know. Hundreds of thousands, of course? But Saddam killed about a | :07:11. | :07:14. | |
million of his own people. Do you think there is nothing in this | :07:15. | :07:21. | |
report, from what you know so far, that gives you cause to reconsider | :07:22. | :07:27. | |
your position at the time? Of course, but not the position at the | :07:28. | :07:35. | |
time. On the basis of what we were told, Tony Blair was justified in | :07:36. | :07:39. | |
taking the action he did. He thought he was doing the best thing for this | :07:40. | :07:44. | |
country and also helping the Iraqis. The aftermath, the lack of planning, | :07:45. | :07:54. | |
that is a serious criticism. I saw it myself, I went to Iraq about 23 | :07:55. | :07:59. | |
times. Indeed, I spoke to you about it afterwards. Can I ask you this | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
about the aftermath and lack of planning, given that we and the | :08:04. | :08:07. | |
Americans invaded, not because we thought Saddam was about to attack | :08:08. | :08:11. | |
us, that was not on the cards, but because we thought he might be a | :08:12. | :08:16. | |
danger and we wanted to make a better society in Iraq, why was | :08:17. | :08:21. | |
there no planning for the aftermath? Why did we not have a plan to | :08:22. | :08:26. | |
rebuild that society? After all, we have massive plans to rebuild | :08:27. | :08:30. | |
Germany after the Second World War. It started in 1942, less than a mile | :08:31. | :08:34. | |
from where I am. The Americans have massive plans to rebuild Japan after | :08:35. | :08:40. | |
1945. Given the nature of our intervention, why did we not have | :08:41. | :08:45. | |
plans to rebuild Iraq? Well, there were some plans. , Some? There were | :08:46. | :08:53. | |
not sufficient. Some were to help civil society get back on its feet. | :08:54. | :08:56. | |
I was involved in some of that planning. Also, we trained people in | :08:57. | :09:01. | |
forensics, to help uncover the mass graves. We helped the legal system. | :09:02. | :09:08. | |
They had to try some of the people involved in war crimes, crimes | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
against humanity and genocide, we have plans for that. We trained | :09:14. | :09:18. | |
people. It was wholly inadequate, wasn't it? I agree with you. We were | :09:19. | :09:24. | |
the junior partner in the whole thing. The Americans also have to be | :09:25. | :09:29. | |
criticised. Of course. But why did Mr Blair... We can find no evidence | :09:30. | :09:40. | |
that Mr Blair, having voluntarily joined in this event, had made any | :09:41. | :09:45. | |
attempt at all to ensure the Americans have a proper plan, that | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
we would be part of, to rebuild Iraq after the invasion. Well, I think | :09:50. | :09:53. | |
there was planning. You know, there was quite detailed planning, but not | :09:54. | :10:00. | |
enough, certainly, with hindsight, clearly not enough. It is not fair | :10:01. | :10:03. | |
to say there was no planning, there was, and we attempted to rebuild | :10:04. | :10:10. | |
Iraq. We retrained civil society, for example. I saw it first hand. I | :10:11. | :10:17. | |
think we can both agree it was not a huge success and still hasn't been. | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
Ann Clwyd, we will leave it there. What did happen is that the State | :10:23. | :10:25. | |
Department had substantial plans. There was even an area in Washington | :10:26. | :10:35. | |
called Iraq Shack. President Bush took responsibility out of the state | :10:36. | :10:40. | |
department's hands and go to the Pentagon, who never had | :10:41. | :10:42. | |
responsibility for building a society after a war, it was an | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
unprecedented change because he didn't trust the State Department, | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
but he trusted Donald Rumsfeld on the Pentagon. A huge error? He | :10:53. | :10:57. | |
installed his own people. Paul Bremer went in as governor of that | :10:58. | :11:01. | |
province. Despite Ann Clwyd trying to defend the planning efforts that | :11:02. | :11:07. | |
went in before, it is clear when you read the report, quite astonishing, | :11:08. | :11:10. | |
there is evidence in there that suggests that the Cabinet did not | :11:11. | :11:16. | |
discuss military options, on the 17th of March, less than a week | :11:17. | :11:20. | |
before the invasion, there have not been a full discussion of military | :11:21. | :11:27. | |
options. Chilcot lists 11 specific, significant points when decisions | :11:28. | :11:31. | |
were taken that were not, and in his view should have been taken and | :11:32. | :11:35. | |
discussed properly other Cabinet, they were taken elsewhere and there | :11:36. | :11:38. | |
were lots of private side conversations. Sometimes it was just | :11:39. | :11:45. | |
between Tony Blair and Jack Straw, sometimes between Tony Blair and | :11:46. | :11:49. | |
George Bush. One of the themes is that Cabinet ministers at the time | :11:50. | :11:52. | |
were not included in the decision-making. Is that right? I | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
was not in the Cabinet at the time. I have not read the report, Laura | :11:58. | :12:03. | |
has read the executive summary, the idea that during this period there | :12:04. | :12:07. | |
wasn't a great decision that had to be taken for the nation, and in | :12:08. | :12:12. | |
particular for the Government, is, I think, not an accurate impression. | :12:13. | :12:18. | |
Sure that have involved more people? That's the point. The Cabinet | :12:19. | :12:25. | |
discussed regularly. Laura will correct me if I am wrong, Sir John | :12:26. | :12:29. | |
Chilcot's criticism is that there is no formal minuted report beforehand. | :12:30. | :12:40. | |
This idea that it was a secret drumbeat to war is not accurate. But | :12:41. | :12:51. | |
it echoes Butler's report on talking about a sofa cabinet? Basically, | :12:52. | :12:57. | |
they are saying we did not know what he was up to. There was huge public | :12:58. | :13:00. | |
concern about what we were doing. The point Chilcot makes is that in | :13:01. | :13:05. | |
no way were any of the processes that we might expect from | :13:06. | :13:09. | |
politicians on a decision with this level of gravity, in no way where | :13:10. | :13:12. | |
they followed. You are right, it wasn't a secret that these issues | :13:13. | :13:17. | |
were being considered. Let me ask you a wider foreign policy point. | :13:18. | :13:21. | |
Can I just pick you up on that? There was a secret? That is how it | :13:22. | :13:30. | |
was done? Not only was it secret, there was deliberate deceit, I don't | :13:31. | :13:35. | |
think that Chilcot says that. People think there was a secret agreement | :13:36. | :13:39. | |
between Mr Bush and Mr Blair to proceed. Let me come to Julian | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
Lewis. When I was last in Washington, a White House aide said | :13:44. | :13:49. | |
to me wintergreen din Iraq and occupied Iraq, disaster. We | :13:50. | :13:54. | |
intervened in Libya, but we did not occupy Libya, disaster. We have | :13:55. | :13:58. | |
neither intervened or occupied Syria, disaster. What is the foreign | :13:59. | :14:03. | |
policy of location? The answer to all of this is sometimes there are | :14:04. | :14:10. | |
no good outcomes to be had. Where your parallel with planning after | :14:11. | :14:14. | |
the defeat of Germany and Japan breaks down, with respect, is that | :14:15. | :14:19. | |
Germany and Japan had to undergo the process of unconditional surrender. | :14:20. | :14:25. | |
While I indicated earlier in the conversation, what happens in these | :14:26. | :14:29. | |
countries is that if you remove the dictatorship, then the thousand year | :14:30. | :14:42. | |
old hatreds between the Sunni kiss, Shias, it comes flooding out front | :14:43. | :14:51. | |
and centre. With intervening or not intervening, leaving dictators in | :14:52. | :15:00. | |
place, they ruled brutally, if you remove them, you get civil war, at a | :15:01. | :15:07. | |
parallel, imagine this country 700 or 800 years ago, were the sort of | :15:08. | :15:10. | |
people running the country would not hesitate to burn heretics at the | :15:11. | :15:13. | |
stake because they had a different interpretation of what Almighty God | :15:14. | :15:17. | |
was telling them should happen in this country. If you want to get | :15:18. | :15:22. | |
into that mindset and say what would happen, if you tried to impose a | :15:23. | :15:25. | |
democratic model, you get an idea of what happens in these countries when | :15:26. | :15:30. | |
you do the same thing. But did we know that in 2003? I don't know, is | :15:31. | :15:36. | |
the answer. I was in opposition and I would have thought we did. Wait a | :15:37. | :15:43. | |
minute, we knew because we created Iraq. We put Shia and Sunni | :15:44. | :15:50. | |
together. And Kurds! We created this artificial state. | :15:51. | :15:55. | |
And we're talking about events which happened decades earlier and the | :15:56. | :15:59. | |
institutional memory of the Foreign Office should be able to cope with | :16:00. | :16:03. | |
that and, what's more, they did because in the first Gulf War, that | :16:04. | :16:09. | |
was probably the reason that they decided, having thrown out Saddam | :16:10. | :16:13. | |
Hussein from Kuwait, and no one has once mentioned that all this really | :16:14. | :16:21. | |
started with Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. Of it have been further, | :16:22. | :16:24. | |
there would have been no question of trying to depose him later. Briefly, | :16:25. | :16:35. | |
one of the most important thing is that we haven't mentioned that also | :16:36. | :16:40. | |
comes across in the report, is how 9/11 changed this, changed the | :16:41. | :16:43. | |
political culture in the US, changed the political culture here and one | :16:44. | :16:46. | |
of the most interesting documents but has come out this morning is a | :16:47. | :16:50. | |
document that was sent by Tony Blair to George Bush on the war against | :16:51. | :16:56. | |
terror, phase two, in which they discussed Afghanistan and he lays | :16:57. | :16:59. | |
out what he calls an argument for Iraq in the longer term. I won't go | :17:00. | :17:04. | |
into the detail of it now but all of those documents are now out in | :17:05. | :17:09. | |
public for all of us to see, but 9/11 is what changed the dynamic of | :17:10. | :17:13. | |
so much of this and you can't forget that in terms of the climate that it | :17:14. | :17:17. | |
had created. Is intervention always wrong? I was generally in favour of | :17:18. | :17:23. | |
interventions if you thought you could get a better outcome but what | :17:24. | :17:28. | |
this has shown us is that you have to work on the basis that if the | :17:29. | :17:33. | |
outcome that follows is worse than the situation you start with, then | :17:34. | :17:37. | |
you shouldn't interfere with it. And we were fooled over Libya. Did you | :17:38. | :17:44. | |
support Libya? I voted very reluctantly for a no-fly zone to | :17:45. | :17:48. | |
protect the citizens of Benghazi. We were misled over that. The moment we | :17:49. | :17:53. | |
voted for it they had an all-out aerial offensive to destroy Gadhafi. | :17:54. | :17:57. | |
I would never have voted for that. How did you fall for a no-fly zone | :17:58. | :18:01. | |
to protect Benghazi one Gadhafi had said he was going to go door-to-door | :18:02. | :18:06. | |
on the ground? Why would a no-fly zone protect the people of Benghazi? | :18:07. | :18:10. | |
Because the idea would have been that the aerial forces would have | :18:11. | :18:17. | |
been used to interfere with any attack... So it's not a no-fly zone. | :18:18. | :18:24. | |
All I can say is, this is the basis on which we were told in parliament | :18:25. | :18:29. | |
we were doing something to protect the citizens of Benghazi. We were | :18:30. | :18:33. | |
not told that it was an attempt to bring down Gadhafi. If we had been, | :18:34. | :18:38. | |
I would have voted against it and that's why I did vote against the | :18:39. | :18:44. | |
proposal to do the same in Syria. David Cameron is still speaking. Not | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
saying anything out of the ordinary yet but he is still going on and | :18:50. | :18:52. | |
there will hear from Mr Cobb and. Laura, a final thought? This report | :18:53. | :18:57. | |
is clear, polite but damning in its conclusions. The intelligence | :18:58. | :18:59. | |
failed, the government failed, the military failed, the planning failed | :19:00. | :19:03. | |
and I think therefore it will be very hard for people to put the Iraq | :19:04. | :19:06. | |
war down to anything but one of the biggest foreign policy mistakes in | :19:07. | :19:10. | |
recent decades. Tony Blair will be speaking about it this afternoon and | :19:11. | :19:13. | |
there are very, very serious questions for him to answer. It's a | :19:14. | :19:17. | |
busy day for you. Thanks for being with us. | :19:18. | :19:19. | |
We are joined by the Labour MP and now Shadow Leader of the House | :19:20. | :19:23. | |
of Commons Paul Flynn, who voted against military | :19:24. | :19:25. | |
Many people have long held the view that Tony Blair went to war on false | :19:26. | :19:32. | |
premise because there no weapons of mass destruction but there's nothing | :19:33. | :19:37. | |
in the Chilcot Report so far, and we haven't seen all of it, that says | :19:38. | :19:41. | |
that that decision was made with any deliberate deceit or intention. To | :19:42. | :19:45. | |
you accept that? They had evidence that it was in this document, which | :19:46. | :19:52. | |
is a 15 page report about Mr Husain cabal which they used... Blair used | :19:53. | :19:57. | |
it to say, this is evidence that they have weapons of mass to | :19:58. | :20:01. | |
structure, but the latter part of the same document, which he didn't | :20:02. | :20:04. | |
quote, said they'd already got rid of them eight years earlier. So | :20:05. | :20:10. | |
there was definite deception by Tony Blair and the evidence was as it | :20:11. | :20:16. | |
says, it was slight and sporadic but I'm afraid this is an utter | :20:17. | :20:18. | |
condemnation of that terrible decision to go to war, which | :20:19. | :20:23. | |
resulted in the immediate deaths, the injuries to our troops, the | :20:24. | :20:29. | |
150,000 Iraqis at least, and the chaos that continues in Iraq. What | :20:30. | :20:34. | |
do you think, if anything, action should be taken against Tony Blair? | :20:35. | :20:38. | |
I think today there should be serious consideration to him being | :20:39. | :20:42. | |
prosecuted for this but I think this remains to be seen. Where would he | :20:43. | :20:48. | |
be prosecuted? That remains to be seen. Most of us have just seen the | :20:49. | :20:51. | |
summary of the report. The important issue is not one individual. | :20:52. | :20:56. | |
Parliament is on trial. It wasn't just Tony Blair, it was most of the | :20:57. | :21:01. | |
Labour backbenchers, it was all of the Tory backbenchers except half a | :21:02. | :21:08. | |
dozen, and it's those 139 Labour people at the time, MPs, who voted | :21:09. | :21:12. | |
against, a three line whip on this, and the minor parties who opposed | :21:13. | :21:16. | |
this, and the 1 million people that walk the streets. It wasn't clear | :21:17. | :21:20. | |
there should be a case for war to talk there was more opposition to it | :21:21. | :21:24. | |
in 2003 than almost any war we've ever had. This was a terrible | :21:25. | :21:29. | |
decision. I'm going to put that to Charlie Falconer in just a minute | :21:30. | :21:32. | |
but when you say you think there was a case for prosecution, the | :21:33. | :21:35. | |
International Criminal Court will not put Tony Blair on trial for war | :21:36. | :21:40. | |
crimes because decisions on launching a conflict are outside its | :21:41. | :21:43. | |
dream it. The tribunal will only look at things on atrocities that | :21:44. | :21:48. | |
took place on the battlefield. So I ask again, prosecution isn't really | :21:49. | :21:50. | |
something that's going to happen, is it? Can we say, this is not about | :21:51. | :21:56. | |
one man, this is about the system. You said you thought there should be | :21:57. | :22:00. | |
prosecution. But that is a minor matter. The important thing is we | :22:01. | :22:03. | |
never do this again. You've got a gung ho group in the Parliament, | :22:04. | :22:09. | |
called the Give War Chance Party, who want to shoot first and think | :22:10. | :22:13. | |
later. They are still at it in this House. It wasn't just Tony Blair, it | :22:14. | :22:17. | |
was three select committees that were gung ho for war, it was the | :22:18. | :22:22. | |
Leader of the Opposition. Let me put that our guests. Are you in the Give | :22:23. | :22:29. | |
War A Chance Party? Absolutely not, and I think the decision to use | :22:30. | :22:32. | |
force in any circumstances has to be one made only after the most | :22:33. | :22:37. | |
profound... The Chilcot Inquiry makes it clear that those weren't | :22:38. | :22:40. | |
exhaustive, that actually it wasn't in the end of the last resort. Like | :22:41. | :22:45. | |
Paul, I haven't read the report yet. I'm not disputing that it says that | :22:46. | :22:50. | |
but what... That was put to me earlier in the programme and my | :22:51. | :22:53. | |
response that was that a decision had to be made in March 2003 with | :22:54. | :22:58. | |
the troops down there as to what was the way to enforce the regime. But | :22:59. | :23:05. | |
what about this gung ho way but Paul Flynn is describing people like you | :23:06. | :23:09. | |
on select committees who actually just want, in a way, to look at war | :23:10. | :23:14. | |
first? That's as interesting generalisation. The truth is there | :23:15. | :23:17. | |
are people like me who strongly supported and veg and sometimes and | :23:18. | :23:20. | |
strongly opposed it on other occasions. You must judge each in | :23:21. | :23:23. | |
its own context and it's worth remembering... I went to the Hutton | :23:24. | :23:28. | |
in Greek, which looks at the death of Dr David Kelly, and there was a | :23:29. | :23:34. | |
quote there from doctor Kelly himself, which very briefly said, | :23:35. | :23:38. | |
"It is very easy to hide weapons of mass to structure and, you silly did | :23:39. | :23:41. | |
a whole of the desert, put them inside, cover them with a tarpaulin, | :23:42. | :23:45. | |
and they would be almost impossible to discover". It is very easy now to | :23:46. | :23:48. | |
say that after the invasion there was nothing there. We couldn't know | :23:49. | :23:52. | |
it at the time. Paul Flynn, thank you very much for joining us. | :23:53. | :23:57. | |
The Prime Minister has been giving his response to the Chilcot Report. | :23:58. | :24:00. | |
Is also been talking about when intervention is justified and when | :24:01. | :24:06. | |
it is not and circumstances can very. Let's hear what he had to say. | :24:07. | :24:11. | |
There will be further lessons to learn from studying this report and | :24:12. | :24:14. | |
I commit today David Batty is exactly what we will do but in | :24:15. | :24:18. | |
reflecting on this report and my own experience, there are also some | :24:19. | :24:24. | |
lessons here that I do not think we should draw. First, it would be | :24:25. | :24:28. | |
wrong to conclude that we shouldn't stand with our American allies when | :24:29. | :24:30. | |
our common security interests are threatened. We must never be afraid | :24:31. | :24:36. | |
to speak frankly and honesty as best friends always should, and where we | :24:37. | :24:38. | |
commit our trips together there must be a structure through which our | :24:39. | :24:41. | |
views can be proper league conveyed and differences worked through. But | :24:42. | :24:45. | |
it remains the case that Britain and America share the same fundamental | :24:46. | :24:49. | |
values and Britain has no greater friend or ally in the world than | :24:50. | :24:52. | |
America and our partnership remains as important that our security and | :24:53. | :24:58. | |
prosperity as it has ever been. Second, I think it would be wrong to | :24:59. | :25:02. | |
conclude that we cannot rely on the judgments of our brilliant and | :25:03. | :25:05. | |
hard-working intelligence agencies. We know the debt we owe them in | :25:06. | :25:10. | |
helping to keep us safe of the year. Since November 2014, they've enabled | :25:11. | :25:15. | |
us to foil seven different planned terrorist attacks on the streets of | :25:16. | :25:19. | |
the UK. What this report shows is there needs to be a proper | :25:20. | :25:23. | |
separation between the assessing intelligence and the policy-making | :25:24. | :25:27. | |
that flows from it and as a result of the reforms of the Butler report, | :25:28. | :25:30. | |
that is what we now have in place. That is the Prime Minister | :25:31. | :25:34. | |
responding. Jeremy Corbyn is now responding and we are going to give | :25:35. | :25:38. | |
you a clip of that in a moment. He has said that the war has long been | :25:39. | :25:45. | |
regarded as illegal but he is not expected, we understand, to call for | :25:46. | :25:51. | |
the prosecution of Mr Blair. There is and, perhaps, enough ammunition | :25:52. | :25:55. | |
to do that. From what Laura was saying, it is not making a | :25:56. | :25:58. | |
conclusion one way or the other as to whether it is illegal, as I | :25:59. | :26:03. | |
understand what is Laura is saying. It is saying the process was not | :26:04. | :26:05. | |
right but they are not saying that the conclusion that it was a legal | :26:06. | :26:10. | |
war is wrong. I understand they are expressing no view one way or the | :26:11. | :26:14. | |
other in relation to that. It is not a legal tribunal, it is looking at | :26:15. | :26:19. | |
the facts and the processes. The Suez, as we look back, was a | :26:20. | :26:22. | |
watershed in British foreign policy and Britain's position in the world, | :26:23. | :26:28. | |
indeed, because many concluded that we couldn't act on our own any more | :26:29. | :26:31. | |
without American support. Of course, the Falklands sort of disproves that | :26:32. | :26:36. | |
in a way, but is Iraq a watershed? Because we had Libya since and there | :26:37. | :26:41. | |
was... Our planes are active in the skies over Iraq and Syria. How would | :26:42. | :26:47. | |
you place it now? I think it is a watershed in terms of our | :26:48. | :26:50. | |
understanding of the limitations of what any intervention can do, in a | :26:51. | :26:57. | |
society which is still dominated by religious divides extending back for | :26:58. | :27:04. | |
hundreds and hundreds of years, and what really needs to worry us is | :27:05. | :27:09. | |
that these societies have a doctrine, extreme religious variance | :27:10. | :27:14. | |
of Islam, that has a worldwide appeal a bit like the communist or | :27:15. | :27:19. | |
international Marxist doctrines used to have and that's where we have to | :27:20. | :27:23. | |
constantly understand that if we leave things to develop, it can make | :27:24. | :27:27. | |
the situation worse but if we intervene, it can make the situation | :27:28. | :27:30. | |
worse as well. There are no easy answers and the best general | :27:31. | :27:35. | |
approach is one of containment. Home if you do, hung if you don't. This | :27:36. | :27:40. | |
illustrates both the difficulty and Laura's point, this will be the most | :27:41. | :27:44. | |
examined decision on foreign policy which will affect foreign policy | :27:45. | :27:47. | |
decisions of the future because of the lessons we learn and because | :27:48. | :27:50. | |
rightly we now know there will be an absolute spotlight, rightly so, in | :27:51. | :27:55. | |
the future did not We've only got a few minutes but let us hear what | :27:56. | :27:58. | |
Jeremy Corbyn has had to say before we go. The decision to invade and | :27:59. | :28:05. | |
occupy Iraq in March 2003 was the most significant foreign policy | :28:06. | :28:08. | |
decisions taken by a British Government in modern times. It | :28:09. | :28:14. | |
divided this House and set the government of the day against a | :28:15. | :28:18. | |
majority of the British people, as well as against the weight of global | :28:19. | :28:23. | |
opinion. The war was not in anyway, as Sir John Chilcot says, a last | :28:24. | :28:28. | |
resort. Frankly, it was an act of military aggression launched on a | :28:29. | :28:32. | |
false pretext, as the inquiry act sets, and has long been regarded as | :28:33. | :28:37. | |
illegal by the overwhelming weight of international legal opinion. It | :28:38. | :28:43. | |
led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the | :28:44. | :28:47. | |
displacement of millions of refugees. It devastated Iraq's | :28:48. | :28:52. | |
infrastructure and society. Mr Corbyn. Much more on the one o'clock | :28:53. | :28:58. | |
news coming up now on BBC One. Much more, of course, on the BBC News | :28:59. | :29:02. | |
Channel throughout the day, and in all our major newscasts this evening | :29:03. | :29:06. | |
and through into tomorrow. Thanks for joining us. We're finished for | :29:07. | :29:08. | |
the day. Bye-bye. | :29:09. | :29:12. |