Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2015
Nor do I, but I do not think that it helps Allan Douglas’s family, or anybody else who has been involved in the process, to publish the report before the due processes have been fully completed and while it can be challenged. That does nobody any favours.
As I was saying, Labour MPs voted against an inquiry in 2006, 2007 and 2008, which delayed the process for at least three years. Labour members voted against the inquiry and against it being held in public. As David Miliband, the former Foreign Secretary, was big enough to admit in an interview in 2009, Labour got it wrong.
My final point, which addresses the intervention by Kevin Stewart, is that the inquiry is independent. Like it or not, it is not for the Scottish Government, or the UK Government, to try somehow to strong-arm the publication date of an independent inquiry’s report. If that were to happen, the value of the inquiry being independent would be hugely diminished, and I believe that a dangerous precedent would be set for future so-called independent inquiries.
In his letter to the Prime Minister of 20 January, Sir John makes it clear that there is “no realistic prospect” of delivering his report before the general election in May. I do not particularly like that, but I have to accept it if I want the inquiry and its report to be truly independent, which I do. I find the Government motion somewhat confusing, in that it calls first for publication of the report before the general election and concludes by asking that the report be published “as soon as possible”.