Meeting of the Parliament 29 January 2015
The most important keyword in this whole debate is transparency. Why is that? Because there is none. The Westminster establishment has abandoned even a semblance of transparency about this inquiry.
What else could we expect? We have plenty of experience of this in Scotland: the lies so ingeniously spun by the no campaign; the lethal nuclear warheads that pass through our biggest population centre in the depth of night; the cover-up in the 1970s, with private memos revealing the huge amounts of oil in the North Sea that were not shared with Scotland; the rendition flights; the treatment of asylum seekers; and the refusal to allow our ministers to speak in Europe even when the UK minister is absent. I could go on and on.
When this Scottish Parliament was reconvened in 1999, that transparency was a crucial promise to the sovereign people of this country, and it remains the keystone of all that we do in this place. At least this Government will not deceive, will not dissemble and will not lie. We are all the elected representatives of all of our constituents, and we absolutely owe them integrity and honesty in everything that we do. If there are members in the chamber who have not lived up to that demand, I ask them to examine their own consciences and to deliver only the truth.
The Chilcot inquiry, which was set up in 2009, was expected to publish in 2012; it has cost us over £9 million; and to date its output is zero. Some facts have come out, not because of but in spite of the inquiry. We know that 27 lawyers warned Tony Blair that the war was illegal and that he knew that at least two months before the invasion, and UN representatives have made it absolutely clear that there was never a prospect of a majority of members voting in favour of a second resolution. We also know that abusive attacks on President Chirac for his caution were deliberately played up; indeed, President Chirac himself described it as “Soviet-style misinformation”. The Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, the ultimate judge and a Labour loyalist, miraculously changed his mind from illegal to legal, presumably under pressure from George Bush and after spending a day in talks in Washington.
All of this will have been grist in John Chilcot’s grinding mill, but he himself did not expect the mill to grind on for so long. Why are we tolerating this absurd delay? Yes, the inquiry team has done a great deal of work, and it is abundantly clear that the ready access to and co-operation in the corridors of Whitehall that Gordon Brown promised have not been forthcoming. Still, it is nearly 12 years since the invasion took place. There is a limit to the public’s patience and the patience of the families who lost loved ones in this illegal and immoral war. I am talking about the people I have stood with in George Square in silent remembrance with—people like the family of Rose Gentle, her aunt and her daughters, and the people who Kevin Stewart and Willie Rennie mentioned.
It would too be convenient for Tony Blair and several other key figures to keep it all quiet. Mr Blair never wanted the inquiry anyway. It would be convenient to leave a lingering impression that it is all John Chilcot’s fault for taking so long. Convenience serves David Cameron’s case well, too, as he moves towards the general election.
John Chilcot’s report has long passed the stage of acceptable delays regarding the thoroughness of the final product. Even Lord Hurd said that it is “becoming a scandal”. Our own First Minister has described the notion of going into a general election without the report being published in full as “intolerable”.
Like many people, including the families, I want to know why this report is being so conspicuously withheld, apparently by nameless Whitehall mandarins. Chilcot was foolish enough to sign what amounts to a non-disclosure agreement, so he cannot publish without Government approval—so much for his independence. I would like to ask him, “What would happen if you did go ahead, Sir John? What would they do?” I suggest that he should go ahead. Can someone be condemned for telling the truth and being transparent about what we all have the right to know?
It just will not do. We demand the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, not for us but for the families affected, and not after the general election but now. Is that too much to ask? Yes, almost certainly it is when it comes to getting transparency from Westminster, but we will fight for it relentlessly, and I believe that our purpose is sound.
14:36