Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight those important aspects of the report. The war was not a last resort; we were not at that stage. According to Sir John Chilcot, the UN was undermined and a fundamental lack of planning led to so many of the subsequent problems. The right hon. Gentleman is also right that the people who took those decisions should be held accountable—in this House and in the court of public opinion. They should be accountable, too, to those who might want to take action through the courts, as has happened, with respect to equipment failures and all the rest of it in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Clearly, the Government of the day and the Prime Minister of the day have to account for themselves. I understand that Mr Blair is doing that right now.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

In respect of the structure of government, does my right hon. Friend agree that the national security adviser should, rather than being a civil servant, be a Cabinet Minister? That would help to bring all the different strands of government together, provide more accountability and transparency, and perhaps more focus and better decision making. While we develop the convention that we come to this place to debate, discuss and vote on taking military action, is it not the case that ultimately any Prime Minister needs to retain the authority to deploy military force and take the military into action? We do not know what the future holds, and there might be circumstances in which it is impractical for Parliament to do so or we do not have the time to do so.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on his second point. Prime Ministers do need to be able to deploy force or take action without parliamentary sanction if it is urgent and then to report to Parliament straight afterwards. Where there is a premeditated decision to take action, that convention has grown up, and I am happy to repeat it from the Dispatch Box.

As for the national security adviser, I think it is right to have an expert. It does not have to be someone who is currently a civil servant—an expert could be brought in from outside—but it does need to be an expert who is garnering together the military, civilians, the intelligence and all the different parts of Whitehall. It needs to be someone who is full time, rather than a politician who is also running a Department.