Embargo: Immediate, 4th February 2004
At this week's Prime Minister's Questions, Charles Kennedy challenged the Prime Minister over the remit of the Butler Inquiry. He said it did not address "the central political, public question that people want to get an answer to".
He contrasted it with the remit of the Franks Inquiry which was charged to "review the way the responsibilities of Government were discharged, taking account of all such factors as are relevant" - something, he said, the Butler Inquiry would not do.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Full text of PMQ exchange follows
Rt. Hon. Charles Kennedy MP
In the course of the two conversations that I had with the Prime Minister the night before last, and given the words that were repeated in his statement by the Foreign Secretary yesterday, will the Prime Minister confirm, as he pointed out, they're not prepared to subcontract any investigation of their political judgement over the war in Iraq and it would indeed be undemocratic to do so given their view. Now if that is the position of the Government, will he, therefore, confirm beyond any remaining doubt whatsoever, that this new inquiry is not intended to address the central political, public question that people want to get an answer to?
Prime Minister
It is definitely not going to address the issue of whether it was right to go to war or not. That is a question for the Government first, then for Parliament and then ultimately for the people to decide. And I have to say to him, yes of course it's important that it looks at the use of the intelligence, the gathering of it the evaluation. All of that - it can be done. What it should not, however do - and you cannot put this to a committee - is decide whether we took the right decision or not. That decision ultimately has to be taken by Government and by Parliament. And I really say to him, of course there will continue to be an entirely legitimate debate about whether it was right or wrong to go to war in Iraq. But that in the end has to be conducted by me and by him and not by a committee.
Rt. Hon. Charles Kennedy MP
Mr Speaker, yesterday the Foreign Secretary said that this new inquiry will follow the precedent set by the earlier Franks Inquiry into the Falklands. Can I remind the Prime Minister of the remit of the Franks Inquiry - it specifically was charged to review the way the responsibilities of Government were discharged, taking account of all such factors as are relevant. Precisely, that is what the Government are excluding from the remit that they have set this inquiry. It is not following the precedent of the Franks Inquiry at all.
Prime Minister
I don't think that is right - I will go into that and look very carefully at the terms of the Franks Inquiry but my recollection is that it was about the discharge of Government responsibilities up to the invasion of the Falklands by the Argentine Government. That is a quite different thing from deciding whether war is justified or not. Now that is in the end, I'm afraid, a decision that we have to take as politicians and all I say to him - which I've said to him on many, many occasions, and of course we can debate this later today - is that there will carry on being a debate about whether the war was justified or not. I take one view, he takes another view. That is democracy. We do not need a committee to tell us that. But what it is sensible to do is to go into the intelligence, how it was used, how it was gathered, how it was evaluated. So that we can learn the lessons of that, that in my view, is a sensible inquiry. To attempt - and I put it myself actually - to subcontract this issue to some committee as to whether it was right or wrong to go to war. I think it's not only wrong - I think ultimately it's profoundly undemocratic.
ENDS
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