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Lord Hutton's Report
[Relevant document: The Intelligence and Security Committee's Report, Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction—Intelligence and Assessments, Cm 5972.]
Mr. Speaker: I inform the House that there is an eight-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches. That makes it clear that a large number of hon. Members want to speak in the debate. It will not be appreciated for them to come down to find out where they are on the list, by either myself or the Deputy Speakers.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Paul Clark.]
12.41 pm
The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): This is a debate on the Hutton report, but I know that the House will want to range wider than the report itself. I intend to cover four issues: the report itself and its findings; the inquiry into the issue of intelligence announced yesterday; the threat of weapons of mass destruction more generally; and the current situation in Iraq. I shall try to take as many interventions as possible, to allow questions on those issues.
The Hutton report did not, of course, consider whether the intelligence that the Government received prior to the war in Iraq was right, but it did examine exhaustively and in painstaking detail two issues: whether Downing street or the Government acted improperly in respect of the September 2002 dossier, and in particular whether the BBC story in respect of it was correct; and whether I or anyone else acted duplicitously or in an underhand manner in respect of the naming of Dr. Kelly.
The Hutton report found conclusively that on both counts the answer was no. It did find that the Ministry of Defence was at fault in not telling Dr. Kelly clearly and immediately that his name would be confirmed if a journalist suggested it. Again, as I said last week, we accept those findings, and I am sure that the whole House would want to join me in paying tribute to the dignity with which Mrs. Kelly and her family have conducted themselves during this extremely difficult period.
The report itself—clear, forensic and utterly comprehensive in its analysis of the evidence—is the best defence to the charges of Government whitewash, often from the same people who just over a week ago were describing Lord Hutton as a model of impartiality, wisdom and insight. I simply make two points to those who cannot accept that Lord Hutton could acquit the Government of dishonesty. On the principal point, Lord Hutton confirmed the conclusion that the Intelligence and Security Committee had found before him, and the Foreign Affairs Committee before it, and the Government published responses to their reports yesterday. It would have been impossible from the evidence, frankly, to find otherwise.
I read that there are some who still say that the broadcast by Mr. Gilligan was 90 per cent. right. Actually, it was 100 per cent. wrong. The claim by Mr. Gilligan was that, a) the intelligence about Saddam using some weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to do so was inserted into the dossier
not by the Joint Intelligence Committee, as I told Parliament, but by Downing street; b) that this was done against the express wishes of the intelligence community; c) that it was done by Downing street,
- "probably knowing that it was wrong";
- "a senior official in charge of drawing up the dossier".
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire) (Con): Is the Prime Minister able to say whether all the correspondence that passed between the BBC, its chairman and director general was made available in its entirety to Lord Hutton?
The Prime Minister: Everything that was relevant to the inquiry was made available to Lord Hutton, and I understand that he has already indicated that he believes he has all the relevant material. I do not believe that there is anything that we concealed from that inquiry. Indeed, I do not think that there has ever been a case in which a Government have disclosed so much information in such a way.
Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con): The Prime Minister has had some notice of this question, because I asked it two minutes before Lord Hutton began the presentation of his report a week ago. The evidence before Lord Hutton includes a copy of an e-mail about the dossier from the Prime Minister's chief of staff, which asks:
- "what will be the headline in the Standard on day of publication? What do we want it to be?"
The Prime Minister: All of that was covered in the inquiry—[Interruption.] It was, actually. I will not go into the detail of the explanation, except to say that if I could ensure that every Evening Standard headline read as I wished it to, I would be a happier man.
Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle) (Con): In the famous 24 September dossier, the Prime Minister stated in the foreword:
- "I am in no doubt that the threat is serious, and current; that he has made progress on WMD, and that he has to be stopped."
The Prime Minister: Again, I answered questions on that point at the Liaison Committee yesterday. As I said in my statement to the House last September, I could not say that the threat would materialise that day, the next
day, the next week or even the next year, but I could say that to allow Saddam Hussein to continue developing programmes for weapons of mass destruction was a serious threat to the world. What I said yesterday, and I shall come to this point later in my speech, is that we obviously have to take account of what Dr. David Kay has said, as the head of the Iraq survey group. I hope that I will be able to convince the hon. Gentleman, after I go through the whole of what Dr. Kay actually said, that in fact we were fully justified in the decision that we took.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East) (Con): Three weeks ago, the Prime Minister said in the Chamber that the question of his official spokesman, Tom Kelly, describing Dr. Kelly as a "'Walter Mitty' character" before his body had even been buried was a matter for Lord Hutton. Lord Hutton has concluded that that comment was "wholly improper", though he noted that Tom Kelly had apologised for it. Given that Jo Moore apologised for her outrageous comment, but still had to go, when will the Prime Minister dispense with the services of his official spokesman?
The Prime Minister: I do not agree with what the hon. Gentleman implies. Tom Kelly made an immediate and very full apology at the time, and he repeated it to the inquiry. Indeed, Lord Hutton deals with that in his report.
Donald Anderson (Swansea, East) (Lab): Is it not also relevant that the late Dr. Kelly said, in the broadcast that was shown posthumously, that WMD could be deployed within days or weeks? Is not the real problem for the press and the Opposition their disappointment and frustration that they do not have the heads of my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence on a platter?
The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend is probably right.
I sympathise with the confusion in the public mind about how the Hutton report has been received. The reason is simple. There is a world of difference between the evidence given to the inquiry and some—although I stress by no means all—of the reporting of it at the time. I shall give one example, which is relevant to some of what is in the newspapers today. The concerns by people within Defence Intelligence Staff about the way in which the 45-minute intelligence was phrased in the dossier, which was after all possibly the grain of truth that led to the mountain of untruth in Mr. Gilligan's broadcast, was reported the next day as leaving the credibility of the dossier in tatters, and the Government's case shot to pieces. One would have thought that the entirety of the Government's case in the dossier had been destroyed after listening to or reading some accounts of the evidence. In fact, one of those who gave evidence to the Hutton inquiry said that overall the dossier was
- "a reasonable and accurate picture of the intelligence."
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD): Bearing in mind what the Prime Minister has just said, and the Government's response to the Intelligence and Security Committee that it was important to preserve the line-management authority of Joint Intelligence Committee members in judging what should be brought to the attention of the chairman of that committee from their departments, could the Prime Minister say whether it is more important that any serious reservations felt by experts in defence intelligence should be made known to those who make the decisions, or that the authority of line management should be preserved? Surely we were trying to get the evidence to the right point, not managing a bus company.
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