Report of the Iraq Inquiry

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his repetition of the Prime Minister’s Statement. Like my noble friend Lord Blunkett, I was a member of the Cabinet which supported the invasion. It is very important that the people of our country benefit from the lucidity of the report by Sir John Chilcot and his team, and are able to make sense of the many claims and counterclaims that an issue which has aroused such passion creates. However, will the Minister join me in recognising three certainties that have emerged from the report? First, there was no falsification of the intelligence; secondly, the Cabinet was not deceived; and, thirdly, there was no undisclosed plan made between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States to go to war before the processes of government were invoked. We obviously all have to bear responsibility for the judgments but it is important to start with an assertion of fact.