I have looked into the circumstances surrounding the publication of the White Paper on the UK’s strategy for countering international terrorism, which were raised by the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) yesterday. I regret that Members were not able to get hold of that document earlier, after it had been laid. In future, I shall require Government Departments to make copies of documents available in the Vote Office as soon as they are formally laid in the Journal Office.

A few moments ago, in a question to the Leader of the House, who is leaving the Chamber as I make this point of order, which is unsurprising, I asked about the UK Government’s plans for public spending cuts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Those cuts have been discussed by the Prime Minister and the First Ministers of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. They are a matter of fact, but the Leader of the House, from the Dispatch Box said, “We are not cutting public spending”. Only three short weeks ago, in reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) regarding the knighthood of Sir Fred Goodwin, the Leader of the House was forced to correct what she said in this Chamber. How can we secure a change, today, on this question?

The hon. Gentleman must not use points of order to extend Prime Minister’s questions, at which the Leader of the House was deputising for the Prime Minister.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

It was not a point of order, so there cannot be any “further” to it.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. When can we get clarification of the statement from the Leader of the Houses and of the factual position, as it was outlined to the First Ministers of the three devolved legislatures?

The hon. Gentleman must seek a debate at some stage in the proceedings.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Much obliged to you. The Labour First Minister in Wales is fighting the £500 million cuts that the Leader of the House denied today. I wonder why he is doing that.

You will have to ask the First Minister. He is a very nice man and I am sure that he will be able to answer you.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide certain protections for persons who live together as a couple or have lived together as a couple; and for connected purposes.

In the summer of 2006, I met a woman in Wakefield who was homeless. My constituent and her 14-year-old daughter were both sleeping on sofas in the living room of a friend’s one-bedroom flat. The woman’s long-term relationship had broken down. She had lived with her male partner for many years, brought up their child, and contributed to all household bills. However, when their relationship broke down, my constituent was entitled to nothing from her ex-partner. She moved out of the family home, to which she was unlikely to be entitled to a share unless she could prove to a court that there was a common intention of joint ownership, either by agreement or by financial contribution to the property. The courts could not consider what might be a fair outcome because she was not married. My constituent and her daughter were left destitute. She had discovered, in the hardest possible way, that there is no such thing as common law marriage. The burden of providing for her and her daughter fell on the state and the taxpayer.

I was delighted to discover at the time that the Law Commission had published a consultation paper on cohabitation in May 2006. It produced its final report in July 2007, which stated:

“The result of the current law’s inadequacy is hardship for many cohabitants on separation, and as a consequence, their children… And in many cases relationship breakdown may lead to reliance on the State in the form of claims to welfare benefits and social housing”.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House told the House in October 2006 that legislation would be introduced in 2007 to give new legal rights to the 4 million people who live together. Those rights would also protect their 1.25 million dependent children—children who have no choice about their parents’ living arrangements, but suffer devastating hardship on the breakdown of their parents’ relationship. The old label for those children was illegitimate. Here and now, in the 21st century, they remain literally illegitimate—outside the law. In March 2009, here we are, still awaiting the Government’s proposals.

The case for reform was and remains clear. It is long overdue. In 2004, the General Synod of the Church of England passed a motion, which reaffirmed the centrality of marriage but also

“recognises that there are issues of hardship and vulnerability for people whose relationships are not based on marriage which need to be addressed by the creation of new legal rights.”

There is an appetite for this Bill in both Houses, and the measure is largely based on the Law Commission’s 2007 report. The wise, noble and learned Lord Lester of Herne Hill introduced the Bill in the other place on 13 March. It is supported by Resolution, an association of 5,500 family lawyers. Before publishing it, there was a public consultation, with nearly 200 responses from: the Law Society of England and Wales; the family division of the High Court; the Family Law Bar Association; Families Need Fathers; Refuge, and many other solicitors, academics and individuals. Lord Lester has placed their responses in the Lords Library.

There is also an appetite for the Bill throughout the country. The 2008 British social attitudes survey stated that nearly nine out of 10 people think that a cohabiting partner should have some financial provision if the relationship has been long term and involves children.

Our society has a duty to protect children, whatever family circumstances they find themselves in, but the law as it stands leaves children in poverty when their cohabiting parents’ relationship ends. Today, one in three babies are born outside marriage, compared with just one in 20 in 1963, and 44 per cent. of all children in England and Wales are born to unmarried partners. The proportion of unmarried women who cohabited with a partner trebled between 1979 and 2002, but without a claim on the family home, the mother, who is usually the children’s main carer, becomes homeless. If we are serious about our pledge to end child poverty in this country in the next 10 years, the Bill will have a huge part to play.

However, we need to be clear. The Bill does not give cohabitants the same legal protections as marriage does. Marriage and civil partnership are special and offer specific protections and benefits. The Bill would create a legal framework that applies only on the breakdown of a cohabiting relationship. It may even remove the incentive to cohabit in order to avoid the financial costs of a divorce, which many people do now. The Bill would also allow couples to opt out of those protections to maintain their freedom of choice as individuals.

People meet, they fall in love and they move in together. They may decide not to get married for a variety of reasons. There may be the romantic ideal of true love, and who are we in this place to argue with that? There is the ideological objection to the institution of marriage. People may have left an unhappy marriage and be reluctant to embark on another marriage, whether happy or unhappy, or they may have witnessed their parents’ unhappy marriage and decided, for whatever reason, that marriage is not for them. People may feel too young or be too career minded, or they may be just trying things out with the other person. But they all have one thing in common: rare is the couple who consult a lawyer before they take the step of moving in together.

There is, I have discovered, what sociologists call “optimism bias”, whereby people believe that their love will last for ever—and in some cases, of course, it does. However, it is not surprising that people who are not lawyers should be ignorant of the law or that they may know the law, but allow inertia to creep in. However, the harsh reality is that men and women, whether gay or straight, who live together without a marriage or civil partnership can face devastating poverty and homelessness when their relationship ends.

The Bill would also provide protection for Muslim women who may be married in a religious ceremony abroad, live with their husband in this country for many years and, on the breakdown of the marriage, discover that they were never legally married in this country and that they have no rights whatever.

In July 2007, the Ministry of Justice concluded in its research paper on its “Living together” campaign that

“There is a need for a presumptive scheme giving cohabitants (and particularly cohabitants with children) automatic rights and obligations…This is particularly important for those in uneven relationships or where one partner is less committed than the other.”

The Department also pressed for a more consistent message from the Government and policy makers on the non-existence of common-law marriage, saying:

“Currently, the contrast between the acknowledgement of cohabitation in welfare support systems and the lack of acknowledgement of it in family law is contributing to general confusion about the legal position of cohabitants.”

The Department for Work and Pensions recognises cohabitation when establishing people’s benefit claims. It takes into account the duration of the relationship, the performance of household duties and the degree of mutual commitment. Yet when one partner dies, the cohabitant has no right to a bereavement grant, as they are not treated as the other’s next of kin. Currently, therefore, cohabitants have all the responsibilities but none of the rights that marriage bestows. Other Commonwealth countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada, give protections to cohabiting couples without detriment to marriage.

The law as it stands is unfair, uncertain and illogical. It penalises the vulnerable and, in particular, the children of cohabitants. The law does not recognise the choices that people make in the 21st century and it does not promote equality of outcomes for families. The Bill is long overdue, humane and compassionate. It promotes fairness social justice and equality before the law, and I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Mary Creagh, Hilary Armstrong, Liz Blackman, Natascha Engel, Ms Sally Keeble, Fiona Mactaggart, Lynda Waltho, Mr. Andy Slaughter, Dr. Evan Harris, John Bercow and Mr. Gordon Marsden present the Bill.

Mary Creagh accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 3 July and to be printed (Bill 81).

I inform the House that in both debates, I have selected the amendments in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the Prime Minister’s announcement of 18 December 2008 that a fundamental change in the British forces’ mission in Iraq will occur by 31 May 2009 at the latest and that at that point the rapid withdrawal of the British troops will take place, taking the total from just under 4,100 to under 400 by 31 July 2009; notes that following this announcement there remains no reasonable impediment to announcing an inquiry on the war in Iraq; and calls for such an inquiry to be conducted by an independent committee of privy counsellors, and to review the way in which the responsibilities of Government were discharged in relation to Iraq, and all matters relevant thereto, in the period leading up to military action in that country in March 2003 and its aftermath, and to make recommendations on lessons to be drawn for the future.

This is the third time in this Parliament that I have proposed this motion—or something very similar to it—and it is the fourth time that the House has debated the need for a full-scale and wide-ranging inquiry into the origins and conduct of the war in Iraq. It will come as no surprise to anyone that with the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq now imminent and the political and security situation in that country substantially improved in recent times, we are once again returning to this issue a year to the day since we last did so and six years this week since the start of the conflict.

Although it is therefore now a familiar topic for the House, the content of our debate today may be somewhat different from that in previous years, for we are now approaching a new situation in which Government arguments against an inquiry, which have grown steadily thinner as these debates have gone by, have now all but evaporated. In previous years, we made the argument that an inquiry should be commenced irrespective of the circumstances prevailing at the time, but now even those circumstances no longer provide the excuse for not commencing it.

This is not to say that we have been wasting our breath entirely in previous debates, for in each debate the common ground in the House has grown larger as the arguments against an inquiry have been diminished by the passage of time. It is now common ground, I think, that the events surrounding the Iraq war have been so important in shaping world affairs in recent years, made such an impact on the lives of millions, involved our armed forces in such effort and sacrifice, been so fraught with accusations of mistakes made and planning inadequately done and become so relevant to what is happening elsewhere in Afghanistan or to what might happen in other places in the future that it would be inconceivable to turn our minds for ever against inquiring into those events and trying to learn from them.

The right hon. Gentleman refers to the passage of time. He will, of course, be aware that the passage of time since March 2003 is equivalent to or greater than that of world war two.

That is absolutely right, and it is a point that I have made in at least one of the previous debates, and the hon. Gentleman may have made it, too. Yes, it is now six years since the start of the conflict, which is longer than the duration of the entire second world war.

Faced with enormity of these issues and the extent of public expectation that an inquiry will be held, the Government have long since given up the argument that no inquiry may be necessary at all, although it was their starting point in 2006, when this series of debates began—a debate that was launched by the nationalist parties. At that time, the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett), who was Foreign Secretary, was very careful not to commit the Government to an inquiry at all, saying that

“this is not the time for making these decisions.”

She also said:

“Unlike at the time of the Falklands war we now have a framework of Select Committees that carry out independent inquiries.”—[Official Report, 31 October 2006; Vol. 451, c. 172.]

True enough, that careful stonewalling was breached within minutes of the end of that debate by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Des Browne), who was Secretary of State for Defence. He went out to St. Stephen’s entrance and said:

“When the time is right, of course there will be such an inquiry”.

Government sources then said that he had made a “slip of the tongue”. However, it was not many months—16 May 2007—before the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), showing early on in the Labour party’s deputy leadership election the skill that she is now employing in the leadership manoeuvring, said:

“I think that when the troops do finally come home, which we all hope will be as soon as possible, there will need to be an inquiry and I think that we also need to look at the circumstances in which we went in but at the planning and preparation for the aftermath as well, and we will need to learn lessons from that.”

By the time that we returned to the issue on the Floor of the House in June 2007, ministerial resistance to the idea that an inquiry might be necessary had totally collapsed.

Does my right hon. Friend, like me, deprecate the evidence prayed in aid in the Government amendment that it would be improper to have an inquiry while our troops are in the field, given that historical precedent shows that, for example, in 1940 the Norway campaign was the subject of a full parliamentary debate in the House, and indeed precipitated the downfall of the then Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain?

Yes, my hon. Friend makes one important analogy, which is very attractive to us as it involves the downfall of a Prime Minister. Come to think of it, that idea is probably quite attractive to the Foreign Secretary. There are closer analogies, which I will come to in a moment.

I was going back two years to June 2007 and the Government’s arguments of that time. Their claim that four separate inquiries had already taken place, therefore obviating the need for any further inquiry, met ridicule in this Chamber and outside it, given that one of those was the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly, another was the Butler report on the use of intelligence and the other two were deliberations by Select Committees, at least one of which had complained loudly that it had little access to information and no co-operation from the Government.

When Ministers were brought back to the Dispatch Box that June, they had themselves occupied a new defensive position, now insisting that there would of course be an inquiry at the appropriate time, but that to commence it there and then would, in the words of the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Derby, South, send a message of “disunity” and possibly

“convey to others”

the much wider

“impression that this country’s commitment to Iraq is weakening”.

That was a bogus argument, but it was a new bogus argument and therefore quite interesting on those grounds. The idea that a militiaman in a Baghdad suburb would be emboldened by the news that the British Government were trying to learn from mistakes—when he could already have read about adverse opinion polls, huge demonstrations and serious divisions among western nations at the UN Security Council as plentiful examples of disunity—did not constitute a serious argument.

Did my right hon. Friend note that, at the beginning of the debate, there were only eight Labour MPs present not on the Front Bench, including the Parliamentary Private Secretary? Does that show that Labour MPs are ashamed of their Government’s position? Does the absence of the Leader of the House show that she is ashamed of the position and wishes that the Government would change it?

I do not think that those on the Government Benches now take enormous pride in the Government’s position. Indeed, the variants on this motion that I have tabled in recent years were defeated only by quite narrow majorities, given the balance of parties in the House. I am sure that a huge number of Labour Members want an inquiry to commence, and commence now, as I shall come to argue.

To be fair to the then Foreign Secretary, in 2007, she made the further and more substantial argument that

“while our troops remained actively engaged and facing real danger in Iraq, it would be wrong to launch such an inquiry.”—[Official Report, 11 June 2007; Vol. 461 c. 539-45.]

Many of us in the House have never agreed with that line of argument. Those of us who talk regularly to members of our armed forces, as I do at Catterick garrison in my constituency, have formed a clear view that most of them would welcome an inquiry at any time, since they, above all, are the people who have had to wrestle with the consequences of mistakes that have been made and are extremely interested in ensuring that such mistakes are not repeated. Their morale would be raised, rather than lowered, by knowing that an appropriate inquiry was going on.

There is the further consideration that in an extended conflict—as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr. MacNeil) said, the Iraq war has gone on for longer than either of the world wars of the 20th century—waiting for the end of all hostilities before learning from any mistakes is a grievous error. Our predecessors in the House launched an inquiry into the Dardanelles campaign while the first world war was raging, and indeed into events in Mesopotamia in 1916 while military operations continued there. Nevertheless, that was an argument until, in the course of last year, our troops were no longer actively engaged on a daily or large-scale basis.

At that point, the Government’s defence against starting an inquiry changed again and was redefined on 10 December last year by the current Foreign Secretary, who said that

“we do support an inquiry into the origins of the Iraq war, when our troops are safely home.”

So, the mantra that an inquiry could not begin while our troops remained actively engaged has turned out not to represent the real reason the Government would not set up an inquiry in recent years; it was simply one of a number of excuses, and its ceasing to be relevant has led them to abandon it in favour of another, much weaker excuse.

Even now, it seems that the Government have to be dragged slowly to the course of action that they know is right and inevitable. The Foreign Secretary said, also on 10 December:

“We are not going to hide behind the idea that the last troop must have come home”.—[Official Report, 10 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 565-6.]

but given their record of steady retreats from one excuse to another, it would not now be surprising if they tried to hide behind that.

Is not my right hon. Friend’s point reinforced by the wording that the Government have chosen for their amendment, which talks not about the return of our troops, but says that it would be inappropriate to have an inquiry

“whilst important operations are underway in Iraq to support the people and government of Iraq.”?

As it is the Government’s intention to help the people in government in Iraq over the next few years, does that not imply that the Government have, yet again, changed their criteria and are grasping anything they can to prevent having any inquiry at all?

As usual, my right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely on the nail. I have pointed out how the Government have retreated from one argument to another. It may be the next stage of the retreat to argue that an inquiry cannot begin even when the troops are safely home, but I think that the Government know that they are in the last stages of their retreat—perhaps it is the last stage—on this matter.

The Government have started to indicate that some kind of inquiry may be established later this year, but rather fittingly for a Prime Minister who said that he would end the culture of spin and treat Parliament with greater seriousness than his predecessor, the suggestion that they will hold an inquiry has been made not to Parliament, but to the News of the World on Sunday.

It was reported on Sunday:

“Gordon Brown is set to order an inquiry into the war in Iraq, the News of the World can reveal. Senior sources”—

this is the end of the culture of spin—

“at the Ministry of Defence suspect the review will be announced”—

[Interruption.] I used to write an excellent column in the News of the World, but the Prime Minister of the nation is meant to announce things to Parliament, not in a column in the News of the World.

The News of the World continued:

“Senior sources at the Ministry of Defence suspect the review will be announced in Mr. Brown’s speech to the Labour Party conference this autumn.”

This “review”—notice it will be a review rather than an inquiry—will, said the paper,

“have access to intelligence used to justify the invasion and records of the Cabinet’s discussions before the war. It is also expected to review the Army’s performance in the invasion and its aftermath.”

This is a small classic in trying to use spin to wrong-foot the intentions of Members of Parliament, suggesting that the matter is all in hand while already seeking to water down what an inquiry would look at, and indeed whether it would be an inquiry at all.

If Ministers think that they will get away with a “review”, which looks at the decisions made before the war and the performance of the Army, they have another think coming. When somebody as senior as Sir Hilary Synnott, the diplomat who was put in charge of governing southern Iraq, says in his book—[Interruption.] I did refer to that book last year. Sir Hilary Synnott was so pleased that I did so, I thought that I would please him by referring to it again, because this part of the argument remains the same:

“Hardly any Whitehall departments got involved with Iraq. There was none of the mobilising of the government machine—with cabinet committees, ministers and individuals nominated to deal with specific tasks, and taskforces—such as happened during the second world war…Instead, there was an ad hoc cabinet committee, where both chairmanship and participants changed.”

When someone like that presents such an argument, it is clearly vital for a real inquiry to be able to look at the functioning of Government across the board, and to do so in the period after the invasion of Iraq as well as before it.

rose—

I shall sweep across the Chamber, starting with my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin).

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend. Is not the point that he is making particularly relevant to the conduct of Government policy in Afghanistan? It is being conducted by a Cabinet Committee that meets once a fortnight, rather than the whole Government being engaged in the effort.

What I am saying may be relevant to that. We do not know what an inquiry will say. However, I think that there are grounds for concern about the way in which Government have made important decisions about national security in recent years. Certainly, it appears from recent deliberations about Afghanistan that several different reviews are in progress in Whitehall at one time—some within different Departments, some between officials of Departments, and some between Ministers, including the Foreign Secretary—rather than the issue being looked at as a coherent whole. That may well be one of the lessons to be learned for the future.

Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating 7th Armoured Brigade, who did a fantastic job in moving into Basra during the invasion and creating a relative peace? What happened then was that they looked over their shoulders expecting some form of stabilisation and reconstruction plan, and there was none to be seen. Is not the reason we require an inquiry the fact that other Departments, especially the Department for International Development, were not there in strength to support the good work that our military had done?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a reason for an inquiry. It appears from what has been said and written about the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq that the Department for International Development was indeed not ready to follow up what other Government agencies, and the Army, had achieved, and that it had been decided at the highest ministerial level that it would not co-operate in the planning for the aftermath.

The right hon. Gentleman said that the News of the World had mentioned the possibility of an inquiry. Does he recollect some of the news headlines at the time, which set the mood of the nation in the run-up to the war? The Sun carried the headline “Brits 45 mins from doom”, while another newspaper carried the headline “Ready to Attack: 45 Minutes from a Chemical War”. What is in a newspaper can set the mood of the nation. The mood has changed, however, and I think that therefore people need the inquiry.

Of course the mood has changed. The circumstances have moved on in six years. But I think that people who opposed the war in Iraq, of whom I imagine the hon. Gentleman was one, and people who supported it—all those people—want to make sure that we have learnt from whatever mistakes are made. That is why there is such common ground on this issue.

I am enjoying my right hon. Friend’s speech very much. Does he agree that the contribution made by north Yorkshire has been exceptional? Will he argue that we should broaden what the motion says about the aftermath to include those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and the way in which they are being dealt with in the north of England, where there is no treatment available?

Of course that should be looked at as well. Because we both represent constituents in north Yorkshire, my hon. Friend and I are extremely conscious of the role of our armed forces and the circumstances in which they work. Perhaps that should be examined even more urgently than, and separately from, the conduct of the war in Iraq.

rose—

I shall give way one more time, and then proceed with my speech.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again.

Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett), I imagine that if the headlines had said the exact opposite of what the Government wanted them to say, the Government would have got up and countered them.

When the right hon. Gentleman quoted from a book to which he had also referred in a debate last year, the mirth on the Government Benches betrayed the Government’s attitude. They hope that the passage of time will lessen the need for and the consequences of an inquiry. The reality is, however, that the inquiry is needed not just for the past and not just for the present, but as much for the future, to prevent such errors from happening again and, importantly, to prevent other countries from acting in the same way.

Order. An intervention should not be a speech.

I think that we got the point, Mr. Speaker. Yes, of course that supports the case for an inquiry—and yes, there was a bit of mirth on the Government Benches, but many of the arguments for an inquiry do remain the same. One of the points I am making is that it is the Government’s arguments that have changed. They have become steadily thinner over time, and now they are very thin indeed.

An inquiry should be at Privy Council level, and should be able to study how relations with our key ally were managed; the use of intelligence; the functioning of the machinery of Government; why poor decisions were made in some cases, and dissenting opinions were overlooked; why expectations of what would happen in Iraq turned out to be wrong; why the insurgency was not anticipated; and why—in the words of Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff at the time—

“There was planning, but it was planning for completely the wrong thing.”

It should also study our success or otherwise at nation-building. It should examine the way in which the Department for International Development, the Foreign Office and the armed forces work alongside each other. That point has already been made by many of my hon. Friends.

It begins to look as if Ministers have it in mind to set up an inquiry that would perhaps be more limited than most Members of the House and the vast majority of people in the country would wish. Moreover—importantly—it looks as if they want to set it up at such a time that its proceedings could reasonably be concluded only after the latest date for the next general election, after they can be held accountable for the results. There is no other explanation for their behaviour, since there is no reason on earth why an inquiry of the necessary wide-ranging kind cannot be established now.

I have put before the House in previous years arguments that grow stronger with the passage of time. I have argued that memories will be weaker, and relevant documents more likely to have been dispersed, with each year that goes by, particularly as some of the events and decisions to be inquired into took place as long ago as 2002. The Foreign Secretary has tried to deride that argument in the past, but the idea that the recollection of Ministers and officials remains perfect, however many years go by, is not credible. It suggests that they have powers of retention and memory that would have to be superhuman.

Even when an inquiry is announced, it will doubtless take some weeks or months to assemble its members, to recruit its staff, to prepare its programme of work, to identify where it must seek relevant material, to create a timetable for evidence-taking, and so on. If Ministers really wanted an inquiry once our troops were no longer actively engaged, they would have announced one already, but even if we accept that they want to have one when the troops are safely home, the fact remains that there would be nothing to stop them nominating the inquiry, giving it its powers, and starting it on its preparatory work now, so that the taking of its evidence could begin this summer.

Last time we debated this subject, the Foreign Secretary said:

“The Franks inquiry was set up after the end of the Falklands conflict...only after all the troops had come home from the Falklands.”—[Official Report, 25 March 2008; Vol. 474, c. 56.]

It may have escaped the Foreign Secretary’s attention, but at no time have all the troops come home from the Falklands. There is still a detachment of troops there now. When Baroness Thatcher first announced the inquiry to the House on 8 July 1982, there were far more British troops deployed in the Falkands than there are in Iraq today, along with many warships.

The Prime Minister has already announced—on 18 December—that a “fundamental change of mission” will take place by 31 May at the latest, and that by 31 July only 400 British troops will be left in Iraq, the majority of them dedicated to naval training. In any case, our legal authority to be in Iraq expires at the end of July. The timetable for withdrawal has therefore already been set. The UN mandate by which we were in Iraq in recent years has, of course, already expired. Our troops are no longer engaged in combat activity. The statement by the Iraqi defence spokesman on 31 December made it clear that the agreement superseding the UN mandate stipulated

“that they will not be engaged in combat activity, and that their activities will be exclusively confined to the purposes of training and support.”

The head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, said at Christmas:

“We have now concluded the operation, or are about to conclude the operation, in Iraq, on the basis that the job is done.”

When we take all those facts together, we can see that no substantial argument remains against the immediate announcement and rapid establishment of the inquiry that the nation demands. If it is necessary to have an inquiry, as Ministers have accepted, there is no longer any reason linked to the safety of our troops to delay one, and every reason of scrutiny, accountability and learning for the future to begin one as soon as we can. The only remaining explanation for the non-appearance of an inquiry is either ministerial self-interest in delaying its onset and therefore its outcome, or a reluctance to get around to it at all.

rose—

I will give way for the last time.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the need for an inquiry now. Does he agree that it is important that the accountability of that inquiry runs to Parliament and not to the Executive, given that Parliament was, in my view, given misleading information in the past? I remember the former Prime Minister saying, “If only you could see some of the things that come across my desk, you would vote for the war.” If only we had seen them, because then more hon. Members would have voted against.

I think that it is important for it to be a Privy Council inquiry because the results would be laid before Parliament. The hon. Gentleman and I have had a small difference on this matter in the past, in that he originally proposed a reinforced and special Committee of this House. That would suffer the disadvantages that its membership would comprise only Members of this House, and that it would probably have to have a governing party majority, so it would not be the independent inquiry that I am advocating, able to draw on the expertise of people from outside Parliament. I do not think this needs to be an inquiry conducted in Parliament, but its results need to be laid before Parliament.

Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

rose—

I had not intended to give way again as I am trying to get on with my speech, but I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh).

Does my right hon. Friend share my sadness at the fact that we need a full Falklands-type inquiry because our Select Committees are so weak? Under the Osmotherly rules, we cannot insist on particular officials appearing before a Committee and we cannot look at advice given to Ministers. Our Select Committees are therefore not strong enough, unlike congressional committees.

I agree, and my hon. Friend has expressed that point very well.

Does my right hon. Friend also agree that we need an inquiry because since even the Hutton inquiry a wealth of material and information has come out by way of freedom of information requests and other means, which clearly show that the intelligence reports were misrepresented and mispresented by the Government at the time? For example, we have only recently discovered that there was a body called the coalition information centre, a propaganda unit within the Foreign Office; it has since disbanded, but that body played a key role in the drafting of the dossier.

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and he has been instrumental in making sure that some of these documents come to public attention. It is when we take together the mixture of freedom of information items that have come out into the public domain—as well as freedom of information decisions that have been overturned by the Justice Secretary in respect of Cabinet minutes—and all the memoirs and other statements that have been written by so many people, that we see that it is important to look at these matters in the round, and for an inquiry to be able to consider them together.

I shall now sum up.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I must finish my argument, I think. [Interruption.] Well, due to public demand, I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Dardenelles. Given the comments made by very senior members of the military, does he believe there is a case for an admiral or a general to serve on the inquiry?

Yes, I think there probably is a good case for that. Provided that they are respected for independent judgment, their being able to bring military expertise would be a very valuable asset. That is all for consideration, however, and what we should be deciding today is that such an inquiry should be established.

I repeat today that if no inquiry is established by the time of the next general election, one of the first acts of a new Government will be to establish one. Additionally, I wish to make it clear to the Foreign Secretary that if an inquiry is established that is merely a review, or that has inadequate scope and powers to carry out the necessary tasks, and it is still continuing its work beyond the next general election, an incoming Conservative Government will reserve the right to widen its scope and increase its powers as may be necessary. Ministers may delay in an effort to reduce the force and relevance of what they know must come, but in the end we will learn the necessary lessons, and we will learn from what went wrong in the functioning of the machinery of government itself.

There is an utter determination in most quarters of this House that we will get to the heart of these matters and that the processes and functioning of government—and maybe of Parliament—will be improved as a result. It can only be to the discredit of current Ministers that they have no wish to see such learning and improvement commence, even though they have now run out of reasons for that not to commence. The House of Commons would be doing them a favour if it pushed them today into the right, necessary and complete course of action, and it would be doing what is right for this country as well.

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“notes the Resolutions of this House of 31 October 2006, 11 June 2007 and 25 March 2008 on an Iraq inquiry; recognises the heroic efforts of the British armed forces in Iraq who have a continuing role which this House should be careful not to undermine; further recognises that a time will come when an inquiry is appropriate, but declines to make a proposal for a further inquiry at this time, whilst important operations are underway in Iraq to support the people and government of Iraq.”

I have recently had the privilege of meeting some of our troops and their commanders in Basra. Their dedication to duty, their commitment and comradeship and, above all, their immense bravery should be an inspiration to us all, and is a credit to the country. Whatever the divisions of this debate, nothing should—or will, I am sure—divide us from saluting them together for the way in which they have carried out their tasks in Iraq.

This Government amendment makes the same point as the Government amendment that the House supported at this time last year. The reason is simple: the situation in Iraq has changed, in the main for the better, since the debate last year—I will set that out—but the number of British troops, and their role and position, has not changed. Until it does, the case for caution against declaring “mission accomplished” and turning our attention to an inquiry remains strong.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

No. I will do so in a few moments.

In important respects the work of our troops carries dangers, especially—I say this although it is paradoxical—as the date for the completion of their work comes closer. One civilian was killed at the Basra airbase in a rocket attack earlier this month, so the sole focus of Government activity at this time—across the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development—is to secure the most smooth and effective conclusion to the bulk of British military engagement in Iraq, and the most smooth and effective increase in British economic, political, educational and cultural engagement in Iraq.

rose—

I will be very happy to give way in a moment, after I have set out my argument.

The Government amendment says clearly and unambiguously that there should be an inquiry. The reason is simple: there are important lessons that could be learned. Indeed, as the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) pointed out last year and has repeated in his speech, Iraq has involved British troops for a longer period than world war two. Every country is unique, and the Iraq experience of post-conflict reconstruction is important. We all know that building the peace in Iraq has been much more difficult than winning the war. The debates about de-Ba’athification and the disbandment of the Iraqi army have been well aired and it is right that they are looked over again.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

No. I said I will give way in a few moments, after I have set out my argument.

The time to focus on an official inquiry is when the troops come home to safety, not when they are still exposed to danger in Iraq. Precedent supports this, and so does common sense. For the avoidance of doubt, I was asked on 10 December if that meant every troop coming home, and I gave a very clear answer: we are talking about combat troops, not every troop, and I will set out the timetable again in a moment.

I am now very happy to take interventions from all those Members who sought to speak, but I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh).

I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way. Will he give a commitment today that we will set up this inquiry as soon as practicable after 31 July? That is a given, is it?

Yes.

The Foreign Secretary seems to be living in a parallel world in terms of what is actually happening with our troops at Basra airport. They are not going out on patrols, and they are not involved in operations in Basra. They are bunkered up at the airport itself. They are doing some work with the Iraqi army, but in fact they are busy handing over not to the Iraqis, but to the Americans. Will he spell out exactly what he is trying to justify by saying in his amendment that we are involved in operations when we are not?

I am afraid that that is just not correct, and I am happy to go through why it is not correct. One obvious reason is that they are providing not simply training, but mentoring for Iraqi troops which by definition involves more than going outside—

In the airport.

No, it involves more than that. I will give some further detail, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces will do so, too.

The Foreign Secretary said a moment ago that the precedent is for the inquiry to be established after all the troops—or the vast bulk of them—have been withdrawn, rather than, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) suggested, the initial steps being taken before they are withdrawn. Would the Foreign Secretary care to tell us of one occasion on which that precedent occurred?

The Falklands is the obvious example because the—

We killed that one off.

No, the hon. Gentleman has not killed that one off, with respect. British troops will remain in Iraq after 31 July if all goes according to plan, but they will not be combat troops. In the case of the Falklands, the enemy had surrendered, so by definition the troops were no longer in danger in the Falklands when the inquiry was set up in July 1982.

I am sure that the whole House shares the Foreign Secretary’s admiration for those who have served and are serving in Iraq. He very much admires their courage, so why are the Government not showing the same courage and saying “We have nothing to hide, we are not hiding behind anything and we agree to this inquiry”? Why are they not being as courageous as our soldiers have been?

I do not think that any Foreign Secretary should come to this place claiming that he is being as brave as the people who are serving in our armed forces around the world—I certainly do not make that claim, and I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman reduces the argument to that point. The Government have taken a very consistent position since the debate last year and we will take it again in the debate this year. The right time for an inquiry is when our combat troops have come home, and I am happy to detail why the situation in Iraq requires that.

The Foreign Secretary said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) that an inquiry would be announced after 31 July. He will, of course, be conscious of the fact that that will be about a week after this House rises for the summer recess. Will he therefore give an assurance today that a statement will be made to the House before it rises for the summer recess confirming that the inquiry is to go ahead? If he is not prepared to give that assurance, will he explain why not, given that we know that 31 July is the decisive date?

The former Foreign Secretary should know better; the idea that we decided on a troop withdrawal plan and chose 31 July as the date for its conclusion because Parliament will not be sitting at that time is, frankly, risible. [Interruption.] We will do this after British combat troops have been withdrawn, and that is the right thing to do. [Interruption.] That has been the position that we have set out over the past year, and I believe that it is the right position to hold. It has nothing to do with the Labour party conference; it is a simple position that the Government have articulated again and again and again.

The Foreign Secretary will know that I made no reference to the Labour party conference. I simply said that he had confirmed that the combat troops would be back by 31 July, so there would no longer be an obstacle to announcing a statement. He must know that an inquiry of this importance ought to be announced to the House of Commons. There cannot possibly be any objection to announcing on, shall we say, 20 July—10 days or so before 31 July, when the House is still sitting—that the inquiry is to be established and what the terms of reference will be. He must appreciate that if he declines to give that assurance, it would appear either that he is going to make that statement when the House is not even sitting—that would be a disgrace—or that he is looking for an excuse to leave it until the autumn, thereby delaying the time by which the inquiry would ultimately report. He must realise the suspicion and deal with it now if he is to command the respect of the House.

I am sorry that the right hon. and learned Gentleman puts it in that way. We have been completely clear, in last year’s debate and in this year’s debate, about the Government’s position on this point. Our position is that once combat troops come home is the right time to establish an inquiry. We will establish that inquiry with the full respect for Parliament and all of its Members, for precedent and for the need for the inquiry to look into both the conduct of the war and the conduct of the peace-building afterwards—that is precisely the sort of comprehensive look that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, who speaks for the Opposition—

rose—

After I make some progress I shall be happy to bring in further hon. Members.

The UK has a strategic national interest in a strong, stable, non-hostile Iraq, confident in its territorial integrity and acting in accordance with international law. As the first majority Shi’a democracy in the Arab world, it can help to bridge the Sunni-Shi’a divide in the middle east. As one of the traditional places of Shi’a authority in the world, with a track record of a humane tradition, a revived Najaf can offer an alternative to the radical Shi’ism expounded by some in Iran. It is important, therefore, to recognise the progress that has been made in Iraq since our debate last year. The change from the savage conflict of three years ago is remarkable, and the progress is to be welcomed. It brings withdrawal closer and, for the purposes of this debate, it brings an inquiry closer, because, at every stage the key for us has not been dates; it has been what our troops are doing in Iraq.

rose—

I shall make some progress and try to bring in the hon. Gentleman a bit later.

Thanks to the brave work and dedication of our troops and their coalition partners, as well as the improved capacity and commitment of the Iraqi security forces, the number of security incidents across the country is down to its lowest level since 2003. The provincial elections held on 31 January passed without major incident and included the Sunni parties and Sunni voters. Although key pieces of legislation are still outstanding, in the past year the Iraqi Parliament has agreed new laws on investment, de-Ba’athification, detainees and the powers of provincial government.

Although that progress is significant, anyone who has spent any time in Iraq will say that in some parts of the country the security situation is still fragile and reversible. The threat from extremist groups—that seems to be dismissed by the Conservative party—as well as from militias and terrorists, remains. Roadside bombs and suicide attacks are still a danger to the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Attacks this month in Mosul, at a Baghdad police academy and at a market in Babil remind us of the enduring dangers posed by terrorism in Iraq.

Although progress has been made in politics, compromise is painfully slow and, as in the rest of the world, the global economic downturn is having an impact in Iraq. So, after the loss of many thousands of lives, including 179 British defence personnel, and the spending of billions of dollars, Iraq needs careful and deliberate international support as it moves to be fully in command of its own affairs.

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

No, I just want to make a bit of progress.

That is why some 4,100 British troops are deployed in southern Iraq—that is more or less the same number as were there this time last year. As agreed with the Government of Iraq, they still have a number of tasks to complete. Their work to mentor and train the 14th division of the Iraqi army is ongoing. The Royal Navy continues to patrol the Gulf area and to contribute to the defence of Iraqi territorial waters and oil platforms, and the Royal Air Force provides vital support, both to UK troops and as part of the coalition air effort. Each of those tasks is vital in order to ensure that Iraq continues the progress of recent years.

We are now, however, approaching a key moment in the timetable for the draw-down of British troops. In July last year, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out how UK troops would move carefully and deliberately, guided by the situation on the ground, from a lead role to an overwatch role. Next week, on 31 March, the first step will be taken, with the absorption of Multi-National Division (South-East) within Multi-National Division (South). This is not the replacement of British commanders by Americans, but a new coalition force structure reflecting the changes going on in Iraq and with a larger geographical responsibility. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister told the House,

“the fundamental change of mission ... will take place by 31 May 2009 at the latest. At that point, we will begin a rapid withdrawal of our troops, taking the total from just under 4,100 to under 400 by 31 July.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 1234.]

The Government of Iraq have indicated that they want the UK to continue to provide military training and education. We are offering to provide support to officer training through the NATO training mission in Iraq, and to supplement that with attendance at staff and other training. We are also discussing with the Iraqi authorities how we can best meet their ongoing requirements for maritime support and naval training. Our plan, which has been agreed by the Government of Iraq, is to withdraw combat troops by the end of July. As we draw down our military engagement, we will step up our effort to support and rebuild the Iraqi economy and to help Iraqis ensure that their critical infrastructure works. Of course, our diplomatic relationship will remain essential, and we will maintain both a substantive embassy in Baghdad, and missions in Basra and Irbil.

rose—

I shall give way after I have finished this paragraph. The planning for the safe withdrawal of most of our troops, and the development of a plan for the role and position of the remainder, is being undertaken with great care in the Ministry of Defence. The Foreign Office is orchestrating, week by week, the realignment of Britain’s relationship with Iraq as military forces are reduced. The Department for International Development is continuing to work to help the Government of Iraq to deliver services to their people and to be in a position to take advantage of the strong interest of international investors. I said that I would give way to the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway), so I shall now do so.

Does the Foreign Secretary accept that there are lessons to be learned from Iraq and that there are mistakes that we are repeating? Is it not a shame that even the MOD has binned its internal critique of the conduct of our operations in Iraq?

I am always wary of the attempt to put Iraq and Afghanistan in the same paragraph, as I believe they are fundamentally different theatres. However, there are important lessons from the Iraq experience. As I will say in a moment, the MOD has carried out significant internal reviews, as well as having the benefit of external reviews, as has the Foreign Office, and those are fed in week by week. The hon. Gentleman may well have important points about the way in which strategy and tactics are being put into practice. We should certainly be learning the lessons, but that does not require us to wait for the full-scale official inquiry that we are debating today.

Yesterday, I met a delegation of Iraqi Members of Parliament, representing all the diverse communities in that country, and they wanted a message sent to the British people to say, “Thank you for what you’ve done to get rid of Saddam Hussein and please keep supporting us in our transition to democracy.”

Will the Foreign Secretary ensure that the inquiry, when it happens, is not narrowly focused, but looks at the totality of the UK relationship with Iraq before, during and since the conflict, and includes the complicity of the Conservative Government of Baroness Thatcher with Saddam’s regime during the Iran-Iraq war?

I hear what my hon. Friend says about the need for the inquiry to look beyond the immediate context of the war, and especially at the conduct of the peace-building.

I sincerely thank the Foreign Secretary for recognising in his speech and in the Government amendment the professionalism and bravery of our troops, which the Opposition failed to do in their motion. Will he confirm that any inquiry will not reveal the identity of any individual member of the troops so that nobody is put at risk?

One advantage of a Franks-style inquiry, as recommended by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, is that it would operate in private and could preserve the confidentiality that is important for all our troops.