Tag Archives: sir john chilcot

Nick Clegg set out his views on how Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the war with Iraq should be conducted on the BBC1 Andrew Marr show this weekend – you can view a 2-minute excerpt from the interview with Nick HERE. Nick has now met with Sir John to discuss his concerns that Gordon Brown’s insistence the inquiry should be private would undermine its effectiveness – fortunately it seems that Sir John largely agrees. Here’s the open letter Nick has written to Sir John:

Dear Sir John,

Thank you for meeting with me earlier regarding your inquiry.

I was pleased to see how much progress has been made from the initial position set out by the Prime Minister last week regarding the process of the inquiry.

In particular, I was pleased to hear that you will hold sessions in public unless there is a “compelling” reason to do otherwise; that your list of those requested to give evidence will be “comprehensive”; that expert assessors will be appointed to the inquiry to give the panel support in the areas of military process, public and constitutional law and development aid; that you remain open to the idea of publishing an interim report; and that you will specify to witnesses in writing and verbally that their evidence must be truthful and complete to the best of their recollection. It was also good to hear you confirm that you will be seeking evidence from Tony Blair and others in high office at the time, and would want their evidence to be held in public except in very limited circumstances.

These changes to the original proposals set out by the Prime Minister clearly improve the inquiry and make it more likely that it will secure public support. However, I still believe there are further steps that should be taken to improve the inquiry further.