Lord Hutton's Report

HC Deb 13 February 2004 vol 418 cc86-7W

Llew Smith

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will reconcile paragraph 14 of "A Further Response of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to the Ninth Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee's Session 2002–03" (Cm 6123) with Appendix 13 of the Hutton Report. [153747]

Mr. Mullin

No reconciliation is called for. Lord Hutton's conclusion on the basis of the evidence was clearAs the dossier was one to be presented to, and read by, Parliament and the public, and was not an intelligence assessment to be considered only by the Government, I do not consider that it was improper for Mr. Scarlett and the JIC to take into account suggestions as to drafting made by 10 Downing Street and to adopt those suggestions if they were consistent with the intelligence available to the JIC. (Paragraph 228 (7) of Lord Hutton's Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr. David Kelly CMG.)