MP COMMENTS IN AFTERMATH OF IRAQ INQUIRY
HALTON’S MP Derek Twigg was mentioned three times in the 12-volume and 2.6m-word Iraq Inquiry report produced by Sir John Chilcot.
The references were in connection to his capacity as veterans minister.
Section 16.2, headed ‘Support For Injured Service Personnel And Veterans’, said Mr Twigg had expressed concern in November 2006 that the Ministry Of Defence (MOD) was not providing a ‘comprehensive rehabilitation package’ for personnel returning from operations.
The Chilcot report said Mr Twigg, who was parliamentary under-secretary of state for defence at the time, received a response from deputy chief of the defence staff Air Marshall David Pocock, whose comments supported Mr Twigg’s ‘nagging concern’ that the MOD might not be ‘providing the support that personnel – including regulars, reservists, formed units, individuals, and individuals who had been medically evacuated – required’.
Later that month, Mr Twigg and the then health secretary Alan Johnson announced that the NHS would provide ‘priority treatment for all veterans, not just those in receipt of war pensions, whose ill- health or injuries were attributed to their military service’.
Mr Twigg, who voted in favour of UK military action in Iraq, had been serving as a Government whip when Parliament voted in favour of war in March 2003.
He was appointed to the role of defence minister with a responsibility for veterans in 2006, and later visited troops in Iraq in 2008, and in 2007 he opened a wing at Headley Court forces rehabilitation centre, before leaving the Government in 2008.
When it was announced in April 2009 that an inquiry would take place after the withdrawal of troops, Mr Twigg defended the UK invasion, telling Parliament: “I, for one, will not run away from my responsibility for voting for the invasion of Iraq.
“I still believe that that was the right decision.
“If it had not been based on the issue of weapons of mass destruction, I believe that Saddam was such a destabilising influence in the Middle East that, given his track record, we should have done all we could to remove him in any case.”