Tory call for Iraq inquiry defeated

The Government's majority was nearly halved to 35 as it fought off a Tory call for an inquiry into the war.

But the debate offered Labour critics one last chance to attack Mr Blair over the most controversial policy of his time as Prime Minister.

At the end of a half-day debate, the Conservative motion demanding a Privy Council inquiry was rejected by 288 votes to 253.

Earlier, Prime Minister-in-waiting, Chancellor Gordon Brown, on a flying visit to Baghdad, said new procedures to keep politics out of the gathering and analysis of security and intelligence were to be put in place.

The announcement will be seen by many at Westminster as a swipe at the so called "dodgy" dossiers used by Mr Blair to help justify going to war.

In the Commons, shadow foreign secretary William Hague urged ministers to bow to the "gathering consensus" and hold an inquiry into the Iraq war. He proposed setting up a Privy Council inquiry, which would begin taking evidence "in the near future," adding: "This Government and future governments need to learn the lessons and the country needs to be assured that they will have done so."

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said "there would come a time when these issues will be explored in the round" but while troops were actively engaged in Iraq "it would be wrong to launch such an inquiry".

Mrs Beckett said: "At this critical juncture, when Iraq's future clearly hangs in the balance, it would be wrong, plain and simply wrong, for us to divert our focus from the tasks that need completing now and once again turn our gaze backwards to what has happened in the past. To carry this motion would be an unnecessary and a damaging diversion of effort, focus and attention."

But Labour's Jeremy Corbyn (Islington N), backed the Tory motion, insisting: "The argument that we should not be having an inquiry into the causes of a war that has cost the lives of so many people, that caused such huge controversy around the world, frankly is absurd. It is the job of Parliament, it is our duty as parliamentarians, to investigate what is going on, to challenge what the Executive is doing and to try to represent public opinion as best we can in that."