The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
can only
spend it in certain ways constrained by the ODA Act [sic], and you
have the
Foreign
Office that doesn’t have any money.”405
654.
Sir Nicholas
Macpherson, Director General in charge of Public Expenditure
from
2001 to
2005 and then Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, told the Inquiry
that, in time
of
conflict, it was not the role of the Treasury to try to limit
military spending:
“… the
Treasury may have a view on some areas of spending, but on the
whole,
when a war
is in prospect, the narrow Treasury view that public spending is a
bad
thing tends
to be put to one side … and you start signing the
cheques.”406
655.
Lord Boateng,
the Chief Secretary to the Treasury from May 2002 to May
2005,
told the
Inquiry that there was a distinction between the way the Treasury
responded to
military
and non‑military situations.407
While the
military did not have a “blank cheque”:
“… when you
have established that you need it, you are going to get [it]
…
Because, at
the end of the day, the lives of Servicemen and women and the
security
of the
state would be at risk if you got other people in the Treasury
second‑guessing
and doing
what we do normally, which is actually to ensure that, first and
foremost,
the public
purse is protected.”
656.
The Inquiry
asked Lord Boateng what the rationale had been for the
allocation
of funding
between departments (non‑military expenditure had been
approximately
one‑eighth
of military expenditure). Lord Boateng told the Inquiry
that:
“… this
balance arose partly as a result of the funding mechanism deployed,
in the
sense that
the Ministry of Defence had an access to the Reserve that was on
a
different
scale from the others [DFID and FCO].
“… did
anyone sit down and say, ‘Well, this is the sum of money that we
have,
this ought
to be the balance?’ No, I don’t think they did. Should they have
done?
Maybe, but
actually it is … very difficult to do.
“Is the way
in which we fund post‑conflict reconstruction work optimal? Then,
no,
I don’t
think it was. Did this mean that our effectiveness suffered? No, I
don’t believe
it did, but
I do believe that it led to considerable pressure on one of the two
other
departments,
namely, the FCO, who are in a different position … from DFID
because
their
resource base was so very different.”408
405
Public
hearing, 20 January 2010, page 35.
406
Public
hearing, 22 January 2010, page 3.
407
Public
hearing, 14 July 2010, pages 25 to 27.
408
Public
hearing, 14 July 2010, page 41.
552