Yesterday’s report that the MoD is still rebuffing the case for a public inquiry into the deaths of four young army recruits at Deepcut barracks in Surrey, all found dead with gunshot wounds, raises again the critical question of who should have the final power of enforcing an inquiry into a contested issue that has national implications. In the case of 3 of the deaths, the coroners recorded open verdicts, and in the 4th no inquest was held. In one of the cases an independent ballistic expert has asserted that it would have been impossible for the recruit to have killed himself. Army Board of Inquiry reports found Deepcut barracks was starved of resources, had low morale, allowed armed teenage recruits to spend many hours on guard duty unsupervised, and was so indisciplined that recruits broke rules by going out on patrol alone. All these findings might have relevance to the 4 deaths. In addition, the latest report states that an NCO took a ‘warm’ weapon (i.e. a gun just used) from another soldier, which had not been known before, and equally could be very relevant. So should the Government have the right to turn down the inquiry which all the parents want and for which there is a strong prima facie case?

If there is one overriding positive lesson arising from the miasma over MPs’ expenses, it is the necessity for transparency and accountability. The same should apply even more so to the activities of the State, particularly when they involve the direst consequences – deaths, economic or financial collapse, gross incompetence or negligence, collusion in immoral or corrupt practices, etc. Deepcut clearly falls into this category, but is by no means unique. Public inquiries have been sought in recent years into possible British involvement in extraordinary rendition, the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, the Gulf War syndrome from 1991, the contaminated blood scandal infacting haemophiliacs with hepatitis C, and many others. In every case it has been turned down by Government who are in effect blocking investigation into their own activities, and that is the opposite of transparency and accountability.
Accountability can only operate properly when it is undertaken by a wholly independent and separate body. As we have all seen bittelry, MPs cannot be trusted to oversee their own expenses. Nor can the the police be relied on wholeheartedly to deal fully and openly with complaints made against them. Nor can the Government be left to decide whether inquiry into its own conduct, based on significant prima facie evidence of possible wrongdoing, let alone be left to decide who shall undertake any inquiry that is in the end held – caveat the two inquiries finally launched extremely reluctantly into the Iraq War where both the chair, membership and terms of reference were very carefully managed by No.10. The lesson of Deepcut, the latest in a long line, is that the decision should lie with Parliament, not the Executive, setting up its own Commission of Inquiry when Government for whatever reason refuses to do so.

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