Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell told the Iraq Inquiry that Tony Blair should have informed the cabinet that the attorney general was worried the Iraq War was unlawful before the decision to commit troops had been made

“The ministerial code is very clear about the need, when the attorney general gives written advice; the full text of that advice should be attached [to cabinet papers],” he said.

Asked whether the cabinet should have seen documents from the attorney general suggesting that a second UN resolution was required, O’Donnell said: “That would be my view.”

The cabinet secretary said the former prime minister did not provide all the information because he didn’t feel the cabinet was a “safe space” and didn’t trust ministers not to leak to the press.

The prime minister was “reluctant” to hold cabinet meetings on Iraq because “he felt they would go public very quickly,” he said.

O’Donnell criticised Blair for not holding more formal, minuted meetings. “If you reduce the formality you do not have such good records. When you come to do an audit – as you are here – it is not as complete as any cabinet secretary would want it to be,” he said.

“By virtue of that, some of the people that are excluded from decisions can feel just that, excluded, and you don’t get the full contrib-ution of everyone to a joined-up decision.”

Speaking in an interview with Civil Service World, Lord Burns – who was permanent secretary of the Treasury from 1991 to 1998 – also criticised Labour’s style of governance. “The way in which work was carried out under the new government from 1997 onwards was much more difficult,” he said. “They brought their own people; they had a very different working style”.

He added that “much of the serious debate was taking place in private, whereas we’d previously been operating a system where much more of that debate would have take place around the chancellor’s table, with the permanent officials being present along with the special advisers.”

Written by Civil Service World