The Hutton inquiry: week one

The inquiry is shedding light on the way Dr. Kelly's name was made public

In a BBC HARDtalk interview broadcast on 18 August, Tim Sebastian speaks to Eric Joyce, Labour Party backbencher, and Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' spokesman on Foreign Affairs, about the first week of the Hutton inquiry, set up to investigate the death of government scientist Dr. Kelly..

Click here to watch the full interview

In its first week the inquiry heard evidence from representatives of the BBC and civil servants from the Ministry of Defence.

The testimonies shed light on the nature of Dr. Kelly's relationship to BBC journalists, and the way Dr. Kelly's name was first made public.

Dr. Kelly's name appeared in the press on 9 July as a possible source for leaks to journalists, a day before the scientist was summoned before the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Menzies Campbell said that the inquiry still needed to identify who exactly "outed" Dr. Kelly.

He said it needed to be established "what role if any Number 10 Downing Street played putting Kelly before the Foreign Affairs Committee".

Eric Joyce defended the decision to make Kelly's name public.

It would have got into the public domain in any case, he said.

He also said that there was a "genuine concern that there was potentially a significant security breach and clearly it's got to be the responsibility of the authorities to investigate that breach."

But according to Menzies Campbell it remains unclear why Kelly was not simply subjected to an "internal disciplinary procedure" within the civil service.

Scope of enquiry

In his opening remarks on 1 August, Lord Hutton set out a 38 point chronology for his inquiry.

The inquiry is only meant to investigate the cause of Dr. Kelly's death, but some are hoping it will broaden its scope to examine the way that intelligence was handled by the government in the run-up to war in Iraq.

Menzies Campbell said that judging by the opening week of the inquiry it appears Lord Hutton will not deal with these wider issues.

But he said that Alastair Campbell is still "not off the hook" and will be the "fulcrum" of the inquiry in its second week.

He said that the BBC has now "laid bare its soul" to Lord Hutton, not least by revealing its internal memoranda and emails.

Now he says it time for the government to "lay bare some of the workings of Downing Street which have never previously been subject to that kind of scrutiny."

HARDtalk can be seen on BBC World at 03:30 GMT, 08:30 GMT, 11:30 GMT, 15:30 GMT, 18:30 GMT and 22:30 GMT.

It can also be seen on BBC News 24 at 03:30 and 23:30