Questioning styles

In his statement last week at the completion of four weeks of public hearings by the Iraq Inquiry, Sir John Chilcot said "We have not been trying to ambush witnesses or score points. This is a serious Inquiry. We are not here to provide public sport or entertainment. The whole point of our approach has been to get to the facts. We ask fair questions and we expect full and truthful answers .... witnesses have responded to this approach by being commendably open and candid."

Now, is there a glance in Sir John's comments at the questioning style of Select Committees? It has long been a subject for debate: does the aggressive style sometimes adopted by Committee members help or hinder the search for truth? Does browbeating a witness serve the cause of anything but the questioner's ego? And to what extent is it legitimate for Committees to treat oral hearings with central government witnesses in particular as a species of blood sport? Should the questioning style of some members (one thinks of Charles Wardle when on the Public Accounts Committee questioning witnesses about the passports fiasco of summer 1999, but there are many other examples) have been banned along with hunting with dogs?

On the other hand, the Iraq Inquiry itself has come under some criticism for a "too gentle" style of questioning - it was at least partly in response to these criticisms that Sir John made the remarks in his statement. The media certainly like to see witnesses given a hard time and the public also do not want to see them let off the hook.

There is of course a middle way - a style of questioning which is objective and challenging, polite but probing. It works best when the Committee are acting as a team. A good example was Clive Betts' question during the Communities and Local Government Committee's hearing on 14 December on Preventing Violent Extremism. He asked the academic witnesses in front of the Committee (I paraphrase) how he should have advised some young Muslim men who came to see him concerned about a mosque's role in radicalising young people unhelpfully. The question was not put aggressively, nor was Clive Betts trying to catch anyone out. It was just a very good - and a very difficult - question. In spite of back-up from the Chair and from another member, Clive Betts never did get a satisfactory answer to it.

A style of questioning which is genuinely challenging while being "fair" (to use Sir John Chilcot's word) is much more difficult to achieve than onlookers tend to think. While some Committee members manage it now, perhaps the cause of truth would be better served if those asking the questions on behalf of us all had more training and support to do so effectively.