Chilcot Report will not be published until after election

The Iraq Inquiry’s final report will not be published until after the election, it has been confirmed. It is now six years since the inquiry began, and four years since the last evidence was submitted via open session.

Last year, it emerged that the report has stalled at the ‘Maxwellisation’ stage – the lengthy legal process by which individuals are criticised are informed, and are able to respond. It was also reported at the time that civil servants were concerned with the political implications of publishing the report in the months before an election.

According to a Whitehall source in the Daily Mail, the ‘Maxwellisation’ is still where the report is at:

“It’s off till after the election. It’s all about the letters that have gone out to those who are to be criticised and their opportunity to respond in detail.

“With the best will in the world, this can’t be published in the middle of an election campaign, and there was no indication it would anyway be ready.”

Some newspapers are reporting that Tony Blair is insistent he is not the cause of the delay.

David Cameron is said to be “frustrated” with the delay, and correspondence between him at Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry’s chair, is expected to be published later today.

Nick Clegg, meanwhile, has already published the letter he has sent to Chilcot, in which he warns that “there is a real danger the public will assume the report is being ‘sexed down’ by individuals rebutting criticisms put to them by the Inquiry, whether that is the case or not”.

Labour leader Ed Miliband has not yet commented on the hold up.