Welcome for 'thorough' Hutton probe

Dr Kelly's funeral is on 6 August

The Hutton inquiry into the tragic death of Dr David Kelly has been welcomed as an opportunity to have a "thorough" look at the circumstances of the apparent suicide of the weapons expert.

Tory home affairs spokesman Oliver Letwin said he hoped the inquiry would be probing enough to establish how the government used intelligence to make the case for war with Iraq.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy meanwhile said that it was clear from Lord Hutton's opening comments that the top judge would leave no stone unturned.

And Tory MP Richard Ottaway - who sits on the Commons committee that quizzed Dr Kelly - said it was important not to underestimate just how high the political stakes were in this inquiry.

Lord Hutton used the first session of the inquiry to outline his approach saying that he wanted to call a large number of witnesses from the prime minister down.

He also said he wanted to see any official paperwork recording conversations about the role Dr Kelly had played in talking to journalists over his concerns over the way the case for war was being presented.

Source of leak

One of the major issues is the desire to establish just who leaked Dr Kelly's name to a number of journalists just before he died.

Lord Hutton is chairing the inquiry into Dr Kelly's death

A BBC spokesman said: "We welcome the clarification of the scope of the inquiry and will continue to offer all the assistance that we can."

Mr Letwin told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme: "[The inquiry] will clearly go deep and in going deep I hope it will also go wide enough to begin to give everybody a clearer idea of the way in which the government handled the presentation of intelligence material.

"The issue here ... is how intelligence material was presented.

"That is not the question he is asking but I think in the course of answering the question he is asking I think he may very well cast considerable light on that question."

Mr Kennedy - who had earlier called on Lord Hutton to reassert his independence - welcomed the fact the law lord had "made it clear he intends to be his own man".

"It is clear that Lord Hutton is determined to ensure that no stone is left unturned, and that no individual can claim to have been unfairly treated, in undertaking his investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly.

Mr Blair is going to be one of the witnesses

"In order to meet these two criteria it is equally apparent that he has no intention of being forced to rush to judgment."

He added: "The questions which are already beginning to arise ... inevitably point to some kind of outcome which will allow a much better informed judgment of the efficacy upon which this war was conducted."

Mr Ottaway argued the "Ministry of Defence shouldn't have revealed they had a source in the first place let alone who that source was".

He said: "The political stakes are at the highest level and its important not to underestimate that which is why everyone in the government is going to take this inquiry very seriously indeed."