Waiting is almost over

The report comes 15 weeks after the last witness gave evidence

Lord Hutton will give his verdict just after midday on the events leading up to the death of the weapons expert Dr David Kelly.

The leading players already know what's in the report - they were given copies yesterday. One newspaper claims the contents have already been leaked.

Lord Hutton will make the report public at 01.30pm on Wednesday, but not before it has been delivered to parliament.

Click here for the Hutton Inquiry website.

Click here for a full indepth report.

Breakfast gave you a comprehensive programme with a star cast list.

Our political correspondent Jo Coburn brought us the latest from Downing Street. She spoke about today's timetable and how the key players would fare.

The BBC's June Kelly was live at The BBC's Broadcasting House looking ahead to how the corporation might fair. June said the BBC collected everyone's notes from preparing At stake is the BBC's reporting and editorial controls. Also the BBC Governors will have been scrutinised as to how they maintained the viewers and listeners' interests.

Lance Price, Alastair Campbell's former deputy and BBC correspondent told us the leak was extremely regrettable:

Lance Price: " Leak extremely regrettable."

Hutton has gone to enormous length to protect his report, an investigation would not be a bad thing. I would be astonished if anyone in Downing Street would have done this, if Cavanaugh's pickings are right, leak does not serve Government's interest. There will be criticisms on all sides, the BBC, Gilligan's journalism, DG, the Government and David Kelly. Alistair Campbell is confident that he behaved properly, the fact that he is back is perfectly natural as he knows all the details regarding the Government's involvement. He will probably be helping the Government in its re-election battle.

The BBC's Media Correspondent Nick Higham asked what's at stake for the BBC when the report is published.

We discussed this with Richard Ayre who is a former executive in BBC News. He said the BBC is expecting to be criticised:

The BBC admitted it made mistakes. The first being Andrew Gilligan's report based on Gilligan's own interpretation. The BBC admitted Gilligan's report should have been checked higher up. Also that the Today programme should have contacted Downing Street the night before to give the Government a chance to respond. Gilligan got a good story, there is no doubt the dossier was changed, the problem was the 45 minutes claim which was not substantiated. The BBC has pre-empted criticisms, it now has a complaints procedure and a deputy DG in place.

The BBC's Political Correspondent Shaun Ley looked at what the report might mean for the government.

We spoke to Jack Cunningham MP, a former Labour cabinet minister, who has seen many political ups and downs:

The Sun has said the leaks are not from the BBC, or the Government. We should take that as fact. Howard has a big chance of having egg on his face, he should not have attacked the honesty and integrity of the PM.

"We should remain calm, cool and collected."

The former Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, who resigned over the government's policy on Iraq, joined us from Westminster. He said Sun's pickings are not the full picture:

We should remain calm, cool and collected. The opposition are having a fair stab at Hutton report. Six hours before it is made public is fair. My job of having to prepare the opposition response based on seeing the Scott Report just 3 hours before publication was a different kettle of fish.

The Conservative deputy leader, Michael Ancram responded to the leak of the report. He said the leak has all the hallmarks of a Government spin.

We want an inquiry. It is always the way of the Government to respond after a spin has been put forward. I'm reserving judgements for our response. I think there are more questions to answer. These are to do with the way the Government has responded to previous dossiers.

Coverage continued with a discussion in the Breakfast studio featuring Sir Michael Quinlan, former permanent secretary at the MOD, and Stewart Purvis, former Editor in Chief at ITN.

They looked at some of the issues surrounding investigative journalism.

The BBC's role in the affair

It's not only the government which stands to be criticised by Lord Hutton, the BBC could be given a hard time for its involvement.

In the BBC's defence Greg Dyke did admit to the inquiry that errors of judgment were made in the handling of the crisis.

The BBC is facing a potential crisis that could make it look incompetent or loses its position of trust which could affect Charter renewal.

However, the Corporation has acted to prevent a similar situation arising. It has banned journalists from writing newspaper columns and employed a Deputy Director General to make sure a similar scenario does not happen again.

You can also find more in depth analysis on this story from the links on the right of this page