The Chilcot Inquiry into the 2003 Iraq War will be published on Wednesday July 6, it was confirmed today.

The massive inquiry has been repeatedly delayed as the inquiry team waded through a mass of evidence and negotiated national security concerns.

National Security checking has now been completed on the 2.6 million word report and no redactions have been made.

Prime Minister David Cameron today said it was 'good news' the report was ready for publication.

But senior Tory David Davis, who has repeatedly called for early publication, blasted the July date as a 'disgrace'.

Sir John Chilcot's report will finally be published on Wednesday July 6 some seven years after it was first ordered by Gordon Brown

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Sir John said: 'National Security Checking of the Inquiry's report has now been completed, without the need for any redactions to appear in the text.

'I am grateful for the speed with which it was accomplished.'

He added: 'This will allow suitable time for the Inquiry to prepare the 2.6 million word report for publication, including final proof reading, formatting, printing and the steps required for electronic publication.'

In reply, Mr Cameron said: 'It is indeed good news that the national security checking process has been completed within two weeks and without the need for any redactions.

'I am also grateful to you for notifying me of your planned date for publication of 6 July.

'My officials stand ready to assist yours on the arrangements for publication.'

The inquiry was set up by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009 and examined the events from the summer of 2001, through the 2003 invasion, and until the withdrawal of British combat troops in 2009.

The inquiry took evidence from more than 150 witnesses, holding more than 130 sessions of oral evidence.

In addition, more than 150,000 government documents were scrutinised by the inquiry - including many previously classified papers.

The inquiry was tasked with identifying the decision taken across the crucial period and identifying and lessons to be learned from them.

Ex Prime Minister Tony Blair gave televised evidence to the inquiry, which examined his actions in the run up to and the aftermath of the controversial invasion

Rose Gentle, whose Royal Highland Fusilier son Gordon, 19, was killed in a bomb attack in Basra in 2004, said she was 'glad' the date had now been announced.

She said: 'We are glad we have finally got the date. We just hope that everything we want to be in it is actually in it.'

Mr Davis said: 'At last the families of those 179 British soldiers who died fighting for their country in Iraq will get some closure, and hopefully some measure of solace in the truth.

'They have waited long enough for the publication of this report, a wait that will finally come to an end.

But it is still a disgrace for the report to be delayed a further two months until after the EU referendum, just because the Government is worried about what impact the report may have on the referendum.

'It is ludicrous that it will take this long to proofread and typeset the report, given that it will already be in an electronic format, and has been pored over by many people for five years.

Tory David Davis said it was a 'disgrace' the report had been pushed back beyond the referendum

'By delaying publication until July, the Government is failing to uphold its responsibilities to those brave soldiers who died in the Iraq War, and to their families who have waited for more than six years for answers.'

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: 'I welcome the news that the Chilcot Report is to be published. Families of our armed forces and the public as a whole have had to wait too long for this inquiry to conclude, and there can now be no further delays in publication.

'The Iraq war was illegal and the biggest foreign policy disaster made by a British Government since the Suez. I am proud that Charles Kennedy and our party stood against the invasion in the face of huge opposition.

'I hope that this report is clear in its conclusions, and we learn from the lessons of this foreign policy catastrophe.'

Mr Cameron last week confirmed a further delay to the report, this time pushing it back beyond the EU referendum on June 23.

Senior MPs had demanded immediate publication once vetting was complete and insisted there was no reason to delay publication until the referendum.

The date of July 6 is likely to cause intense frustration among those who believe the report should have been published years ago.

One of the key reasons for the continued delays was thought to be the so-called Maxwellisation process - the legal practice where individuals due to be criticised in an official report are sent details of the criticism in advance to give them a right to reply before publication.

The long list of delays have heightened concerns that the final findings will be a 'whitewash' as key details could have been removed.

Reg Keys, whose 20-year-old son Lance Corporal Thomas Keys died in an ambush in Iraq in 2003, said an independent official must oversee the vetting process to ensure was not a 'whitewash'.

He told the Telegraph: 'There needs to be a referee almost – if someone says 'I am taking this out it needs to be shown to an independent person' otherwise it will be a whitewash, it will be sanitised.'