Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Penny Mordaunt

Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I am pleased that the Secretary of State mentioned HMS Albion in an earlier answer. Does she recall that it is not that many months since her predecessor had to fend off moves to scrap HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark and to reduce the size of the Army by 11,000, the Royal Marines by 2,000 and the RAF by 1,250? Does she accept that there is a fight to be had with the real enemy here, and that is the Treasury?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I should declare an interest, as HMS Bulwark was the last ship I served on. I am very glad that she and Albion are still going. We are approaching a spending review, and I think we need to do more to tell the Treasury and the nation how much defence brings to this country—to the prosperity agenda, social mobility, research and development, innovation, and many other things. We need to tell that story because we need to keep our armed forces strong.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Penny Mordaunt

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis]

As a naval reservist herself, will the Secretary of State personally look into the removal of the captain of HMS Queen Elizabeth, apparently on the grounds of what might have been a misunderstanding about the use of a car supplied by the Ministry of Defence? If we lose talented people like this, surely it is not only unjust but a waste of all the investment made in someone’s 29-year unblemished career in the Royal Navy.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I can assure my right hon. Friend that I am fully aware of the situation and that I understand his concern when we have invested in an individual and they are unable to carry out the tasks for which they have trained. The officer remains within the Royal Navy and it is a matter for the Royal Navy to deal with, which it is doing.

Use of Torture Overseas

Debate between Julian Lewis and Penny Mordaunt

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

First, the change to the policy introduced in 2018 was an amendment at the request of the IPCO. As I say, it is only a short number of weeks before we will get the review back from the Commissioner, and the Government will be able to look at the recommendations made. I will look at this in the round, as Members would expect of a new Secretary of State coming into the Department, and I will update the House. I fully hear what all Members in all parts of the House are saying. I understand, and I hope the House has confidence in the fact that I understand, how critically important these issues are, for, as I say again, the safety of our own armed forces, as well as other people, and I will give this my urgent attention.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

If anyone ever tries to tempt the Secretary of State with the maxim that the end justifies the means, will she bear in mind the wise words of Sir Robert Thompson? He was probably the leading counter-insurgency expert of the 1960s and wrote about torture and other extrajudicial means:

“Not only is this morally wrong, but, over a period, it will create more practical difficulties for a government than it solves. A government which does not act in accordance with the law forfeits the right to be called a government and cannot then expect its people to obey the law.”

[Penny Mordaunt]

I quite agree with my right hon. Friend: it is absolutely fundamental to everything that we stand for and everything that our armed forces represent that we uphold the law, that we uphold international humanitarian law and that we abide by the rules. I could not agree with him more.

Syria

Debate between Julian Lewis and Penny Mordaunt

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for her warm words at the start of her response. We are doing many things to ensure that we and the international community have the funding we need to alleviate the immense suffering being endured by the Syrian people. The first part of our contribution is obviously asking others to lean in, so my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and I have been asking other nations to do that. We obviously heavily co-ordinate our efforts with UN agencies and with their asks. We are also leading the charge on reforming the humanitarian system. We lose about $1 billion a year globally because the system does not work efficiently, so if we can get it to work better, we will have more money to deploy where we need it.

We are also helping in other areas. To give one example, I was recently in Jordan looking at the costs of healthcare; particular prices must be paid for vaccines for refugees. We are looking at the specific cost issues for the countries that are shouldering an immense burden and at what we can do to try to alleviate those costs or to get more sensible pricing systems in place.

We are also working with the multilateral system; as the hon. Lady will know, the capital replenishment of the World Bank was a huge success for the UK’s development goals. That formed part of our desire to ensure that the countries that are shouldering burdens, specifically Jordan and Lebanon, have their contributions taken into account when decisions are being made. I am pleased to be working with the president of the World Bank and Bill Gates on being human capital champions and on ensuring that all multilaterals are making decisions about which nations are stepping up and not only funding their own people, but supporting refugees from other nations.

The hon. Lady mentioned the UN, and we all know about the problems we have with the Security Council and Russia’s veto. We must find other ways of working and to encourage people to come to the table, and we have to put pressure on Russia and Iran to play their parts in getting the situation resolved.

As for the air strikes, their purpose was to degrade and deter the use of chemical weapons, as the hon. Lady knows. The vast majority of Members across the House recognise why they were a good thing for the people of Syria, for our own safety and for trying to ensure international norms. One reason why we are not able to share information with the House in advance of such strikes is that we can only make the judgment to which she referred when we know what the targets are. We can only make a judgment about whether a strike will be legal, effective in its objective and compliant with our targeting policies if we know what the targets are, and we cannot share that information with the House for understandable reasons.

We have chosen to support millions in the region. We are taking a number of refugees into the UK, but we are supporting millions of individuals not just with the basics of life, but by trying to ensure that they have some kind of future, particularly with our investment in education. Since I became Secretary of State, I have set up several new groups with the Home Office, both recently and last year, to consider issues in which there is Home Office interest, including the administration of the situation of refugees. For example, if people caught up in the Rohingya crisis have relatives here, we are trying to be proactive and to ensure that we are doing everything we can to get sensible things to happen.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I must express disappointment that, while rightly damning the monsters in the Syrian Government, my right hon. Friend still has nothing to say about the maniacs—the jihadists—who lead most of the armed opposition. Can she tell us whether this aid will be supplied only to displaced Syrians outside Syria or, if it will be supplied to Syrians within Syrian territory, whether it will be supplied to Assad-controlled territory, to territory controlled by the armed jihadist opposition or to territory controlled by the only people we have ever been able to support militarily—the Kurdish-led Syrian democratic forces? Those forces are currently under attack from Turkey, which she has just described as one of our friends in the region.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Turkey is a key NATO ally—I hope my right hon. Friend would want me to describe it as such—and it is supporting an enormous number of refugees. I very much understand his concern on this issue. The way we distribute aid is based on need, and we obviously have protections to ensure it is distributed as it should be. The main obstacle to that happening is access to particular areas, but aid is not being given to terrorist groups and it is not being abused in that way.

Most of the armed opposition are now dead. Back when we had the vote on the Floor of the House in 2013, there were 12 groups that nobody could describe as extremists or terrorists, and they were the best hope for a peaceful and good outcome to this situation. We are now faced with a situation in which Assad will continue his campaign, despite no restrictions being put on negotiations by the opposition groups. The only peaceful outcome in Syria will be with the consent of all parties, which I am afraid does not point to Assad remaining there.

Counter-Daesh Update

Debate between Julian Lewis and Penny Mordaunt

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

On behalf of all in this House, may I say that our thoughts are very much with Ms Campbell’s family at this incredibly difficult time. I am sure hon. Members will have heard her father’s incredibly moving tribute to her—she was an inspirational young woman. Obviously, we cannot provide consular support in Syria, but we are in touch with the family and will do everything we can to be of service to them, including in trying to repatriate Anna’s body. This is a very difficult situation, but I reassure all hon. Members that we are in touch and will do everything we can to bring her home.

On the wider issue of Afrin, we recognise Turkey’s legitimate security concerns, but we would support de-escalation of the situation. It is vital that we continue to defeat Daesh and that we continue to have greater stability in the area so that we can move to a political process, which is the only way this horrendous war will end. The indirect effect of what Turkey is doing is to remove fighting resource from the Euphrates valley area, which is clearly not beneficial to the coalition’s efforts in defeating Daesh.

I apologise to the House for the length of my statement, but I wanted to get on record some of the humanitarian atrocities that have taken place since the Foreign Secretary’s statement last year. The activities in eastern Ghouta are particularly shocking. The Foreign Office and DFID have made a continual combined effort to get access, whether it be for aid convoys or for the medical evacuation of casualties, particularly to remove children from the area. Despite the agreements, and despite the opportunities we were told they would be given, the partners we are working with on the ground have found it incredibly difficult to do that—one aid convoy was shelled after being given permission to go in.

We will continue to press for full humanitarian access to eastern Ghouta, and we are also looking at other areas of Syria that may be about to suffer a similar fate. We are trying to ensure that we do everything we can to protect civilians.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is a personal friend of mine, so I do not mean this in any way to reflect on her abilities, but I am surprised that a statement with so much military content is not being made by a Defence Minister and that we do not appear to have a Defence Minister present on the Front Bench. She will forgive me if I ask some defence-oriented questions.

First, can the Secretary of State confirm that the vast majority of the large number of RAF sorties have been in Iraq, rather than Syria, because there were few forces on the ground in Syria, other than the Kurds, whom we felt we could support? Secondly, does she recognise that the opposition in Syria, with the exception of the Kurds, has been dominated from beginning to end by Islamists, although they are not all from Daesh? Finally, will she acknowledge that we need a realistic strategy whereby we get away from demanding a political settlement when, in reality, our only allies in Syria—the Kurds—are now being attacked by a fellow member of NATO, namely Turkey?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I will do my best to answer the defence matters raised by my right hon. Friend. The key Departments involved in our efforts take it in turns to deliver an update to the House. No disrespect is meant to him or to the House by there not being a Defence Minister at the Dispatch Box. As the Government’s humanitarian lead, I am taking this opportunity to focus on the humanitarian atrocities that have been committed.

I can confirm to my right hon. Friend that the vast majority of airstrikes have been in Iraq—1,362 airstrikes have taken place—which is largely due to the nature of the campaign. The campaign has differed at different stages, from having a named target when an aircraft takes off to carrying out more opportunist surveillance and not having a target as the aircraft gets airborne—that is how the campaign unfolded, as opposed to the factor he mentioned.

We remain concerned that Afrin is indirectly diverting resource away from the main effort against Daesh, and I confirm that we still believe that a political settlement is the only way forward.