Aviation: Sharm el-Sheikh

Lord Stone of Blackheath Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I can assure my noble friend that we are mindful of the impacts that have been felt locally. As my noble friend will be aware from his recent visit, our officials from the DfT have been working very closely with the Egyptians on the ground. He mentioned other nations choosing to return flights. That is very much a matter for them, but I am minded of the fact that we are yet to see the final results of the inquiry that the Egyptians have conducted into the Metrojet crash. He will also be aware that the Russians, who were obviously involved directly in that inquiry, are also yet to report back, although they did provisionally say that the crash resulted from a terrorist attack on the plane.

[Lord Stone of Blackheath (Lab)]

My Lords, when I was at Marks & Spencer, we did not employ technologists who delighted in banning things because of risk; we employed people who had the creativity to find solutions. Are those responsible for banning these flights aware of the risk to British citizens of radicalising the 4 million people we are putting out of work in Egypt?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As a former Minister responsible for countering extremism, I can assure the noble Lord that we are very much cognisant of the challenges we face, not just on aviation security. We work very closely, here in the UK and abroad, to ensure that those challenges of counter-radicalisation can be met head on and are working with communities on the ground.