Syria

Lord Walney Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The simple answer to his question is that a lot of these fields are in Syria. When we ask what more we can do to cut off sources of funds to ISIL, we would be enormously helped if we could take the action in Syria that I am proposing.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

While there are some who will set myriad preconditions that they know cannot be met realistically in the given timescale, there are nevertheless very legitimate questions. May I return the Prime Minister to the issue of Iraq? Will he have the courage to say that the Abadi Government are far from being a great improvement on their predecessor and that the political settlement in Iraq is broken, so that any long-term solution will come from the international community recognising that and placing a greater emphasis on rebuilding the capacity for the Sunni areas to govern for themselves?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is right. The situation in Iraq—and its Government—is fragile and needs a lot of extra work, although it is an improvement on what came before. Again, my argument would be that it is by engaging that we are able to bring about change. This debate is revealing that there are answers to all these questions. We raise questions about whether they are comprehensive enough, but there is no perfection when it comes to this issue. In the end, we can ask all the questions and try to answer them, and then we reach a point of decision. In my view, from everything that is emerging from this discussion, there are answers, but in the end we cannot dodge the decision.