ISIL in Syria

Debate between Mark Pritchard and Angus Robertson

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Angus Robertson]

Let us get this right. The Prime Minister has been asked the question; the Foreign Secretary was given an opportunity to confirm the answer to the House; Members from the Government side were asked to answer the question and they have not—

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Angus Robertson]

I see another Member prepared to intervene, so let me accept that intervention if we are to get an answer to the question about the 70,000 non-Assad and non-Daesh forces in Syria. How many are moderate and how many are fundamentalist?

[Mark Pritchard]

The right hon. Gentleman is a clever man and rarely asks a question to which he does not know the answer. I put the question back to him: how many moderates does he think there are? He also seems to be tied up on the 70,000 and seems to have forgotten the Kurds in Syria, the several battalions of Syriac Christians and the Arabs in north and north-east Syria who will work with the Free Syrian Army to take on Daesh.

[Angus Robertson]

Anybody watching this debate and reading Hansard in future will be able to recognise that this question has been asked time and time again and that we have not had an answer—