Tunisia, and European Council

Amanda Solloway Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for her remarks and for the way in which she made them. She was generous and right to thank the FCO staff and all the others who have been working round the clock. These are difficult events to respond to, but I really do believe that the people who work so hard to co-ordinate the response in Britain do a very good job.

The right hon. and learned Lady was right to draw on the experience of 7/7. She spoke about the good work of people such as Tessa Jowell in thinking about how best to commemorate and mark such events, and that work needs to be repeated. She asked about a dedicated taskforce. At the moment, there is very much a Foreign Office taskforce, along with terrorism experts, the police and others. There will come a moment when we want to bring in Ministers from other Departments, perhaps including the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to ensure that we get these things right.

I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for singling out the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), with his experience of the Bali bomb. He is talking to victims and families as we speak, and I think that he should play a prominent role in making sure that, as a country, we get the response right.

The right hon. and learned Lady asked what we should do to strengthen security in Tunisia. The answer is that it covers the whole spectrum from the detailed work of making sure that hotels have the necessary security screening and capacity in place, all the way through to working with the Tunisian intelligence and security services to ensure that they have an intelligence-led model of policing, as we have in this country, so that they can work out where the next threat is coming from and try to get ahead of it.

It is absolutely right for us to help the economies of Tunisia and other countries in north Africa, which links to what the right hon. and learned Lady said about international efforts. Following the Arab spring, there was a partnership with north African countries. Some good progress was made in spending aid money to help those countries, but there is more that we need to do. Given the security threat and the risks that we face, not least the problems of the migration crisis, I think that there is a case for using our aid budget in a more co-ordinated way with others in Europe to drive change and economic success in north African countries.

The right hon. and learned Lady asked about international efforts. We also need to ensure at the European level that we pass measures such as the passenger name record directive, so that we can co-operate better in fighting terrorism.

I am grateful for what the right hon. and learned Lady said about the need to fight the ideology, as she put it, and to confront those who go along with the narrative. I think that that is absolutely right. The more cross-party unity we can have on that message, the stronger I think it will be. We will certainly consider what more we can do to back up teachers, community leaders and others, and, as I said on the radio this morning, I am happy to co-operate and work with leaders across Muslim communities, but they should be people who want to back the basic values of tolerance and democracy that we hold dear in this country.

The right hon. and learned Lady mentioned Greece. I shall leave most of that to the Chancellor, who will make a statement immediately after this.

On migration, let me reassure the right hon. and learned Lady and the House that we will continue to have the capacity in the Mediterranean, with HMS Enterprise, to save lives. We will offer, and have already offered, to help southern European countries to process asylum seekers. I think that the only difference between us is this. We are drawing a distinction between resettling the most vulnerable refugees who are outside the European Union, for instance in Syrian refugee camps, for whom we think Britain can do more and—this is where I think the European Union is potentially heading down the wrong track—a relocation programme for migrants who are already within the European Union. I worry that such a programme would be counter-productive, and that, as I said earlier, it would reinforce the smugglers’ model of getting people here in the first place. There is a disagreement with others in Europe about that. They will be going ahead with their plans, but I think that what we should be doing is helping with the resettlement, and also pointing out that our asylum system has already given asylum to many people from the most vulnerable areas of the world, and continues to do so.

The right hon. and learned Lady asked about treaty changes and keeping Parliament informed. Yes, of course I will do that. What matters when it comes to changing the treaties is making sure that there is agreement on the substance of the changes that we seek, which, of course, will involve treaty change. That is what matters, and that is what we hope to achieve.

I very much agree with the right hon. and learned Lady’s final observation that we should work together with others in Europe and, indeed, around the world, because these challenges are shared challenges.

[Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)]

Following the awful events in Tunisia, which resulted in the dreadful and untimely death of one of my constituents, Scott Chalkley, may I ask what assurances my right hon. Friend can give me that he will do everything that he can to prevent such attacks from ever happening again?

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me send my sympathies and condolences to my hon. Friend’s constituents. There will be many tragic stories about what happened on that beach and in that hotel, and people will be coming to terms with it for years to come.

No country in the world is free of the risk of terrorism, but we must do everything that we can to combat this threat, along with our partners around the world. That may involve very technical measures that we should take at, for instance, hotels and police stations, or very high-profile, high-value work with Governments, but we should commit ourselves to doing all that we can. As I have said, this will be the struggle of our generation.