Syria

Antoinette Sandbach Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on securing this debate. A year ago virtually to the day, I was in Lebanon, and one of the purposes of my trip was to look at and learn about the impacts on Lebanon of the hospitality it had shown to refugees from Syria. I met many Syrian refugees, and we spoke to them through an interpreter. We can be very proud of this Government’s record in the region in supporting refugees from Syria.

It is clear, however, that we need broader action from other countries. In particular, we must put pressure on Russia to stop what it is doing in Syria. As we all know, that is what will lead to access for humanitarian aid. Moreover, if Russia told Assad to stop using chemical weapons, he would stop using them. They provide him with cover. They provide him with the excuse that enables him to do it.

I deeply regret the vote that took place in the House in 2013. I think that we opened the door by failing to act. I had not been elected then, but had I been, I would have voted for action. I support the Prime Minister’s action now, and I also support the idea that the Government must have the flexibility to act in a limited, proportionate and speedy way to deal with what was, in this instance, a very real threat.

Part of the international rules-based order concerns human rights, and the way to enforce that is through the International Criminal Court in the context of war crimes. The problem is that it takes years. We have all seen the cases involving Rwanda and Kosovo, and we know how long it has taken to secure justice in those cases. The fact is that, given this dreadful blight—this barbaric and horrific use of chemical weapons—we cannot afford to wait.

Justice will, I hope, come to all the commanders who have been involved in those decisions in Syria. I hope that very good records are being kept, but we know that, ironically, the Syrian Government are keeping their own records. In the words of Human Rights Watch, there has been

“a bureaucratic effort by the Syrian security apparatus to maintain a photographic record of the thousands who have died…since 2011”.

We have access to some of those records through defectors.

I support what the Prime Minister has done. I urge the House to make the effort to secure the evidence which, in the longer term, will lead to the prosecutions and convictions of Assad and the Russians who were on the ground acting as so-called advisers, who turn a blind eye to these breaches of international law, and who, I would argue, are complicit in encouraging them. That, in the longer term, is where we need to take action. However, I completely support the Prime Minister and the action that she took on Saturday.