Oral Answers to Questions
Callum McCaig Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Michael Fallon
We work with other countries in the region to co-ordinate efforts to manage the threat posed by the dispersal of foreign fighters from Iraq and Syria. Around 30,000 to 40,000 extremists from around the world have travelled to Syria and Iraq since 2011. Many will be killed in combat or will relocate to other Daesh-held areas. Our current assessment is that a large-scale dispersal is unlikely.
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
Sir Michael Fallon
Let me make it very clear that the Royal Air Force, in its precision air strikes, makes every effort to minimise the risk of civilian casualties. We work very closely with organisations such as Airwars. Where there are allegations that civilians have died as a result of coalition air strikes, we want those allegations fully investigated.
Oral Answers to Questions
Callum McCaig Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)
1. What plans his Department has to ensure future defence co-operation with allies and partners.
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
11. What plans his Department has to ensure future defence co-operation with allies and partners.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Michael Fallon)
I hope you will allow me, Mr Speaker, to add my tribute to Jo Cox and her work on behalf of the Syrian people, which she pressed very hard on and which must never be forgotten.
Our strategic defence review set out ambitious plans to strengthen our work with allies and partners to promote our security and prosperity. We will continue to lead in NATO, the G7 and the United Nations, and maintain strong and enduring relationships with the United States and our other friends and allies around the world.
Michael Fallon
The bedrock of our defence in the United Kingdom rests on NATO, and the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is committed to strengthening co-operation within NATO and collective defence across the alliance. We will be adding further reassurance to that at the NATO summit that is coming up in Warsaw the week after next.
Callum McCaig
What an utter shambles this is. I am afraid that that is not good enough from the Defence Secretary. We do not have a plan A for Brexit, let alone a plan B. The position of the Government and the Brexiters is confused. There is no plan on the table. Are we going to do a Norway? May I suggest to the Defence Secretary that we look at doing a Norway when it comes to defence, and we perhaps go for the opt-in that Norway has to EU defence schemes?
Michael Fallon
Norway remains and is a very valued member of the NATO alliance. We will be intensifying our co-operation with such countries. It is true that membership of the European Union complements our membership of NATO, and we are engaged in an EU operation in the central Mediterranean, continuing to save lives there and to disrupt the business model of the migrant smugglers from Libya to Europe. The Royal Navy will continue that task.
Oral Answers to Questions
Callum McCaig Excerpts(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Fallon
I look forward to my hon. Friend making his case on Friday. Let me be clear that expenditure from the defence budget is, of course, defence spending. It is not spent by any other Department. But it is in any case up to NATO to rule on what is eligible and what is not eligible.
Callum McCaig (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
14. What lessons his Department has learned from military action in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq which will inform a decision on possible UK military intervention in Syria.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
17. What lessons his Department has learned from military action in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq which will inform a decision on possible UK military intervention in Syria.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Michael Fallon)
The Department has conducted a number of lessons-learned exercises during and after military operations in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, in particular that military action needs to be set in the wider political context. In Syria, for example, the long-term solution to the current conflict, and to the presence of ISIL, has to be an acceptable political transition, and we continue to work to support this.
Callum McCaig
I welcome the commitment that any military action in Syria will be combined with efforts to rebuild the country. The Secretary of State said in an earlier answer that efforts are ongoing to build a consensus about taking military action in Syria. Can he give us some idea of the progress in building a consensus about rebuilding the country?
Michael Fallon
Yes. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and other leaders were recently in New York at the United Nations General Assembly pressing all their colleagues to search for a political solution that would enable the formation of a more comprehensive Government who would appeal to and attract from all parts of Syrian society, whether Kurdish, Shi’a, Sunni, Christian, Druze, or whatever. We have such a comprehensive Government in Iraq; it is time now to find one for Syria too.