EU Council, Security and Middle East

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I welcome this question and congratulate my hon. Friend on his election to head up the important Select Committee on Defence in this House. Many of his suggestions will be directly addressed at the NATO conference. I think it is very important that when Russia looks at countries like Estonia, Latvia or Poland, it sees not just Estonian, Latvian and Polish soldiers but French, German and British soldiers, too. We need to make real our article 5 commitments, and that is very important. We have already taken steps to help with Baltic air patrolling, for instance, which has been gratefully received by the countries concerned.

As for defence spending, I am proud of the fact that we are one of the very few countries in Europe—two at the last count, I think—to meet the 2% figure for defence spending, and we should use the conference in Cardiff to urge others to do the same.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Is the Prime Minister aware that his words would be much more credible if his view and reading of history were as good as all the stuff—the garbage—he trots out? Namely, 12 months ago this Prime Minister stood at that Dispatch Box and tried to get the House of Commons to join him to help and arm the ISIL guerrillas against Assad. Had it not been for the Labour party, he would have been trapped on this hook. He wants to get on his hands and knees and thank the Labour party for not taking Britain down that route.

[The Prime Minister]

My memory of the discussions we had a year ago is that they were about the use of chemical weapons. My reading of history is that the use of chemical weapons is wrong and we should not turn away from it.