Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

None. How do we— [Interruption.] Well, look. I am trying to be— [Interruption.] I see the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) waving her arms. I have already made the point, as the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) would know if he had been listening to what I have been saying, that I do not expect the Government to have to share intelligence information with Members of Parliament. Let me also be clear, for the absence of doubt: I accept the case that has been put that the Syrian regime is responsible for the chemical weapons attack. I am happy with the explanation that has been given, and, in my case, I have been made aware of some of the intelligence information.

Let us not say that Parliament cannot take action on the basis of being told what it can be told. But it does not need to be told what is sensitive intelligence information. That is the way Parliament has worked, and we are asking that parliamentary democracy continues to take place.

Taking military action is not easy; we accept that. Finding a way through the morass in Syria and offering hope to the people is more difficult, but that is an issue that, as part of any plan for military action, has to be discussed.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

rose—

[Ian Blackford]

I happily give way to my learned friend.

[Mr Grieve]

Is there not this difficulty? If we in the House seek to debate, in anticipation, a military action that is of a high level of specificity, in reality, where the Government cannot explain the specifics, we will be in considerable difficulty having a sensible debate on that subject. Let us look at this realistically. That is in fact one of the issues that has to be addressed. I hope I may have a chance to speak about that later.

[Ian Blackford]

I am grateful for that intervention, but no one is asking for the Government to be specific to that degree about the action being proposed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have just said that these Christian leaders are under great pressure from the Assad regime to toe the party line, as it were, but the fact is that their responsibility is to protect their own communities, which are under unprecedented pressure. We have to take some account of the pressure on Christian communities.

Last week, when the Vatican all-party group was in Rome, we had a meeting on persecuted Christians in Syria. We met every single expert from the refugee services and from all around the world who look into this issue, and they all told us that bombing was a dangerous thing to do with regard to opinion in the middle east and pressure from Muslims on the remaining Christian communities. I was struck when the representative of the Catholic Church in Pakistan said that the Catholic communities there would get it in the neck even more because, unfairly, so many Muslims do not differentiate between Russian bombs, American bombs, French bombs and British bombs. They say that the misery in Syria has been caused by foreign Christian powers raining bombs on their communities. That might be an unfair point of view, but it is generally held in the middle east.

This point has not been made by anybody else in the debate so far: I accept that the Government were right to act, and that they have powers under the royal prerogative to act, but I do not believe that we should pursue any more our objective of trying to change the Assad regime. If we then do act for humanitarian reasons—if we intervene to deter a possible chemical attack—we will have much more credibility in the middle east, because we would not be seen to be taking sides. That is the way forward.

[Mr Grieve]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Unfortunately I cannot give way because I am running out of time.

I have agreed with my right hon. and learned Friend, but I hope that when we debate these matters in future, we will remember this and avoid all hypocrisy. The fact is that as much as we detest Assad and as much as he is a dictator, none of us, as Christians, would want to live in an area of Syria that was outside Assad’s control, because he would protect us. That is a difficult thing to say in Parliament and not everybody will agree with it, but I have to say what I have to say.