Counter-terrorism

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think there are bilateral actions that Britain, as an old and successful democracy, should take and links that we should make, such as updating the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, as we have discussed in this House before. However, the biggest step would be for the European Union radically to overhaul its programme of help and assistance to north African and middle eastern neighbours and countries. Frankly, its programme up to now has been quite expensive—there is no shortage of money being spent—but it has not been successful in putting in place those building blocks of democracy. That is what we should be working on.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is imperative to provide every possible military, diplomatic and development assistance to Pakistan, not only to build democracy in the longer term, but to help to improve security in the shorter term, which is inextricably linked with a successful exit strategy from Afghanistan?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree that we need to build those links. Clearly there has to be a two-way relationship: we must not be too transactional about it, but we need to be clear with the Pakistanis about what we hope to gain from the partnership that we enter into. Clearly, work on counter-terrorism is vital to Britain’s national interest, but we are prepared to do a huge amount with Pakistan to help with matters such as the education of children. There are 17 million children in Pakistan not at school today. If we want to keep them away from extremism and, indeed, if we want to deal with problems of migration as well, it makes sense for us to continue our aid programme.