EU Council, Security and Middle East

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

So far, the Americans have been leading on the air strikes and have not requested assistance from us, while we have been focused on those areas—aid, diplomacy, military assistance to some of the parties—where we can most add value, but, as I say, we should continually ask ourselves: what is in the national interest, how can we best help those on the ground and how can we not just work with our partners such as America, but help ensure that the Iraqi Government, the Kurdish Regional Government and neighbouring countries take the lead, rather than the west feeling it has to impose a solution.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I was the Opposition spokesperson on the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill. The Government’s two principal objections to control orders concerned the use of exclusion zones and relocation powers—the two things the Prime Minister now says that the security bodies need. To be fair to him, the deal on TPIMs was a sop to the Liberal Democrats, but will he ensure that the security bodies get the powers they require?

[The Prime Minister]

Although the hon. Gentleman clearly spent a lot of time on the Bill, he seems to have ignored one crucial point, which is that TPIMs include exclusion zones; I think it is the relocation powers he is referring to.