Algeria

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Friday 18th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Cobra brings together officials from across government, the Ministry of Defence, our armed forces, the police and the security services, and it can meet on an almost rolling basis in terms of bringing the latest information and intelligence to bear. It meets under official guise very regularly. I have chaired three Cobra meetings so far during this crisis, and there will be another one later today to bring together the latest intelligence and information. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those in the British Government who have been working round the clock to try and get the latest information so that the right decisions can be made.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

To what extent does the intelligence confirm the supposition that the planning for this appalling atrocity must have long predated the French incursion into Mali last week?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend asks an important question. It is difficult to give a certain answer, but given the scale of the terrorist attack on this gas installation in Algeria, the number of people involved and the sophistication of the weapons used, it looks like it was some time in the planning. As I have said, however, it would be ill-thought through to say, even if there was a connection with Mali, that we are wrong to help roll back terrorist advances in Mali because it might threaten us elsewhere. That is entirely wrong-headed thinking. We should be in favour of rolling back terrorist advances in Mali because it will help make us safer elsewhere as we squeeze the ungoverned space and recognise that these terrorists should have no place to hide.