Commonwealth Meeting and the Philippines

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It was right to take that stand and attend, and to stand up for the Commonwealth. Above all, it was an important meeting of a multilateral organisation in which we play an important part. I have been called quite a lot of things in recent days, but let me put it this way: those views are not always necessarily shared widely in the Cameron household.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has made much of the spotlight his visit has shone on human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. What do we make of the fact that not only was there no communiqué, but that in the final statement there was no mention of those human rights abuses, let alone an inquiry into them?

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, one of the strengths of the Commonwealth, but also the source of some of its trouble, is that it is an organisation based on consensus. If someone disagrees with a potential conclusion it is effectively struck out. It was not, therefore, possible to have everything in the communiqué that we wanted. Is there, however, pressure on the Sri Lankan Government to act, to reconcile and to sort these problems out? As I said, there is more pressure today than there has been for a while.