European Council

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Clearly, Ukraine needs to pay its bills, as well as paying its pensioners and funding its Government to ensure—[Interruption.] I know that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) misses the old days of the Soviet Union, but perhaps he will stop speaking from a sedentary position for five minutes. It is important that Ukraine pays its bills, and an IMF programme and IMF action can help that to happen.

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

Sometimes it is the weight of small diplomatic acts, as well as the large, that make a breakthrough that can help. Back in 2008, the Prime Minister, then the Leader of the Opposition, made the bold pledge to withdraw his MPs, as well as, I hope, the people who sit in the other place, from the European Democrat Group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, following the invasion of Georgia. Is it now right to think about membership of that group again, following the issues in Ukraine and Crimea?

[The Prime Minister]

It just shows that in politics, even if you give a straight answer to a straight question, you can still get the question again. I thought I said a minute ago that we have made sure that the Russians are out of the group that we sit in as part of the Council of Europe. We have taken that step, which is the right step. There may be steps for other political parties to think about taking now.