NATO Summit

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There has been good progress on that. The UN Security Council resolution on Iranian sanctions was helpful. The European Union went beyond that and introduced further sanctions. When you look around that room, with all those NATO partners and ISAF partners, you see that there is a pretty good consensus on the need for sanctions and the need to apply them properly. There is a conversation that we go on having with allies such as Turkey about the importance of not seeing any slippage in the sanctions. There are some early signs that they are having some effect on the Iranian regime, but we have to keep that up. As my hon. Friend says, we do not have many other weapons to force a change of mind on the Iranians. The sanctions are a weapon that we have, and we should use them to the best of our ability.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister not agree that the greatest causes of problems in this world are poverty, instability and the competition for resources? The NATO summit has set itself on a path of nuclearisation, a missile defence system and an alliance that includes virtually all the major industrial countries of the world. Should we not be looking in the other direction, towards peace, disarmament and a stable world based on those objectives, rather than towards vast expenditure on new nuclear weapons and missile defence?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me be clear about where I think the hon. Gentleman is right and where he is wrong. He is right that we should be doing more to tackle poverty the world over. That is one of the reasons why we have committed to spend 0.7% of our gross national income on aid. Britain has very effective aid programmes, and we should be encouraging other NATO allies to do the same. However, where he is wrong is to believe that all conflict and problems come from poverty. Some of the problem of Islamic extremism is related not to poverty but to ideology. We have to recognise that we have to confront and defeat that ideology.