Britain in the World

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I want to build on the point that I have made to the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). In 2010 we inherited a hollowed-out system, with public finances that were on the brink of collapse after years of overspending and over-borrowing, and the largest peacetime deficit in this country’s history.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

It was one of the many things that were desperately lacking. I was a little surprised by the comments of the other Miliband—the former Foreign Secretary—last week, because they read like the comments of a man who has never been inside the Foreign Office and has no recollection of the damage that the previous Labour Government did to our foreign policy and its instruments.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

rose—

[Jonathan Ashworth]

rose—

[Mr Hammond]

I want to make a little more progress and then I will give way.

In the face of continuous opposition from Labour, we chose to tackle Britain’s problems in 2010, not paper over them with more borrowed money. We chose growth over recession, jobs over welfare, strength over weakness, and influence over decline. We stuck to our pledge to meet the United Nations target for development aid and committed to ensuring it was used to complement our global objectives. We are rebuilding Britain’s economy to be among the most dynamic in the developed world, with the fastest rate of growth in the G7 last year and the fastest rate of job creation in the European Union, earning the respect that underpins our role as a player on the world stage.

Let us not forget, and let us not allow others to airbrush out, the situation we inherited and the tough decisions we had to take. Armed forces had been sent into battle in Afghanistan without the protective vehicles, body armour and helicopter lift they needed to keep them safe. Under Labour’s stewardship, the Foreign Office had shut down over 30 diplomatic missions, ignored trade and investment opportunities around the world, and neglected vital relationships, including those with some of our closest allies—a neglect exemplified by the fact that during the entirety of Labour’s 13 years in office no Labour Foreign Secretary set foot in Australia, one of our closest allies.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

In the Foreign Secretary’s report on foreign policy worldwide, he failed to mention the situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis. How far down the road to progress have we got on that?

[Mr Hammond]

Not nearly far enough. The Israeli election process and the process of forming a Government—the initiative that had started last year—has stalled, and now there is a common consensus among those most concerned with this issue that we have to complete the sensitive Iran nuclear negotiations before trying to kick-start the middle east peace process again. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise this because it lies at the root of so many of the other challenges that we face in the region, and we absolutely have to return to it over the course of this summer.