Aviation Security

Debate between Keith Vaz and Lord McLoughlin

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I do not think there is any desire on anybody’s part to dissemble or cover up, because others are also involved in the investigation—the Irish, for instance, because that is where the plane was originally registered. This is not just being investigated by one party; there are much wider investigations.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

This is of course the right decision, but it has parallels with what happened in Tunisia, where the advice was that people should not travel there. They are two hugely popular destinations; 1 million British citizens visit Tunisia or Sharm el-Sheikh. As colleagues have said, this will have devastating consequences for the economies of those two countries. It was a Russian plane with Russian citizens and the right hon. Gentleman has not mentioned what Russia is doing. This is a big opportunity for Russia, the United States and Great Britain to work together to try to find out what happened and to deal with those responsible.

[Mr McLoughlin]

The right hon. Gentleman makes several good observations. It is the Prime Minister’s intention to speak to President Putin this afternoon—that call is going to take place. The right hon. Gentleman is obviously right to say that people who try to do these things to aircraft put all Governments under a huge amount of stress and pressure, but we have to take the right decisions to protect our citizens.