Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Each asylum claim in Greece has to be considered according to international law and judged on that basis. The United Kingdom is giving strong financial and political support to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, which are bearing the brunt of supporting the very large numbers of refugees coming from Syria, including the Yazidi women about whom the hon. Lady is particularly concerned. She is right to be concerned about those people, but the best way to offer them the help they need is to ensure that the money that was promised at the recent London conference on Syria is provided to give them assistance in the first safe country they get to, rather than encouraging them to make a perilous journey across the Aegean sea in the hands of the people smugglers.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

3. What discussions he has had with other members of the international coalition on improving diplomatic co-ordination of steps to tackle Daesh.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

Britain has helped to create the global coalition against Daesh that now includes more than 60 countries. The last meeting of the smaller group of countries, which the Foreign Secretary and I attended, took place in Rome in January this year.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the Minister for his answer. As reports emerged of the genocide being committed by the Nazis, the allied Governments made a co-ordinated joint statement on 17 December 1942 to condemn those crimes and pledge to bring those responsible to justice at the end of hostilities. Does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree that co-ordinating a similar statement today would be appropriate, given the evidence of similar crimes being committed by Daesh against Christians and other religious minorities?

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful argument. The regular images on our screens confirm the scale and the barbarity of Daesh’s inhumane treatment of minorities. We are now witnessing systematic and horrific attacks against Christians, Yazidis and others, based on their religious beliefs or their ethnicity. I too believe that acts of genocide have taken place but, as the Prime Minister has said, genocide is a matter of legal rather than political interpretation. We as the Government are not the prosecutor, the judge or the jury. Such matters are determined first in the international courts and in the United Nations Security Council, but we are helping to gather evidence that could be used to hold Daesh to account appropriately.