National Security and Defence

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to focus on this issue. The fact is that we need to see more development, more growth, more jobs and employment in Africa, and Europe can have a real influence on that—not only through aid programmes, which can make a difference, but by making sure that there are fair trade arrangements in place not just between African countries and Europe but between African countries themselves. We have done a lot of work to promote intra-African trade because creating those sorts of markets, which ECOWAS is trying to do, will make a huge difference to the lives of people on that continent.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

May I welcome the Prime Minister’s spending commitments on defence and overseas development, and ask him to ensure that in his statement on Thursday, he sets out how both will be used to take immediate action against ISIL and plan for the long-term reconstruction that Syria so desperately needs?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me pay tribute to the hon. Lady, who was arguing for increases in defence spending earlier this year. She was absolutely right about that. She is also right that we need to combine our overseas aid budget with our defence budget, because it is equally important to make sure that we build security, governance and systems through which countries can see that their countries are working for them. We will not solve the problem in Syria through missiles and bombs alone; it has to be solved by helping the Syrian people to have a Government and a country in which they can put their trust.