Lord Bellingham
Main Page: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bellingham's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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The whole House would endorse that. The answer is yes, it is for the Iraqi Government to lead on that. This is an Iraqi operation, but my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made it clear in New York recently that we will be looking for sufficient evidence to indict in some form or other the leaders of this barbarism in recent years and see that they are held properly to account. With other countries in the coalition, we are also looking to see how we will treat our own foreign fighters who may be detained and potentially returned to this country, to make sure that they, too, are held to account for any crimes that they may have committed.
Further to the question from the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), does the Defence Secretary agree that there is a need for specialist UK input into investigating those crimes, which are utterly horrendous?
I will certainly look at that. We have specialist expertise in this country, as my hon. Friend probably knows better than anybody, and the Iraqi Government are aware that they can call on that expertise, but I will remind them of it.