Lord Soames of Fletching
Main Page: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Soames of Fletching's debates with the Cabinet Office
(10 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
I shall be very brief.
First, I applaud the tone and measure of the Prime Minister’s speech to the House today. Secondly, I concur with almost everything that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said; he has successfully shot all my foxes. Therefore, I only want to say that in my time in this House the failures in our policy in the middle east, under all Governments, have been really serious. The lesson that we and this Government have learned needs to be highlighted today; it is that the diplomacy that has gone on ahead of the formation of this coalition has been magnificent. It is a new effort in bringing in our coalition partners in this effort—Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, the UAE and others—to take part in their fight. It is not the west’s fight; it is their fight, and we are in support of their efforts. It should be marked, and marked well, by the country that we are in support of an Arab coalition.
I endorse the point that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) made in his excellent speech about the need for further and greater intelligence capability on the ground. I am not party to decisions about that capability. I do not know—of course, correctly—what we have there already, but whatever we have, it is not enough. In all these operations, we need to know much more than we do about the immense intricacy and complication of the tribal structure, and the way that it works. In his admirable speech some time ago, the Chairman of the Defence Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), made these points very clearly indeed. Intelligence is the key to all future operations of this type.
I conclude by saying only that I, together with every other person in this House and in the wider country, wish good luck and safe return to our Tornado pilots, who I can assure the House will make a magnificent effort on our behalf.