EU Council, Security and Middle East

Lord Wharton of Yarm Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We do work through Muslim and other organisations, and we should do so. We did make changes to Prevent, not least because, when we reviewed it, we believed that some of the funded organisations were not confronting the problems of extremism. That needed to change.

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

I was in Kiev on Saturday and heard at first hand about some of the challenges that Ukraine faces. Villagers there are banding together to buy body armour and helmets for soldiers going east. I ask the Prime Minister to look again at whether we can supply equipment to the Government of Ukraine and, specifically and urgently, to look at what we can do to help by sharing military intelligence data, which I am told is so badly needed in the fight for democracy on Europe’s borders.

[The Prime Minister]

Let me reassure my hon. Friend, who makes a very good point—I am glad that he was able to travel to Kiev to listen to the views of people there—that we are supplying non-lethal equipment. Body armour and things like that will help the Ukrainian army, and I think it is right to give those things, but as I said and for the reasons I gave, I do not think we should supply it with arms.