Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I will not give way.

Imagine that the children of Syria, with their eyes streaming and their bloodstained spittle, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) just described, are stood here in the Chamber with us. Imagine that they are sat among us, listening to us. How would they want us to vote? This is not about process or whether information is brought to the House of Commons.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Dorries]

No, I will not.

Returning to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), how can we cast a vote when we do not have all the information? How can we make such an ill-informed decision, as we have done in the past? Would the children of Syria want us to do that? I know what will happen when I next cast a substantive vote on an issue such as this: I will imagine the hand of one of those Syrian children slipping into mine and guiding me into the right Lobby.