(8 years, 5 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.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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I thank my right hon. Friend for his characteristic courtesy in coming to the House in person to answer the urgent question. Is this not a very interesting case study of the difference between the European Union and NATO? NATO manages to get on and save lives in a problematic situation for which the EU must take at least a large share of the blame, and which has been exacerbated by the consequences of Chancellor Merkel’s decision. While NATO is there, actively doing things, the best—the most mealy-mouthed meeting of murmurating Ministers—that can be provided by the European Union does nothing.
My hon. Friend’s views on this matter are fairly well known, and I have to tell him that, sadly, I do not entirely share them. To me it does not really matter, in the end, under whose auspices this mission is organised. The European Union mission is in the sea between Libya and Italy; this happens to be a NATO mission. What is most important, I think, is that the mission takes place and we become involved in saving lives, whatever the auspices under which the mission happens to be organised.