Business of the House

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this appalling situation. I have seen myself with my own kids that when young children are playing a game, they are encouraged not to use actual money, because they do not have any, but to get addicted to the idea of buying some extra beads or something else to enable them to play that game even better. I have experience of that, and I share his grave concern. He will be aware that Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Ministers are determined to keep children safe online and are doing all they can to tackle the issue. He may wish to seek a Backbench Business debate to look at what more can be done to protect young children.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the southern part of Syria at this moment, over a quarter of a million civilians are being bombed and attacked by Russia’s air force and the Assad regime. Is it not time we had another debate in this House on the crimes that are going on in Syria and the failure of the international community, including this country, to do anything about it?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that this is an ongoing catastrophe. The conflict is now in its eighth year, and the UN estimates that more than 400,000 people have been killed and over half the population has been displaced. He is right to raise that, and he may well wish to take it up with Defence Ministers on Monday during oral questions. The UK can be very proud that we are the second largest bilateral donor to the humanitarian response in Syria. We have now committed more than £2.7 billion to the Syria crisis since 2012, which is our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis.