Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My understanding is that any intelligence briefings have been given to Privy Council Members of this House, and that all Privy Council Members of this House have been invited to attend such briefings.

[Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)]

The Prime Minister has talked about the possibility that the efficiency and security of British armed forces in any military action could be compromised if we were to go down the route suggested by the Leader of the Opposition. Would not that be even further magnified when our military action takes place in co-operation with, for example, the United States of America, France and perhaps several other countries?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Vince Cable]

Of course, not all information could be made available. That is why having trust in the Prime Minister, which I do as an individual, and in our security services and military, as I do, are absolutely imperative. If that were in place, the House would have a mature debate on the principle. I think that the Prime Minister would have had a significant majority had she followed that path.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

When the right hon. Gentleman was a member of the coalition Government, he made decisions as part of that Government. He is now part of the legislature. Does he not accept that there is a distinction? He says that he trusts the Prime Minister, and surely that is what today’s debate is all about.

[Sir Vince Cable]

I am also well aware that I have had to fight my way back into the legislature and I am no longer a member of the Government. When I was a member of the Government, I supported military intervention in this place. I think that, on that occasion, Parliament got it wrong. I also think that it got it wrong over the Iraq war, but the process was a necessary discipline. It is a pity that we are now having to talk about legislative remedies when there was a perfectly good and sound convention that successive Prime Ministers were following, but this one is not.

That is all I wish to say about the process issues, but I want to raise several specific questions of substance that I do not think were dealt with in yesterday’s debate. The first, which was raised by me and the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), is whether this is a one-off operation, or a continuous series of strikes for which we need to be prepared. That is not an academic question. A lot of open-source material suggests that the number of chemical attacks in Syria is far greater than the number—five, I think—that was cited yesterday. The White Helmets, the Syrian human rights organisation, has come up with the figure of 213 in the last five years. In other words, every week the Syrian armed forces are using chemical weapons. Low-level divisional commanders are using crude chemicals, notably chlorine, and it strikes me as being perfectly plausible that they will do so again.

The question, then, is this: what is the threshold at which we once again intervene? Is it any use of chemical weapons? Is it a certain number of deaths? Is it the indignation of the President of the United States when he has seen something on television? What is the threshold for continuing involvement in this struggle? This is all the more reason why we need parliamentary authorisation for continuing action.

My second question, which relates indirectly to that, is about the role of the President of the United States. I regard the United States as an ally and a friendly country with which we have long and strong bonds, but I think that we all have problems with a President who is erratic, capricious and regarded with open contempt by the public officials who have worked with him, and who even now, in the middle of this crisis, seems to regard President Assad and President Putin as less of a problem than Stormy Daniels and Robert Mueller.

The question is, in our continuing dealings with the major power of the western world, where do we go? We know that in the last few days the President has introduced into his Administration John Bolton, who is absolutely open about the fact that if there are further strikes he will wish to include Iranian targets—we know that will inflame the issue in relation to Israel—and who wants to derail the agreement on nuclear weapons with Iran. I would like some assurance at the end of the debate that the British Government are holding fast with France and the rest of the European Union in honouring and supporting that agreement, and are not being over-influenced by the American Administration.

My third and final question relates to Russia. In her statement, the Prime Minister linked Salisbury with the chemical weapons attack. It is very striking that while we have followed the United States—perhaps rightly—in military action, we have not followed the Americans in imposing penal sanctions on oligarchs and stock market dealings. The impact is blatantly obvious. The Russians must be asking themselves, “Why haven’t they done it? Are they afraid of retaliation? Are there vested interests in the City?” That is the kind of question to which we need an answer.

We should have had answers to all those questions last week. I hope that we will improve the processes of the House to ensure that they are given in future.