Tunisia, and European Council

Owen Smith Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course there are, in part, some military answers to what is happening. We need to crush ISIL in Iraq and Syria, but military action alone will not be enough. As he says, we have to go after terrorist finance and the terrorist narrative. That narrative is shared not only by the terrorists but, sadly, by too many who stop short of terrorism but who buy into the idea of a caliphate or the idea that Christians and Muslims cannot live together. Just as we had to confront the ideology in the cold war, we have to do so again now. In the end, I think that we will win because our values of democracy, tolerance, the rule of law, freedom and free enterprise are better values. They offer young people far more hope than going off and being part of a death cult that subjugates women, murders homosexuals and creates murder and mayhem across the world.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I should like to add my deep condolences to those of the Prime Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) to all those who have been affected by what has happened in Tunisia, many of whom were Welsh. Will the Prime Minister join me in expressing our admiration for my constituent Matthew James? People will have read in the newspapers how he threw himself in the way of a bullet to shield his fiancée, Saera Wilson, in an extraordinary act of selfless bravery. May I urge the Prime Minister to do all he can to ensure that all the victims receive all the support that they need?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We all read the moving story of what that brave and courageous young man did to save the life of his fiancée; I am sure that it will have moved the whole country. I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman the guarantee that we will do everything we can to help the victims and their families. There are people working round the clock in Tunisia and here in Britain to ensure that that happens, and we will keep that up.