EU Council, Security and Middle East

Pat McFadden Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid I do not agree with my hon. Friend, for this reason: we have had to make difficult decisions in order to deal with the deficit, but no one can describe a £33 billion defence budget—one of the top five budgets anywhere in the world—as a small stick. Because we have taken difficult decisions, we have got a new aircraft carrier, with another to follow, the Type 45 destroyers, the Astute submarines, the best-equipped Army that I think we have had for many years and, of course, a whole new range of aircraft for the RAF. You can only have that size and sort of stick if you take the difficult decisions elsewhere in your budgets.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The decision to water down control orders was the wrong policy taken for the wrong reasons, and I welcome the Prime Minister’s at least partial U-turn today on the relocation element.

On the international dimension, it is right to learn the lessons from the past, but it is wrong to be imprisoned by the past, particularly by the decision on the Iraq war or last year’s decision on military intervention in Syria. In the light of what has happened in recent months, will the Prime Minister consider seeking a new mandate from Parliament which begins not by ruling options out or by looking over our shoulders, but by exercising leadership and confronting the threat we face here and now?

[The Prime Minister]

I very much agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we of course need to learn the lessons of the past but must not be imprisoned by decisions that were taken in the past. I think the whole tone of the debate today is that, yes, it is for those in the region—principally the Iraqi Government and the Kurds and neighbours—to lead the charge against squeezing this appalling organisation ISIL, but Britain, America, France and others should use all the tools in our toolkit to help them to do that. We have to make a judgment about how we best help those on the ground, and to date that judgment has been to provide aid and political support and to help with certain military aspects. The Americans have gone further and provided air strikes. I think that is the right way to approach this problem.

On the issue of control orders, let me quote again what the independent reviewer of terrorist legislation said:

“There is no need to put the clock back. The majority of changes introduced by the TPIMs Act have civilised the control order system without making it less effective.”

We have to understand that control orders were permanently being run ragged in the courts. We needed a new system and now we can improve it.