Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. What recent assessment he has made of UK diplomatic relations with the US.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

4. If he will discuss the human rights record of the US with President Trump during his 2018 visit to the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sweeney]

I must say that the Foreign Secretary is looking rather sprightly this morning after his overnight flight. I hope that the jet lag was not too severe.

When the Prime Minister was asked about Donald Trump's policy of ripping toddlers from their mothers and holding them in cages, she would merely say that it was “wrong” and

“not something that we agree with.”—[Official Report, 20 June 2018; Vol. 643, c. 325.]

May I ask the Foreign Secretary, on behalf of the British people, if he can do better than that, and describe the genuine outrage that we as a country felt about this obscene policy?

[Boris Johnson]

I think that when the Prime Minister spoke, she spoke for me and for everyone else in the House, and, indeed, for the nation—and the hon. Gentleman will have noticed that no sooner had she spoken than the President signed an executive order repealing the policy.