Penny Mordaunt
Main Page: Penny Mordaunt (Conservative - Portsmouth North)Department Debates - View all Penny Mordaunt's debates with the Cabinet Office
(4 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI was waiting for the little green men thing to come out at the end about the trade deal. This is absolute fiction.
But what I will say is that the UK will continue to work for de-escalation in the region. I think we are having a great deal of success in bringing together a European response and in bridging the European response with that, of course, of our American friends, and working both with the Iranians and with the Iraqis to dial this thing down. The right hon. Gentleman should be in absolutely no doubt—this is, of course, a Leader of the Opposition who has famously received £10,000 from the Iranian Press TV—that we are determined to guarantee with everything that we can the safety and security of the people of Iraq, whereas he, of course, would disband NATO. It is this Government who will continue to stick up for the people across the middle east who have suffered at the hands of Qasem Soleimani and the Iranian revolutionary guard Quds force that he has led and whose terrorism he has promoted. I am very surprised at the end of these exchanges that the right hon. Gentleman has yet to condemn the activities of Qasem Soleimani and the revolutionary guard.
I thank my right hon. Friend for the passionate campaign that she wages. I can tell her that the current number is 2,190, which is patently unacceptable, but it is moving down. My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary tells me that the number is coming down rapidly. We have a pledge to reduce it by 50%, and I am sure that he will meet her very shortly.