Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with every word that the right hon. and learned Lady has just said. I would say that Britain, uniquely among countries in the world, meets its 2% NATO spending target—so we can play a role in terms of defence and helping to secure these countries—and reaches its target of spending 0.7% of GDP on aid. No other major country in the world meets those two targets, and I am proud that we do.

The right hon. and learned Lady talks about going to the causes of these crises, and she is absolutely right about that. We have to be frank: the eastern Mediterranean crisis, in particular, is because Assad has butchered his own people and because ISIL has, in its own way, butchered others, and millions have fled Syria. We can do all we can, as a moral, humanitarian nation, to take people, spend money on aid and help in refugee camps, but we have to be part of the international alliance that says, “We need an approach in Syria that will mean we have a Government that can look after their people.” Assad has to go, ISIL has to go, and some of that will require not just spending money, not just aid, not just diplomacy—it will, on occasion, require hard military force.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Q2. The last exchange is the most important: with other countries, we have moral and practical responsibilities. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said that we are presently the only country meeting the commitment to the world’s poorest and on military spending, and it would be helpful if he could explain how each helps us to deal with the situation in Syria and the surrounding areas.

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make to my hon. Friend is that the spending on aid is vital, because 11 million people have been forced out of their homes. Some of them remain in Syria and they need support, and some of them are in refugee camps and they need support. Many are being looked after in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, and those countries need our help. The aid budget has always been a controversial issue in our country, but people can now see the connection between the money we spend, the lives we save and the national security that we help to enforce back in the UK. The point I am making is not to change the debate now about what happens next in Syria, but we have to keep thinking about the fact that in the end nothing will make ISIL go away other than a confrontation, which we are seeing in Iraq and in Syria. We should be clear that ISIL being degraded, destroyed and ultimately defeated is in not just this country’s interests, but the interests of civilisation more broadly.