Oral Answers to Questions

Phillip Lee Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The UK is not on the Commonwealth ministerial action group, as the hon. Lady knows, nor is it in our gift to determine the chair of the Commonwealth ourselves, but it was within our gift to decide to go to Sri Lanka and to raise these issues. As the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire) has just made clear, there would have been no chance of succeeding in the Human Rights Council, as we recently did, had it not been for the Prime Minister’s leadership, our presence in Sri Lanka and our willingness to show how passionate we are about what happened in the north of Sri Lanka. The Opposition’s attitude of not going to Sri Lanka would have been a terrible misjudgement.

[Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)]

T3. I was pleased to read in a recent report by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs that the Government have been developing a strategy towards the Gulf. In view of the obvious complexities of the middle east, does the Foreign Secretary agree that there is now a very good case for opening up that approach to a broader regional strategy?

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Hugh Robertson)]

Absolutely. The Gulf strategy has been developed over a number of years and is already paying benefits not only diplomatically but economically and commercially across a wide range of areas. Indeed, the strategy has been such a success that many other people are looking to establish such a relationship with us.