European Council

Stephen Gethins Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We should seek to persuade President Assad not to use barrel bombs against his own people, not least because they are illegal under international law because in many cases he is using chemical weapons. We have to be frank that in many ways the reason why the Russians became more involved in the conflict is that they feared that Assad was on the brink of falling. What we need to do now is get to a situation where it is clear that there is a stalemate and the only way forward for Syria is to have a new Government, who can of course have a relationship with Russia and Iran, but who are also capable of governing on behalf of all the people of Syria, not just the Alawites, but the Sunnis, the Christians and the Kurds.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

Research made available to me from the House of Commons Library showed that we spent 13 times more bombing Libya than we did on reconstruction efforts afterwards. Does the Prime Minister think he got that right? What lessons can be drawn from the Libyan campaigns in terms of long-term strategic planning for Syria?

[The Prime Minister]

In the Libyan campaign we acted in response to a potential humanitarian catastrophe when Gaddafi was about to murder his own people. After that conflict we stood ready to help the new Libyan Government in any way they wanted help. I brought them to the G8 summit in Northern Ireland. We tried to help them train some of their security forces. We were ready to help in any way we could. It has to be remembered that Libya is not a poor country. It is a middle-income country with huge oil resources which, if spent in the right direction, could help the welfare of its people, but it did not take that path. That is the tragedy for the people of Libya.