European Council

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. The key is to try to get the maximum number of countries behind the most specific list of sanctions possible. I think that what we have had in recent years is a lot of talk about sanctions and a lot of commitments to sanctions. Now is the time for countries actually to come up with what they are specifically going to target in terms of bank accounts, trade finance, oil and gas works and the rest. That is what should happen. My hon. Friend asked for a specific date as to when this should be assessed; I think it is an ongoing process. What we are trying to do here is tip the balance in the mind of Iran in terms of making progressing with a nuclear weapon more expensive, in order to get it to think again. There is no one date for that; it should be continually assessed.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

May I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the 300th member of the British armed forces who lost his life, not least because he lost it in my constituency of Birmingham, Edgbaston, where the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine and the medical facilities are located?

On the European Council meeting and the Prime Minister’s response, he was very positive about the 2020 agenda. Given that the 2010 Lisbon agenda was vacuous, useless and did not deliver anything, why does he think the 2020 agenda, which is going to build on that, will produce anything more useful?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, may I agree with what the hon. Lady says about the medical facilities in her constituency? Like her, I have been to the Selly Oak hospital and what is done there is incredibly impressive, as is the fact that our returning servicemen and women have access to all the many excellent hospitals in Birmingham, so that all the specialities can be dealt with.

On the 2020 document, I did not think that I did sound that enthusiastic about it, because like the hon. Lady—I suspect we agree about this quite a lot—I am rather suspicious of these strategies, as what really needs to be done is greater action within each European Union country to deal with the problems of our lack of competitiveness. That is about welfare dependency, the scale of our pensions obligations and our uncompetitive tax rates. Sitting around and strategising is one thing, but what we really need to do is roll up our sleeves and get on with the work of making our economies more competitive; otherwise, 2020 will join Lisbon in being dreams that are unfulfilled.

Afghanistan

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his election as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I look forward to the work that it will do.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: making sure that we work together with the Americans and our NATO allies is absolutely vital to success. One of the things that strikes me when I go to see what our troops are doing in Helmand is just how close that work is. Sometimes people wonder whether it is right that British troops in Sangin are under American command, and it is right to point out that all the American troops in Kandahar are under British command. Our forces work incredibly closely together, including in the hospitals, and it is a great sight to see.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

Could the Prime Minister update the House on the progress made on opium and poppy production and say whether there is now a prison in Afghanistan that is secure enough to hold any of the opium traders should they be arrested?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for that question. There has been progress, as the hon. Lady will know. The province with the worst record of opium production has tended to be Helmand, but production is significantly down this year. There is a question mark about how much of that is due to poppy blight, how much of it is due to the excellent wheat-seed substitution programme that the British Government have been supporting and how much of it is due to security efforts. It is important as part of the picture that, as we see a more secure Afghanistan, we see more farmers pursuing alternative livelihoods. But again, we need to get the order of priorities the right way around.