Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Chris Stephens

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What the hon. Lady is asking for is quite difficult. The process should be that Ministers take action on the advice of officials and on the advice of intelligence that is carefully corralled by the Joint Intelligence Committee. Then we have to account to Parliament for the decisions that we take. On occasion, it would be right for the Joint Intelligence Committee or the Government to put some of that intelligence in front of Parliament, as I think we did in the cases of Libya and Syria. By its very nature, the idea of sharing secret intelligence on a much wider basis will be very difficult, and I do not want to promise to do that. The ISC is there to scrutinise decisions that have been taken, rather than pre-emptively to review a decision that is about to be taken, so we do need to get our ducks in a row. If we try to muddle that, we will get ourselves into a muddle.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

My thoughts today are with Mrs Rose Gentle whose son Gordon was killed in Iraq at 18 years of age. There was a campaign for this inquiry and it has waited a long time for it to report. The Prime Minister said in his statement that sending

“our brave troops on to the battlefield without the right equipment was unacceptable.”

I agree with that, but, as the last Member to be called in this debate, may I join other hon. Members and ask the Prime Minister to reflect further? Does he not appreciate that the state should apologise to those military families for their sons and daughters being sent into a war without the correct equipment, and will he take this opportunity to apologise to those military families?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that providing the correct military equipment is an absolute obligation on Government, and huge steps have been taken in the past few years to make that happen. On the responsibility for apologies and all the rest of it, the people who were in Government who took these decisions are still alive and able to answer the criticisms in the report. This is slightly different from the situation over, for instance, Bloody Sunday or Hillsborough. This report is about a set of Government decisions that were taken, and the people responsible are still around. It is very easy for a Prime Minister to stand up and make an apology and all the rest of it, but it is not appropriate for me to do so today, because the people who made these decisions are still around. That is why I have chosen to speak in the way that I have.

National Security and Defence

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Chris Stephens

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

As the Member for Glasgow South West, I will work with anyone to protect jobs on the Clyde. Can the Prime Minister assure me that Ministers will keep me and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) updated on the procurement timetable for the Type 26 frigates? I impress on him that any delays might lead to short-term job loss, which I am sure he would want to avoid.

[The Prime Minister]

Having visited the shipyards in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and seen the incredible technical expertise of the people working on the aircraft carriers and other projects, of course I want to see that happen. We will produce a shipbuilding strategy in 2016, so he can play a full part in looking at that. What we are doing, because of the timing, is having two offshore patrol vessels built in the coming period, to make sure that there is plenty of work to be done on useful vessels that have a real purpose. Then there are the Type 26 frigates, which are almost ready to go ahead, and then we will have the new generation of frigates, which will be more cost-effective and could lead to the opportunity for Glasgow shipbuilders to build ships for other countries as well as for the UK. We have not actually managed to sell many of our warships in recent years. That might be because we have been creating ever more expensive and ever more complex warships, rather than also thinking about slightly more flexible vessels that others, such as the Australian and New Zealand navies—old friends of ours—might want to buy.

Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Chris Stephens

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent suggestion. The point of the committee chaired by the Home Secretary and the Communities Secretary will be to take into account what local authorities can do and what voluntary bodies and charities can do, but also to listen to the suggestions of hon. Members.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

During the summer I visited the British Red Cross office in Glasgow. A constituent who is a Syrian refugee, has a brother in Athens with kidney failure. He needed to go to Athens and the Home Office granted asylum after representations from me. That serves to highlight the fact that in this crisis there will be issues of family reunion and instances when a relative will have to go to another part of Europe for reasons of organ donation. May I ask the Prime Minister to look at such issues very sensitively?

[The Prime Minister]

One of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues raised the issue of family reunion, which we obviously look at in this context. The rules we have are there for a good reason, but I know that the Minister for Immigration has taken careful note of what the hon. Gentleman has said.