Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Geoffrey Robinson

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, I support Israel’s right to defend itself and that right has to be exercised in a proportionate way. That is what international law says.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that he is in danger of following the pattern of his predecessor but one, who supported Israel for far too long? Speaking as a friend of Israel, may I say that the most candid thing we can say now is that the massive land invasion is disproportionate and causing loss of civilian life, and that it will in no way enhance the long-term security of Israel?

[The Prime Minister]

I think I have been very clear about what needs to happen, as, indeed, I was in 2006.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Geoffrey Robinson

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was impressed on visiting Thanet to see the jobs being created by the London Array. It is providing jobs in shipping for seamen, jobs in engineering, apprenticeships; it is a really important investment for this country, and we hope to see many more like it in the future.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Q6. Is the Prime Minister aware that there is widespread agreement in this House about the importance of investment in infrastructure and indeed widespread agreements about its job-creating potential? Can he therefore tell us why, after three years in office, employment in the construction sector has fallen by 84,000 people?

[The Prime Minister]

Employment in construction is currently rising, and the recent news on construction has been very good. That is because we have an infrastructure plan, a fifth of the projects are under way and we have road building at far higher levels than it ever was under the Labour Government. Whereas Labour electrified literally five miles of railway line, we are going to electrify hundreds of miles of railway line. I note that the hon. Gentleman does not mention the fact that he has been paying rent to Unite in his constituency. Normally, it is money from Unite to Labour; in this case, it is from—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Geoffrey Robinson

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we have got a good deal on the common agricultural policy. We need to listen carefully to our farmers’ concerns so that they are not disadvantaged compared with other countries. We also need to take the time to introduce the new system, because when the single farm payments were introduced so quickly under the last system we suffered large fines from Europe as a result. My hon. Friend is being extremely wise on this issue.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Q6. Is the Prime Minister aware of the rather disturbing commitment given yesterday by his Chancellor to continue to interfere and intervene in the affairs of the Royal Bank of Scotland on behalf of the taxpayer? Is he also aware that the Chancellor’s last intervention—the completely irresponsible ousting of Stephen Hester—has cost the British taxpayer £4.5 billion so far as a result of the loss in value of their shareholding? Will the Prime Minister, as First Lord of the Treasury, instruct his Chancellor to desist from any such interventions in the future?

[The Prime Minister]

What I would say to the hon. Gentleman, who I know has great experience of lending money, is that it is important that the Government stand up for the taxpayer and ensure that Royal Bank of Scotland has the right strategy and the right leadership so that we get back the money that was put into the banks by the last Government.

Algeria

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Geoffrey Robinson

Friday 18th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right in both regards. Those who believe that there is a terrorist, extremist al-Qaeda problem in parts of north Africa, but that it is a problem for those places and we can somehow back off and ignore it are profoundly wrong. This is a problem for those places and for us. We need to be absolutely clear about that, particularly in our support of the French action in Mali, where it is vital that we do not allow an al-Qaeda-sponsored regime to take over the entire country. He is also right that we need to give proper priority in our strategic thinking and our strategic defence reviews to this area of the world. The Government are now doing that, but I am sure that there is more work that we need to do.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for coming to the House. It is appropriate that he reported this grave situation in the way he did and in the tone he adopted. He rightly said that we must give the French every support, and I think the whole House would agree with that. It is important that they prevail in that intervention, which enjoys the support of the whole Security Council and of the UN. Will he confirm that we have responded positively to every request from the French for logistical or other help when we have been able to provide it?

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. I think we were the first country in the world to ask the French how we could help and then to deliver it. That took the form of two C-17s, one of which has been transporting French troops into Mali. I spoke again with President Hollande yesterday and said that the offer of the continued use of that C-17 was there. We are looking at a range of other things that we can do to help with logistics and back-up.

As I have said, we fully support the French action. The threat in Mali is effectively of a rebel regime, supported by terrorists and al-Qaeda, taking over the country. That is a threat not just to that region, but to the world. Of course, we should be and are encouraging other countries in west Africa to bring troops into Mali to help defend the Malian Government and people, and there are good signs that countries in west Africa are taking that lead and helping to achieve that. We shall continue to work very closely with the French and see how we can help further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Geoffrey Robinson

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point, which is that the growth of the economy around Aberdeen, obviously linked to North sea oil, has been extremely successful. I want to see that continue to expand and I will listen very carefully to what he says and look at what the British Government can do to help provide that extra capacity, which I have seen for myself.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Q2. Will the Prime Minister confirm that we learned over the summer that the UK borrowed £9.3 billion more in the first four months of this year than it did in the corresponding period last year?

[The Prime Minister]

We have cut the budget deficit by a quarter in two years but, obviously, it is immensely challenging to get the deficit down. I note that Labour’s answer to getting the deficit down is to borrow more—to borrow an extra £200 billion. The one way you cannot get borrowing down is to put borrowing up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Geoffrey Robinson

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. We do a lot to support different languages throughout the UK. Signing is an incredibly valuable language for many people in our country. Those pilot schemes were successful. I looked at what the previous Prime Minister said to him when he asked that question, and I will certainly arrange a meeting for him with the Department for Education to see how we can take this forward.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

My question to the Prime Minister concerns the contract for the Thameslink rail programme. As he will be aware, that is of great concern throughout the House, and with 20,000 manufacturing jobs at risk, it is right that it should be. Will he confirm that no contract has yet been signed, and indeed that no contract can be let or signed until the funding package is determined? That is a complicated process.

This is the heart of my question to the Prime Minister: given that the funding package—[Interruption.] Twenty thousand jobs are at stake! Given that 20,000 jobs are at risk, will the Prime Minister look at holding the competition for that funding package with the Secretary of State for Trade—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think we have got it.

NATO Summit

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Geoffrey Robinson

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

In Helmand, there have been very courageous efforts by the Estonians and the Danes, who have fought very effectively alongside our troops. The Canadians, as someone mentioned, were stationed in Kandahar, and they will be moving from a combat role to a training role. It was not that long ago that France had an uplift in its troop numbers, so I do not think that it is right to cast too many aspersions about other NATO allies. We are certainly the second largest contributor by quite some way. It is important that we encourage others to do what they can, even where countries are pulling back from a combat role. It was quite notable that the Canadians invested more in a training role than people were previously expecting. There is a good spirit among the ISAF nations, as we want to see this through successfully and everyone has to play their part.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Is the Prime Minister aware that there will be widespread support in the country for the deadline—the end time—that he has fixed for the conflict? However, even if we can successfully withdraw after four years, for British troops that means another four years of bloody fighting in what he himself calls the most dangerous part of Afghanistan—Helmand. I appreciate that we cannot push him on the details now, but over those four years will there be a continued effort to see, rather than a military outcome, an overall political accommodation with the Taliban?

[The Prime Minister]

There are two elements to the reconciliation process. There is what is called reintegration, at the lowest level, where tribes that have perhaps taken up arms against the Afghan national army and the allies are being encouraged to put down those arms and join a political process. Sometimes tribes took up arms not because they were Taliban supporters, but because of local conflicts. The higher level—reconciliation, as it were—is much more like a political process. That has to be Afghan-led, and, as I said, it has to be based on de-linking from al-Qaeda, giving up violence and accepting the basic tenets of the Afghan constitution. In the end, those people want the same as everyone else, which is an Afghanistan that is not stationed full of foreign troops, so I hope that we can make progress on the political front, as the hon. Gentleman says.

G20 Summit

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Geoffrey Robinson

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. We have to make this argument, because there is no doubt that a lot of people in our country look at a growing aid budget and think that that is money not well spent; they think that that money should be spent elsewhere. We have to make the argument that this is not just a moral argument about relieving poverty in the poorest parts of the world; it is also about avoiding conflict and about investing money upstream so that we do not end up with the Afghanistans and other broken countries. When we look at places such as Yemen and Somalia, it is quite clear that we need to have active aid programmes to try to help stitch those countries back together before we reach more serious problems.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The House will have admired the Prime Minister’s evasive action on the issue of Ireland. He must be aware that it was the very strong view of the previous Government that we should not go into the euro and we were successful in that respect. What lessons, apart from that, can he now draw from the Irish situation? The Irish have been exemplary in every respect in pursuing the course that he has embarked on, and they have ended up in the mess they are in at the moment.

[The Prime Minister]

I do not want to make life difficult for the Irish at a time when they are trying to take difficult decisions about their own economy. However, they had a consumer boom, a property boom and badly regulated banks—some of the mistakes made by the Government of whom the hon. Gentleman was briefly a member—and they added to that the issue of euro membership. I always think that the great lesson from the exchange rate mechanism is that the euro is the exchange rate mechanism without an exit, and that is the problem.

Treatment of Detainees

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Geoffrey Robinson

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is a very good question. The answer is that if it is safe to do so, yes of course. This is not some political witch hunt to get at Ministers from a previous Government; that is not what this is about. Likewise, it is not about trying to cover up bad things that might have happened. It is about trying to get to the bottom of what happened, to explain the context and to get the information out there. As the Minister for the intelligence services, however, I have to have regard to what it is safe to release, and that is a responsibility that I have to take very seriously.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Is the Prime Minister aware, from the general tenor of the questions this afternoon, that his statement is very welcome throughout the House? He is to be commended for it. Can he confirm that the 46 documents originating from the CIA—about which there has been a lot of discussion—will be made available not only to the inquiry but perhaps more widely as well?

[The Prime Minister]

The point is that the inquiry can follow the evidence wherever it leads—but let me be clear that it is not an inquiry into what the US authorities have done. It is an inquiry into what UK personnel may or may not have done. It is important that we get that straight. The stain, if you like, on the British situation is the allegations of complicity, and of what our personnel might have witnessed or in some way been complicit in. That is what we have to deal with. We are not trying to have some great inquiry into the practices and procedures of other intelligence services; that is not what the inquiry is about.

G8 and G20 Summits

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Geoffrey Robinson

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me try to answer both those questions briefly. The way to judge progress in Afghanistan is in terms of the basic level of security, stability and governance. So in Helmand, for instance, as we see districts that are under good provincial governors, with lead Afghan control over security, that is the time when we can judge that the job is getting done, and there is some prospect of some of that happening this year. As for talking to Taliban, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman puts it, a process of reconciliation and reintegration is taking place, where Taliban who are prepared to stop fighting and accept the basic tenets of the Afghan constitution can be reintegrated back into society. That should happen. That political track, which runs alongside the training of the Afghan army and the military surge, is vital, and we need to push further and faster on it.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

May I push the Prime Minister slightly harder on the issue of Afghanistan and talking to the Taliban? It is true, as he says, that those who want to lay down their arms can be welcomed back, but there may be many who are not, but who will nevertheless be required to do so, in the event of a political situation being arrived at, which all of us in this House know is the only eventual outcome for Afghanistan. There is a limited amount that the Prime Minister can say, but it would be good if he could reassure the House that, come the right moment and in the right way, the British Government will indicate their willingness to talk?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he put his question. This is one of those things that it is better to get on and deal with, rather than endlessly theorising about it. There is a huge difference between that part of the insurgency that is linked to al-Qaeda and is extremist in its ideology, and what has become in some parts of Afghanistan an insurgency based on the way in which particular tribes have been dealt with or on particular local issues. There is a difference between the two, and we need to bear that in mind in this important political track that we have embarked on.