Report of the Iraq Inquiry

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Mark Durkan

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am going to hesitate before replying to my hon. Friend, because there is not a huge amount about that in the executive summary of the Iraq inquiry. I think we will probably have to dive into the volumes to see exactly what Sir John has to say about advice from the MOD, advice from the Foreign Office, how much group-think there genuinely was, and all the rest of it. So I would hesitate. I think we need to study the report, and then we can discuss the matter during next week’s debate.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Those of us who come to the report scandalised anew by the duplicity of presentation and the paucity of preparation on such grave matters must nevertheless remember most those who are acutely burdened today by their cruel sense of futility of sacrifice in terms of lives lost, lives devastated and lives changed. The Prime Minister has rightly emphasised that lessons need to be learned, but we must be careful not to turn the report into a greywash by converting it into a syllabus about foresight in government and oversight in Parliament. This is not a day for soundbites, but does the Prime Minister not agree that the hand of history should be feeling someone’s collar?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not think it is a greywash or a whitewash or an anything elsewash. I think, from what I have seen so far, that this is a thorough effort in trying to understand the narrative of the events, the decisions that were taken and the mistakes that were made. I think there is a huge amount to learn and everyone who has played a part in it has to take their responsibility for it.

EU Council

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Mark Durkan

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It was pretty late by the time I got back, and there was not really time for anything.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I join the acknowledgements being given to the Prime Minister. I do not really think he fully appreciates—certainly, his Secretary of State does not—that when we negotiated the Good Friday agreement, common membership of the EU was taken as a given, and it is there in the fabric of the agreement. At the core of that agreement is the principle of consent, but the people of Northern Ireland now find that they are being dragged out of the European Union against their consent, as expressed when they voted for the Good Friday agreement and in the referendum last week, when 78.2% in my constituency voted to remain. It is not enough for the Prime Minister to say now that the negotiations that will take place will sort things out for us. It is clear that English politics does not have a sat-nav or a map for where it now finds itself, yet he is simply telling us that we will have to tailgate and go where the impulses and prejudices of English politics drive next. We need to achieve a better situation to protect EU access and benefits for our constituents.

[The Prime Minister]

I totally understand the hon. Gentleman’s passion about this—he and I were on the same side—but my reading of the history of this is different. The Good Friday agreement, based on the principle of consent, was that the United Kingdom would continue and Northern Ireland would be part of that United Kingdom. This is a sovereign decision for the United Kingdom. Now, the job of the United Kingdom Government, in full collaboration with the First and Deputy First Ministers in Northern Ireland, is to try to get the best possible negotiation in terms of Britain’s place, and therefore Northern Ireland’s place, so that relations north-south can be as strong as they can.

UK-EU Renegotiation

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Mark Durkan

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for her remarks. Of course section B is important, but it is also worth looking at the draft European Council declaration on competitiveness which adds to section B and brings out some more details.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Obviously any referendum debate will centre on the bigger picture, the longer-term challenge and deeper interests, but as well as the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), will the right hon. Gentleman address whether the package he has come up with to do with the changes in relation to child benefit will automatically extend to cross-border workers in a constituency like mine, where EU precepts apply?

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very carefully at that issue, but I seem to recall from conversations I had with the Taoiseach that there are particular arrangements for the common travel area. But I will come back to the hon. Gentleman on this.

EU Council

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Mark Durkan

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will look carefully at what happens when you “pass go”! I believe that we are getting closer to an agreement on Britain’s renegotiation, and at that point—not before—although the Government will have a clear recommendation, Ministers will be able to campaign in a personal capacity on a different side, as I have said. But that needs to happen after the negotiation has taken place. I think that Members on both sides of the House, and indeed members of the public and businesses and others, want to know what the renegotiation amounts to. We need to have a proper debate about what we bring back, and then people will be able to make up their minds. In the end, it will not be any of us who decides the outcome; it will be the people who put us here.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

It is not only Save the Children but UNICEF and others, including the International Development Committee, that are urging the Prime Minister to give a positive and decisive response on the issue of unaccompanied children. Does he recognise that the over 26,000 unaccompanied children who came to Europe last year came not just from Syria but from other places of conflict, and some of them already have relatives in the UK? Does he not think that he would be in a stronger position at the donor conference he is co-hosting next month if he had already made a clear decision?

Syria

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Mark Durkan

Thursday 26th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. The advice I am getting is that there is no quick or easy way of solving the problem. We have been committed for four years to humanitarian assistance and to the diplomatic process for many years—remember, we have had Geneva I, Geneva II and now Vienna. In the same way, this whole process will take a long time, and we should be clear about that.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Prime Minister has stressed that the ISIL-first strategy cannot extend to our intervening as an ally of Assad. In the memorandum to the FAC, he said that an intervention on such terms would be wrong on three grounds: it would misunderstand the causes of the problem; it would make matters worse; and Assad’s rule is one of ISIL’s greatest recruiting sergeants. Does he accept that those valid considerations against such intervention also persuade many of us against intervention on the terms he is commending? We do not want to feed the evil we want to defeat.

[The Prime Minister]

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, but if we do not intervene against ISIL, we should not be surprised when it grows and threatens us more. Of course there are concerns and difficult questions—it is a complex situation—but, as I have said, just because a strategy is complicated and takes a long time does not mean it is not the right strategy and cannot work. If hon. Members are looking for complexity as a reason to say, “This is difficult, and therefore we cannot support it”, they will not have any trouble finding it—it is complex—but in the end it comes down to some simple judgments about what will make us safer or less safe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Mark Durkan

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do agree. John from Weaver Vale has demonstrated more sense in his email than the Leader of the Opposition did in at least six of his questions. The point is that not only have we seen an economy that is growing—2 million more people in work—inflation that is low and living standards that are rising, but there are 680,000 fewer workless households and 480,000 fewer children in workless households. If we want to measure the real difference that the growth in our economy is making, think of those children, those households and the dignity of work.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Q12. Last weekend was the first anniversary of the death from cervical cancer of Derry girl Sorcha Glenn, aged 23. In June 2013, she had been concerned enough to ask for an early smear test, but was refused because she was under 25. As Team Sorcha, which highlights other cases, her family has now written an open letter to the Prime Minister. May I ask him not to offer here a reflex repeat of the rationale for current screening age policy, but to reflect on the questions raised about how that translates into refusing smear tests to young women such as Sorcha, and to consider the age-related data since the screening age was increased in 2004?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman raises an absolutely tragic case, and our thoughts go out to the family and friends involved. He raises an important case, because the UK National Screening Committee set the age at 25. My understanding is that that was not a resources-based decision. The reason was to do with the potential perverse medical consequences of carrying out screening routinely below that age. It is felt that there could potentially be a number of false positives because of the anatomical changes that go on at that age. As he says though, the matter is worth considering, as there are people who fear that they have family history and who ask for a test. I will certainly write to him on that specific issue.

Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Mark Durkan

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can certainly give that assurance. It is important to select people who are genuinely vulnerable and need to be saved. We will be careful not to accept people who might support extremist or terrorist views.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Constraints mean that I will have to park questions about the deployment of lethal force against a UK citizen in order to address the refugee crisis. The Prime Minister talked about supporting these refugees in their hour of need, but how does that rhetoric chime with admitting only 20,000 over the course of five years, with overtones of disqualification for those who have already made perilous journeys and perhaps lost loved ones? Will the Prime Minister go further than merely have his Ministers having disparate conversations with First Ministers and will he, along with the Irish Government, convene a special meeting of the British-Irish Council properly to co-ordinate the response for refugees across all the Administrations of these islands, taking account of their different service models, and to offer good partnership to international agencies and domestic charities that want to help?

[The Prime Minister]

I will look carefully at what the hon. Gentleman says. Obviously, what the Republic of Ireland does is a matter for the Republic of Ireland, if it wants to opt in to the relocation system. I am pretty confident that 20,000 refugees coming into Britain is, and will be seen to be by other European countries, a generous and compassionate offer that will help to take the pressure off other European countries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Mark Durkan

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, let me take this opportunity to praise my hon. Friend’s constituent and the skills that were used on that dreadful day in Tunisia. The Bill will reinforce the work we have already done to increase funding for counter-terrorism and counter-terrorism policing; make sure there is a duty on public authorities to combat radicalisation; and go after the fact that there are groups and individuals who are very clever at endorsing extremism but then stopping one step short of actually condoning terrorism. That is what the new banning orders we are looking at aim to achieve, because we are clear that people who support the extremist narrative have no place in our public debate.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Q2. Given regional wage profiles, many families in the north of Ireland will identify with the concerns raised today by the four children’s commissioners about tax credits. Further to heeding those wider warnings, will the Prime Minister have the Chancellor take particular care to ensure that no supposedly more targeted changes to child benefit or tax credits will end up being misdirected against natural, everyday, cross-border working families in my constituency and its hinterland?

[The Prime Minister]

When we talk about cross-border working families, it is still the case that welfare arrangements in the United Kingdom are far more generous than what is available in the Republic of Ireland. Our view is clear: the right answer is to create jobs, cut taxes, raise living standards and reduce welfare. I want an economy that has high pay, low taxes and low welfare, instead of low pay, high taxes and high welfare.

Let me share with the House one important statistic. Under the last Labour Government—[Interruption.] I know that Labour Members do not want to talk about the last Labour Government. [Interruption.] Well, under the last Government, inequality and child poverty fell. Now for the history lesson: let us go back to the last Labour Government. Under Labour, the number of working-age people in in-work poverty rose by about 20%. That was at the same time as welfare spending on people in work went up from £6 billion to £28 billion. What that shows is that the Labour model of taking money off people in tax and recycling it back to them in tax credits has not worked. It is time for a new approach of creating jobs, cutting taxes and having businesses that are creating the livelihoods we need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Mark Durkan

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Q5. As a Back Bencher, the Prime Minister campaigned for group B strep awareness. I am sure that he is aware of Northwick Park hospital’s highly successful programme of universal GBS screening, which proves the very case that he used to make. Will he now encourage Ministers to roll out GBS-specific testing as a routine offer to all pregnant women in all our health services?

[The Prime Minister]

May I say how grateful I am to the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue? Two of my constituents, Craig and Alison Richards, came to my surgery and raised it with me, and that is what caused me to become interested in it in the first place.

We have made some big breakthroughs. The national health service is doing much more screening and taking much more action to help those who potentially have the infection, although there are difficulties with national programmes because of the whole issue of anti-microbial resistance and the use of antibiotics. However, I am happy to take this opportunity to look into what has been achieved so far and what more can be done, and then write to the hon. Gentleman.

G7

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Mark Durkan

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. One thing we did as part of the Lough Erne process was to make sure that the Crown dependencies and overseas territories of the United Kingdom played their part. We can also push this agenda through the Commonwealth. Things like the register of beneficial ownership of companies are hugely helpful to the poorest countries in the world, which are often the victims of being ripped off by unscrupulous businesses. Having these registers, starting with Britain’s, will help enormously.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Prime Minister has sounded some strong notes against corruption. Will that sound carry through to his Government’s engagements with all the Gulf states and their regimes’ myriad interests? In that context, will he also amplify the message on human rights?

[The Prime Minister]

The answer to the hon. Gentleman is yes. We believe that we should encourage all countries to become more transparent and open in their dealings. Whether by signing up to transparency in the extractive industries or through the register of beneficial ownership, we have been leading by example.