Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval
Lord Benyon Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
It is a privilege to follow such a thoughtful and principled speech by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson).
Most Members of this House—certainly myself and certainly the Prime Minister—are naturally cautious about deploying members of our armed forces and putting them in harm’s way. There is of course a risk in intervention, which has been well-articulated in the last 24 hours in this House, and we pay the price of past interventions that have been wrong, but there is also a price in not intervening, and we need to understand the dynamics of events when Governments decide whether or not to deploy our troops.
In doing so, we need to understand the nature of conflict. We think too often that conflict is between two opposing armed forces, with one seizing and holding ground. Such conflicts are easy to understand, but we now live in a world where there is hybrid warfare and there are counter-insurgency operations, and we could be talking about an operation to rescue a downed pilot or a drone attack against individuals who present a direct ability to harm our constituents, and decisions have to be taken very quickly. So this comes down to the nature of our leaders and what goes through their minds and how they make decisions at such times.
There is a perfectly honourable tradition in this country of pacifism. There were pacifists with whom, had I been around at the time, I would probably have profoundly disagreed but who had a certain nobility when in 1914 they stood up against an enormous rush to war and said, “No, we think this is wrong,” and many of them paid a huge price for doing that. The Leader of the Opposition has been a frequent visitor to Greenham common in my constituency and has spoken with pride about his mother’s time spent outside the wire there. He has also spoken about visiting the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. I can both respect and totally disagree with him, and indeed his mother, for the decisions they were taking at that time, but I can respect them. I would respect him more if he came to the House today and said, “Look, this is where I am from. I will not support this country going to war and I will therefore constrain not only this Government but future Governments from doing that.” I would have so much more respect for him if he did that.
I have sat through many debates, and I have participated in many debates in which we have made the wrong decision, as well as those in which we have made the right decision. Too often, those debates come down to arguments about tactics. What this House should do in those circumstances is consider strategy. To me, the strategy in the last few days has been obvious. It is about whether we condone—and, by our inaction, shrug our shoulders and walk away from—the grotesque image of children coughing up blood and spittle because they have been gassed in a cellar by a monster. That is the image. We can talk about process, as hon. Members on both sides have done today, but that is the thought that we have to hold in our minds.
Geraint Davies
The right hon. Gentleman might be interested to know that a Syrian doctor in Swansea approached me to say that his wife’s family had been involved in a gas attack in which their two-year-old died in front of them. He says that the doctors in Douma have been told by the Syrians at the point of a gun: “Unless you give a testimony that there was not a gas attack, doctor, we will kill your children.”
Richard Benyon
I think the hon. Gentleman needs to look at a lot more of the open-source material that I have looked at. For example, the other night, the BBC was interviewing the parents of children there. He can follow some of the rather eccentric people who were in Parliament Square yesterday, or he can follow the facts. I strongly suggest that he does the latter—[Interruption.] I am sorry. I am told that I might have misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. If I have made that mistake, I do apologise to him.
The Leader of the Opposition spoke about the Survation poll. I would just ask him to consider whether the 54% of people in that poll were given details of the exact measures that the Government were having to take, and of the complications involved in controlling an operation with two other nation partners. Were they told about the difficulties of trying to put together an operation that sought to minimise the risk of collateral damage? Were they told about the need to ensure the secrecy of the targeting? The measures needed in these events are so complicated that to talk about them in terms of a public opinion poll involving a binary decision, and indeed in the context of debates in this House, is extremely difficult. What sort of debate would we have? I have sat through debates in which people have said, “I will not walk through the Division Lobby with the Government until I have had more details of the operations that are planned, and unless I hear that x, y, and z measures will be taken.” Anyone who has had anything to do with military operations will know that the plan falls apart when the first shot is fired, and that we are then in the hands of events.
When I was a member of the Executive, I found coming to this House or being quizzed in front of a Select Committee quite tiresome at times. I immersed myself in the details of the issues, and being held to account was sometimes not much fun. Now, as a Back Bencher, I find holding the Government to account enormous fun. I find it very invigorating, but that does not preclude us from trying to do what is right. The problem is that there are some elements in this House for whom this has become a vanity operation. This is more serious than that, however, and I hope that we will therefore tread very carefully when it comes to doing this. We have the complication of an article 5 commitment, whereby if a NATO nation is invaded, we are treaty-bound to respond. I therefore urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to think carefully before going down the path presented today by the Leader of the Opposition.
Syria
Lord Benyon Excerpts(6 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
Well, I say to the hon. Lady that, last Tuesday at the United Nations Security Council, there was going to be a proposal and resolution that would have enabled a proper investigative mechanism to be re-introduced to look at the use of chemical weapons and at what chemical weapons were available in Syria and held by the regime and at their capabilities and to be able to ascertain accountability for those chemical weapons. That draft resolution was vetoed by Russia.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in the coming days, weeks and months, the image that we must hold in our minds is of children coughing up their lungs? Does she understand that many of us, from all parts of this House, want an Executive, when they are planning such a limited operation, to act in the full knowledge that if they do not and if they try to lay the matter before the House at great length, we will not only put at risk the operation, but possibly put at risk our airmen and complicate working with our partners?
The Prime Minister
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. He is absolutely right that, when we think about this issue, we should hold in our minds the horrific suffering of children and others in Douma as a result of the use of these chemical weapons.
Salisbury Incident
Lord Benyon Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point—one that others across the House have made—about the extent to which Russia uses its energy and the finance it provides to influence and have an impact on countries in receipt of it. I assure him that we will continue to discuss with the EU not just our energy security but the wider energy security issue.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
Many Members of this House and the other House are members of multilateral parliamentary organisations, such as the Council of Europe and the NATO parliamentary assembly. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one way we can get behind her leadership and the Government’s position is by getting the message across when we attend events and explaining the Government’s policies, what has happened and why our allies should support us?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend has raised an extremely valuable point. I welcome his suggestion and would encourage him and other Members who are members of those multilateral organisations to do just that.
Salisbury Incident
Lord Benyon Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
As I said earlier, we do not comment on individual cases—the hon. Lady is absolutely right about that. On national security, we regularly monitor and update the actions taken to protect people and premises here in the UK based on the threat as we perceive it at the time.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
As someone who has campaigned for a Magnitsky law and who was a member of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Public Bill Committee, may I say that the Opposition amendments, though well intentioned, were flawed and can be improved on? I am extremely grateful for the co-operation of Ministers and hope that the discussions will be fruitful. Will my right hon. Friend reflect the need for our allies abroad to understand that this could easily have happened in a provincial town in France, Germany or any other country, and that we are looking for action as well as warm words of support?
The Prime Minister
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, a supporter of the Magnitsky law, for highlighting the point I was trying to make earlier, which is that if amendments are to be added to legislation, we need to ensure they are workable. We need to get the amendments right. On his point about our allies, he is absolutely right: we should point out to people that this could have happened anywhere, in any provincial town or city like Salisbury.
Debate on the Address
Lord Benyon Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
Most Gracious Sovereign,
We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.
It is an honour to have been asked to move the Loyal Address, but it is first important to recognise that we meet in the shadow of some of the most terrible tragedies of modern times. Nothing we say can undo what has happened in north Kensington or, for that matter, on the streets of London or Manchester. What we in this House can do is to join our sovereign in leading the nation in mourning the dead, caring for the injured and the bereaved, and uniting in an absolute determination to prevent any such tragedies and outrages from happening again.
Our tone in this debate and debates in the coming days and weeks must reflect the nation’s horror and sadness at such awful tragedies. The country expects our debates and arguments to be robust, but there is room for consensus too. At times like this, we should reflect on Jo Cox’s words about there being more that unites us than divides us.
I am not the first Richard Benyon to have been asked to move the Loyal Address. My great-great-grandfather was the MP for Berkshire between 1860 and 1876. Although he was a great man in many ways, there is no record of him ever troubling Hansard with any speech, even a maiden speech. He was asked by Disraeli to move the Loyal Address in 1869, but replied that, though mindful of the honour, as a matter of principle he never spoke in Parliament. As you know, Mr Speaker, my father was one of your predecessors as the Member for Buckingham. He told that story to Speaker Thomas, who clasped a hand to his head and said, “How I wish there were more like him in the House today.”
I still think of myself as young, but being asked to do this singular honour reminds me that I am, as golfers put it, on the back nine. In the election that we have all just endured or enjoyed—whatever our perspective—I faced a Labour candidate who was born a year after I was selected to fight the seat I now hold. Teams of therapists will be needed to help me to overcome the brutal reality that I have gone straight from being young thruster to old codger, with nothing in between.
I wrestled the Newbury constituency from the Liberal Democrats at the third attempt. I want it on the record that in doing so, I reduced the number of Members of this House who were educated at Eton by one. That may be why some Opposition Members consider me to be something of a working-class hero. [Laughter.] The Newbury constituency is no stranger to controversy. Greenham Common and the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston have made it a regular tourist destination for the Leader of the Opposition, among others. He will be pleased that one particular sword has been beaten into a ploughshare: the runway at the now decommissioned Greenham Common airbase was taken up and crushed to form Newbury’s new and infamous bypass.
The only other Member for Newbury to have moved the Loyal Address was William Mount in 1905. A year later, he lost his seat, due to a combination of negative campaigning by the Liberal candidate—[Hon. Members: “Shame!”] I know that that is hard to imagine in this day and age—and, crucially, his not being a champion of free trade, the latter a fact not lost on a particular champion of free trade: his great-grandson, David Cameron.
The area I now represent is by all measures a prosperous area—someone once said to me that deprivation in West Berkshire is when Waitrose runs out of balsamic vinegar; they were totally wrong—but we all know, in all our constituencies, areas of need, although not on the scale of deprivation and poverty that I witnessed in my years as a soldier in Belfast in my early 20s. That memory still has a great impact on my political beliefs today. In all constituencies there are areas of humanity that have missed out on the prosperity of the fifth largest economy in the world. A rising tide of economic prosperity should lift all boats in the harbour, but that is not happening everywhere. This Queen’s Speech has at its heart the words of the Prime Minister on the steps of No. 10 a year ago, when she spoke of social justice and equality of opportunity.
The part of England that I represent combines so much of what makes me positive about Britain’s future. Sitting alongside some of the most breathtaking countryside exists an economy of extraordinary excitement and dynamism. In 1985, a small group of people started working on mobile telecommunications in a one-room office above a curry restaurant in Newbury. That company, Vodafone—still based in Newbury—employs 108,000 people worldwide and is worth £59 billion. West Berkshire remains one of the most exciting places to start or grow a business. It attracts companies and investment from around the world, and it is a model for the kind of outward-looking, engaged, modern society that works for Britain today.
Businesses are not just entities or institutions separate from real lives; they are first and foremost about the people who work in them and those families who in turn depend on them. As we tackle the big challenge of this Parliament, let us remember what really matters to our constituents. Too often, this place, and those who report on it, are obsessed with the politics of Brexit; our constituents are concerned with the realities of Brexit. That means the reality for the companies in West Berkshire, and in all our constituencies, that are part of a new generation of creative entrepreneurs in manufacturing, tech, life sciences and the service sector. They need to be able to sell their goods, services and expertise in Europe and around the world, and they need to be able to recruit the best people to keep them competitive.
Like the majority in my constituency, I voted to remain in the EU, but, like the majority of people I represent and most people in this House, I recognise the result of the referendum.
I want to be positive about the future. I want to look back at this time and say that I was part of a Parliament that rose to the challenge and, with a great unity of purpose, helped to ensure that Britain successfully reset its relationship with its European neighbours, successfully negotiated access to key markets for its businesses and, while controlling immigration, still allowed people to come to Britain to study and to contribute to our economy and our society. The referendum was in part about parliamentary sovereignty, so we in Parliament can reflect that by immersing ourselves in the detail of what we can all agree is a great national endeavour.
Let our eyes be not only on Europe. As the United States takes a particular route on the environment and climate change, we should grasp the opportunity to ensure that the UK becomes the leader in clean tech, green innovation and resource efficiency. I welcome, for example, legislation announced in this speech that will promote the development of electric vehicles. This will ensure that we build the cars of the future, maintain our strength in motor manufacturing and make our towns and cities better places in which to live and work.
At times, the problems we face seem massive and there are times when we might let ourselves think that it is all too difficult. Just when all seems bleak, we as Members of Parliament have a means of keeping ourselves grounded in the realities of life. In our constituencies, we can visit a charity, a school or a business that inspires us. We can have a quiet conversation, as I had recently, with a veteran coping with life-changing injuries. These experiences lift our eyes to the extraordinary humanity and strength that exists in this country, never more so than in these most sombre times.
It is the quiet but determined doers—whether they are individuals, in our public services, in industry or in voluntary organisations—whom we meet almost daily who make me optimistic for Britain’s future. Twenty-seven years ago, John Major spoke of his desire to build a nation at ease with itself. It was a phrase that resonated with me. A nation at ease with itself would present its population with the same opportunities whatever part of the country or whatever background they came from. Such a society would enjoy greater prosperity, its citizens would enjoy longer and more satisfied lives, and inequality between the richest and the poorest would be narrowing. By every independently produced statistic, we live at, or at the threshold of, such a time.
Those measured indicators are steadily, if too slowly, being achieved, but none of us can claim that our United Kingdom is a nation at ease with itself. Last year’s referendum and the recent election have shown that divisions remain wide and potentially harmful. The Gracious Speech holds firm to the Prime Minister’s deeply held belief in having an economy and society that work for everyone. These are values that matter to her, they matter to me and I know that they matter to every single Member of this House.
Those we represent deserve to live in a country at ease with itself and with the world. I commend the motion to the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Benyon Excerpts(7 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
I stand by all the Conservative MPs who are in this House and who will be out there standing again, campaigning for a Conservative Government who will give a brighter and better future for this country.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Obviously we have committed to meet our NATO pledge of 2% of GDP being spent on defence every year of this decade. We are delivering on that. We have got a £36 billion defence budget that will rise to almost £40 billion by 2020-21—the biggest in Europe and second largest in NATO. We are meeting our UN commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on overseas development assistance. I can assure him that we remain committed, as a Conservative party, to ensuring the defence and security of this country and to working for a stronger world.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Benyon Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I can assure the hon. Lady that this Government take the issue of air quality very seriously. A lot of work has been done. Since 2011 more than £2 billion has been committed to enable, for example, bus operators to upgrade their fleets, and to ensure that changes are made to reduce pollution from vehicles such as refuse trucks and fire engines. We do recognise, however, that more needs to be done. We have seen a reduction in nitrous oxide from some 17% in recent years, but we will bring forward proposals to ensure that we can maintain the air quality that we all want to see.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend show her support for “Brighter Berkshire”, the campaign as part of the 2017 year of mental health? Will she give her continued commitment to ensuring that we have parity between mental health and physical health in this country?
The Prime Minister
I am very happy to endorse the campaign to which my hon. Friend refers. It is important that we continue to raise awareness of the issues around mental health. The fact the Government have committed to the parity of esteem between mental and physical health is important. There is more for us to do on mental health, and I have already set out some steps that we want to take. I commend all those, however, who are working to raise the issue of mental health and provide support to those with mental health problems.
UK's Nuclear Deterrent
Lord Benyon Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
That was one of the most courageous speeches I have heard during my time in the House.
I am very sad that the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) is not here. When we last debated the matter in 2007, he was in his place and I was sitting on the Opposition Benches. He swept his arm to his right and said that we in the home counties could not understand what it was like to have such a powerful weapon on our doorsteps. I pointed out to him that if he came into my bedroom and looked across the Kennet valley, he would see the rooftops of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston; if he looked slightly to his left, he would see the rooftops of the Royal Ordnance Factory at Burghfield; and if he climbed on to my roof, he could probably see the missile silos at Greenham common. In my part of Berkshire, we need no lessons from anyone about the impact or the effect of living close to the nuclear deterrent. He replied as consummately as clever politicians do, that that was the first and last time he would ever be asked into a Tory MP’s bedroom.
The point is that the nuclear deterrent is my constituency’s largest employer, and it brings many advantages, not least to the supply chain of 275 local companies and 1,500 supply chain organisations nationally. Add to that its role in advising the Government on counter-terrorism; the effect it has on nuclear threat reduction, on forensics—not least in the recent Litvinenko inquiry—and on non-proliferation; its second-to-none apprenticeship scheme; and its academic collaboration with the Orion laser. None of that would matter one jot if the decision we were taking today was wrong. The decision we are taking today is right.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I have listened with great interest to what the hon. Gentleman has said about the situating of nuclear materials and weapons in his constituency. Does he agree that there is one big difference between his constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara)? The hon. Gentleman’s constituents—witness his election—want nuclear weapons. The constituents of my hon. Friend, and those of all my hon. Friends, do not want nuclear weapons.
Richard Benyon
There are many polls that conflict with the information that the hon. and learned Lady provides. I was elected on a resounding majority, but who knows how much of that decision was about nuclear weapons being based locally? I think it was about a wide variety of issues.
The truth is that the nuclear deterrent has saved lives—this is a point that has not been made enough tonight—over the past few decades, because aggressors have been deterred. We have to ask ourselves how predictable future conflicts are. The leader of the SNP said that we are talking about deterrence today. We are not; we are talking about deterrence for 20 years, 30 years or 40 years. The SNP may have a crystal ball, and SNP Members may be able to say that there will be no threats to us in that time. I do not have a crystal ball, however, and I want to ensure the protection of future generations in this country.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what role these nuclear weapons played in the catastrophes in Libya and Syria? What contribution did they make?
Richard Benyon
That was a totally ridiculous intervention, which is not worthy of a reply. The hon. Gentleman might like to consider what kind of aggressor we might face in the future. We are not just talking about a resurgent Russia. What about groups of nations or individual nations? We know that nuclear weapons have proliferated in recent years. As we have reduced our arsenal, others have increased theirs. He needs to think not just about today, and not just about himself and his constituents, but about the future generations whom we are talking about protecting.
Richard Benyon
No, I will not take any more interventions.
We have to think through the recent conflicts in our lifetime: not conflicts in which nuclear retaliation would ever have been appropriate, but the Yom Kippur war, the Falklands—mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis)—the invasion of Kuwait, 9/11 and even last week’s coup in Turkey. We did not know that they were going to happen. Who can say that we would be any the wiser in the event of a coup de main operation that might not have happened if the potential enemy had been deterred by our possession of weapons that made them sit up and think? We need potential enemies to hold in their mind the fact that there is no advantage to them in aggression.
I have spoken tonight about our constituents and about future generations, but let us also talk about the concept of using nuclear weapons. There is a good, honest and decent concept, which goes back many generations and which I can respect, of disarmament and pacifism in this country. I happen to think that in this context it is wrong, but we can respect it. When people talk about using nuclear weapons, they need to understand the doctrine that governs them. Our nuclear deterrent has been used every single day of every single year for which it has been deployed. It does what it says on the tin; it deters.
I am sorry to say it, but no one believes that an independent Scotland would suddenly start to invest in Type 26 destroyers, fast jets and all the other paraphernalia of a nation that somehow wants to engage in the world in the way that Britain does. SNP Members’ sudden attraction to the idea of massive defence spending is complete nonsense.
Richard Benyon
No, I will not give way.
The nature of regimes in a more dangerous world is what we need to consider today. Although we have reduced our arsenal of nuclear weapons by 50% in recent years—the Leader of the Opposition completely ignored the fact that we have reduced our arsenal so considerably—the number of states with nuclear weapons has increased and the number of tactical nuclear weapons in the world is now over 17,000.
On the question of cost, I would just state that all this—the £31 billion over 35 years, plus the contingency—translates to about 0.2% of total Government spending. That will be reduced if we take account of the advantage for the supply chain of developing this suite of replacement submarines.
I will finish by saying that we need to listen to our allies on this issue. We have an agreement with the French—the Lancaster House agreement—and we have a long-standing agreement with the United States. Our nuclear defence is networked into our other allies as well. We need to think about their response to what we are debating as much as about the future generations that we will protect through our decision tonight.
ISIL in Syria
Lord Benyon Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Angus Robertson
I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s question. We should ensure that Turkey does not bomb our Kurdish allies, and we should do everything we can to address that.
Angus Robertson
I will give way in a moment to the esteemed Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, of course.
This is a vital point, which was raised by the Foreign Affairs Committee: a key part to any credibility for the argument that a bombing strategy will lead to medium and long-term peace in Syria and deal with Daesh is that there are ground forces capable of taking the ground when they manage to displace and degrade Daesh forces. We have asked repeatedly, and I will ask again. I will give way if any Member from the Government side wants to elucidate and explain to the House what the Prime Minister would not—[Interruption.] The Foreign Secretary is chuntering, and I would be happy to give way to him if he will confirm from the Dispatch Box the make-up of the 70,000 forces. [Hon. Members: “Go on.”] I have now asked a question directly to the Prime Minister that he did not answer and I have challenged the Foreign Secretary to answer the question. Is there anybody from the Government side who will answer the question?
Richard Benyon
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. We asked about a similar point in the Defence Committee yesterday. The right hon. Gentleman is making a nit-picking, quibbling point—[Hon. Members: “Oh!] Will Members hear me out? The right hon. Gentleman is dancing on the head of a pin to try to achieve the result he started with. There are these people, we have to trust them, they are not on Assad’s side and they are not on ISIL’s side. We need to work with them.
Angus Robertson
Let us get this right. The Prime Minister has been asked the question; the Foreign Secretary was given an opportunity to confirm the answer to the House; Members from the Government side were asked to answer the question and they have not—
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
There is a strong pacifist tradition in this country that often requires courage to hold to. We have seen that in conflicts down the years. I have respect for those who could never support military action in any circumstances, wrong though I believe them sometimes to be. The rest of us have to reach a settled view on whether the proposal before us tonight is right or wrong. My view is that, on balance, it is right.
I come, like many hon. Members, from what one might call the post-Iraq generation. My default position is to apply a healthy dose of scepticism to any request for military intervention. We can all think of a great many reasons—they have been listed on all sides of the House—why not going ahead with an extension of the air campaign is the right thing to do. I entirely concede that it is not without risks. We have to understand, however, the true impact of saying that we will sit this out. If we say that and accept that air attacks have limited Daesh’s ability to operate in mass formations and conduct clear command and control operations and so on, we are, in the words of the Prime Minister, subcontracting our security to our friends
In the past few days, we have seen many of the reasons not to proceed fall away: a unanimous UN resolution; a political and diplomatic process involving key parties is under way; and a greater understanding of what an air campaign is and is not.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
I agree with my hon. Friend wholeheartedly that we need to take action, however difficult. ISIL wants to destroy everything we believe in through its murderous acts. We need to act and to act now.
Richard Benyon
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.
One of the main arguments put by a number of colleagues—even by the Chairman of the Defence Committee, on which I sit, a few days ago—is that air campaigns are only successful with little green men in battalions moving along the ground underneath the top cover provided by the RAF. In a perfect world, that is how we use air cover. We do not live a perfect world, however. I asked one my constituents––someone who knows a bit about this, General Sir Mike Jackson––whether he could remember any conflict where air power alone made a difference. He thought and said one word: Kosovo. He then started to recite other circumstances in which an air campaign can diminish an enemy, a point very ably made by the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett).
We have now moved on to question the existence of the so-called 70,000 combatants. We can all dance on the head of a pin and say the reason why we cannot support the motion tonight is that they may not all be the kind of people we like, or that they might not immediately be an effective force on the ground. But they are there. They have not signed up to Assad or to the evil death cult we are targeting, and we have to use them. After the failures of the Iraq war, we have at least an independent and analytical organisation, the Joint Intelligence Committee, to provide the details. They are not being provided by politicians or their advisers. We can quibble about who these people are, but broadly speaking, since the Prime Minister mentioned the figure of 70,000 it has more or less stacked up. They are militias, some local, but through the four-year civil war they are still there and we should use them.
Standing by our allies at this time, particularly France, matters. Not stepping up now would give the impression that we are happy to subcontract our security. That would leave Britain’s role in the world in a very different place in the minds of our friends and our enemies. Britain’s place in the world, however, is not reason enough for armed conflict. Reason enough is found by recognising that the threat is right here and right now to the thousands of my constituents who travel to London every day to work or to attend peaceful events such as those that were taking place in the Bataclan theatre or the cafés where lovers and friends met in a way that we would want to see in every town and city in this country. The proposed action is limited, legal and has the authority of the UN. In supporting the motion tonight, we will be taking the fight, with our friends, to the heart of the ground controlled by one of the most hideous death cults of modern times.
National Security and Defence
Lord Benyon Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Hiring and maintaining people at GCHQ, and not losing them to what are now very well-paid industries, can be difficult. We must ensure that we train more people in maths and science, and that more girls study those subjects through to A-levels and degrees. That is beginning to happen in our country, and we must build on it.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
I know that any talk of co-operation between our defence forces and another European country brings some of our colleagues out in hives, but does my right hon. Friend agree that France is a country that shares our world view and has good armed forces? We must build on the Lancaster House agreement, and I hope that the Prime Minister’s discussions with President Hollande went in that direction.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right. Britain and France are two European powers that have a similar place in the world, a similar belief in strong defence, and a similar understanding that that is an essential part of their global reach. That is why it makes such good sense for us to co-operate and work together. The Lancaster House agreement has us co-operating on even the most sensitive areas of nuclear technology, as well as more straightforward deployments, but I am still convinced that there is more we can do. There should be a great affinity between the British and French military. As we have seen from the successful French campaign in Mali, and from all the work we have done in countries as far afield as Afghanistan and Nigeria, there is a lot we can do by learning from each other and working together to make the world a safer place.