Government Strategy Against IS

Alistair Burt Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his broad support for the Government’s approach to dealing with ISIL. I shall try to respond to the detailed points that he made. The estimate—one can never be absolutely certain about these things—is that a few hundred have travelled out to the region and my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary have explained at length to the House the measures that the Government are taking to deal with the potential threat those people pose. I would add that this is not a challenge that is in any way unique to the United Kingdom. When I attended a meeting of European Foreign Affairs Ministers two weekends ago, this was a theme coming from Ministers representing many Governments within the European Union. This is a challenge that almost every European country faces.

The question of attendance at the Paris meeting is, for self-evident reasons, primarily a matter for the French Government rather than for us. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that 10 Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, have now publicly announced their support for the United States and international efforts so this is by no means an enterprise confined to what one might regard as traditional western allies. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made clear in his evidence to the Select Committee on Tuesday, we hope that the Government of Iran will choose to play a constructive role, but I believe that the House will understand why, in the light of Iran's nuclear programme and its history of very active support for the Assad regime and for Hezbollah, we are proceeding cautiously in our relations with Tehran while hoping that we will see the kind of improvement that both the right hon. Gentleman and I would wish to see.

As for the United Nations, I gently correct the right hon. Gentleman: we do not hold the chair of the Security Council at the moment. We had the chair last month and it is held by the United States this month. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has spoken personally to Ban Ki-moon about how the United Nations could be used to shape an effective international response to the challenge posed by ISIL and when the Prime Minister goes to the United Nations General Assembly later this month, he intends to use that opportunity to try to build and widen this international coalition.

[Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

If the so-called Islamic State is confronted seriously in Iraq, it will inevitably drift over the border into Syria, particularly if it believes in any way that Syria should be a safe haven. It will then continue to collude with the Assad regime in committing acts of terrorism against the Syrian people. There is already a force in Syria fighting both the Assad regime and the extremists, the Free Syrian Army, supported in theory by a large number of the international coalition. Will my right hon. Friend say that we are not ruling out supporting those who are taking on both ISIL and Assad in Syria and, more importantly, does he agree that if strong resolution is shown on confronting ISIL in Syria it might be possible to use that to change the terms of political debate so that serious negotiation could take place in Paris? With resolution and determination against both the extremists and the Assad regime, we could perhaps get the negotiated settlement we need and the appalling brutality of death and injury to the people of Syria that has somehow been airbrushed from the front pages for far too long could finally be confronted.

[Mr Lidington]

As I said in my initial answer to the urgent question, we are not yet in a position where the Government are being asked to take decisions about any possible military action. Obviously, we would come to the House as soon as possible to tell Members if and when such decisions were taken. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to point to the fact that we need a political process in Syria that provides for a transition of power away from the Assad regime, which, given the slaughter that has taken place in that country, cannot possibly become the focus of any kind of national unity in the future. A political process in Syria will also be essential in the long run to create peace in the region and to defeat ISIL comprehensively. There will be a series of discussions in New York during the General Assembly week later this month and I think that following those discussions about Syria we will be in a better position to determine how best to take forward that political process.