Syria

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend makes an important and wise point, as she does normally.

We have been coming back to this place after each horrific event and asking ourselves, “How did we let this happen?” Let this time be different. Let this be the moment when we decide to take a long-term view and bring together all the best efforts of everybody in Britain to secure peace.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case, particularly about the importance of aid. What does she think should be done to ensure that other countries follow the UK in standing by their responsibilities to deliver aid to Syria?

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. As someone who fought the battle to get a Bill through Parliament to guarantee the aid of this country, I would happily talk to parliamentarians in other countries about what they ought to do, but this debate is not about what others should do. Our Prime Minister is here, and my focus is on what she can do and what our country can do to try to assist vulnerable Syrians.

Fourthly, we need to defund Assad. Unfortunately, Syria has still managed to function as an economic actor in the world, but that cannot be right. It cannot be okay that business goes on as normal in the face of such brutality and inhumane actions by that country’s Government. I ask the Prime Minister to investigate what actions we can take to remove Syria from the SWIFT system, which provides for international financial transactions. That would send a strong signal that we are no longer prepared to tolerate Syria just going on as normal. It has involvement in a number of forums around the world, and we must go through each one and remove Syria. We need to send a message that the Syrian Government are beyond the pale and that their actions prove that they can no longer be treated as a normal member of the international community in any sphere of life, especially economically.