Mike Gapes
Main Page: Mike Gapes (The Independent Group for Change - Ilford South)Department Debates - View all Mike Gapes's debates with the Department for International Development
(6 years ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
My hon. Friend will know that the most appalling things have happened. Even when co-ordinates have been given over with a view to ensuring that strikes avoid medical centres, they have been used to attack those sites. We saw the report of the surgeon David Nott, who was conducting an operation on an injured Syrian child down the line from London and who found that the signal he was using to perform that operation was used to target a hospital. This is why we have launched these new challenges, calling on people who have expertise, technical know-how and great ideas to enable us to be ahead of individuals who choose to unleash this barbaric behaviour on their own people. We want to do better. We want to have more options in the future to protect people.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Last week, members of the Foreign Affairs Committee were in New York for discussions with the United Nations Secretary-General, members of the Security Council and other UN member states. It is clear that far from ignoring the UN, our ambassador Karen Pierce and her colleagues are making prodigious efforts to get progress on Syria. The Secretary of State referred to the 12 Russian vetoes. Given that there will continue to be Russian vetoes, what are we going to do when Assad carries out mass murder of civilians in Idlib? Are we going to walk by on the other side or will we have another effort, with our coalition partners, France and the United States and others, to stop these atrocities?
Penny Mordaunt
The hon. Gentleman will know that one reason why we took action against the use of chemical weapons a few weeks ago—as well as to degrade Assad’s capability—was to deter that kind of action in future. The hon. Gentleman’s support and strong stance on humanitarian issues have strengthened that message. The fact that Members from all parties have condemned not only the chemical weapons attacks but the use of conventional weapons against civilians, and have expressed our resolve that those things should not happen, will have helped that message. The hon. Gentleman will understand why I cannot talk today about specific future action that we or our allies might take, but Assad and his backers should be under no illusions: we will not tolerate such breaches of international norms.