Oral Answers to Questions

Natalie McGarry Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sure that the word “inadvertent”, or the word “inadvertently”, was in there somewhere. One cannot accuse other Members of misleading the House.

We now come to topical questions. I remind the House that topical questions are supposed to be brief, and so are the answers.

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (Ind)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

My priority for the rest of 2016 is to ensure that there is a robust and measured response to the crisis in Syria, while pressing home our campaign against Daesh and working alongside our allies to protect the rules-based international system against the ambitions of Russia, and to achieve an ambitious and outward-looking global Britain.

[Natalie McGarry]

Military action in Mosul could result in the displacement of 1 million civilians, and the International Committee of the Red Cross has claimed that it can provide for only 300,000 people, with the United Nations providing for 60,000 more. What provisions, measures and plans have been agreed to guarantee civilian safety, the security of food and water resources, and the prevention of a catastrophic humanitarian crisis?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

As I implied in my reply to an earlier question, it is important that we get what happens when the guns fall silent correct. We cannot afford to have a refugee crisis of the scale that has been suggested, which is why the international community has come together on several occasions, including at Washington DC—the Foreign Secretary and I attended—to ensure that we have the necessary measures in place to support those who are fleeing, that any chemical weapons attacks that might take place can be dealt with, and that there will be a form of processing so that we can capture people who have committed war crimes and put them on trial.