Richard Graham
Main Page: Richard Graham (Conservative - Gloucester)Department Debates - View all Richard Graham's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. It is an unfortunate fact of life that it is only when countries force themselves to the top of the news agenda, sometimes for completely the wrong reason, that everybody recognises that we have known that there was a problem there for a long time and that we knew what needed to be done, but did not quite do it. I would hope, having now focused on the challenge and seen in Algeria the week before last the potential consequences of allowing terrorist organisations to gain ground in this area, that the EU in particular will have the will and the tenacity to see this through and to do what needs to be done over the medium to longer term.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) is surely right to raise the high human and financial cost of earlier interventions under the previous Government, but there is a danger of seeing everything through the prism of previous experience. I support the Defence Secretary’s commitment today to deploying considerable British military training capabilities alongside allies, with the support of neighbouring countries and with full awareness of the dangers of mission creep in Mali, for the better security of Europe. Does he agree, however, that training in fragile areas comes under the heading of conflict resolution and that it would, therefore, be appropriate for DFID to make a wholesome contribution to the costs of this training mission?
Mr Hammond
My ears are always open to any suggestion that anybody else might contribute to activity that otherwise falls on the defence budget, but as I said earlier the funding for this operation will come from the conflict pool and from pooled funds that are available for precisely this type of intervention. This is an arrangement that is working extremely well across Government and is one of the successes of the past couple of years.