02/12/2015 Wednesday in Parliament

Hello and welcome to Wednesday in Parliament,

MPs vote to allow air strikes against the terror group

The noes to the left, 223. Sodhi ayes have it -- so, the ayes have

it. At the start of a marathon debate,

the Prime Minister said defeating In action is a choice. I believe it

is the wrong choice. In a day-long debate, the House

of Commons has discussed the government's proposals for carrying

out airstrikes in Syria against The Prime Minister told the House

that the aim of military action was to "keep the British people safe"

from terror attacks. But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn

opposed that stance - although his view was not

representative of every one of his The day began with the

Prime Minister's opening statement. I wish to call the prime Minister.

The question before the House today is how we keep the British people

safe from the threat posed by Isil. Let me be clear, this is not about

whether we want to fight terrorism, it is about how best we do that.

Since November last year, our security forces have foiled no fewer

than seven plots against our people, so the threat is real, and the

question is, do we work with our allies to destroy this threat, and

do we go after these terrorists in their heart lands, or do we sit back

and wait for them to attack us? The Prime Minister took

interventions early on in his speech, when MPs asked him to

apologise for reportedly saying opponents of military action were

terrorist sympathisers. No-one on this side of the House

will make a decision based on any such remarks, nor will we be

threatened into, from doing what we believe is the right thing, whether

those threats come from online activists or indeed from our own

dispatch box. I completely agree with the honourable gentleman.

Everyone in this House should make up their mind on the argument in

this House, and there is honour in voting for and against. We should be

clear what air strikes alone can't achieve. We don't need ground troops

to hit the headquarters of Daesh, their supply routes and training

facilities and weapons suppliers. The Prime Minister defended his

claim there were 70,000 moderate opposition fighters in Syria, saying

it was the estimate of the Joint Intelligence Committee,

the UK's senior intelligence body. I am not arguing, this is a crucial

point, IMF arguing that all of these 70,000 are somehow ideal partners.

Some left the Army because of the brutality of a solid, and they can

play a role in the future of Syria, and that is a view that has been

taken by the Russians as well. This is not 2003. We must not use past

mistakes as an excuse for indifference or inaction. Let's be

clear, in action does not amount to a strategy for our security or for

the people of Syria, but inaction is a choice, and they believe it is the

wrong choice. We have listened to our allies and we have taken legal

advice and we have a United Nations resolution and we have discussed

this extensively at meetings at the Security Council, I have put forward

a report to the select committee, we have a proper motion for this House,

and ahead by the end of it all, the House will come together for large

-- in large numbers to help defeat these extremists and take the action

that is needed now to keep our country safe.

It was the turn of the Labour leader

Since the prime minister first make his case for bombing in Syria last

week,... That is why it is a matter of such concern that a government

has decided to push this vote through Parliament today. The issue

now is whether extending British bombing from Iraq to Syria is likely

to reduce or increase that threat to Britain, and whether it will counter

or spread the terror campaign that is being waged by Isil across the

Middle East. The answers do not make the case for the government motion.

On the contrary, they are a step back. A vote against yet another

ill-fated twist in this never-ending war on terror.

And Mr Corbyn too addressed the issue of ground troops in Syria,

saying the only troops who could take advantage of the bombing

Campaign were jihadist forces. Western boots on the ground, what

ever the prime minister me to say now about keeping British combat

troops out of the way, are a real possibility.

He finished by calling for increased efforts for a

To oppose another war and intervention is not passive as in,

it is hard-headed common-sense, which I think we should be thinking

about today in this House. To resist the determination of Isil to draw

the Western powers back into the heart of the Middle East is not to

turn our back on our allies, it is refusing to play into the hands of

Isil and what I expect some of them want us to do.

Now, five minutes isn't long for a backbencher to make a speech

but over 100 members wanted to contribute to the debate.

Sir Alan Duncan was the first Conservative MP to speak

and he said the decision not to bomb Syria in 2013 had raised questions

If we choose today to remain on the sidelines, especially when there is

a new and unequivocal United Nations resolution in place, it would signal

to the world that the United Kingdom is indeed choosing to withdraw. Mr

Speaker, we should not be in the business of national resignation

from the world stage. I am not going to be a party to killing innocent

civilians for what will simply be a gesture. I am not interested in

gesture or texts. I am not interested in gesture military

activity. I am interested in affecting military activity, and if

that is brought before this House, I vote for it. To my mind, Isil isn't

such a clear and present danger to the civilized world -- is such a

clear and present danger to the civilized world... Our French allies

have excessively asked us for such support, and I invite the House to

consider how we would feel and what we would say if what took place in

Paris had happened in London, if we had explicitly asked friends for

support and France had refused. -- asked France for support.

Conservative John Baron is a member of the

Foreign Affairs Committee and his amendment opposes the Government's

We should be tackling the ideology and the sectarianism that feeds the

extremism that these groups, including Daesh, feed off. That is a

long-term strategy. You cannot do it overnight, but I don't see much

evidence of that. I find this decision as difficult as anyone to

make. I wish I had, frankly, the self righteous certitude of the

finger jabbing representatives who will no doubt soon be contacting

those of us who support this motion tonight. But I believe that Isil

-gen-macro has to be confronted. -- Isil Daesh.

Conservative Julian Lewis is chair of the defence committee and he

said he had consulted the former ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford.

He calls the freeze Syrian army a ragbag of 58 factions, united mainly

by a desire to use both, Turkish and Western funding. He goes on to say

that the factions which are extremely locally based have no

interest whatsoever in being drawn into battle against groups which

basically share their sectarian agenda hundreds of miles away in

areas with which they are unfamiliar. So, Mr Speaker, instead

of having dodgy dossiers, we now have bogus battalions of moderate

fighters. Daesh are the fascists of our time and I still believe there

is a dignity in uniting with our allies against a common enemy in

defence of our common humanity, and that is what I hope we will do.

The SNP uniformly opposes air strikes.

The party's leader at Westminster, Angus Robertson,

said he appreciated the professionalism of the armed forces,

adding that most of the air crews deployed were likely to be from

RAF Lossiemouth in his constituency.

Like many others, he turned to the issue of ground troops in Syria.

And he raised the issue of the Prime Minister's mandate for action.

The problem is, only a part of those forces are moderate, and there is

absolutely no evidence whatsoever that they would definitely deploy

from other parts of the country to counter Daesh. I asked the Prime

Minister, all this 70,000, how many are moderate and how many are

fundamentalists? I have not had an answer to that question. The UK

Government, Mr Speaker, is going to have a huge problem with legitimacy

and mandate for this operation in Scotland. It might win the vote

tonight, but it will do so with the support of only two out of 59

Scottish MPs. The DUP's leader at Westminster

said his party would be supporting Paris, like the downing of the

Russian airliner, were assaults upon civilized values that have to be

lived up to. To prevent evil spreading further, we must act. It

is a heavy burden of responsibility. So, it is not a

choice between military intervention on the one hand and political

initiatives on the other, both go hand in hand.

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said the Prime Minister had broadly met

the criteria the Lib Dems wanted to see fulfilled.

This is the toughest call I think I have ever had to make, maybe ever,

and certainly in this House, and what pushes me in the direction of

the voting for action is, above all things, the United Nations

resolution 2249, which calls for us to eradicate the safe haven that

Isis have within Syria that does not just permit this country but urges

this country and all members are capable of doing so to take all

necessary action to get rid of Daesh. If we had just been asked to

bomb Syria, I would be voting no, I would be out there demonstrating in

between speeches and signing up to those e-mails, but this is not just

a case of bombing, this is standing with the United Nations and the

international community to do what is right by people who are the most

beleaguered of all. Meanwhile the Green MP,

Caroline Lucas, said military action should not be used

unless there was evidence that it I share the horror and revulsion

that the recent atrocities in Paris and elsewhere, yet I have still not

heard convincing evidence that the UK bombing Isis targets in Syria

will help bring about lasting peace in the region. The evidence appears

to suggest it would make matters worse.

You're watching Wednesday in Parliament on BBC Parliament.

Peers air concerns and fears over action in Syria.

The Syria debate, naturally, dominated the day in Parliament but

Seb Coe, one-time Olympic gold-medallist, now president

of the world athletics body the IAAF, was facing a committee of MPs.

The long-standing problem of drugs in sport erupted into a huge scandal

earlier this year when a German TV documentary claimed that blood

doping had been carried out on a massive scale by athletes in Russia,

with Russian officials and the IAAF involved

After that came a report by the World Anti Doping Agency,

which found corruption and bribery practices at the highest

We can talk about processes and rules and laws but culture is the

thing we have to address. Following the Olympics, your personal

reputation made you came of the world, it went so well. I think your

reputation is back on the line now that you've taken this job and I

think it is going to be very difficult. Straight question, do you

really think you can do this? You can break this culture if it does

exist? Yes, I have two because I don't there are no tomorrow is for

sport. I have to be honest, this is not within my normal framework of

reference. I do not understand this culture. It is not the culture I was

brought up with, it is not a velocity that any of my coaches had.

My father would have killed somebody that suggested I to do anything at

all to performance in hands. That was the non-negotiable nature of the

environment I was brought up in and that was an environment that the

vast majority of athletes are conjugal in and live in. I wanted to

ask you, have you ever been offered a break? No. By nobody ever to read

your whole career? No. You know anybody who has been offered a

bribe? No. Never heard any chat about the track-side or subsequently

from anybody who has ever said they were offered money? No. It is

extraordinary for our sport that is so full of corruption that you have

never come across it. I have really found in any environment that people

that are doing corrupt acts tend to share that information with their

co-workers. As a journalist myself, I have often heard gossip and gossip

is often wrong but sometimes it is correct and it is quite often when

following up. It is not our environment I have worked in. If the

No, it is not and some serious No, it is not and some serious

allegations have been made about former members of the IAAF and I

accept that. But I don't believe the IAAF, across all its organisation,

and across the vast majority of people that are involved in the

sport, is a corrupt sport. Why hasn't the IAAF dealt with this

issue earlier? Why haven't you been more prominent in pressing it said

you had such a prominent role within the organisation? We were not aware

of the specific nature of those allegations. I was certainly not

aware of the specific allegation that was being made around the

corruption of anti-doping processes in Russia. I would have been aware

of the escalation of the problem and those concerns were relieved,

encountered by me and by others -- relieved. But I do remind you that

there are... They are very serious, I am not walking away from this,

these are serious allegations. The MP noted that Lord Coe

once also had a post within the international football body,

Fifa. You're an exciter in these two

organisations and you are a devilled by allegations for many years. You

have been very closely involved in both organisations -- bedevilled by

allegations. Why should we think, in these circumstances, that you are in

the person to clean up this? I have the experience to do that. I had the

support to do that. Have there been failures? Yes. Will I fix them?

Absolutely. I we listening? Absolutely. I am focused on doing

that and if we don't do that there are no tomorrows for my sport.

Now, back to the debate on whether the UK should

The House of Lords also suspended ordinary business to discuss

the matter, 70 peers putting their names down to speak.

Senior figures from the church and the army

A former head of the British army was one

It is my sincere hope that members on the other place or bought in

significant numbers in favour of the motion they are debating. To do

otherwise would send an appalling message that the UK has pulled up

the drawbridge, is no longer an ally that can be trusted and has lost its

appetite to be a positive influence in Europe and the wider world. My

Lords, this is more about sending the right message, it is about being

part of an effective coalition that is not only clear about is strategic

objectives but also as a credible and coherent plan that takes us from

where we are now to the defeat of the so-called Islamic State and onto

a more secure and stable Syria and that wider region.

The former Conservative Foreign Secretary,

William, now Lord Hague, gave his maiden speech during the debate.

He said the UK should always be open to imaginative diplomatic solutions,

In the end, if communities and leaders cannot live peacefully

together in Syria and Iraq, then we will have to try them living

peacefully but separately in the partition of those countries,

regretfully, though I say that. Well know literary force alone cannot

defeat Daesh, they cannot be defeated without military force. I

think that is a very obvious point. When they enslave women, when a

murder hostages, when they persecute minorities, they are not seeking a

negotiation and since our security as a United Kingdom rests on our

alliances and our greatest alliances are with the United States and with

brands, it would be extraordinary, we would need a very compelling

reason as our security is indivisible from there is not

stacked with them in this crisis -- United States and France.

And Lord Hague finished by saying the use

of small specialist ground forces from western nations in

The Archbishop of Canterbury followed Lord Hague

and said the House would benefit from his experience.

The criteria to my mind have been met. But while there is... While

they are necessary, they are not by themselves sufficient in action of

this kind. Where we can end up doing the right thing in such a wrong way

that it becomes the wrong thing. The communities that have lived there

for 2000 years should not simply be emptied from that region. The

additional military force we are bringing to this quasi policing

operation, already acted over Syria, symbolically and to some extent

significantly adds to what is happening there. But far more than

that, it enables us to act where I were resources and expertise are

world leading in the creation of post-conflict peace and

nation-building. Only a holistic, the logical and global policy will

achieve our aims. If you launch war, you'd want unpredictability. The

best we are deciding on today is, on the balance of probabilities, this

is the best opportunity we will have. There are no certainties. The

second by Taiwan to make is, if we are successes -- successful in

removing eyesore and creating the ability in Syria, it will be messy

and won't look very nice. But peace we will be able to create, might be

able to create. Probably the only thing you can say about the peace is

that it will be better than the war it ended. What good does bombing do?

It makes the people who make bombs happy. But it invites retaliation,

which we have had and we may get more. The biggest question I have is

who are we targeting? It is fine to say we can pinpoint people with

drones, we have seen that bus there an off a lot of drones out there and

an awful lot of people who are being killed and blown out of their

houses. If we had the most abundant at night I would vote against it and

in doing so I believe I would be voting for the majority of members

of my own party. Last night, when the Liberal Democrat MPs said they

were going to support the Government, with various caveats,

there was a ripple of surprise and shock that went through the party

and some of us spent a lot of time last night talking to people who

were really quite angry and felt they had been let down by their MPs.

airstrikes. Now, back to the debate in the House of Commons.

The debate in the House of Commons drew to a close

Summing up for the opposition, Labour's Hilary Benn was in

the unusual position of taking an opposite stance to his party leader.

We are here faced by fascists. Not just their calculator brutality but

their belief that they are superior to every single one of us in this

chamber tonight and all of the people that we represent. They hold

us in contempt. They hauled our values in contempt, I were belief in

tolerance and decency in contempt. They hauled our democracy, the means

by which will make our decision night, in contempt. And what we know

about fascists is that they need to be defeated. My view, Mr Speaker, is

that we must now confront this evil. It is now time for us to do

our bit in Syria. That is why I ask my colleagues to a vote for this

motion tonight. APPLAUSE

The Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond put the case

What kind of a country would we be if we refused to act in the face of

a threat to our security as clear as the one that I thought poses.

Indeed, Mr Speaker, what kind of a country would we be if we were

unmoved by the murder, the rape, the beheadings and the slavery that

Islamic State imposes on its subjects. What kind of a country

would we be if we ignored the calls for help from our nearest

neighbours, even as they grieve for their dead.

That's all from me for now. From me, Georgina Pattinson,