Sir Andrew Mitchell
MP for Sutton Coldfield · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I urge Labour Members to rise up now and say that the historical interest and support of the Labour party have been for international development. People might expect the beastly Tories to cut aid and development, but they do not expect the Labour party to do that. Now is a chance to have a real reset, which should include three things.”
“As we get older, we tend to look back at the past through rose-tinted spectacles, but I acknowledge at the outset that British development policy is at its best by far when it is conducted on an all-party basis. It is not a Labour, Conservative or Liberal policy; it is a British policy. That was one of its great glories in the past.”
“Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale about the importance of saving the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, but we have to accept that we will not get a major boost in public support unless it comes from the top. We had an era of huge support, led by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.”
“The Government are the 100% shareholder in BII and are therefore able to set out very clearly what its priorities should be, but they should then leave an organisation like BII to get on with following that mandate. I argue that there have been three great losses from the Johnson and Starmer premierships.”
“I argue that, since the Suez crisis, international development has been the only area of indisputable British international leadership—and we have lost that.”
“I do not really agree with that because, while the hon. Gentleman cites a number of areas where Britain makes a big contribution, there is a big black hole where we have cut off our legs in respect to international development. I will say a word or two about that in a moment.”
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“Following the limited but important progress on the political track in Vienna and the unanimous adoption by the United Nations of resolution 2249 on ISIL, is it not clear that the Prime Minister’s considered response today is absolutely compelling? Is this not the way in which we discharge our responsibility to protect innocent civilians, both here in the United Kingdom and in Syria?”
“In his very welcome statement today, my right hon. Friend is clearly right to focus on the political track in the Syrian negotiations, building in part on the Kofi Annan proposals from some time ago, and on the significant progress that appears to have been made in Vienna last week. If those negotiations are successful, that will of itself remove a huge barrier to the widespread military coalition that all of us want to see, in which Britain, as my right hon. Friend said today, would have the ability, as well as a number of unique assets, to play a very significant part. If the negotiations in Vienna are successful, I have no doubt that the Prime Minister, coming back to this House, will get a huge majority of Members from both sides supporting Britain’s full participation in it.”
“Further to the question from the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), I thank the Prime Minister for his support and emphasise that this is indeed an all-party campaign. Does he agree that there is an opportunity now to build on the work of the coalition over the past five years and, with widespread support across all parts of society, end an historical injustice and inequality in the treatment of mental ill-health and physical illness?”
“Does she accept that the judges appointed must not be those who work too closely with the police and security services—for example the Special Immigration Appeals Commission—because their independence will not be trusted or accepted by the general public if they are given such a role?”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for coming to the House today and setting out such a comprehensive approach to these issues. She is right to do so because they affect fundamentally the civil liberties and rights of every citizen in the country. Parliament will need to look precisely at the words in the Bill, not least because—she alluded to this—there has been a certain amount of spin in the papers recently and we must be clear about what is suggested. On warrantry, from time to time I deputised for the Home Secretary and for my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), and I am inclined to agree that the dual key is the right way to proceed.”
“I very much hope that the Committee will welcome the decision by Britain to be part of this bank. It is part of Britain’s leadership on international development, and it is most welcome on that account.”
“I cannot reveal the workings of Government over the appointment, but the hon. Member for Harrow West may be certain that there was considerable discussion about that appointment. There was an outstanding deputy head of the World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was a candidate, and we need to move beyond that old deal and ensure that the next head of the World Bank is appointed by a full, meritorious trawl of everyone who is available, so that that particular concern is removed. The Minister is absolutely right to express Britain’s strong support for this bank. It will be part of the architecture from which the poorest people in the world will increasingly benefit, as the work of all these development banks becomes more directly attuned to that core purpose.”
“Friend the Chancellor decided—rather bravely, I think—to be an early investor in the bank are absolutely the right ones, because this is clearly going to be a major feature on the development landscape. Britain has skills and advantages to bring to the table of what I hope will be one of the most successful of the international development banks. It is no secret that in the developing world there was irritation when Jim Kim was appointed as head of the World Bank. That was not because there is anything wrong with Jim Kim—he is an excellent leader of the bank—but because it was not open to international meritorious competition. As has already been alluded to, it was part of the stitch-up that means that the Americans appoint the president of the World Bank and the Europeans appoint the president of the IMF. We need to move beyond that now.”
“Member for Nottingham North, with whom I have sparred and indeed co-operated over the last 30 years, since we entered the House, although in my case I have broken service through an enforced sabbatical. On the point made by the hon. Member for Harrow West, it is important to note that the appointment of Mr Jin Liqun, which many of us have welcomed, is an operating matter for the bank, and the role of Britain as a core and founder investor in the bank will be set out clearly in the shareholders’ agreement, as it is with the other development banks, in which, as the hon. Gentleman will know very well, Britain takes a leading part. That will be what determines whether or not Britain was consulted. However, the reasons why my right hon.”
“It is a pleasure to appear before you, Mr Gapes; I think that it is for the first time. It is also, of course, a pleasure to welcome the Minister back to his place. While he has been away, I think a DFID Minister has been covering for him, and many of us would have expected this debate to have been conducted by a DFID Minister. It may well be that such is the synchronicity between the Foreign Office and DFID these days that he has been filling in for the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), who I had expected to see here. I will just make a couple of points, tempted and seduced as I have been by the hon.”
“The hon. Lady is making a good and brave speech on this important point. Will she emphasise the point we set out in our joint article over the weekend, which is that the safe havens are not an intervention in the politics of Syria but are strictly a humanitarian measure to ensure safety for those who are fleeing their homes and communities, often under gunfire, and the extreme violence in Syria today? This is the sort of intervention that the United Nations was set up to co-ordinate, and we really must ask why more is not being done by the international community to promote this important initiative, which both of us supported at the weekend.”
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. It is an important issue that he is right to raise. I want to make two points. First, West Midlands police deserves to be congratulated on the 17% reduction in crime that I understand it has achieved. Secondly, will the hon. Gentleman say a little more about the extraordinary position in which we find ourselves, whereby the amount of the subvention from central Government is far higher than for any other force, apart from Northumberland, and the precept is very much lower? Most of our fellow citizens in similar cities—if one can say there are similar cities to Birmingham—are paying much more. That is an established fact, but it would be very helpful if the hon. Gentleman could discuss the options for remedying that.”
“The hon. Gentleman is being most generous in giving way and is making an important speech. May I press him further about the budget and funding? Does he believe that the precept should rise or does he think that the Government should continue to give more of a subvention because we are providing a smaller precept locally? It is important to address that point, so that we have it clear and in the open.”
“I am stunned at the suggestion that I might have made a spurious point. It would be perfectly fair for the Minister, in seeking to confront the funding difficulties that we all agree exist, to ask whether senior politicians in Birmingham, such as the hon. Gentleman, believe that the Government should continue to give far more as a proportion because the precept in Birmingham is so low or whether senior local politicians believe that that needs to change and that the Government should not immediately assume that the wider taxpayer will provide an extra amount because the precept is so low. I am only trying to ensure that the hon. Gentleman is making a point of principle and is not simply asking the Minister for more money without expressing a view.”
“I have the greatest respect for the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), but I asked whether the Opposition favoured national subvention or a greater contribution from local resources—merely to flush out Labour’s thinking on funding—so for him to put the same question to my hon. Friend and then look rather askance when he does not answer shows, if I may say so, a bit of brass neck. This is an important point: we are asking those who want to see an increase—we all want to see the West Midlands police properly funded—where they think it should come from and in what proportion. So far we have not had an answer from the Opposition, although I have no doubt at all that my neighbour, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), will give us precisely that answer when he speaks in the debate.”
“The Government are clearly right to increase yet further Britain’s immense humanitarian support for the Syrian people, and right, too, to use British aid—entirely in accordance with the rules governing its spending—to support refugees in their first year in the United Kingdom, but will the Prime Minister accept that the failures of the international community to protect, and to tackle the causes of the Syrian catastrophe, evoke memories of the failures over the Rwandan genocide, over which the international community was left guilty and shamed?”
“Most reasonable people will conclude that my right hon. Friend deserves the benefit of the doubt on this matter. However, further to the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), will he take especial care to ensure that he keeps the House closely informed, ahead of what I hope will be a successful vote in the House in the autumn on action in Syria?”
“My right hon. Friend indicated over the weekend that he would like to see greater use made of drones in the fight against terrorism, but is he aware that for every terrorist taken out by a drone between five and 10 innocent civilians, especially women and children, lose their lives? Will he accept that we need to bear that effect in mind as we seek to win hearts and minds in the conflict against the evils of terrorism?”
“May I press my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to consider two-day debates on major issues that come before the House? There is a good example today, where the Defence Secretary is going to bring to the House the possibility of reversing the vote on Syria from the previous Parliament. I have no doubt that the Executive will want to hear, in a big debate, the views from across the House before proceeding. Is it not a good example of one of the subjects—but only one—that would benefit from the House having two days to discuss big issues?”
“We need more public information campaigns to stop the very brave migrants coming across the sea in leaky boats, seeking a better life on a European shore. We need to consider the use of blockading and military action against the horrendous trafficker gangs, and we need to find all possible ways of diminishing and ending this huge humanitarian tragedy. Longer-term economic progress in north Africa is essential. The southern European Mediterranean states need to understand that, in the end, they will either take the people or the goods and services that those people can produce in north Africa. I freely concede that that is a long-term objective, but it is essential nevertheless.”
“If there is to be greater military involvement by Britain, colleagues who were not convinced that there was an overarching strategy at the time of the Syria vote must be persuaded that this time there is. We should also go after ISIL’s funding with greater vigour. We should seek to destroy the oil sales and the means of delivery. We should do more to train and arm the peshmerga, and we should do the same for other Gulf forces once they get their act together. We should also make far more co-ordinated use of international and Gulf special forces on the ground. There are good guys on the ground in Syria; we need to work more closely with them. In north Africa, we need to give specific help to Tunisia.”
“We need a long-term, coherent political strategy to defeat the brutal thugs and anarchists of Daesh that involves all the regional powers and is backed by the international powers outside the region that have influence. Those with influence over the protagonists must exert it for political progress to be made. In the short term, there is great concern that a more coherent plan needs to emerge. There has been a dearth of leadership from the United States in the recent past; Europe is facing inwards, addressing substantial problems over Greece and migrants crossing the Mediterranean; and the UN, which ought to be the means of progress, is hamstrung by its structure.”
“It is another truism that in Ireland at one point there were perhaps 200 active terrorists, but thousands of sympathisers. As Chairman Mao once said, fish need water to swim in. Splitting off the hardliners from those who are more biddable is extremely important and we do that in a number of ways. In the longer term, we need to support development. That is the way, over the longer term, that we will attack the desperate poverty and deep unfairness in the distribution of resources that we see, in particular, in north Africa and the middle east. By focusing on clean water, education, schools, health and family planning, and by offering desperately poor people those basic ingredients of life that we in the west take for granted, international development helps to bind people into a system and a country.”
“That is an important equation; there must be sufficient resources for those brave men and women to carry out their tasks. I pay tribute to the exceptional work that is done by UK development in pursuing Britain’s national interests. I had the privilege of leading DFID in the first half of the last Parliament, and the men and women of that Department do an excellent job of boosting prosperity, tackling—often successfully—conflict and disorder, and building on the good foundations, I readily concede, of the Labour years. Although those three aspects should encourage us, there is much we can still do better. On Daesh, or ISIL, we must have a strategy that splits off the hardliners from those who hear with some sympathy the drumbeat of the terrorist message.”
“In the election campaign, it was suggested that the Government had not learned the lessons of Iraq in respect of stabilisation. I was on the NSC at that time and we certainly learned the lessons of Iraq, but if we are to stabilise a country after a conflict, there must be some degree of stability. We had well co-ordinated international plans on stabilisation, which unfortunately were destroyed by the complete lack of stability and security in Libya at that time. This autumn, the strategic defence and security review will be completed. That is the time when we will need to assess whether 2% is enough for defence, because we will then be able to match the resources to the tasks which we require of our great armed services.”
“When I first went to the Zaatari refugee camp as Secretary of State for International Development in 2012 and pledged a great deal of British money to help those fleeing Syria, I had no idea that the whole region would be convulsed by the subsequent refugee crisis and tragedy. There is, however, some good news. The important innovation of the National Security Council is very valuable, representing a huge improvement in the way we weld together defence, diplomacy and development. After all, a third of the development budget now goes to conflict resolution and tackling conflict. We should not forget that the purpose of Britain’s intervention in Libya was to stop a bloody massacre in Benghazi in which thousands of people would have been killed.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) and to take part in this important debate. I say to the Government that the House will have to return to many of these issues in the coming months and years, and they would do well to secure a two-day debate on the next occasion so that they have the chance to hear the views of Members from across the House and answer their concerns. That would avoid the problems that have arisen in the past. It is a truism to say that we face a very threatening international situation that is incomparably worse than it was five years ago. To the erudite list the Secretary of State for Defence gave at the beginning, I would add what is happening in the China sea and underline the catastrophe—the tide of human misery—that has taken place in the middle east, centred on Syria.”
“We must not allow terrorists to bully us into abandoning the long-cherished liberties that Britain has stood by. This House eventually stopped the absurd idea of the Executive that we should incarcerate people for up to 90 days without charge. I cannot think of any better recruiting sergeant for terrorist fanatics than the colossal mistake that that would have been. We stopped identity cards. We are now wrestling with the issue of secret courts and the information that has come out of the first secret trial, which is enormously discouraging. This is a generational battle against a threat that is a clear and present danger not only to all of us in Britain, but to many of the poorest Muslim people in the world.”
“I have almost finished. May I end on this point? On Sunday night, I shall attend an Iftar at the Birmingham mosque—the biggest mosque in Europe, I think—with a community every bit as horrified by, and condemnatory of, what happened in Tunisia as all of us here. We in this country need to condemn Islamophobia with every bit as much force and conviction as we condemn anti-Semitism. We need to stand up for human rights, recognising that human rights are not just for nice middle-class people in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, but for some very unpleasant people who populate our world as well. We must never compromise our standards of justice and integrity in this ideological battle. Again, I make a plea to the US Government to release for transfer from Guantanamo the last British detainee held there as rapidly as they can.”
“My right hon. Friend is handling this matter with great wisdom and has rightly praised the excellent report that Sir Howard Davies has completed, with its compelling and well-written argument. My right hon. Friend will be aware that the taxpayer has invested £20 million in this report, which is absolutely critical to our future economic well-being. To govern is to choose, so will he make the right decision as quickly as possible and bring it back to this House as soon as he can?”
“I have served as a Member of Parliament for the east midlands as well as for the west midlands, so I hope that I take a balanced approach to my hon. Friend’s excellent speech. Does he agree that it is astonishing that the BBC should neglect investment in Britain’s second city of Birmingham? The city is a centre for the creative arts, in addition to the point raised by the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin). The BBC is cutting off its nose to spite its face; it is missing out on the huge array of talent in the east midlands and particularly the west midlands.”
“Will my right hon. Friend look carefully again at the workings of the European arrest warrant following the announcements last night from London and from Kigali, Rwanda, and the misuse of the process by a junior Spanish judge for political rather than judicial purposes?”
“My right hon. Friend will be well aware that there is considerable concern on both sides of the House at the proposition that Britain might withdraw from the European convention on human rights. Will he take the opportunity today to make it clear that he has no plans for us to do so?”
“I am obviously delighted to have been returned by the citizens of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield with an increased vote—and, indeed, an increased percentage of the vote. They are, after all, the jury that I trust and respect, and I am delighted with their verdict. Throughout the election on the doorstep—thank goodness the doorstep was right and the polls were wrong—I heard about many important issues, some of which are in the Queen’s Speech and some of which are not, that I intend to champion during the course of this Parliament. I will mention just two. The first is mental health, which was referred to briefly by Her Majesty. The second is individual and collective liberty, which this House has sometimes neglected in the past and to which, during this Parliament, we will undoubtedly return.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). I much enjoyed serving with him in Cabinet and on the National Security Council. I feel that history is likely to treat his time as our Deputy Prime Minister rather more kindly than the electorate did on what he must regard, but we do not, as a very dark night for his party and for him—but that is the awesome power of democracy. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) and my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) on brilliantly proposing and seconding the Loyal Address. Some 23 years ago, I had the privilege of seconding the Address, and I know what a terrifying ordeal it is. They both did it with great grace, good sense and humour.”
“The lesson is: do not remove cash, but cut future increased expenditure. That is the sensible, one nation way to do it, and it will make it much easier for the Government to take these extremely difficult and complex decisions. I want to say that the Government are absolutely right to proceed with caution on human rights legislation, as outlined today. I must say that I never thought a British Government, let alone a Conservative one, would ever consider withdrawing from the European convention on human rights, for which our party was responsible.”
“For example, those leaving university now pay fees—correctly in my view, although my generation received a grant. They have no idea when they will be able to retire or whether they will receive a pension, whereas my generation expected to retire at the age of 65, quite often on a pension linked to earnings. There are many difficulties to be faced in tackling the deficit, but the Government are right to do that now and to do so urgently to stop it becoming an endemic intergenerational transfer of debt. But the hard truth is that it is incredibly difficult, as I learned as a Social Security Minister in 1995, to tackle and to cut welfare spending. People argue that cutting £1 billion off the huge welfare budget—less than 1%—is easy, but it is not: £1 billion is £100 from 10 million people, or more than 15,000 people per constituency.”
“Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) said that the deficit and the debt in Britain were unsustainable, and in the long term he is absolutely right. Our generation of politicians has been too willing to throw money at problems and has forgotten that it is not Government money—the Government do not have any money—but the money of our constituents and those hard-working people who pay all their taxes. It is the money of the people, whose servants we are as politicians, that we are spending. If we do not repay this enormous debt and attack all the deficit very thoroughly now, it will be the next generation—our children and grandchildren—who will have to pay it off. It will be an intergenerational transfer of debt and deficit, and a blight on young people, who face many challenges which my generation certainly did not face.”
“It will not be politicians in what used to be called smoke-filled rooms making those decisions; it will be up to everyone to decide. The United Kingdom can clearly survive inside or outside the European Union—not because of the whims of politicians but because we are a great trading nation—but I am absolutely certain that the always edgy relationship that we have had with the EU since we joined in the early 1970s can now be rectified by this renegotiation, and I very much hope that it will be. My advice to those on the Government Front Bench is not to fetter Ministers with regard to the referendum but to let this momentous decision be guided by individual conviction and allow all Ministers, including Cabinet Ministers, to vote as they see fit. I want to express strong support for the Government’s proposals to tackle the deficit. The hon.”
“We shall return to these issues during the course of this Parliament. I want to say at the outset that this is an excellent Queen’s Speech. It is a Queen’s Speech, and as secretary of the One Nation Group, on and off, since 1992, I am obviously delighted to see its content. Thanks to the referendum pledge that the Prime Minister has championed, the Government are in a very good place on an extremely difficult and contentious issue. I got all this grey hair in whipping the party during the Maastricht debates between 1992 and 1994, much of that time spent with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who is not in his place. There is a clear road map: renegotiation followed by a referendum when everyone will be able to decide.”
“My right hon. Friend forgets that it was he who was a Government deputy Chief Whip and that I, albeit briefly, was the Government Chief Whip! Human rights are not British; nor are they just for nice middle-class people. They are universal. In the past, Britain has been a beacon of light on human rights in some very dark places indeed. However, the Government have rightly decided to delay and to think this legislation through. I cannot think of anyone better than my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor to negotiate the Government’s passage on it, and I look forward to his doing so during the coming months.”
“Although it was clear from the beginning of the visit that we agreed on nothing else at all, the one thing we absolutely agreed on was that Shaker Aamer should be released for transfer to the United Kingdom. I am confident that we made some progress on our visit, but it is the most extraordinary injustice. On his visit to the United States earlier this year, the Prime Minister asked that Shaker Aamer be released for transfer to the United Kingdom, and the President promised to prioritise the matter, but since then virtually nothing has happened.”
“It is not the Lord Chancellor’s advice that I am looking for, but his skills in engaging everyone, including Parliament, in the extremely important debate that we must have before the Government come forward with legislation. I was talking about tackling dark places. I should say that four newly re-elected Members of this House spent last week in Washington seeking the release of the United Kingdom’s last detainee in Guantanamo. It has to be said that a more unlikely group of political bedfellows would be extremely hard to find—me, the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter).”
“Tackling the alienation and deep poverty in our world—how right the Government are to stand by their commitment on international development and the 0.7% promise to the poorest people in the world—and making sure that better governance takes hold are the long-term policies that will start to make a difference, but for the moment the House must accept that there is precious little international leadership on tackling this grave problem facing all our constituents and many neighbouring countries.”
“We face this appalling catastrophe in the middle east and this grave threat from ISIL, which might soon have a port on the Mediterranean, but what strategy are the United Nations, America and Europe putting together to tackle this serious threat? There seems to be very little international leadership. Anyone who believes that the solution is to drop weapons worth £30,000 on cars worth less than £500 is living in cloud cuckoo land. It will require long-term, smart policies, political leadership and a political solution, but, in my view, we are nowhere near achieving that.”
“One thinks of the threats spelt out by the Prime Minister on Ukraine, the Baltic states and the actions of President Putin, ISIL and the enormous humanitarian disaster that has engulfed Syria and Iraq, where a generation of children will be unlikely to get an education and, in many cases, do not even have a roof over their heads. At this time, however, Europe is facing largely inwards, dealing, quite rightly, with the problems of migrants coming across the sea from north Africa—some of the bravest people in the world—Ukraine, Greece and the euro. There is precious little leadership from America either.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he is right, too, that this is a thorn in the side of the US-UK relationship. There is a huge online petition, and this has all the appearances of a slap in the face for the United States’ closest ally. I cannot think of any time since the second world war when a UK Prime Minister could have been treated so badly in his request to a President and the reaction to it. The House resolved unanimously on 17 March that Shaker Aamer should be transferred back to the United Kingdom. The message from Britain to the United States is to send Shaker Aamer back to Britain now. Finally, in the five years since the last opening Queen’s Speech of a new Parliament, the world has become a much less safe and more challenged place, with serious difficulties facing us and our neighbours.”
“They are universal values, and the debate on Shaker Aamer gets absolutely to the heart of those values. I had the pleasure, just a fortnight ago, of going to join in Friday prayers at the largest mosque in Europe, the Central Mosque in Birmingham. It is accepted by all of us that there is considerable alarm in the British Muslim community about Islamophobia. Muslims look at this particular case and think that certain rules apply to some people, but not others. The point that this House of Commons should stand up for today is that justice is colour blind and creed blind. It should apply to everyone, but it is not applying to Shaker Aamer, and it is up to us to give voice to this view. The House of Commons must stand up today for justice for all citizens wherever they are from, and never more so than in this particular debate.”
“I very much hope that the Foreign Office and the diligent Minister who is here today to respond to the debate will note that, although the House may not be particularly packed, it is nevertheless true that here on these Benches are representatives of almost every conceivable opinion that the House of Commons could hold. We are all, I believe, utterly united behind the motion that was moved by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington. The hon. Gentleman will know very well that he and I agree on almost nothing in British politics, but on this issue we are shoulder to shoulder; we are as one. I wish to make a point that was set out by my right hon. Friend, which is that in Britain, we respect the law; we believe in certain universal values. Sometimes, they are said to be British values, but I do not like that term.”
“I do not need to detain the House for long, because the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) gave such an excellent speech and because the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) set out the case with both clarity and conviction. I wish to make it clear that I yield to no one in my admiration for the work that the British security services and others have done in addressing a very real terrorist threat, the issues of which will take a generation or more to deal with. The point at issue today is a far more fundamental one.”