Page:Hansard (UK) - Vol 566 No. 40 August 29th 2013.pdf/49

1517 interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, it might have focused a little more on the maintenance of international humanitarian law and on our alarm at the use of chemical weapons next to a NATO ally, Israel, which we have a unique duty to protect. The debate might also have focused a little more on our need to protect innocent civilians in the first use of chemical weapons in a battlefield in the 21st century—weapons not used even by Hitler in the second world war.

Assad is lucky that we are having this debate not in 2002, but in 2013. The year 2003, which so many have referred to, intervened. We must not beat around the bush—Tony Blair and his Administration were dishonest. The result has been the injury of our democracy to a degree not achieved by any other single action, I believe, in the 85 years since women gained full voting equality. Our decision now is being influenced by that failure in 2003.

Mr MacNeil: If the rebels were found to have used chemical weapons, would we feel it was fine for the Russians to bomb them, using the same basis as that for our proposed intervention?

Ben Gummer: One of the problems of this debate has been the number of counter-factuals; the Prime Minister has answered a variation of the hon. Gentleman’s.

In this instance, most people agree that the full likelihood is that President Assad has bombed his own people. We are asked to draw lessons from the experience of 2003 as we come to a conclusion on this matter. One of the principal lessons is that we should expect our leaders to act with transparency, conviction, consistency and principle and to accommodate colleagues who have doubts and be responsive to their concerns. I do not think that President Obama, President Hollande or our own Prime Minister can be faulted on many of those points.

However, a lesson is not an excuse to prevaricate with questions of increasing sophistry or to change one’s mind at the first whiff of political opportunity. It is not an excuse to come to the House with a view different from the one that might have been professed in private and public some days before.

If we allow the ghost of Iraq to influence our decision in this important debate, we risk a double calamity. In not considering what we should, we risk not intervening when we should because we intervened when we should not have. The victims would include not only international humanitarian law, which without force is meaningless and a dead letter, and the Syrian people, who could be attacked with Assad knowing that he would get no response, but our own Parliament, which would have been shown to have lacked resolve and conviction when it knew what was right.

8.9 pm

Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op): The situation in Syria and the surrounding area is catastrophic—at least 100,000 people have been killed and 2 million have been forced to flee the country, with the refugee camp at Zaatari alone containing an estimated 130,000 people, half of whom are under 18. It is difficult to ensure that aid reaches those still inside Syria—in some areas, it is impossible—or even to know their situation. Over the past two years, the international community has stood on the sidelines. Some countries, including the United Kingdom, have provided funds and resources for the refugees in the surrounding countries, but the numbers leaving Syria get larger by the day, as we have seen recently with the thousands crossing into the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Many countries say that the situation in Syria is difficult and that intervention from outside would make it worse, and we have heard that argument time and time again today. However, the situation has got progressively worse without intervention. Are there any signs that it will get better? It is beyond question that everyone here would prefer a negotiated diplomatic solution to the crisis, but despite the considerable efforts of many, including the Foreign Secretary, all attempts at obtaining a United Nations Security Council resolution to try to secure that have proved impossible. It is clear that any moves at the UN would be vetoed by Moscow and Beijing. Russian and Chinese support for Assad means that there is little incentive for him to make meaningful concessions or even to discuss a ceasefire. But now the use of chemical weapons has escalated the crisis. The Joint Intelligence Committee has confirmed today that the Syrian regime has used lethal chemical weapons on 14 occasions since 2012, and the world has done nothing. However, last week’s large attack has led to international condemnation and, I believe, a determination to do something.

Some argue that last week there was not a chemical attack and a few say that such an attack was carried out by someone other than the Assad regime, but I believe Assad to be responsible. I accept the judgment of the Joint Intelligence Committee. It has concluded that

We have known for years—this is by Assad’s own admission—that Syria has chemical weapons. Intelligence leads us to believe that they can be delivered on a variety of platforms. To those who are not persuaded by the need to relieve the humanitarian crisis and who say, “Intervention has nothing to do with us; it will play into the hands of al-Qaeda”, I say that the reverse is true. We can and must intervene.

Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con): The hon. Lady is making a powerful point eloquently. Does she agree that although we have heard a lot this evening and earlier today about the risks of taking action, there are also risks in not taking action?

Meg Munn: There are clearly risks in not taking action; for more than two years we have not taken action. We should have been having this debate two years ago. We should have been doing something two years ago. Our delay has led to there being no good options. We have heard time and again today about why we should not do something, but I say that we have a responsibility here. The UN’s doctrine of a responsibility to protect, which was born out of those humanitarian disasters of the 1990s, is widely accepted and must be invoked. If a diplomatic initiative at this stage could succeed, we would, of course, all prefer it to military action, but at the moment it seems to me that diplomatic and peace efforts have completely failed.