The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, which anticipates something that I am about to say. He is right to remind us of the scale of the challenge. The French proposal is an important step in the right direction and I encourage the British Government to take a positive approach to it, but clearly it is not sufficient if we cannot secure the political will of the other members. We are talking here primarily about Russia and China in the context of challenges that we face today.
When the responsibility to protect was adopted universally by the UN General Assembly, that marked an important moment in the collective recognition of our shared responsibility. However, we all know that it is one thing to adopt principles and another to act on them. The veto power has been used on a number of occasions, most recently in the context of Syria, when double vetoes by Russia and China have blocked actions that could have saved civilian lives. I urge the Minister to signal the UK’s support for the French initiative as a way of strengthening the resolve of the permanent members of the Security Council to prevent atrocities from happening and to respond to them more quickly when they do.
“Never again” was the slogan the world adopted after the Nazi holocaust. We have learnt a lot since then, but we have also seen what happened in Cambodia and Srebrenica, what is happening in Syria, in the Central African Republic and in Darfur and, of course, what happened in Rwanda. We still have a long way to go, but I hope that in this House, as this debate demonstrates, we can show that there is a real sense of shared concern, shared humanity and solidarity with those working in other parts of the world, often in far more challenging circumstances, to prevent genocide and to educate people about it.
I finish by thanking the hon. Member for Braintree once again for giving us the opportunity to air this very important set of issues.
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