UK Parliament / Open data

The FCO and the Spending Review 2015

I am happy to translate it. I simply said that if President Putin wants to talk to us, we will be very happy to talk to him. The hon. Member for Newbury talked about language skills, which is an important matter, as without them it is difficult to engage effectively with others.

It is a pity that the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) is no longer in his place, because if he had he been, I would have disagreed with him on the subject of Syria. What we know about the situation in Syria is that since the UK Parliament decided not to take action some years ago, a quarter of a million people have died, more than 4 million people have become refugees in neighbouring countries and 7 million people or more have become refugees within Syria. Although we cannot know for certain what the impact

of limited UK military involvement might have been, we know and can see in concrete terms the consequences of the failure to take any action.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
606 cc859-860 
Session
2015-16
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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