PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Aleppo - 28 November 2016 (Commons/Commons Chamber)
Debate Detail
The regime’s two-week assault on Aleppo has been backed predominantly by Iranian and Shia militias. There have been unconfirmed reports of Russian airstrikes, but our understanding is that since airstrikes resumed a fortnight ago, the vast majority have been by the regime. During that time, hundreds have been killed and thousands more have been forced to flee. The last functioning hospital was put out of action on 19 November. Humanitarian access has been deliberately blocked by the regime and its allies for over four months now, leading to the 275,000 civilians in eastern Aleppo facing imminent starvation. Across the rest of Syria, there has been almost no progress in delivering the UN humanitarian plan for November. The latest UN plan to deliver humanitarian aid was agreed by armed opposition groups last week, but the regime is still blocking it. This is just the latest of many failed efforts.
I make it clear to Russia that using food as a weapon of war is a war crime. So, too, is attacking civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools—another favoured tool of the regime and its backers. We call upon those with influence on the regime, especially Russia and Iran, to use that influence to end the devastating assault on eastern Aleppo and to ensure that the UN’s humanitarian plan can be implemented in full. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said this morning, that requires an immediate ceasefire and access for impartial humanitarian actors to ensure the protection of vulnerable citizens fleeing the fighting. All those involved in the siege and assault on Aleppo have a responsibility to change course to protect civilians.
Addressing the dire situation in eastern Aleppo and the wider Syrian conflict is a priority for this Government. I spoke to Britain’s ambassador to the UN this morning to discuss what more we can do in the Security Council to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on the conflict. There can be no military solution to this conflict. What is needed is for the regime and its backers to return to diplomacy and negotiations on a political settlement, based on transition away from President Assad.
The Government stand ready to engage fully in discussions and offer whatever support we can in the quest for a political settlement, working in partnership with the international community, including Russia. We need to maintain international pressure to that end. That is why we are strong supporters of the recent EU effort to extend 28 new sanctions designations against the regime in October and November. In the meantime, we continue to work with our key partners to look at every option to alleviate the suffering of millions of Syrians, especially those in Aleppo.
For as long as the regime and its backers deny humanitarian access, whether by land or air, such options, I am afraid, are difficult to come by. By the same token, the real solution is straightforward: the Syrian regime must simply agree to allow UN aid agencies to access those in need. All that is needed is the decision from Damascus, nothing more.
This morning, I was sent a statement from the White Helmets, which read:
“Dear Friends in Britain,
Aleppo is in a state of emergency. 279,000 people have been under siege for 94 days. In the last 13 days the Syrian Regime and Russia have launched more than 2,000 airstrikes and unleashed a variety of banned weapons…
We are calling on you, as the friends of the Syrian people to act. The Syrian Regime and Russia are refusing to let aid into the city so we are calling on you to airdrop aid to provide urgent relief to the starving civilians trapped…
We can not believe that one of the world’s most powerful countries, in the full glare of the media, will allow 279,000 people to be starved and bombed to death.”
My question is this: is the counsel of despair that we heard this morning from the Defence Secretary on the radio really all we have left? There is something we can do. We can airdrop aid into the besieged areas, as the White Helmets are calling for and as a cross-party letter signed by 126 Members of this House has demanded. I ask the Minister to respond to that letter to the Prime Minister here. We can renew the push in the UN for the creation of a humanitarian corridor to get help to civilians. Will the Minister confirm that he raised that in his conversations with our ambassador?
The Government have always said that airdrops are a last resort and I understand that, but Gareth Bayley, the UK special representative for Syria, has tweeted about Aleppo today, saying:
“Situation in #Aleppo could not be more dire: every hospital out of service; official food stocks run out; nowhere for civilians to run”.
He called Aleppo “a coffin”. Does the Minister agree that the Government need an urgent strategy to protect civilians? When hundreds of thousands of civilians are being starved and bombed into submission, we must consider airdrops. It is time for the last resort.
What Britain stands for on the world stage is being challenged. This is a test. There is no risk-free course of action left, but I believe there is a right course of action. Let us not stand and watch as one of the great cities of the world is destroyed. Let us not allow 100,000 children to starve in eastern Aleppo.
When Kosovo was under attack, Britain led the response. When people in Sierra Leone cried out for our help, Britain led the way. The people of Syria need us to show that leadership. Jo Cox said that our response to Syria would be “emblematic” of our generation, and “how history judges us”. Her words are ever more true today, so let us not fail.
I had the opportunity to meet the head of the White Helmets at the same time as the hon. Lady. He stressed his frustration that the west—indeed, the world—was not doing enough as we saw the annihilation of an historic city. It is a city that goes back to the sixth millennium. It is the financial centre of Syria, its largest city, and now condemned, almost, to ruin.
The hon. Lady touches on the letter, now with 126 signatories. I made it clear in my statement that we are looking at all options, but she must understand that, as has been repeated in this House, unilateral or even multilateral aid drops would place us in harm’s way, in what is already a complicated air environment. The question therefore has to be asked whether that is the best and safest way of getting aid to where we need it to go. We are not ruling out options, but we have to ask ourselves whether introducing British aircraft into that air environment would compound or improve matters, and whether there are other, safer ways of getting the aid in.
The hon. Lady also raises a larger point, namely what Britain and the international community are doing. She also mentioned the work of Jo Cox. We all agree in this House that Britain has the ability and the aspiration to play a significant role on the world stage. In August 2013 we had that opportunity and we blinked. We had an opportunity to hold Assad to account. As a result we have ended up with a situation where both Russia and Daesh have now come in. The question I pose to this House—
On the important question of airdrops, the UN has tens of thousands of pieces of kit and material that it wishes to get into these areas, but it is being denied access by the Syrian regime. We cannot enter the regime’s airspace, or use its roads, without its permission. If we sought to do so without its permission, we would end up with exactly the situation we had on 19 September, when a UN-led convoy moved into Aleppo and was destroyed from the air by Russian aeroplanes.
“While air drops are complex, costly and risky, they are…the last resort to relieve human suffering across many besieged areas.”
To be clear, nobody in the House underestimates the complexity and risks involved, but with no alternatives and thousands facing death if they do not get immediate supplies of food and medical equipment, these are risks that we must be prepared to take. Will the Minister take the urgent steps required today to agree a plan for airdrops by British planes with the UN and our international partners, as has been called for by the White Helmets, whose representatives I too met last week? The UN’s humanitarian adviser, Jan Egeland, was asked at the weekend what plan B was if Russia and Assad kept up their criminal assault on east Aleppo and continued to block supplies of aid by road. He said:
“Plan B is that people starve. And can we allow that to happen? No, we cannot”.
He is quite right, and I hope that the Minister will agree.
What I believe Members are trying to convey to the Minister is that we regard this as possibly one of the most urgent issues in global politics today. We think this is an opportunity for the British Government to show leadership, to convene likely partners, to kick-start the peace process and the peace talks, while at the same time coming to the House with some concrete ideas about how we can alleviate the appalling, biblical suffering of the men, women and children in what remains of one of the great cities of Syria.
My right hon. Friend talks about Britain wanting to do more. I hope that what I said earlier is not being misconstrued. My request is that I want and would like to, but we are at the will of Parliament when it comes to ensuring that it happens. [Interruption.] Opposition Members are shouting, but the Leader of the Opposition had five opportunities to vote on Syria, but we ended up not having the opportunity to check Daesh before it had been created and to hold Assad to account. We cannot afford to go down that road again. If there is appetite in this House, I absolutely welcome it.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) on securing this urgent question and, indeed, on the work she has done to get cross-party support for calling on the UK Government to authorise the airdropping of aid. A quarter of a million people, including 100,000 children, have been trapped in deteriorating conditions in Aleppo’s eastern district since the summer. There are no functioning hospitals; there is no more food. Independent observers have estimated that yesterday alone, at least 219 civilians were killed.
I understand that finding a practical and political solution to this horrific, almost unimaginable situation is complex and challenging. I say to the Minister, however, that no practical challenge should be too tough and no political obstacles too insurmountable to do the right thing by these people whose suffering is growing day by day. Who could fail to be moved by the seven-year-old Bana al-Abed who was tweeting live from Aleppo, asking for help when bombs were falling on her. That is a serious call for help, and we must act. What discussions have taken place with Russia to demand that it sign up now to the agreement brokered by the UN to provide aid? What practical assistance has been offered by UK forces to support the delivery of aid?
The hon. Lady’s other point has been raised before, and I view it as well summarised by two pictures that I have used before in this House. The first is of Omran Daqneesh, the boy photographed after being bombed. He was alive and hon. Members may recall he was thrown in the back of an ambulance. The other stark image that reminds us of the hell of Syria is that of Alan Kurdi, the poor boy who was washed up on the Turkish beach. Is that the choice that we are leaving the people of Syria? I do not want that. I very much want us to do more, and I hope that—together—we will be able to achieve that.
May I follow up the question asked by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn)? In May, the International Syria Support Group, which includes the United States and Russia, agreed that if by 1 June the United Nations had been denied humanitarian access to any of the designated besieged areas, it would call on the World Food Programme to immediately carry out a programme for air bridges and airdrops. If it was possible at that time, in those circumstances, for people to secure the agreement that my hon. Friend is seeking for airdrops, is it not possible—bearing in mind that we are at the last resort—to redouble those efforts to receive the permission that he, and those whom we would be asking to drop the food, require to proceed?
I pay tribute to Stephen O’Brien, a former colleague in this House, who is doing a commendable job. We can all be very proud of the work he is doing to highlight the humanitarian plight in what is going on.
The UN does conduct its own airdrops—it has that capability; it has a facility to do so—but it only does that where it has the permission of the Syrian regime for those flights to take place. That is the important point.
On the right hon. Lady’s latter point, I am sorry that this Government did not do more to win people like her across. That was our failure as much as anybody else’s, and that, more than anything, is what we need to learn from what happened in August 2013.
“preparations for airdrops will now take place and go forward rapidly because there isn’t a moment to lose”.
The situation has worsened significantly since May, so I do not understand what has happened to that enthusiasm. More importantly, my constituents, and those of other Members, are appalled by what they see on the news and do not understand why there is not the same enthusiasm for airdrops as there was for bombing this time last year.
“Under heavy bombardments now—in between life and death. Please keep praying for us.”
The Minister will know that there are no fully functioning hospitals left in Aleppo and that food ran out in early November. What recent discussions has the Foreign Office had with the United Nations, the EU and other nations of good will about urgent humanitarian relief? Does the RAF not have a crucial and immediate role to play in easing this humanitarian disaster, albeit with the risks that that entails? Our prayers are not enough: it is time to act, and if the Minister did so, a large swathe of the House would be behind him.
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