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9.39 pm
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson): This has been the third full-day debate since NATO began its military action against President Milosevic. There have also been five statements to the House in that six-week period. Since the last debate, I have visited a number of service establishments associated with the military action. I went to RAF Bruggen, in Germany--which is the home of the Tornado forces who nightly make the five-hour round trip from Germany down to Kosovo--and met the pilots and the navigators and ground crew who support them.
As the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) said, I went with him, the shadow Foreign Secretary, the Liberal Democrat spokesman and my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence to Gioia del Colle, where our RAF Harriers and the air and ground crew are based. We also went to the headquarters of the NATO Albania force, led by the British Lieutenant-General John Reith. On HMS Invincible, we met the crew and the officers, as well as some of the crew of HMS Newcastle. I salute them and all the others who are engaged in the air, on the ground and in the sea in this exercise. I thank them for their public service, their determination, their commitment and, above all, their awe-inspiring courage at all times. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Ms Squire), I also warmly thank their families. They wait and watch patiently and often painfully, giving crucial support without which our great armed forces would not function so well.
Like my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, I start with a slightly personal comment. Last month, I addressed a meeting at the Glasgow South Side synagogue with my
hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Murphy) and the new Member of the Scottish Parliament for the constituency. I gave the packed audience my explanation of what was happening in Kosovo--what the situation was about, why it mattered and why Milosevic and his savage ethnic cleansing had to be defeated.
During the question session that followed my speech, a small old man rose at the back of the hall to put a point to me. In the silence of the meeting, he told me thathe had been in Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi Germany in his youth. That small old man told me and the people at the meeting that, as a holocaust survivor, he could recognise genocide when he saw it and that he was seeing it again today in Kosovo. Mr. Michael Sanki reminded us that, after the second world war, we all said "Never again." He pleaded with me to make good that pledge. We are involved in a just cause--one worth fighting and even dying for. For my generation and so many others in this country--who are very lucky to be alive in a democracy today--this is our moment to say and to mean "Never again."
Mr. Hogg:
I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. If that principle is worth asserting in Kosovo, why was it not worth asserting in Rwanda, for example?
Mr. Robertson:
I have the greatest respect and some affection for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who was a Minister at the Foreign Office, although he had moved to agriculture by the time of the conflict in Rwanda. He and I have been pairs in Parliament for a long time. My predecessor, Michael Portillo, sent troops to the Great Lakes area of Africa. British troops were being prepared for a humanitarian exercise in Rwanda.
If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is accusing the British Government of turning back at a certain point--I do not blame them for doing so; I think that they took the right decision--he is accusing not me, but the previous Administration. This is not the first challenge for this new Administration; it is the second. We rise to the challenge when it comes. I hope that I have the same support from the right hon. and learned Gentleman now that I gave him when I was an Opposition spokesman and he was taking difficult decisions on Bosnia that he often found hard to defend.
That apart, the debate has exposed a number of powerfully expressed views, dividing parties and even caucuses within this House. However, that is part of the richness and liberty that is allowed and encouraged in a democratic assembly.
The Opposition have become slightly more aggressive this evening. The loyal Opposition are entitled to question, to expose and to remind the Government on all occasions, but they should be constructive also. As the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) said, they must have balance and judgment about what they say. The right tone must be struck, lest the enemies of this nation or of the alliance outside use their words out of context against us.
The right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) makes strong speeches--but I warn him. From my long experience of 18 years on the Opposition Front Bench, I can tell him that, when one's only strength is in being negative, one does not convince the country. However, we wish him well in his retirement from the Opposition Front Bench.
There have been a lot of good speeches, and some powerful ones. I have not heard all of them in the Chamber, but--while doing the work of a Department in the middle of a conflict--I have listened to the vast majority of the debate on the live feed. The debate has been a credit to the House of Commons--even those speeches with which I deeply disagree.
I want to address those who have criticised what the Government have been doing--as part of a 19-country alliance, let it be said. No decisions are made in this Chamber or by this Government unilaterally. They are made as part of that great alliance. I wish to address those who say that NATO is doing too much, and that we should not be attacking the Yugoslav military machine at all--those voices have been raised--and those who demand an instant, full invasion of, and forced entry to, Kosovo, and who say that we are doing too little. I ask both of those groups--what were the alternatives before us earlier this year?
Mr. Corbyn:
In talking about the bombing campaign by NATO, will the Secretary of State explain why so much targeting has been done of oil refineries, chemical works and industrial installations? Will he explain also the use of depleted uranium in the attacks, which will have unmentionable consequences and may cause an environmental disaster within the region and which will know no boundaries and will affect everybody, whichever side of the conflict they are on?
Mr. Robertson:
This country is not using any munitions involving depleted uranium. If it is not strikingly obvious to my hon. Friend why we are attacking oil refineries--and, therefore, the means by which the Serb military gets around--I do not think that I am likely to be able to teach him anything. I had thought that, throughout his parliamentary career, my hon. Friend had campaigned for human rights and for human decency. I do not know why, on this occasion, he seems willing to stand back and watch while human rights and human life are violated on our continent.
What were the alternatives before us earlier this year? What choices were available? What choices were available to NATO after the Holbrooke agreement had been betrayed by the dictator in Belgrade? The House should remember that Milosevic backed down last October in the face of NATO's threats of air strikes at that time. Something like a quarter of a million Kosovar people who had been stranded in forests on the edge of winter and were facing death from starvation or freezing were able to return safely to their homes, with the verification force on the ground, watching what the Serb forces were doing.
Mr. Dalyell:
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Robertson:
My hon. Friend must wait. First, there could have been more diplomacy; that is what my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)--who is trying to attract my attention just now--said to me in an acrimonious exchange that we had this morning outside a Sky television studio. I tell him and, others that we exhausted every possible diplomatic avenue, and, all the time, Milosevic was starting the ethnic killing and cleansing. The second option available to us was tighter economic sanctions. Again, those were tried but failed to produce the result that we and the world required.
The third alternative--it has been suggested again today--was that we should have involved the United Nations and specifically the Russians and the Chinese. In fact, Russia was intimately involved in the contact group that led to the negotiations at Rambouillet. It was the Chinese veto on the UN monitoring force in Macedonia that showed precisely what would have happened had we gone to the UN Security Council.
Mrs. Mahon:
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Robertson:
No. I have already given way.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I cannot have two hon. Members on their feet.
Mrs. Mahon:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Chinese vetoed UNPREDEP, not the monitors.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
That is not a matter for the Chair.
Mr. Robertson:
I did not hear the point, so it is not a matter for me either. There is a strain of thinking--
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