The big story across Europe continues to be the refugee crisis and will remain so for a long time to come. Only on Monday I was in Geneva addressing the UN Human Rights Council on issues including Syria. Please be assured we continue to be at the forefront of the international response to the humanitarian crisis in Syria - including as the second biggest bilateral donor of humanitarian aid, having already pledged £1 billion. Some £60 million of the additional funding will also help Syrians who are still in Syria. Britain is a moral nation and we must and will fulfill our moral responsibilities. That is why we sent the Royal Navy to the Mediterranean, saving thousands of lives; why we meet our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of our economy on aid; why Britain is the second biggest bilateral donor in the world to Syrian refugee camps; and why since the crisis began we have granted asylum to nearly 5,000 Syrians and their dependents through normal procedures. As you will know, the Vulnerable Persons Relocations scheme (VPRS) is already up and running, and has already welcomed 216 Syrians to the UK. This scheme will make a real difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable Syrians by giving them protection and support in the UK. But we can do much more. I am glad that the Prime Minister has now proposed that Britain should resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years. These refugees will come straight from the camps in the Middle East to discourage refugees from taking the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. To support our local communities we will use the foreign aid budget to finance these refugees for the first year and help local councils with things like housing. In the longer term, we will continue to direct our additional aid spending to these failed states and to the refugee crisis.
The truth is that simply taking people is not a solution to this crisis. We need a comprehensive solution that deals with the people most responsible for the terrible scenes we see: President Assad in Syria, the butchers of ISIL, and the criminal gangs that are running this terrible trade in people - we have to be as tough on them at the same time.
Another of those great moral questions was put before Parliament last week that of “assisted dying”. Unfortunately I was not in the House to vote at that time but it’s important my views should be known had I been available. Whilst I do have enormous sympathy for those who have a terminal illness and understand their wish to have the right to die on their own terms, I do not believe the Bill, as drafted, provided enough safeguards. I had listened to the medical opposition over the difficulty in reaching an assessment as to whether or not a patient had 'only' six months left to live. I also believed that the risk to vulnerable patients was not being sufficiently addressed. There had in any case been some misunderstanding about the nature of this Private Members Bill in so much as it did not address the desire of anyone to terminate their life but instead was restricted to those who have a terminal illness with less than six months to live. Therefore having reflected on this I would not have felt able to support Rob Marris's Private Members Bill last Friday. I do understand the powerful arguments advanced by both opponents and proponents of this proposed change in legislation but ultimately I believed it would have fundamentally changed the relationship between doctors and their patients and that is why I would have, along with the majority of my parliamentary colleagues across the floor, voted against.
Finally, the election of labour’s new leader. I do not doubt Jeremy Corbyn’s integrity or his passion for politics; he should also be respected for winning a leadership election with such a clear mandate. We will be attacking his ideas not the man and make no mistake, his ideas are dangerous, really dangerous.c