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International Affairs

If my hon. Friend will send me the details, we will certainly take a look at it. So far, approximately 2,800 people are being evacuated. It is an enormous number. A further evacuation is planned by sea tomorrow. It has been an enormous exercise. If the events of this last week or so have taught us anything, it ought to have taught us that we must never and can never retreat behind imaginary fortress walls around these islands. The enemies of democracy will always bring the fight to us, wherever and whenever they can. The first duty of any British Government is to defend the lives and liberties of our citizens here and across the world. That is why we must continue to maintain the most professional armed forces in the world and why it is vital that those brave men and women are directed by a democratically elected Government. It is why we must maintain the superb work undertaken in the world’s most difficult areas by our Department for International Development and why we must deploy and use to the best effect the great skills of those who staff our diplomatic missions abroad. The sight of the Royal Navy’s grey funnels off the coast of Lebanon, whether they were seen directly by those who wished to be evacuated or indirectly on television by their loved ones around the world must have been one of the sweetest sights that they will ever see. All of us must pay enormous tribute to the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, which supported it, and to all our armed forces who have taken part and will continue to take part in the operation. I am not sure that people have understood the danger in which they operated off the coast of Lebanon or the danger to the helicopters that flew over Lebanon. This is an extremely difficult situation. We are very worried, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, about British citizens who are trapped in difficult areas in the south of Lebanon. We must find ways of getting them out. We are working with our colleagues in Germany, the United Nations and other countries to mount convoys and try to get the agreement of all the parties to the dispute to secure safe passage for those trapped individuals to points of safety. We know that a United Nations ferry is going into Tyre in the south. We hope that we can get many of our citizens and nationals and their relations on to that boat. The Government will try to live up to the challenge of using the superb professionalism among our armed forces and our diplomatic service to help the United Nations and the international community to bring peace to Lebanon and the wider middle east. That must be the message that goes forward from this debate tonight.