MP Welcomes Support for Bill

Neil Gerrard, Labour MP for Walthamstow, has welcomed the news that Clare Short MP is to take up the Bill he introduced in the last Parliament to require Parliamentary approval for British troops going into armed conflict.

Mr Gerrard’s Bill failed to make progress because of the election being called. However, Clare Short, who has been drawn in a high position in the annual ballot for Private Members Bills, has agreed to take up the Bill.

“I know that this will be welcomed by many people” said Mr Gerrard, “because so many people contacted me to offer support earlier in the year. Immediately after the election I put down a motion in the House of Commons asking the Government to bring forward their own Bill, and that motion already has the support of well over a hundred MPs, more than any other motion which is currently before the House of Commons.”

“I am confident that sooner or later the pressure to adopt my proposals will be so great that it will happen. Parliament should have a vote before British troops go into action, just as happens in the Congress of the USA through the US War Powers Act.”

June 2005 

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