I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend understands the strength of feeling that exists among all our constituents about the appalling humanitarian Crisis in Rwanda.

The RAF has also played an important part in the Crisis in Rwanda, and has helped to deploy our troops to Angola.

However important the situation in Bosnia, however anxious we may be to contribute to the Crisis in Rwanda, however urgent the various demands on our military manpower in peacetime, the prime purpose of the armed forces is to deal with the crisis that arises only once in a generation - it may not arise for 50 or 60 years - when there is a threat to the continued existence of the nation.

The causes of the Crisis in Rwanda are complex and go back many generations.

I might have expected that the hon. Gentleman, rather than concentrating on the £175 million bilateral humanitarian aid that the United Kingdom has given since 1994, would try to find the single negative aspect in Britain's involvement in the Rwanda Crisis.

That is like the arguments that I heard when we were making a humanitarian intervention during the Crisis in Rwanda.

I worked for Oxfam at the time of the Rwanda Crisis and I strongly remember the awful situation in which UN forces found themselves.