Following the Prime Minister’s Commons statement on the hostage crisis in Algeria, Harriett Baldwin asks if intelligence can confirm the supposition that the planning for this appalling atrocity must have long predated the French incursion into Mali last week. Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con): To what extent does the intelligence confirm the supposition that the planning for this appalling atrocity must have long predated the French incursion into Mali last week? The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend asks an important question. It is difficult to give a certain answer, but given the scale of the terrorist attack on this gas installation in Algeria, the number of people involved and the sophistication of the weapons used, it looks like it was some time in the planning. As I have said, however, it would be ill-thought through to say, even if there was a connection with Mali, that we are wrong to help roll back terrorist advances in Mali because it might threaten us elsewhere. That is entirely wrong-headed thinking. We should be in favour of rolling back terrorist advances in Mali because it will help make us safer elsewhere as we squeeze the ungoverned space and recognise that these terrorists should have no place to hide. | Hansard