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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: More than 100 people have been killed apparently in Syria as fighting escalates in the country ahead of the planned ceasefire at sundown on Monday.  The deal is said to expand humanitarian access to Syria’s worst hit towns and cities but the moderate Free Syrian Army said they saw little chance of its success, with a spokesman for one of its brigades saying that Damascus and Moscow have not observed the last agreement so were unlikely to observe this one. Let’s get the thoughts of Andrew Mitchell, he is of course the former International Development Secretary and he joins me now from Nottinghamshire.  A very good morning to you, Mr Mitchell, your hopes for this ceasefire?  Even if it is an imperfect one it is better than the situation at the moment.

ANDREW MITCHELL: That’s absolutely right and we’ve seen another 100 people including large numbers of innocent children pulverised from the air in the moments since the ceasefire was announced.  Of course it doesn’t kick in until tomorrow night but at the end of the day the critical thing here, and I shudder how many times people like me have come on your programme to make this point, is that the fighting is stopped and this extraordinary unloading of tons and tons of high explosives which are killing innocent people and destroying very ancient cities, Aleppo is one of the great ancient cities or was one of the great ancient cities of the world, 6000 years old, completely and totally destroyed and the lives of the two million people who live there. So above everything else we’ve got to stop the fighting and the heavy bombardment by the Syrian regime and their allies from the air. Once you do that then there is a chance first of all for the humanitarians to get food and medicine to people who are starving and not getting even very basic medicine throughout Syria and also a chance for the different politicians to engage however tentatively – and I don’t pretend for a moment that it will be easy, it will be extremely long and drawn out and there will be many false starts but we have to get people speaking and we have to get humanitarian aid to those who are suffering so grievously in Syria.  Once you have a ceasefire of whatever source and the humanitarians can begin to move, the politicians can begin to feel there is an end to the fighting, then we can make some process.   

DM: But on that search for a longer term solution, don’t these elements of the Free Syrian Army it in a nutshell, saying it is not in Moscow’s interests and Russia is such an influential player now with the Assad regime, it is not in their interests to force Assad to negotiate even and ultimately to step down.

ANDREW MITCHELL: Well I don’t believe that is true.  I think Russia is playing an increasingly important role, in the Middle East there is already talk of them rather than the Americans trying to re-energise the peace process with Israel and Palestine.  Russia is one of the key members of the Security Council and it is terribly bad for Russia’s reputation and their influence overseas that people are saying that a member of the Security Council at the United Nations, a leading member, one of the five, is arguably guilty of war crimes and has certainly broken international humanitarian law and it must be in Russia’s interests to try and stimulate a peace process in Syria.  Even the Russians don’t believe that Assad has a long term future as President of Syria and the British and Americans accept that Assad will have to be part of the negotiations that lead to a political settlement.  There is enough there for people to be working with, to stop the fighting and to get round a table and although it has happened before and although you are entirely right, as are the Syrian rebel leadership entirely right too to say that we’ve been here before, nevertheless the fact that the foreign ministers of America and Russia have reached a tentative agreement on a ceasefire now, that must be grounds for optimism and everyone must try and build on that.  When I say everyone I mean the regional powers who have a dog in this fight as well, Iran, Saudi Arabia as well as the United Nations and the international leaders of Russia, America and the EU and so forth.  

DM: A quick question, Mr Mitchell, about your old department, International Development and we obviously know about the new Secretary of State there who originally once wanted to abolish the whole department, well she is now  in charge of it, Priti Patel and we heard didn’t we last week from the Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, suggesting that there perhaps might be a blurring of the lines in terms of its budget, that its money may be spent on troop deployment if it comes to peacekeeping and things like that.  

ANDREW MITCHELL: Well I don’t think you can hold against Priti Patel something she said as an offhand comment some years ago.  I have spoken to her several times since she became the Secretary of State for International Development, I think she is approaching this task with great enthusiasm and interest and she is determined to continue Britain’s leadership in saving lives around the world.  Britain is an international leader in doing that and under this government and the coalition and indeed under Labour before, hundreds and thousands of lives have been saved that wouldn’t have been saved but for British intervention. As far as your point about money being spent on peacekeeping, we have always spent money on trying to promote conflict resolution.  In 2010 when the coalition came to power we put building prosperity and tackling conflict at the very centre of Britain’s international development policy.  The rules are very clear on what you can and cannot spend development money on but what she’s doing is continuing the policy of the coalition, the policy of David Cameron as Prime Minister in doing the best to tackle conflict and build prosperity and that’s a very good thing.

DM: A quick last thought on Brexit, are you pleased to see the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson throwing his support behind this campaign to make sure Brexit really does mean full Brexit?

ANDREW MITCHELL: Yes, I very much agree with what Chuka Umunna said, that we’ve had the votes, we’re democrats, Britain is leaving the European Union and there is not going to be a second vote and I think this new grouping which is led by Gisela Stewart and supported by Boris Johnson, for many of the reasons that Chuka said, is a good thing.  We’ve got to try and bring people together, chart a new course for our country and the government is absolutely determined to honour the vote of the British people and to do just that.

DM: Great talking to you, thanks for your time Mr Mitchell, Andrew Mitchell there.