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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now coalition forces are edging closer to Mosul, Islamic States last major stronghold in Iraq and despite the fierce fighting, the Iraqi army says around 50 villages have been liberated so far from the militants since the offensive began on Monday but has a plan been made about what happens after the battle for Mosul is over?  Well Rory Stewart, the International Development Minister, joins me now, a very good morning to you, Mr Stewart.  Well we’ll get to that question in a moment or two but first of all, on the military side of things, there is still a very, very long way to go before Mosul is liberated.

RORY STEWART: Absolutely. Mosul is a city as you know with 1.2 million people in it, fighting in cities is very tough and at the moment what we’re looking at is the first stage of the operation which is the encircling of Mosul and mostly moving through the outlying villages.  

DM: What can be done to minimise, we talk about the hundreds of thousands at least of civilians in that city, what can be done to minimise casualties and injuries to those people?

RORY STEWART: Well the first thing is very strong control over targeting, making sure there isn’t indiscriminate bombing, making sure there isn’t indiscriminate artillery action as well as plane action, so that is very close co-ordination with the Iraqi army and making sure that we really follow through on what the Iraq Prime Minister has stated which is the protection of civilians is the priority.

DM: That’s very important isn’t it because at the same time we understand that the cease fires, the limited cease fires in Aleppo over the bombardments have started again and we and others in the UK have been very critical about the Russian and Syrian attitude to trying to retake besieged city.

RORY STEWART: Absolutely vital and I think it’s important to understand the difference there.  In Aleppo you’ve got 250,000 civilians but the situation there is a siege where the Syrian army and its allies have not been allowing food or humanitarian access and where there has been horrendous indiscriminate bombing.  In Mosul it is very clear that there will be humanitarian access and that there will be real control over this fight or as much control as you can put into what of course will be a very complicated war situation.

DM: But we have to be honest don’t we with the British public when it comes to Mosul and the involvement of the RAF and other British forces as part of the coalition, there will be civilian casualties and they could well be caused by British munitions.

RORY STEWART: Well I think the first thing to understand is that war is horrendous, it is a very, very complex situation and nobody wants to be in that situation but we are very, very professional, we are very serious, the Iraqi government is very serious about this and we’re going to be as careful as we can but of course nobody should minimise the problems or the uncertainties of a war.

DM: What about then when Mosul is finally liberated, it is important not to repeat the considerable mistakes of the past and that the burden of that particularly lies upon the Iraqi government and to get some real reconciliation and co-operation in place.

RORY STEWART: Well you are absolutely right of course because what happened between 2009 and 2014 was that the people who lived in Mosul, and it is predominantly a Sunni city, felt that they didn’t have a trusting relationship with the Baghdad government and that made them vulnerable to this takeover from ISIS so if Mosul, if we are able to retake Mosul, it is really, really important that the people of Mosul feel they have stake in their future and that means economic development in Mosel and that means having the governing structures in Mosul that give people confidence in the future of Iraq.

DM: You mentioned economic developments, what role can Britain and the budget that you look into, the International Development budget, what role can that play and will it be withheld if Britain and others feel that the Iraqi government is not proceeding in those directions?

RORY STEWART: Well I think the first thing is our focus at the moment, we don’t want to count chickens because our real focus at the moment is on the humanitarian emergency which is to say there are 1.2 million people currently trapped in a city controlled by this horrendous ISIS group, there is going to be fighting, there are going to be front lines, we are expecting refugees and IDPs to come out so we as Britain have put £100 million into putting in place the serious conditions to try to deal with those people and particularly 40 million which has gone into refugee camps so you can see if you to Iraq now, what we would call tented cities have been created, medical support has been put in place in order to receive refugees or as we call them, internally displaced people, as they come out of Mosul.  The next stage, as you say, is economic regeneration.  For that the lead will be with the Iraqi government which of course as you know has oil reserves, has significant foreign exchange reserves and will be leading that reconstruction effort.

DM: But who administers these funds and it goes for the entirety of the International Development budget doesn’t it, these questions about the considerable amount of money that the UK spends, the considerable proportion of GDP that it allocates to international development, when you are trying to spend it on the ground a lot of it tends to let’s say disappear into thin air or into let’s say offshore accounts.

RORY STEWART: That’s of course something that people focus on a great deal, let me explain what we are doing in this particular situation.  This response we are working entirely through the United Nations, the IOM which is the International Office for Migration and NGOs like Save the Children or Oxfam, so these camps, these structures are run by UNICEF, UNHCR, they are professionals, Brits, Europeans, other international humanitarians who may have worked in South Sudan and worked in other places.  We have very strong structures in place to monitor this and we make sure that with all the other donors, European, American and others, that we see exactly where that money is going but you are absolutely right, that is a total focus for us because this is ultimately money of course that comes from the British taxpayer and that we have to make sure that we spend responsibly but I have a lot of confidence in those humanitarian actors on the ground in Iraq at the moment.

DM: But just lastly Mr Stewart, tell me about this from your boss talking about the budget being focused now on delivering in the national interest and relating that in some cases to trade deals. In a way is the development budget now being used as post-Brexit sweeteners to do deals with other countries?

RORY STEWART: I think it’s important to understand that any aid that’s delivered, delivered properly, will of course be in the national interest.  Let’s just take perhaps the best example could be Mosul, Iraq itself.  If we can provide a good humanitarian response on the ground, that does many things.  Firstly of course it fulfils a moral obligation to people who have been bombed, that could be children who are malnourished, that could be women running away from conflict but it also provides stability in Iraq and that means fewer refugees flowing through Europe.  It also means it increases the chances the population in Mosul having a better attitude towards the Baghdad government and that means stability in the region and helps contribute towards ISIS not taking over so I think the way to understand aid and the national interest is exactly by looking at these kind of examples where what on the surface might look like purely charitable work, creates stability which is actually good for Britain.

DM: Minister, thank you very much indeed, Rory Stewart there.