Syria crisis needs political solution, David Cameron tells MPs David Cameron told MPs that the G8 summit had made progress on Syria by reaffirming commitment to a peace conference. David Cameron has said he will not recklessly take Britain into a military escalation in Syria, putting his strongest emphasis yet on a political solution to the crisis as he came under pressure from his own backbenchers and Labour not to supply weapons to the Syrian rebels. Cameron was reporting back to the Commons from the G8 summit in Loch Erne on Syria and agreements to attack corporate tax evasion, which he claimed were now "written into the DNA of future G8 summits for many years to come." In exchanges lasting nearly 90 minutes, Cameron rejected a role for Iran at a Syrian peace conference and refused to rule out providing arms to the rebels before that peace conference. But he told MPs: "There is no military victory to be won and all our efforts must be focused on the ultimate goal of a political solution. We will not take any major actions without first coming to this House, but we cannot simply ignore this continuing slaughter. He added that there was a danger in Britain accepting the argument put forward by the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, that the only alternatives to his rule were extremism and terrorism. He acknowledged there were extremists in the Syrian opposition, saying they posed a threat to the west, but he said the west should stand for democracy and freedom. He said the immediate task in Syria was for the Americans and Russians to sort out the delegations that would attend the peace conference. He again insisted Assad could have no future role, and said the summit had managed to persuade Russia not to draw back from its support for a transitional government with full executive powers. The G8 summit communique made no mention of Assad's future role, due to disagreements between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the west, but Britain privately believes he is not totally committed to Assad and instead wants to ensure that Syria does not become an ungoverned space. The prime minister claimed the G8 summit had made progress on Syria by reaffirming its commitment to a peace conference and by requiring Assad to give UN weapons inspectors unrestricted access to establish the facts on the use of chemical weapons by regime forces or anyone else. Cameron rejected Iran's involvement, saying the country had never accepted the principle of a transitional government in Syria, and adding that he wanted to limit the conference to key players within Syria. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, claimed the summit had failed to achieve Cameron's stated objective of providing "a moment of clarity." Labour's former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain urged Cameron not to set preconditions about Assad's involvement. In a search for a political solution, can I just caution him in his apparent insistence on a precondition. Northern Ireland shows preconditions do not work," Hain said. We both share exactly the same view of the hideous nature of Assad's barbarism, but if you're insisting that he can't come to the conference and that he can't play any subsequent role, I just caution him that this conference may never happen. The prime minister told MPs that 30 jurisdictions had now signed agreements on an automatic exchange of information over tax evasion. He claimed Britain's overseas territories and Crown dependencies had made decisions that would realise an extra £1bn in revenues for the Treasury. He also claimed that every member of the G8 had committed to action plans that would introduce central registries on benefical ownership. "This agenda has now, I believe, been written into the DNA of the G8 and G20 summits, I hope for many years to come," he said. Asked if Britain backed public registries of companies' beneficial ownership, or registries open only to tax authorities, he said: "There are strong arguments for it to be public." But he added: "The point at which one says one's own registry will be public, one gives up rather a lot of leverage over other countries we might want to encourage to do that at the same time." He also said: "It is important to take the business community that believes in responsible behaviour with us on this journey of greater transparency and fairness. To be fair, the CBI has been supportive of this agenda, so there is nothing to fear from a consultation where we try to take people with us on this important progress. But he insisted he had managed to make the issue of corporate taxation a mainstream issue on the agenda of future G8 meetings. Frankly, tax transparency and beneficial ownership were academic issues that were discussed in lofty academic circles, but they are now kitchen table issues that are being discussed by the G8 leaders, who have pledged to take action on them.