British Embassy in Damascus

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I take my noble friend’s question as a note of encouragement to the Government to accelerate progress towards establishing a presence in Damascus and to go further than we already have in the relationship we are building with the new Government in Syria. I also thank him for his kind comments about the Prime Minister’s standing on the world stage; I think he is right.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Con)]

While thanking the Minister for her helpful reply, may I ask her to consider maintaining the very strong embassy we have in Lebanon? At the moment, you go to Damascus, as I have done recently, through Lebanon. We have a magnificent Foreign Office team there, many of whom also served in Baghdad. This embassy is a very strong hub for all our Middle East work. Would the Minister consider continuing to strengthen that, despite the supposed weakness of FCDO funding, which we would all regret?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness said, we have an incredibly strong team in Lebanon, and it is important that that continues. The points she makes about the need for a regional approach, the instability we want to avoid and the importance of our presence across the region are well made; I take those and agree with her.