Syria: Foreign Affairs Committee Report

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, the extremists are already attacking us. That is why doing nothing is not an option. We are already in this country a target for ISIL. We know we are because we have been able to avoid at least seven attempts to launch a direct terrorist attack here in the UK. The noble Lord asks about the ground troops that are already in place in Syria. At the moment, they are starting to make progress in defeating ISIL. We have to be in there too because, together, we will be able to achieve the success that we need to achieve.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, if the ground forces to which the Leader has referred were defeated or looked as though they were losing, would the British Government send in ground troops to make sure that they did not lose?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I have been clear that our proposal is about providing air support to existing ground forces. We are doing it this way because we think this is one of the key lessons that we learned from previous military interventions over the last decade or so. So no, this is about local ground forces that are already there.