ISIL: Iraq and Syria

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Tom Clarke

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We need to do two things to make this work. First, we need to retrain the basic manpower of the Iraqi army. It can be done, but it will take some time and, in the meantime, we will have to use air power to hold the line. Secondly, we need significant change in the senior command and control structure, including the replacement of essentially political appointees under the previous regime with competent military people. That will be a challenge, because these people will have their vested interests and their constituencies behind them, but it is the challenge that Prime Minister al-Abadi faces.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

Returning to the humanitarian issues that the Foreign Secretary raised, I acknowledge the work of DFID, the UN, the non-governmental organisations and the international community, but in the areas of Iraq and Syria under ISIL control, the response to the humanitarian crisis is dependent wholly on local organisations. What help can we give them?

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his expression of support for DFID and the international community that is trying to deliver aid. He is absolutely right, of course: in the areas controlled by ISIL, informal support to local NGOs is one strand of the work that DFID and the international aid community are doing. The aid community is acutely aware that it needs to work with the grain of the local situation, and where it provides support in ISIL-controlled areas, it has to work with who it can. That will not always be ideal, but it will get as much aid to those areas as possible.