ISIL: Iraq and Syria

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I certainly will. In the Statement I have made a series of statements about what we hope to do with regard to our own security and changes that will be made, and the issue that my noble friend raises is one of those. I know that the Home Secretary has already started negotiations, both within the coalition and elsewhere, and as soon as we are in a position to be able to make clear what steps we may take, obviously I will be in a position to assist the House.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Statement, following the Foreign Secretary’s visit. It was, however, a very grim Statement. It is appalling that up to 30% of Iraq’s populated territory could now be under ISIL control.

I return to the point made by my noble friend Lord Robertson. The Statement is unequivocal on two points: first, in relation to Syria, it says that the UK strongly supports air strikes, and, secondly, it acknowledges that ISIL is already a major threat to us here at home. Given those unequivocal points, do she and other Ministers anticipate returning to Parliament within the next few weeks on the issue of joining the air strikes on Syria?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, if I were to give such an undertaking, I would be undermining the work of our Armed Forces, the Peshmerga and the moderates who are fighting against the evil there because I would be making an assumption that further intervention of that nature was necessary, and necessary in a particular timescale, so I shall be overcautious and not do that. But I can say to the noble Baroness that my right honourable friends the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary and the Secretary for International Development, together with the Prime Minister and those who meet in COBRA, are considering these matters almost daily. The noble Baroness has had a distinguished career herself as a Minister at the Ministry of Defence, and she will know that COBRA will look at every single nuance every time it meets, which appears to be almost every day. So we will be watching to see how this develops. However, it is not a matter of saying what we can do in one week, one month or even one year; it is going to be a very long haul, and the difficulty for all of us here in Parliament will be to ensure that we continue to engage the support of the British people in this long haul.