UK Armed Forces (Iraq)

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

The hon. Gentleman, who has some experience of these matters through his chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee, is right that in the end ISIL can be defeated only if it is defeated in both countries, Syria and Iraq. That is why we welcome the strikes that other members of the international coalition, including the United States but also our allies in the Gulf, have undertaken against ISIL, particularly in the north of Syria. That helps to disrupt ISIL’s supply lines into Iraq. Our part—it is all that the House will allow us to do at the moment—is in Iraq, but we have plenty to do there through airstrikes, surveillance, the supply of equipment and the consideration that we are now undertaking of further training.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

When I deployed to Bosnia in 1992, it was supposedly in a non-combat role, but the chiefs of staff insisted on ensuring that I had a field surgical team with an operating theatre and three general practitioners, for several hundred people. If we deploy several hundred people into Iraq, will my right hon. Friend ensure that there are adequate medical facilities to look after our soldiers if by chance they are wounded, even though they are not in a combat role?

[Michael Fallon]

The House has the benefit of my hon. Friend’s considerable expertise in these matters, and I will certainly take up his suggestion. I emphasise that if we deploy further personnel, they will not be in the combat zones or on the front line. This will be a training effort to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces in some areas of expertise, in particular in encountering improvised explosive devices, as well as the sharpshooter tactics on which we have already been instructing.