UK Armed Forces (Iraq)

James Gray Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

The hon. Lady is right and we must always be careful who we are training. It is important that the Iraqi Government—she will have seen this on her visit to Baghdad last week—follow through on the reforms they are proposing. The army must become genuinely inclusive and militias must be properly under control. Holding ground that can be liberated must have the full-hearted support of local populations, and that will be particularly important as ISIL is pushed back in the tribal areas of the Anbar.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

The brave peshmerga whom we visited being trained by the British Army in Sulaymaniyah last week did a fantastic job in stopping the breakneck advance of ISIL in the summer, and they are to be congratulated. They did so against huge odds in terms of personnel, equipment and training, and to this day they are a pretty makeshift army. Does the Secretary of State agree that although it is vital that this should be a Kurdish or Iraqi battle against ISIL, we have a vast role to play in terms of equipment, training—particularly IED training—and we must do our part to combat the dreadful wickedness that is ISIL?

[Michael Fallon]

Yes. ISIL is a threat to us in this country and generally to the west, as well as a threat to all those in Iraq—particularly those of other religions or indeed their own religion—who want to live at peace. That is why, with the support of the House, since early summer we have been considering what we can do to supply the peshmerga. We have supplied heavy machine guns and helped to airlift other equipment and ammunition that is needed, and we are considering—it is still only considering—the scope of training that we are able to offer in some of those specialist skills.