Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Funding

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak not so much on funding, important as that is, but rather on our foreign policy interests. This country is by far the largest European provider of aid for refugees and displaced people from Iraq and Syria, and it is therefore very much in our interests that these large sums be spent effectively and fairly. I have two questions on our interests as regards Syria.

First, what are the Government doing to ensure that the largest share of food aid does not go to areas controlled by Assad? This will serve only to prolong the war and thus displace more people. Aid must, surely, go fairly to all those in need. Secondly, why has it taken from 2013 until just last month for British officials to visit the free cantons of north Syria? I was briefly in Jazira last May. It was quite easy to get in, yet it took the visit of the United States diplomat Mr Brett McGurk before our people went—with him—to Kobane. The cantons of Rojava may well hold the key to the future of Syria. We should therefore work with them. I look forward to the ministerial reply, since I have given him notice.