ISIL

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is clearly very experienced in these matters, in the workings of the Civil Service and in giving advice to Ministers. If he will forgive me for saying this, he will be aware that at present we are actively engaged, along with 60 other countries, in the activity in Iraq. We are providing technical support in Syria. That remains our position. If there is any change, clearly the House will want to reflect on how it handles that.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

We on this side associate ourselves with the Minister’s words about the victims of the atrocity in Tunisia and their families. Will he reassure the House that no requests for additional resources—whether human, equipment or financial, from our intelligence organisations, police or Armed Forces—to address the threat posed by ISIL to this country have been declined or not answered?

[Lord Bates]

The Government—and, indeed, the previous Government since 2010—are very clear that we have protected the budgets for counterterrorism police work and of the security services. The Prime Minister announced last November, in response to developments in Iraq and Syria and the ISIL threat, that there will be a further £130 million. We continue to keep that under review but let there be no doubt whatever about our commitment to providing the resources that are needed.