Middle East: Deployment of British Armed Forces

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend. I also place on the record my admiration, and that of the Government, for all our Armed Forces in what must be an extremely difficult situation. Operation Shader, which has been in place since 2014, has been a remarkable success, and very active. I did not realise that since it was put in place, the RAF has flown 8,700 sorties and released 4,300 precision weapons.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister may recall me saying in the context of a previous Question put to the Leader that the Armed Forces place enormous importance on the support of the British public for the difficult and dangerous things that they do, not least as expressed by the will of Parliament. At the same time, they have to rely, crucially, upon the principles of security and surprise, on which their effectiveness and safety depend. Is it not difficult to see how a piece of legislation brought before Parliament could balance those difficult, competing issues?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The noble and gallant Lord makes a very good point, and it is certainly something that I will talk about. I could not agree with him more that operational security and force protection are at the very heart of what we are trying to do here, and must never be compromised.