Anniversary of 7 October Attacks: Middle East

Lord Swire Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about everybody in the region feeling safe and secure. That is what the two-state solution is: a safe and secure Israel and a strong and viable state of Palestine. There is a lesson on this. At the beginning of his comments, the noble Lord made a really telling remark that, at some point—we want it to be sooner rather than later—violence will subside and we will move towards peace and negotiation. At no time can the countries involved in negotiation, and in trying to reach the two-state solution, take a step back and think, “It’s quietened down now, we can forget about it”. The point he makes is that we need constant vigilance to ensure that, until we can guarantee the security and safety of civilians across the region, we have to remain engaged. I take very seriously the points he made on that.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

For some years now, we have had a British military programme, with British military training teams training the Lebanese army extremely successfully. Does the Leader of the House include the remnants of those trainers, if we still have them in Lebanon, in her calls to come away from that country now? If they are still there, does she share my concern that they could be inadvertently drawn into this conflict?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I am not sighted on the issue of the trainers that the noble Lord referred to, but he will know that our military personnel will always act within international law, which is defensive. I will double-check the point about whether we have anyone in the region in that regard. I was looking hopefully at my noble friend the Minister of State for Defence, who will come back to the noble Lord and write to him with the details.