Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what discussions he has had with his US counterpart on civilian deaths resulting from non-US-coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria.

Our principal concern is that the Syrian regime and their backers are undertaking airstrikes in Syria, but that many of those strikes are not against Daesh, but against forces opposed to the regime. When there have been allegations of civilian casualties - or indeed, when strikes have taken place against humanitarian targets - we see no sign of the regime undertaking any kind of investigation in order to learn lessons. This is in marked contrast to our own approach as part of the Coalition, in which every possible care is taken to minimise the risk of civilian casualties.

The Iraqi Air Force conducts air strikes in its own sovereign airspace against Daesh targets; the Iraqis notify the Coalition of their intent to conduct air strikes in an area, in order to ensure deconfliction of air operations.

Daesh also conducts limited aerial attacks, against those forces opposed to them, using commercially-available unmanned aerial vehicles.