Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the government of Iraq has accepted their offer to send counter-terrorism officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to assist against the current jihadi insurgency; if so how many personnel will be sent to Iraq; and how the recent decision to cut the number of counter-terrorism personnel in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will affect future deployments of that nature.

We are currently reviewing a number of specific counter-terrorism options to assist the Iraqi government. However, any assistance can only be truly effective alongside an urgent show of unity by Iraq's leaders. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague), reinforced this message when he met with leaders across Iraq's communities during his visit to Baghdad and Erbil at the end of June.

The Counter-Terrorism Department is one of the largest policy departments in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). We constantly monitor and review our projects, programmes and diplomatic engagement, as our part of the wider Government efforts on counter-terrorism, to ensure our resources are having the maximum possible impact in the right places as the global security environment changes.