My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, echoes some of the anxieties expressed in both Houses over the last month, both at Recall and this week. When the other place was presented with a Motion referring only to Iraq, it was on the basis that we had been invited by the Iraqi Government to be there. It was clear what our role could be: one involving air strikes and not combat troops on the ground, but certainly providing training. We know that that is valuable.
Why do we not do the same for Syria? We would wish to be in a position so that if we were taking premeditated action in Syria—if that ever occurred and we got to the point where we felt that the only way forward was military intervention in Syria—we would carry out our undertaking, to this House and to another place, to return to Parliament before that. That is why there is a next step, if we get to that, in the position. In the mean time, we are doing as much as we can to assist those moderate forces in Syria to withstand the pressure of Assad’s oppression. As I said in the Statement, he is helping ISIL by bombarding the moderates in places such as Aleppo. For the moment, we are carrying out full support in air strikes as part of our coalition. We are one part of it, but a determined part. We will monitor the position but if there were any premeditated change we would certainly fulfil our commitment to come back to Parliament first.