My Lords, the Prime Minister made it clear that he believes that ISIL and Daesh are actually a threat to the existence of our nation at the moment. I have to say I do not see it in that way, but he has said that. Clearly that means—rather like the last time we had such a threat, which was the Second World War and the Cold War—one has to look at spending priorities in a totally different way, and things such as foreign aid, education, the National Health Service and welfare have to take a hit because we need to spend money on defence and security. However, my question is more specific. When we started our air campaign in Iraq, we said that we would not do attacks into Syria unless something specific—an atrocity or something—happened. Those of us in the military pointed out it made no military sense not to do attacks into Syria. Is this now being looked at again so that we have some more cohesive aspect to what should be a much bigger overall strategic plan, which a number of us have talked about?
Tunisia and European Council
Proceeding contribution from
Lord West of Spithead
(Labour)
in the House of Lords on Monday, 29 June 2015.
It occurred during Ministerial statement on Tunisia and European Council.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
762 c1836 
Session
2015-16
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2019-12-18 12:34:01 +0000
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