ISIL: Iraq and Syria

Sandra Osborne Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am happy to endorse the efforts of ShelterBox, an organisation my hon. Friend obviously knows something about, and commend its efforts. The urgent need in Kurdistan now is for winterisation. Camps have been set up and are accommodating just under 1 million internally displaced persons within the territory controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government, but as winter approaches, they will face a dire situation if that accommodation is not effectively winterised against the very harsh conditions in that mountainous area.

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

On the point abut winterisation, will the Secretary of State comment on media reports that British Army equipment abandoned in Afghanistan could, if moved to Irbil, save the lives of up to 20,000 Iraqi refugees?

[Mr Hammond]

As far as I am aware, unless policy has changed in the three months since I left the Ministry of Defence, there is no British equipment of any value being abandoned in Afghanistan; the overwhelming majority of Britain’s equipment is being brought back, reconditioned and taken back into use by the British Army.

[Sandra Osborne]

What about tents?

[Mr Hammond]

I do not think we have any shortage of tents. I will talk to colleagues in the Department for International Development, but my understanding is that we have plenty of physical equipment. The problem in the Kurdish region is with logistics, rather than the physical infrastructure of tents and so on, and now the challenge is to make the accommodation appropriate for the harsh winter conditions.