David Cameron has been warned not to push a Commons vote on military action in Syria until the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war is published.
David Davis, a senior Tory who has led opposition to intervention in Syria, said that indications that ministers may seek to extend airstrikes against Islamic State militants heightened the need for publication.
Downing Street resisted efforts to link the two issues, but Mr Davis said that they were inextricably bound.
“There’s a very practical reason why we need Chilcot soon and that’s Syria,” the former shadow home secretary said. “We are being told we are to be asked to support increased military intervention there but how can we judge that request if we don’t have the full lessons from Iraq?”
Britain is already supporting US-led airstrikes against Isis targets in Iraq, but parliament has not approved similar action over the border in Syria.
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The prime minister has said that Britain should “step up and do more” in the fight against Isis and Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has said that “the time will come” when parliament must reconsider airstrikes in Syria.
Senior government figures stressed yesterday that no decision on airstrikes was likely until after the party conferences in October and acknowledged that the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader would make winning a parliamentary vote more difficult.
The chairman of the Iraq inquiry, Sir John Chilcot, is facing a growing row over the wait for the findings of his review into Britain’s decision to join the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq.
Senior politicians from all sides have made clear that they are running out of patience over the report, which was launched in 2009 and has cost £10 million. A group of families whose loved ones were killed serving in Iraq have threatened legal action if the findings are not made public this year.
Mr Davis, a former Conservative leadership contender, has said that he will be among a group of MPs seeking to force the inquiry panel to announce a date for publication when parliament returns from its summer recess.
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Sir John, a former civil servant, has attributed the delay to the need to grant a right of reply to those criticised in the report. Critics say that he has allowed this process to go on too long.
Adam Holloway, a Conservative MP and former officer in the Grenadier Guards, said that the Chilcot inquiry was established to understand the root causes of the “utterly disastrous” war in Iraq and that Britain had yet to learn from the experience.
While he said that the prime minister should always have the ability to take the country to war if national security required it, he said that he feared the lessons of Iraq had not been heeded.
“With Syria, you have real experts who will tell you that a tiny contribution of a few bombers is a minuscule tactical effect with enormous strategic implications,” he said, adding: “I don’t think much has changed since 2001.”
The prime minister’s official spokeswoman rejected attempts to link the Chilcot report with the threat posed by Isis, also known as Isil. She said: “The prime minister sees these as two distinct issues. He’s been clear on the threat facing the UK and British nationals from Isil and therefore the rationale for taking action against Isil.”