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LONDON—The British government will move toward participating in Syrian airstrikes if there is a political consensus to do so, a senior minister said Sunday, the latest sign of building momentum within the U.K. to step up military action.

George Osborne, U.K. Treasury chief and close political ally of Prime Minister David Cameron, said the West hadn't done enough to contain Islamic State militants that control territory in Syria and Iraq. Speaking in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation, Mr. Osborne said Mr. Cameron's government would seek parliamentary approval to extend the U.K.'s current involvement in Iraq airstrikes to Syria.

The prime minister and other senior government ministers believe "there is a strong case" for doing so, but that there needs to be support for the move from parliament, Mr. Osborne said.

It comes days after Mr. Cameron said Britain would take "thousands" of Syrian refugees, which marked a major U-turn in his response to Europe's escalating migrant crisis following a public outcry to do more. The prime minister is due to provide more detail on his refugee response on Monday in parliament when lawmakers return from their summer break.

Mr. Cameron's spokeswoman declined to comment on what the prime minister would announce. The government will make an assessment of what the U.K.'s public services and infrastructure could support in terms of resettling refugees and use its substantial foreign-aid budget to help meet the costs, Mr. Osborne said.

Mr. Cameron has previously been forced to change tack in his approach to Syrian airstrikes. He suffered a stinging parliamentary defeat in 2013 when lawmakers, principally from the opposition Labour Party, rejected his proposal to intervene militarily in Syria following allegations that President Bashar al-Assad's regime used chemical weapons on Syrian civilians during the civil war.

The U.K. military has been participating in airstrikes in Iraq since September as part of an international coalition supporting the Iraqi government forces in their fight against Islamic State militants. While Britain hasn't extended the action to Syria, it has provided assistance in the form of reconnaissance flights and helping a U.S.-led effort to train moderate Syrian opposition forces in neighboring countries.

Domestic politics could again force his hand. The front-runner in the current Labour leadership race, results of which are to be announced on Sept. 12, is veteran leftist and peace campaigner Jeremy Corbyn, who opposes military intervention in Syria. Labour's support is seen as necessary to ensure the government wins any vote on the issue as Mr. Cameron's Conservative Party commands only a small majority in parliament.

In a sign that support for military action in Syria may be growing in other quarters, George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote in a newspaper article that there must be renewed military and diplomatic efforts to "crush" Islamic State and al Qaeda.

"Make no mistake: this may mean airstrikes and other British military assistance to create secure and safe enclaves in Syria," he said in Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

On the issue of accepting Syrian refugees, Mr. Cameron had came under intensifying pressure at home and abroad to do more after he argued taking in more refugees wasn't the answer. On Friday, he said Britain would take in thousands of Syrian refugees directly from camps in neighboring countries so as not to encourage people to risk their lives to get to Europe.

Germany has urged other European countries to take their fair share of the refugees who have flocked to Europe from the war-torn areas in the Middle East

Britain has committed £ 1 billion ($1.5 million) in aid for Syria's humanitarian crisis, but has granted asylum to just 5,000 Syrians who have reached Britain since the start of 2011, compared with 65,000 people who fled Syria to Germany last year alone. It has also brought 216 Syrians from United Nations camps in countries near Syria to live in Britain under a program started in early 2014 to relocate people who are deemed particularly vulnerable.

Write to Nicholas Winning at nick.winning@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 06, 2015 20:35 ET (00:35 GMT)

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