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The Prime Minister set out yesterday the priorities for the next stage of work being undertaken in Afghanistan. The security gains we have made in Afghanistan against the insurgency-and to prevent the return of terrorism-must be permanent gains. That is why we have to build
on the capacity of Afghanistan to maintain security. The more the Afghans can take responsibility for security, the less coalition forces will be needed in the long term and the sooner our troops can come home.
The UK has fully supported General Stanley McChrystal while he has conducted his strategic assessment. His thinking on delivery ties in closely with our national thinking. Many of the themes of the Government's strategy, published in April, have been developed by General McChrystal. We support his ambition to build the Afghan national army to 134,000 by October 2010. The new training centre that the Prime Minister mentioned yesterday is aimed at professionalising Afghan national army junior commanders, both officers and non-commissioned officers, up to the rank of major. The aim will be to train about 900 Afghans per month.
More Afghan troops are needed in Helmand. It is the centre of the insurgency and it is where the majority of the fighting is taking place. The Prime Minister announced yesterday the establishment of an Afghan corps headquarters in Helmand, and 215 corps of the Afghan army will take part in clear and hold operations in partnership with ISAF units. Together with the partnering strategy that the Prime Minister announced, that will allow the coalition to share the protection of the population centres cleared of the Taliban.
On UK troop numbers, in April we announced an uplift in force levels to 9,000 for the period of the Afghan elections. We also said that we would keep those force levels under review and make such adjustments as were necessary after the elections. I can confirm that we have agreed to maintain UK troop levels at the current level beyond the election period. I have placed before Parliament today the details of which additional units will be deployed as part of 11 Light Brigade to meet the new enduring baseline.
We have also agreed in principle a new force level of 9,500, to be put into effect subject to the following conditions: first, that the new Afghan Government demonstrate their commitment to operations in Helmand with an uplift in Afghan troops; secondly, that our commitment is part of an agreed approach and burden sharing across the coalition and, thirdly, that military commanders are satisfied that the extra troops are properly equipped for what they are being asked to do.
Our troop numbers have therefore increased from just over 8,000 in the early spring of this year to 9,000 on an enduring basis today, with a further proposed increase to 9,500 provided that those conditions are met. In all, that will represent a troop uplift of around 1,500 in a little over six months.
The hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) talked about the number of troops that were needed in Northern Ireland, but he needs to take into account the fact that, as well as our troops, there are also large numbers of American forces in Helmand now. In addition, we have to grow the Afghan national army, which we can do most quickly through partnering. In that way, the Afghans will be the people providing the boots on the ground, and not us alone. We are part of a coalition, and the Afghan Government must be part of it too.
Mr. Baron:
I appreciate the Secretary of State's generosity in giving way, but there is a growing body of opinion, including in the military, that a substantial increase in
troops is needed if we are to do the job properly. As Brigadier Butler has said, we either go long, or we go deep, or we go home. The comparisons with Northern Ireland still stand, because there is a continuing acute shortage of troops and equipment, especially helicopters.
I ask the Secretary of State to re-examine that point. I do not want to go over old war stories but, when I was a platoon commander in Crossmaglen, we did not go anywhere without being airlifted. That is not the case in many areas in Helmand province. It is not just a question of a substantial increase in troops, because we are still short of equipment. Unless we re-examine the situation, we are putting troops' lives unnecessarily at risk.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. May I say that it would be helpful if interventions could be curbed in length? There is a long list of hon. Members seeking to catch my eye, and I would hope to make the debate as inclusive as possible.
Mr. Ainsworth: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. All I would say to the hon. Member for Billericay is that we are part of a coalition. A huge uplift in troop numbers-from 73,000 to 102,000-was already agreed ahead of General McChrystal's proposals and ahead of the offer that we have just made, based on the conditions that I set out. Moreover, the hon. Gentleman must not forget our commitment to grow the Afghan national army to 134,000 by the autumn of next year.
Dr. Liam Fox (Woodspring) (Con): In answer to a question in the House of Lords yesterday, Baroness Royall said that
"it is the case that if the conditions cannot be met it must mean that the 500 extra troops will not be going to Afghanistan: that is the clear outcome."-[ Official Report, House of Lords, 14 October 2009; Vol. 713, c. 238.]
Mr. Ainsworth: I am hopeful that we will be able to meet the conditions in a relatively short period of time, but Baroness Royall is absolutely correct that we have to be satisfied about the balance of risk that the hon. Member for Billericay has identified. We have to make sure that the extra troops have all that they need to do the task asked of them, that our allies across the coalition also make a contribution, and that the American response to General McChrystal is clarified. Most important of all is the need for the Afghans to recognise the importance of Helmand. They must see that the province is the priority for their uplifted troop numbers: we need more Afghan troops as our partners in Helmand. We cannot do the job alone, and have no desire to do so. We have to build their capacity, and they have to be prepared to be a partner in that.
Dr. Fox: I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way again, and it is very helpful for the House to know this. What scale of increase in the activity of our coalition partners would be needed for the Government's definition of the conditions to be met?
Mr. Ainsworth:
I do not think that we will be prescriptive in that regard, but we need to have a discussion with all our partners. There is a NATO ministerial meeting next weekend, and the American process remains to be completed. However, I am hopeful that we can get to a
position where we can accept that the conditions have been met, and that we can therefore agree to the troop uplift, in a relatively short period of time. However, I do not want to talk about any specific number of days or weeks.
Mr. James Arbuthnot (North-East Hampshire) (Con): What does the second condition-that there should be an agreed approach to burden sharing within the coalition-actually mean? We have been there for the past eight years and have not achieved such an agreement. Why does the Secretary of State think that we might get one in the foreseeable future-that is, in months or years?
Mr. Ainsworth: We have got agreements, but they have changed over time and the commitment of many nations has gone up. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the commitment of one or two of our NATO allies is likely to go down, but we have to have those discussions. There has been development over time. I know that it is widely thought in this country that only ourselves and the Americans are playing our part, and that the contribution from other nations is relatively small. However, a lot of nations are making a considerable contribution: we would like them to make more, because there is no doubt that the UK is making far and away the second largest contribution to the operation. We are entitled to say to NATO allies that burden sharing is important. Some of them could do more, as we all know. We have to put them in a position where we can ask them to do so.
Mr. Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con): My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) spoke about the need for helicopters. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that there would be more Chinooks, but he did not say how many and when. Is the Secretary of State able to say now how many there will be, and when they will come?
Mr. Ainsworth: I shall come on to equipment very shortly in my speech.
Nothing can eliminate completely the dangers of the battlefield. The nature of the mission in Afghanistan-a counter-insurgency campaign among the people-means that our forces need to get out of the Chinooks and the Mastiffs and engage with people. As long as they are providing security for the people of Helmand in the face of an insurgency they will be in harm's way, and we have to expect further casualties.
Because of our successes against them, the Taliban-led insurgents are relying heavily on attacks using improvised explosive devices. These are responsible for the majority of UK casualties and are taking a heavy toll on civilians as well. Tackling this threat is our priority and we are doing all that we can to minimise the risks to our forces while they do the job that they need to do.
It is always a challenge to balance the need to send new kit to the frontline as soon as possible with providing the best possible equipment for training purposes. We have deployed more specialist counter-IED troops to find and defuse mines and to identify and target the networks that lay them. We are continuing to invest in
our intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capabilities to provide vital real-time intelligence to track and target bomb makers. In addition to the surveillance capability in theatre from Sea King and airborne stand-off radar, we will increase flying hours in our unmanned aerial vehicle fleet by 33 per cent. for Hermes and 50 per cent. for Desert Hawk by the end of this year, and by 80 per cent. for Reaper next year.
We have approved over £3.2 billion of urgent operational requirements specifically for Afghanistan, some 70 per cent. of which has been for force protection. We will ensure that support systems are robust, that spares are available in theatre when they are needed and that sufficient equipment will be in place to conduct pre-deployment training.
On vehicles, in the past three years, we have approved £1.2 billion for new vehicles for Afghanistan. Over the past 12 months alone, we have procured 500 protected mobility vehicles and several hundred more are on contract. For the new Mastiff 2 and Ridgback, an advance stock of spares will be issued to theatre and stocks will continue to be monitored to support the current tempo of operations.
Compared with November 2006, by May next year we will have doubled the number of battlefield helicopters and increased the flying hours by 130 per cent. That will include the deployment of the Merlin fleet to Afghanistan for the first time after its service in Iraq.
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con): The Secretary of State mentions the availability of equipment for pre-deployment training. He will know that the Welsh Guards, based in my constituency, have just returned, and they tell me that one of their difficulties is that there were no Mastiffs and other armoured vehicles on which to train in the United Kingdom. That has led to difficulties with on-the-job training in theatre and a lack of skills in maintaining the vehicles-hence the fact that there have been breakdowns and so on. Now that he has ordered all those additional vehicles, is he satisfied that sufficient vehicles are available in the United Kingdom to undertake pre-deployment training?
Mr. Ainsworth: There is no doubt that there is a problem with spares for Mastiff 1, but we got Mastiff 1 into theatre in record time. We have systems in place to ensure that such problems do not arise with Mastiff 2 or Ridgback, and we must provide kit and equipment for pre-deployment training. That is why I sometimes get riled when people say that we have helicopters in Hampshire rather than Helmand. We have helicopter crews in Hampshire as well as Helmand. They have to recuperate; they have to train-we cannot send them out to Afghanistan and keep them there-and we must have the kit and equipment back here at home to enable them to do so. So, yes, of course, the top priority is to deal with the theatre-the theatre has to come first, does it not?-but training is an important part, and providing the necessary equipment for training must come a very close second.
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con):
So why do we not use more reserve aircrews, particularly for helicopters, as the Americans do? The fact that we currently have one reservist Apache pilot-oddly enough, a Royal
Naval Reserve officer-out in Helmand shows that reservists can meet a range of such requirements, and plenty of people who work in the civilian helicopter world are ex-service pilots.
Mr. Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman knows that I have allowed him to beat up certain people in the MOD over a period to put his point of view that there are ways in which we can get more helicopter crews into the roulement, and any ideas that he has are always welcome, as they are from any other quarter of the House.
Paul Flynn: Can my right hon. Friend explain the circumstances in which we blew up two of our own Chinook helicopters? I understand that they had been lightly damaged-one from a hard landing, and the other by being attacked by gunfire, not by a surface-to-air missile. Why could we not guard those helicopters in time, so that they could be removed to a safe place or repaired? What does it say for security if we had to destroy two helicopters worth £40 million, because we could not guard them until repairs arrived?
Mr. Ainsworth: The helicopters came down in the Helmand valley, well away from patrol bases, and a judgment must be made by people whose lives are on the line, not by us here in the House of Commons, about the balance of risk between destroying equipment to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy and taking risk to preserve it. We must accept that we are not in a position to make those judgments. Those are dangerous environments, and we must support our armed forces in making those judgments and back them up when they do so. If that costs us equipment, it costs us equipment.
Mr. Baron: May I bring the Secretary of State back to the equipment increases with regard to trying to guard against IEDs and so on? Although I very much welcome the news that more equipment is being sent out, to many people, that feels like playing catch-up. For example, the statistics show that something like 30 per cent. of American casualties are caused by IEDs, but the figure for British forces is much higher, at about 50 per cent. How does he account for that?
Mr. Ainsworth: A measure of the respect that we should show for our armed forces is that our people are holding down the main centres of population in the Helmand valley, which is the centre of the insurgency-a well embedded insurgency. Therefore, they are taking on the enemy where it is strongest, and we are suffering casualties-far, far more than makes any of us in any way comfortable-but new kit and equipment is going out, in terms not only of quantity, but new technology. I hope that the House will understand that I do not want to go into the detail of what we can and cannot do, but no effort is being spared in trying to develop new ways and means to find and attack the devices. There is a huge increase in the number of devices that we are finding before they explode, but the main thing is to tackle the networks that are putting them in place. That involves surveillance, intelligence and other capabilities.
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex) (Con):
I understand very well the difficulties that the Secretary of State is talking about. Does he agree that, inevitably, there will
be casualties in a war of this type, deeply regrettable and tragic though they are, and that domination of the ground cannot be achieved from the inside of a vehicle or helicopter? It is absolutely fundamental that there is no substitute for adequate boots on the ground. On what my hon. Friends say about troop numbers, what the right hon. Gentleman was told in the theatre capability review that he received earlier in the year was that many more troops are required on the ground.
Mr. Ainsworth: Many more troops are required on the ground. That is what General McChrystal is looking at now. We cannot do that alone; we are part of a coalition. We are providing less than 10 per cent. of the foreign forces in Afghanistan. That has to come from others, and overwhelmingly, it has to be Afghanistan. If people are saying that more of our troops were required before now, that is not the case. Requests were looked at, but they were not looked at in terms of immediate requirements. Those requests have been met, and I think that the hon. Gentleman will find that the chiefs of staff are happy that we have got the right response to their requests.
Mr. Swire: Many hon. Members have seen at first hand the extraordinary role being performed by the Territorial Army and our reserve forces, which is indistinguishable from the role being played in Helmand by our regular forces. Some of us cannot understand what is going on with the Government's freeze on training and pay over the next six months, as it seems entirely to contradict what the Secretary of State has been telling the House of late. Will he take this opportunity to clarify the Government's position on the future of our reserve forces?
Mr. Ainsworth: Let me come to the Territorial Army; I will not try to avoid doing so in any way.
Mr. Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD): In answering questions from my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) yesterday, the Prime Minister said:
"there is an issue about small vehicles... We will do everything that we can to ensure that there are better vehicles in future."-[ Official Report, 14 October 2009; Vol. 497, c. 309.]
Will the Secretary of State give a commitment on the number of better vehicles that will be delivered and a time scale for their delivery?
Mr. Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The basic problem is that we have supplied vehicles, such as Mastiff, which provide a huge protection against mines, but they cannot be used in many circumstances and our troops have to use smaller vehicles. We have upgraded Snatch to Snatch Vixen, which has a far higher level of armour, but it still can be overpowered. Any vehicle can be overpowered, including a Challenger tank, if people want to put enough explosive into a device. But, we are looking at improving the range all the time. Snatch Vixen is not as good as we can get, and we are now looking at new vehicles that could fulfil the role that we have asked of Snatch Vixen, so that we have smaller and highly capable vehicles that are at the front end of technological development.
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