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"The costs associated with the provision of training and maritime support for Iraqi Forces will continue to be borne by HMG under existing arrangements for Operation Telic. The Treasury has agreed in principle to fund the additional costs for these military activities from the Reserve."
Will the Minister tell us unequivocally that the costs for any and all UK training missions in Iraq and the Gulf will be met by the reserve and not from the core budget?
The recent PAC report that I mentioned earlier also highlights the Government's failure to ensure that our troops are properly trained to carry out their tasks. We
know that there is a shortage of armoured vehicles for our troops to train on before they go to Afghanistan. The PAC report went on to say that
"there have been equipment shortages in many areas and some key equipment was missing altogether. Many troops have not had direct experience of some equipment, such as electronic counter-measures systems, before arriving in theatre".
I am sure that the whole House agrees that no soldier should ever have to train on or see a major piece of equipment for the first time in Afghanistan.
Let us consider parachute training. Our Paras have a proud and gallant history. Our troops are expected to train like they fight, but now the Paras are being forced to jump from civilian aeroplanes flown by civilian pilots, when neither would be a wartime possibility. It is a matter for grave concern that parachute training and preparedness has reached that low level. Baroness Taylor said yesterday in the other place:
"the current capability is there. The lack of parachute training is not having an effect on the mandated operational capacity."-[ Official Report, House of Lords, 14 October 2009; Vol. 713, c. 218.]
Many would disagree. When more than a third of parachute troops are unable to jump from a plane, which is what distinguishes them from their light infantry counterparts, there is a lack of capability. The lack of parachuting may not be impacting on current operations in Afghanistan, but what about our ability to react to the unexpected? According to the latest figures provided by the Government, more than a third of those who should be able to parachute are not trained to do so.
The situation with our reserve forces generally, and the TA especially, is worse than in other areas. Eighteen thousand members of our reserve forces, most of whom were from the TA, have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, and we are extremely fortunate as a nation to have had those reserve forces available to us. However, the Government's treatment of the reserve forces is unforgivable. In 1997, the establishment figure for the TA was 59,000. Today it is 38,500, even though the current strength is 28,920.
We learned last April that thousands more TA positions would be cut from the establishment figure. According to the Government's latest figures, 12 of the 14 TA infantry battalions are under strength. On 28 April, in a statement to which he has referred, the Secretary of State said:
"Initial training will be restructured so that new recruits receive sufficient military skills to participate in their units' collective training within six months of joining, and are fully trained and eligible for mobilisation in three years. Routine training will also be reviewed and sufficient man training days allocated to ensure that annual military competency standards can be achieved by all."-[ Official Report, 28 April 2009; Vol. 491, c. 702.]
As several hon. Members have already pointed out, we have now learned that training for all members of the TA who are not going to Afghanistan in the next year is going to be cut. The operational budget for the TA for this financial year was £38 million. We now know that it is going to be cut to around £23 million. That will have a very negative impact on the long-term readiness of the TA and long-term recruitment.
Let me give the House a graphic example. A young man sent me an e-mail today. It states:
"I have always had an interest in the armed forces so at the freshers fair this year"-
"I jumped at the chance to join the London University Officer Training Corps, not only would I be trained by the military, develop my leadership skills but I would also get paid - always a good thing as a student struggling to pay a loan!...So after successfully getting in through the rigorous interviews and selection weekend (held in norfolk) I arrived for my first training evening, excited, keen and willing to learn! We were sat down in the hall and the Major walked out and announced bluntly - 'There will be NO pay for any training officers this year.' He went on to tell us about how the whole Army was facing a cut back. I think this is outrageous! We're fighting two large wars, as training officers we should be seen as the next generation...properly respected and paid!"
The Government are willing to spend £12 billion on a pointless VAT cut to support their political reputation, but they are unwilling to spend £20 million to train the TA while we are at war in Afghanistan. That shows a very twisted set of priorities. The Government need to understand that for many in the TA, the TA is a habit: break the habit, break the TA. That is exactly what their proposals will do.
For our defence policy to be successful, we must have a clear strategy, defined objectives and the necessary military capabilities. Too often, this Government have simply not been up to the task. They are losing support among the public for the mission in Afghanistan, because they do not tell them why we need to be there in terms of our clear national security priorities. They are not making clear what losing would mean and they are not clearly defining what success would look like. We need better supplied forces in Afghanistan, with better spares and equipment.
Ultimately, the question is how much we value our forces. The TA decision is disgraceful and penny-pinching, and it is a shameful way to treat the volunteers in the TA. It may save £20 million, but the Government are willing to spend any amount to bail out their reputation in the middle of an economic crisis of their own making. In Afghanistan and elsewhere, whether dealing with equipment or our forces, if we will the ends, we must will the means. Half of what is needed will not buy us half a victory. Our armed forces deserve so much better than they are getting from this Government.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must remind the House that a 10-minute limit applies to Back-Bench speeches. Actually, a 12-minute limit applies-I may have been anticipating a possible change.
2.4 pm
Paul Flynn (Newport, West) (Lab): The 200th soldier killed in Afghanistan was Kyle Adams. Charlene Barry is a constituent of mine. She wrote to the Prime Minister and his predecessor, and she would like her letter to be read to the House. I shall read part of it:
"I am a 21 year old woman and my life was very happy and full of love. This was before a terrible...experience occurred...I try my hardest to keep up with understanding the background to your decisions on Afghanistan...I want to explain my background so maybe you can relate in some way to why I am very frustrated with you, and maybe you will understand we are people not just numbers...I left school after my GCSEs and I started to think about serving my country and working for the British Army. I enrolled onto a college course and got my diplomas. This is where I met Kyle Adams. We had such a great connection we would bring out the best in each other. We knew in our hearts we would always be together and made plans for the future...I later left the
college, however my dear Kyle joined up as a paratrooper and began his gruelling training...We started to plan our lives in detail...We were to move in with each other...We were to have a dog for the first few years and then he would ask my father for permission to marry. Kyle wanted to wear his army uniform on our wedding day and we had our first dance song (savage gardens - truly, madly, deeply...We were to have three children; our first would hopefully have been a boy to carry on the family name for the Adams. His name was to be Cole Adams and he was going to be a cricketer as Kyle loved his cricket and his son would surely bowl out South Africa...Kyle was then sent to Afghanistan on the 22nd May 2009. He loved his job and was proud of what he had become - we were all very proud of him...Kyle was killed in action on the 6th August 2009 working for the paratrooper regiment when his Jackal vehicle ran over an IED bomb. We met our cold dead hero at RAF Lytham, on Thursday, 20th August 2009, and what a day that was! We met a lot of people and I was pleased to know that they felt enough emotion to turn up and show some respect for the four fallen men that had flown home that day...I think I speak for all British people when I say I just hope it doesn't cost more lives."
They laid down their lives for our decisions. I was so moved by that letter that I wrote to the Prime Minister and said, "I realise you get 20,000 letters a week, but please read this one."
Charlene Barry made a plea for Ministers to turn up when the fallen soldiers are brought home, and the Prime Minister's handwritten reply was greatly appreciated. It is crucial for Members of this House to confront the consequences of our decisions. We often talk about numbers and about issues that are peripheral to what has happened to the families of the 221 soldiers. They will suffer a wound that will never heal.
In this debate, we are concentrating on issues that are not central. My purpose in asking the Minister questions was not to suggest that the decision to turn those two Chinooks into scrap metal was wrong. I am sure that it was militarily the right decision. The point was what the episode says for security in Helmand province and in Afghanistan. In another answer to a question of mine, the Minister said I should realise that the reason why none of the terrorist plots originated in Afghanistan was that we were there, and that we had controlled the situation. That is an utter delusion. Karzai cannot travel 30 miles outside Kabul to the Logar province, because it is entirely controlled by the Taliban. An independent think-tank has estimated that the Taliban are in control of 80 per cent. of the territory of Afghanistan, more than they had in 2001.
Other evidence also suggests that we are deluding ourselves, and the battle is already lost. I questioned the hope that we have in the Afghan army in an intervention. It is a mercenary army that comes from all the various tribal areas, which have huge divisions between them. Karzai even has opponents in his own group.
We never mention Baluchistan. The king of Baluchistan was a constituent of mine until a few months ago-he is now an asylum seeker. Is that an area that we consider to be secure? Karzai sent emissaries to bring the area into line, because it was not obeying orders from Kabul. The reaction of the local people was to behead all 12. The country is out of control and has been that way for some time.
We are likely to repeat the disasters of Saigon and the disasters of the Russians-
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab):
I listened carefully to the moving letter that my hon. Friend read out, and it brought it home to me that this House has never voted
on the deployment of our troops in Afghanistan, especially in Helmand, despite the promises from Prime Minister Blair and the current Prime Minister that the deployment of British troops in a war situation would require an affirmative resolution in this House. That would be in line with western European norms, as many other Parliaments require the full-hearted consent of the legislature in the full knowledge of what such action would entail, and we have been denied that in respect of this deployment.
Paul Flynn: My hon. Friend is right. We had a debate in March 2006-I commend the report of that debate to him-during which the claim was made that we were going into Helmand province. That area was peaceful at that time, and only seven British soldiers had died, two in action and five in accidents. At that time, the Government said-they would love to unsay it now-that they hoped to be there for three years and without a shot being fired. We would have been out by now if that plan had worked. Other voices said that this plan was as dangerous and futile as the charge of the Light Brigade. If casualties continue at the present rate, by Christmas twice as many of our brave soldiers will have lost their lives in Afghanistan than were killed in the charge of the Light Brigade-to similar purpose. My hon. Friend is right to point out that we have not debated this action or voted on it.
I have asked senior Ministers whether they have ever spoken to the Taliban leaders and asked why they are killing our people. I would have thought it would be important to do so in the circumstances. Both Front Benches deliberately mix up al-Qaeda and the Taliban-it happened again today-when the Taliban are complex enough on their own. Both Front Benches also deliberately mix up Pakistan and Afghanistan, and suggest that everything emanates from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The terrorist attacks here were all planned in Pakistan or in this country. None was planned by the Taliban or in Afghanistan.
The Minister's answer to my intervention was about security, but there is no security if we have to blow up our own helicopters because we cannot guard them for the time it would take for a heavy-lifting vehicle to move them. That is the sign of a desperate situation. If security is that bad, how dare we ask our soldiers to go on patrol in light vehicles, or even on foot, and expose them to such dangers? We are in a similar situation to the final months in Iraq, when we were still sending troops out on futile patrols that had no purpose and many lives were lost in consequence.
If the Minister were to ask the Taliban why they are killing our soldiers, would they say, "Well, when we've killed all the British and American troops, we are coming over to Coventry and Newport to blow up your streets"? Or would they say, "We're killing them because it's our sacred, religious duty to kill the Ferengi, the foreigners, the infidels in our country"? James Fergusson, in his book "A Million Bullets", tells the story of his meeting with a Taliban leader, who says, "I have three children, but I don't allow them to live in the village where I live because I don't want them to learn to love me. If they do, it will be more painful when I die." James Fergusson asked, "But surely you don't want to die." The Taliban leader replied, "Of course I want to die, it is my dearest wish. My father died fighting the Russians and my
great-grandfather died fighting the British, as did his father, and that is how I hope my children will die." This is not a war that fits in with any of the military rules of conventional warfare over territory. This war is very different. The reason for the increase in deaths from seven to more than 200 is our presence in Helmand province, which was unnecessary and had no purpose. It was a giant military mistake and we are all still paying for it.
Politicians from both main parties are reluctant to admit the truth, because they would have to say that they had been mistaken for a long time, and that is a difficult thing to do. But we have to change tactics. All the issues raised about the number of helicopters, the training and other equipment are important, but they are not the central issues of why we are there, why the Taliban are attacking us, whether our goals are attainable and what will happen in the next few months. Thankfully, Obama is asking those questions. He has looked afresh at the war and is asking, "What is the likely outcome?" He has not taken the usual military line of sending more troops-every army asks for more troops.
We have told our soldiers that they must keep on dying. The line taken by those on the Front Bench about NATO is interesting. NATO is already fractured and divided-Canada says that it will leave in a couple of years. We have lost more troops than all the other European countries put together. They are doing the policing, but the Brits are doing the dying in this war. Is it reasonable to ask our troops to carry an unfair share of the burden? What are they dying for? Is it to guarantee the re-election of a thoroughly corrupt and disreputable president, Karzai, and his equally corrupt family, some of whom have become millionaires as a result of the war? Is it to allow the depraved, drug-addicted thieves of the Afghan police to take over when the soldiers have captured the territory? Is it to continue the abject and total failure of a drugs policy that has enriched the Taliban and allowed drugs to arrive on our streets in previously unheard of quantities? The price of heroin on the streets of our capital city-
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order.
2.18 pm
Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD): I start by paying tribute to all those servicemen and women who have been serving our country in Afghanistan and elsewhere and, in particular, by marking the debt of honour that we owe to all those who have been killed and injured in that service. I also express our sympathy and condolences to their friends, families and loved ones. We should all be very proud of the work that they have done for us.
I welcome the opportunity this afternoon to discuss defence policy, with all the political parties now signed up to the principle of the strategic defence review after the forthcoming election. The opportunity looms for a national debate about defence policy, what we want to do in the world, what role we want to play and what we are prepared to leave to allies. Once we have identified what we want to do, we need to discuss how we will go about it. Tough questions must be asked; difficult answers must be sought. Policy is not, and should never be, simply a knee-jerk response to various crises. It should be about guiding principles; about the basis upon which we intend to interact with others; and about what we are trying to achieve in doing so. Having set out our
clear objectives, the task before us all-whatever political side we are on-is to communicate that to a wider public that is increasingly confused and parting company with us on some of the things that we are doing. That public's assent and consent is necessary if we are to continue as we are.
We are debating in part the Gray report. I think that everyone in the House would have appreciated more time to read and get to grips with it, but even a quick read of the executive summary is enough to make one realise that it raises very serious questions about the state of our defences and, in particular, procurement policies.
In many ways the report confirms what we have long suspected and what many commentators have been saying for a very long time: simply that there are systemic failures in the Ministry of Defence and, in particular, the procurement processes, which are crippling our armed forces' ability to act. I very much agree with the general tenet of the report and the observation that the quest for a perfect solution too often gets in the way of achieving a very good solution. As Gray says, when an 80 per cent. solution is a viable option, and when it is in the interests of the armed forces to provide a "good enough" answer, the armed forces could get what they need and there could be far greater export potential. In summary, the report states that
"too many types of equipment being ordered for too large a range of tasks at too high a specification".
In many respects, the report is a damning indictment of our procurement processes: the average programme overruns by five years beyond the time specified; average cost increases are 40 per cent, and the knock-on frictional costs to the Ministry of Defence of these delays amount, in monetary value, to, according to Gray, between £900 million and £2.2 billion annually. It is little wonder then that the worries that many have articulated about a black hole in the MOD budget are beginning to materialise.
Mr. Davidson: Clarity in procurement is important. Can we be clear about the Liberal Democrat policy on procuring two aircraft carriers? Are the Liberal Democrats in favour of that? I deserve an answer because I am the only person listening.
Nick Harvey: To the best of my knowledge, the Liberal Democrat policy on the two aircraft carriers is exactly the same as that of the Government and the Conservative party. We see the need for the carriers, and support their procurement, but it is perfectly clear that a strategic defence review will consider the entire range of our military activity, and obviously in doing so will consider the aircraft carriers, like it will every other aspect of military activity. The hon. Gentleman asked me about policy; our policy is that we support the procurement of the two carriers on exactly the same basis as the other two main parties.
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