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I visited Iraq several times during the conflict there. I saw Bremer with his boots on, and I observed what happened all the way through. We learned a lot in that period, but one thing that became clear was that such operations have to be conducted with local people and
not just for them. A way has to be found to engage them in the process, and that is the real discussion that has to be held in respect of Afghanistan.
Some hon. Members not present in the Chamber believe that our contribution in Afghanistan should be confined to a counter-terrorism strategy. Similarly, there are people in America who say that their forces should use their technological advantages-drones, and so on-to spot the bad boys and deal with them that way. They do not want to tackle terrorism by getting involved in Afghanistan and fostering counter-insurgency from the inside; they say that they are about defence, and not nation building.
I believe that that is the road to perdition, but it is one side of the continuum of discussion. Our approach is different, and more difficult. We cannot build a nation for other people, but we can help them do it for themselves. People tend to claim that NATO will collapse unless certain things are done, but they should recall that NATO supported the original UN mandate to take action in Afghanistan and that it is now trying to help a body of people there develop their country. We must remember that ISAF is an assistance force, not a substitute for anything, so the question that we must consider is how we give it the right combination of activities, over and above the merely military.
Linda Gilroy: It is indeed an assistance force, and the "I" in ISAF stands for "International". I am getting a sense that, at long last, the Americans might be beginning to understand what we call the "comprehensive" approach and what they call the "whole-Government" approach. Does my hon. Friend feel the same? The matter is very complex, but does he agree that everyone must sing from the same song sheet if we are to get effective outcomes in Afghanistan?
Mr. Havard: The short answer is yes, and we continue to go around that discussion with some of our allies and the rest of NATO. We have been having that debate for some time. Who can turn up to do what? Will they turn up, and if so, when, and when will they pay for it? Rightly in a sense, the United States is saying, "Well, that's what we think we are doing. If we are going to do something that is comprehensive, we need assistance as well." The fact that the United States is saying that is useful and long overdue. It is saying, "We need help." It is beginning to recognise that there is no monopoly of decision making about such issues either in Washington or London, or in any one place. My hon. Friend is quite right: an international contribution will make the difference.
I noticed that the Secretary of State talked about security space and then about reconciliation, which is absolutely key. I noticed that the shadow Secretary of State talked about auxiliary forces. We need to have a careful discussion about how we do such things. There was a misunderstanding in the United States-some of it was still there when we spoke to people last week-about what the surge in Iraq was all about. Apparently, it was all about sending all those extra troops. As we were quite rightly told today, it was not just about that, but about a combination of activities that came together at the right time, and opportunities were taken. Mostly, however, it was about local people making a different determination about their political and security future and deciding to enter the discussion differently. Local
concerned citizens and organisations were involved. We still have a difficult argument about whether we were arming insurgents and stacking up another problem for the future. We cannot solve all problems at the same time. After all, it is their country and their future. That is the other side of the argument, and that is the debate with the Afghans themselves in a sense. I do not think that they shy of that-the ones to whom I have spoken are not shy of it-but they are wary of how it is done and who is doing it for them.
At the end of the day, the right questions were asked about our expectations. Afghanistan will not look like either New Hampshire or Hampshire, and there will be difficult, long-term work. To those in America who told me, "Oh, we're done with Iraq now," I said, "Really? I don't think so." These are generational issues; they will last for some time. We will have to deal with the situation in the area for generations to come, as we have done for generations past. We do that well; we do it badly.
I do not say that Obama should make a decision tomorrow. Clearly, given his own political imperatives, he will have to make a decision before Thanksgiving, because that is the way that the political clock turns in America. The decision may well come before the NATO Ministers' meeting next weekend-I do not know-but it will come sometime soon because the opportunities are clearly perishable on the ground in Afghanistan.
We are all stuck with the fact that the Afghans have a voice as well. We might not like their election or its result. We certainly do not like some of the people who probably participated in the election. That is not the point. We have asked them to engage in a process. In an odd, negative way, the Taliban were very actively engaged in that process and produced a result that no one seemed to expect. The security for the election took the form that we all hoped it would-there was not great bloodshed-but the election was not something that people looked to.
There is an elephant in the room all the time. When I go to Afghanistan, I talk to Afghans as best as I can in those circumstances, and they know that they have traditional ways of doing things that do not fit. This is not just about the imposition of Jeffersonian democracy; they have helped to build a construct in respect of their political solution, and it will not endure. At some point, it must be reformed, and we must find a way to do so that involves them and lets them come to their solution. It might not be one that we like, but if it has resilience and fulfils our other requirements of giving them security, allowing girls to go to school, letting the Afghans say, "We can be part of the international community in a proper way," giving us confidence that we have security and contributing to the broader geographical solution that is required in the area, it will be what we have to accept. We cannot say that we will dictate what is success, but we need to develop that understanding and those tools to understand what success for us might be.
I have concerns about the Territorials. We saw the field hospital from Wales at Camp Bastion when we visited last year. Major Andy Morris is a good friend of mine, from my local community and involved in the mountain rescue team-all the things that go to make up a good TA man. He contributes to the whole community,
as well as to the military. Those are the people whom we need to protect, and I am not sure that the decision to curtail training is correct.
3.20 pm
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex) (Con): May I start by paying my own tribute to the fallen, to their families, to the families of all servicemen and women serving abroad and, indeed, to our remarkable servicemen and women, wherever they may be? I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Havard) said. Indeed, I was also in Washington last week.
The McChrystal paper is required reading for anyone who wishes to take an interest in Afghanistan. I am quire sure that he is correct, and I detect behind his paper the hand of a very senior-now, sadly, retired-British officer, Lieutenant-General Sir Graeme Lamb, who is advising General McChrystal closely and from whom many ideas to which the hon. Gentleman referred derive.
I shall deal with four separate points, because the general Afghanistan question has been very well covered by other people and will be covered by others. First, I pay a tremendous tribute to the work of the Defence Medical Services and congratulate it on its achievements on operations. It has through a torrid and difficult time, which flowed from substantial but necessary changes at the end of the cold war. I do not think that anyone believed it possible that it would be involved as it is today, but it is now the world leader in trauma medicine, and soldiers who would normally have died are surviving on the battlefield. That is a great thing. Survival rates are beating all expectations, but those survivors, bless them, will present problems for the whole Government and for our country in looking after them for the rest of their lives, and we must ensure that we honour those obligations.
I think it extraordinary what surgeons, nurses and others achieve while working in field conditions in one of the most hostile environments in the world.
Mrs. Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Soames: Will the hon. Lady forgive me for a moment?
Secondly, on the Territorial Army, Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Pike, a former inspector-general of the TA, wrote a letter to The Times last week, which he started like this:
"Sir, The decision to suspend training and matches would quickly spell the death knell of a football or cricket club. So it is with the Territorial Army (TA), which relies on regular training activity to develop and sustain skills and morale."
He is of course completely right. Culling TA training days to the extent that the Ministry of Defence is doing will result in an under-trained TA, with soldiers deploying on operations who are not properly prepared. It will result also in major retention issues for the TA. After all, why should people remain committed to an organisation that appears to show such a callous lack of commitment to them? That, in turn, will undo much of the substantial investment that has been made in the TA, lower confidence in TA soldiers among their counterparts and the chain of command, and challenge the ability of the Ministry of Defence to sustain high-tempo operations in Afghanistan in the medium term.
The British Army in the field simply could not survive without the extraordinary input of the TA. For example, as far as the Defence Medical Services is concerned, the Public Accounts Committee report published this week states that the annual operational requirement for anaesthetists is 108, and that there are 45 deployable regulars. The balance is made up by Territorials. Presumably, the Minister will exempt medical staff from the cuts to TA training.
Mr. Soames: I really must get on; I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
Thirdly, I want to say something about the structure of the Ministry of Defence. As a Minister, I worked with some of the finest officials, soldiers, sailors and airmen it is possible to imagine, and that has been one of the greatest-if not the greatest-privilege of my life. However, it is now 25 years since the Heseltine review of the head office of the Ministry of Defence. At the time, our armed forces were twice the size. Since then, however, we have-magically, somehow-increased the number of military officers and, especially, civil servants, at the three and four-star levels.
How can anyone seriously justify the creation last year of the post of director general of strategy to serve in addition to the director general of policy, who did the job perfectly well when I was a Minister? How can anyone justify creating a commercial director general, a chief of defence materiel, a deputy chief of defence staff personnel and a director general of human resources? It is all a crazy, absurd, overblown bureaucracy. The top structure is increasingly bloated with senior officials, who themselves create bureaucracy and slow down decision making in a wholly unacceptable and dangerous manner, given that we require decisions to be made nimbly, sharply and promptly. Can one really imagine Lord Beaverbrook and Churchill allowing a procurement structure of the type that we have now?
On the running of operations, as a result of the enlightened reforms of the last Conservative Government, we now, thank goodness, run operations jointly under the chief of joint operations. It is a good structure. How can we therefore continue to justify each of the three services having both a chief of staff and a commander-in-chief? Do we really need a First Sea Lord and a separate commander-in-chief for the Navy, with all their supporting staff, who come in big numbers? We also need to address the duplication of staff between the head office of the Ministry of Defence in London and the permanent joint headquarters at Northwood, which is the key nerve centre for the running of all operations. A great deal must be done to flatten that structure. The time is now right for a thorough root-and-branch review of the head office of the Ministry of Defence, following the thoroughly botched so-called "streamlining" mounted by the Government 18 months ago. We need to reduce the number of chiefs and not just cut the Indians. It is first-order business, and I have no doubt that the Secretary of State will address it in his review.
On procurement, if the number of civil servants has grown out of control anywhere in the past 10 years, it is at Defence Equipment and Support. Some 28,000 staff work in that buying organisation, and that must be a
world championship record, especially as it spends only £13 billion per annum. The upstream division of Shell procures £20 billion of equipment per annum with 1,000 staff. Furthermore, is delivers it on time and on cost, which is absolutely unknown-
Mr. Soames: No, I will not give way.
Each year, the record of the Ministry of Defence is agonisingly exposed to all of us who love the services and want them to do well. It is agonisingly exposed as a national scandal to the public, not only by the Defence Committee but by the Public Accounts Committee and everyone else involved. The issues need to be addressed and there needs to be reform that is fundamental to the transaction of the Department's business.
Finally, may I give an illustration from another letter from The Times, which I just have time to read in full? It is from a Mr. Brian Faux of Tonbridge, Kent, and it contains a lesson that the Government might like to learn. It says that Jackie Fisher-Admiral Lord Fisher-
"was appointed First Sea Lord on October 20, 1904. The Special Committee on Design first met in December 1904. Its recommendations on future design (of Dreadnoughts) were approved in early 1905. They were revolutionary. HMS Dreadnought's keel was laid October 2, 1905. She was launched on February 10, 1906. She went to sea, for steam, gunnery and torpedo trials, on October 1, 1906.
The whole of the trials were completed without hitch of any kind. She left England for a long experimental cruise on December 5, 1906. Immediately after the trials"-
the ship entered the inventory of the Royal Navy and three other keels were laid. The letter concludes:
"Each of these was completed in two years from laying the keel."
The Ministry of Defence has a very great deal to learn.
3.30 pm
Mr. Ian Davidson (Glasgow, South-West) (Lab/Co-op): May I start by raising an issue that I think will get support in all parts of the House-support for our troops? I wish to draw to the House's attention the fact that on Tuesday Glasgow Rangers football club, which is situated in my constituency, has a champions league game against Romanian opposition. It is making a complete section of the ground-some 1,200 seats, worth £50,000-available to members of Her Majesty's armed forces as a tribute from the club to those who have served overseas. It follows the successful visit, for which I lobbied, of 45 Commando to a home game at Ibrox, where many of the members of that unit paraded on the pitch at half time amid a rapturous response from the crowd, who gave them a standing ovation. That is very much to be welcomed. I hope that Front Benchers will find an opportunity in their closing remarks to welcome that initiative and to call on other clubs, not only in Scotland but throughout the remainder of the United Kingdom, to make similar gestures. That would be much appreciated.
Linda Gilroy: I support what my hon. Friend is saying and hope he will be pleased to hear that Plymouth Argyle had a similar major initiative at which I was very pleased to be present.
Mr. Davidson: That is excellent. I hope that my colleagues, not only on the Front Benches but elsewhere, take the opportunity to pursue that with their own local clubs, because I know it meant a great deal not only to the troops who were there but to the fans who had the opportunity to welcome the troops among them.
Let me pick up on the issue of the military covenant. I was down in Plymouth, Devonport last week, and I discussed with some of the people there the Haslar Company of the Royal Marines, which deals with many of those who are extremely badly injured, having in some cases lost multiple limbs. We discussed how we offer people like that the prospect of a future. It was outlined to me that most people in similar circumstances in the UK, where excellent work is being done-I am not criticising that; it is also the case in the United States-want to rehabilitate and then go out into the wider world. They want to face the opportunities that are out there notwithstanding the difficulties that they have experienced. We should offer a guarantee of continued employment to those who serve overseas and come back, are rehabilitated and want to stay in the forces. That safety net would be a psychological reassurance. I do not believe that it would ultimately be taken up by a tremendous number of people, but it would ensure that they are aware of how much we appreciate the efforts they are making and indicate that we are prepared to stand behind them in their time of difficulty-not only for the short period of their medical treatment but in the longer term. Those who want to stay on in the forces in some capacity should be able to do so, notwithstanding that the majority will recognise that it is not the right place for them, given the nature of their disabilities, and they would rather face life outside.
I move on to a point about the good General Dannatt, whose name has not come up so far in this debate. The current situation raises a point about the dialogue between Government and senior officers that is interesting to me as an external observer. To what extent can politicians elected to Government trust the advice of a senior officer if, at the back of their mind, is the possibility that that officer might at some stage come out as a political participant and use the information that he or she has gathered in an entirely partisan way? It seems to me that what has happened in the case of General Dannatt has betrayed the trust that there ought to be between Ministers of whatever party and senior officers.
I understand that in the event of a Conservative Government, the good general is to be appointed a Defence Minister. [Hon. Members: "Not true."] Well, let us proceed on the basis that, despite the denials, the rumour is true. What is to be the role of his successor as Chief of the General Staff? Will that person's position be undermined by their predecessor being in a superior role?
Dr. Julian Lewis: Perhaps I can enlighten the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that if General Dannatt, a very able man indeed, finds a post in a future Conservative Government, he will find it no more difficult than Admiral Lord West has found it to hold a post in the Government whom he supports.
Mr. Davidson:
The difference as I understand it is that the job for which General Dannatt has been lobbying is directly related to his previous functions, whereas the
good admiral's position was somewhat removed and he was not seeking to overshadow his successor. That is an important distinction.
Linda Gilroy: Of course, Admiral West was in procurement, and it seems that the gentleman to whom my hon. Friend refers thought that he was certainly in line for something when he said, as reported in the Daily Mail, that the Leader of the Opposition
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