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It is really short-sighted of us not to continue the TA training. That training is rotational; we cannot just stop and start the TA, or its soldiers will fade away and do something else. We have to keep it going. At the moment in this country we have the luxury of higher numbers of people entering our armed forces than has been the case
for a long time; the same is happening, I think, in the United States. If people see on a piece of paper that Army recruitment is doing so well, I can understand why they might be tempted to run down the reservists. However, we are in the middle of a recession and that is why the figures are so high. One day we will get out of that recession and the figures will drop away. We will then rely once more on our reservists, but may very well find that they are just not there.
I want to make a quick comment about those who are left behind and those who come back. The Secretary of State ended his speech by saying that we must give our armed forces the best support that we can give them on an enduring basis. Yesterday at Prime Minister's questions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) asked the Prime Minister about better facilities and monitoring for our armed forces. He said:
"In the United States veterans are contacted regularly, even decades after they have served. Does the Prime Minister agree that that should happen here as well?"-[ Official Report, 14 October 2009; Vol. 497, c. 290.]
Again, we are seeing reports that disproportionate numbers of people retired from the armed forces are homeless on the streets of London. York university research from 2008 has shown that on any given night there are 1,100 homeless ex-service personnel in London alone. The armed forces provide a structured environment-very often the only structured environment that many of these men and women have ever known. When that is suddenly taken away from them, they are on their own and cast into civvy street. Many of them find it extremely difficult to adjust.
Additional to that is the whole issue of mental health. Between January 2003 and December 2006, 2,333 regulars and reservists who served in Iraq during Operation Telic were managed by the Defence Medical Services for mental illness attributed to their deployment. In 2007, 1,898 new referrals to the MOD's departments of community mental health were diagnosed with a mental health disorder and had served in Iraq, Afghanistan or both.
The British Medical Journal reported that of those UK troops serving 13 or more months in the theatre of operations, 5.2 per cent. suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Some 21.8 per cent. suffered from psychological distress and 23.9 per cent. suffered from severe alcohol problems. This month, the centre for suicide prevention at Manchester university looked at people leaving the armed forces and found that veterans were at increased risk of suicide.
As part of the military covenant, the Government have made moves that I welcome. They have appointed a Minister for veterans and established Veterans day; I was proud to take part in Veterans day in my constituency. However, I still do not believe that we are doing enough to look after those men and women, who have given more than any of us in the Chamber, when they come home and have served their purpose. Underlying the military covenant should be an unspoken contract: people serving in the armed forces for whatever period will be supported during their training and service-and for the rest of their lives, if that is what they require.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, raised the question of homelessness and whether we should look to provide local authorities with a special housing allowance. I had one such case in my own constituency, where a serving soldier wanted to come to Exmouth but was registered in Bulford camp, where he had served, and it turned out that there was no extra money to get him to the top of any housing list. That is wrong: returning soldiers who want to go back to their original homes should be enabled to do that. That might mean giving some ring-fenced money to local authorities to accelerate the process.
The situation in Afghanistan will continue for some time. We will no doubt be deploying more troops there, some of whom will be reservists. I again urge the Government to reconsider how we train and look after reservists and to redouble their efforts to look after those who are in need of our support when they can no longer support themselves.
Mr. Speaker: Order. With four Members still seeking to catch my eye, some trimming of speeches will be required if everyone is to get in.
4.55 pm
Mr. Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con): This has been a very good debate with some excellent speeches, particularly on Afghanistan. I do not want to dwell too much on Afghanistan save to say that in May I was in Kabul visiting ISAF headquarters and Afghan Ministers. Having previously been in Kabul about two years ago, I came away very depressed by the deterioration of the security situation in the area-it had got significantly worse in the intervening period.
I want to deal with some wider long-term defence issues as regards the projection of British foreign policy through our armed forces and our common interest with our European neighbours, particularly France. More specifically, I want to discuss how European members of the alliance can make a greater contribution to our collective defence.
Before I do that, I want to deal with a technical issue that is affecting the security and safety of our servicemen and women. European nations that are members of both NATO and the EU can deploy in the same theatre under different commands-EU or NATO-and find that they cannot communicate with each other. That puts the security and lives of our men and women significantly at risk. I have raised this before with regard to Operation Atalanta, the anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia, where ships of NATO nations acting together under EU command cannot access NATO communications and intelligence systems. It is plainly daft that they cannot communicate with ships of the same nation that are acting under NATO command or combined taskforce-CTF-151.
In Afghanistan, NATO nations participating in the police mission under EUPOL are denied access to the NATO identification system, known as "blue tracking". In a recent meeting that I had with General John McColl, the NATO deputy supreme commander, it was evident that this is seriously endangering the lives of
men and women on the ground. There is a similar situation in Kosovo, where NATO security forces cannot communicate with EULEX, the European Union rule of law mission; again, that puts our men's and women's lives at risk. In theory, the Berlin-plus arrangements should make such a situation unnecessary, but the breakdown in political dialogue between the EU and NATO means that our military commanders are continually frustrated by this fundamental flaw whereby our men and women serving the same nation's armed forces cannot communicate with each other. I say to the Minister that this simply cannot go on.
I want to examine longer-term defence issues. Last year was 10 years after the St. Malo accord between President Chirac and Prime Minister Blair, and this year is 10 years since the inception of the European security and defence policy. It is clear, particularly to France and the United Kingdom, that the ESDP is not "défense Europe". Common foreign and security policy under the EU banner is not collective European defence. It is not and cannot be, under either the existing treaties or the Lisbon treaty, the strategic defence pact that protects our continent or projects the foreign policy of France, the UK or any of the other major nations of the EU. Nor can it be the vehicle for Europe's contribution to the security of our continent or our collective contribution to the Atlantic alliance.
I do not wish to deny the achievements of the ESDP or the useful role that it plays in both conflict prevention and crisis management, but I do not believe that its role is simply in civilian operations either. It has a key role to play in military as well as civil operations-in peacekeeping and peace enforcement, and in challenging threats to our security and that of our friends. The operations in Bosnia, Congo and Chad and the current anti-piracy mission off Somalia are testament to that. Interestingly, the two current EU military operations are both commanded by British commanders. However, the ESDP is not, in its current form, the European pillar of the Atlantic alliance, nor is it capable of defending us against any significant external threat or of projecting the foreign policy objectives of member states.
Let us be clear: the French Republic wishes to project its own foreign policy objectives, as do the United Kingdom Government. One tool available to each of those nations is its armed forces, including their respective nuclear deterrents. Their defence policy is an extension of their foreign policy. As Europeans, we hope and pray that our foreign policy objectives are not in conflict. In fact, we devote a considerable amount of time and effort to arriving at common positions, and we earnestly wish that from time to time they should be common European positions. We do so not in opposition to our major ally, the United States, but in our own interests as partners of the United States. In military terms, we should do so as the European pillar of the alliance. Those are our aspirations, but as a continent as a whole we fail quite miserably to deliver.
In the 21st century, the largest economic bloc in the world should not depend on the United States. It should be allied to it and an equal partner to it, and it should be able to defend itself and look after the security of its own region. That position is pro-NATO and pro-Europe. It is a challenge, but as British politicians we should be talking to the French, because between us we spend 60 per cent. of the defence budget of the EU. We
together could form the core of a "défense Europe", but in both our countries our aspirations go beyond our budgetary capabilities. We must co-operate, and we must bring our European partners with us. Collectively we have the technology, the manpower and the industrial skills. It is not a choice between NATO and the EU-we are in both. It is a matter of whether we want to continue to project our values to a wider world through our foreign and defence policy. We can do that only if we work together.
My point is simple. It is now generally accepted that the ESDP is not, and cannot be, European defence. If in the long run, in these difficult economic times, we are to continue to have the ability to project foreign policy through our armed forces, and if we are to cajole and coerce our European partners into making a significant and fair contribution to the alliance and to our common defence, that will not come from Brussels. It will not be an EU initiative. The UK and France are medium-sized powers-just. If that is to continue, they will have to work together and bring with them sometimes recalcitrant European partners. The alternative is that China, India and Russia will overtake us in influence and we will for ever be dependent on the United States for our defence capability. We are perfectly capable of providing that capability for ourselves, and we owe that to the alliance, to the United States and to the British people.
5.4 pm
Mr. John Baron (Billericay) (Con): I rise because, of the 37 names that, sadly, the Prime Minister read out yesterday, five were those of fusiliers of my regiment. My thoughts, and, I am sure, those of the House, are with their families and friends.
It will be no surprise to the Minister that I revert to Afghanistan because it currently dominates our defence thinking. Let me start by briefly making the obvious point that soldiers buy time and space, but politicians must provide the political solution. It was true in Northern Ireland, it is true in Iraq and it will be true in Afghanistan. I urge the Minister and the Government not only to explain to the British electorate what we are doing in Afghanistan, but to use their offices as best they can to try to find that political solution. Without it, our forces become simply occupying forces, with no end in sight.
After eight years in Afghanistan, on any objective measure, we are not succeeding. Poppy production has soared from 2001 levels. The worry is that the profits are finding their way to funding insurgency. According to the United Nations, it is no coincidence that, despite record production levels, the price of opium has not fallen. That leads the UN to believe that stockpiles are being created to fund insurgency.
Meanwhile, women's rights have not been helped. If anything, because of laws that have been passed in recent years, women's rights and liberties have been eroded. The Afghan Senator Namati has accused President Karzai of being worse than the Mullah Omar Taliban junta on protecting women's rights.
Then we have the election. If anyone believes that the election has any credibility, they need to look again at how and under what conditions it was fought. There were reports by independent observers that the ballot boxes were already full of returned voting slips before they were opened to the voters. That does not help matters.
As General McChrystal said in a welcome speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the position is deteriorating, and victory will depend not on killing more Taliban fighters but on winning people's confidence. Too many Afghans are alienated by President Karzai's widespread corruption. We need a political plan and solution. The election did not achieve that and the soldiers cannot achieve it-it is not their job. We hear nothing from the Government about the political solution. In effect, we have a vacuum. While it continues, the troops are nothing more than an occupying force, with no end in sight.
While we try to find a political solution, we must ensure that our forces are fully resourced and up to strength. When I intervened on the Secretary of State, I drew parallels with Northern Ireland-at the height of the troubles, there were 20,000-plus troops there; in Helmand province, despite American support, we have only up to 10,000 troops with the latest deployments. Even more important, the lack of helicopter support means that perhaps too many troops are being put unnecessarily at risk because they should be flown to their destinations rather than transported by road. Until we get that right, and despite the talk of more helicopters, we are well behind the American forces' ratio of helicopters to troops. That must be examined. It is no coincidence that the percentage of American casualties accounted for by IEDs is significantly lower than it is for British casualties. Helicopters have a key role to play in that.
I am trying to be brief because others wish to speak. The bottom line is that while we are trying to find a political solution, we must resource our troops properly. I urge the Government to do more to find such a solution. Politicians alone can do that; soldiers can only buy time and space. If the Government get requests from the military on the ground, they should listen to them. They should ensure that we properly resource, through manpower and equipment, our commitment to the region. As Brigadier Butler put it, we should either go deep, go long or go home.
5.11 pm
Ann Winterton (Congleton) (Con): I pay tribute to our armed services, their families and those who have fallen in the service of this country. I believe that the reservists have received a body blow in the cuts that have been announced. In his excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) outlined where defence savings could have been made that would have ensured that the reservists went from strength to strength.
Referring to Afghanistan on 3 October, the new Chief of the General Staff, General Sir David Richards, said:
"Failure would have a catalytic effect on militant Islam around the world and in the region because the message would be that al-Qaeda and the Taliban have defeated the US and the British and NATO, the most powerful alliance in the world".
I am sure that everyone agrees with that statement. We cannot spin ourselves out of failure this time as we did when we came out of Iraq.
Taking on conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan with the wrong equipment-highly technical, sophisticated and very expensive equipment-resulted in the wrong tactics
and strategy being adopted from the very beginning. They were backed by a policy that was not fit for purpose, and mean that we could now be staring defeat in Afghanistan in the face.
Can anyone in the House tell me how the UK is going to pay the present costs, never mind future ones, of using up state-on-state war equipment at such an exorbitant rate, when we cannot even afford to pay the TA? I was glad that General Richards acknowledges that issue and takes it seriously, as can be gleaned from his Chatham House defence lecture on 17 September.
Some of the military's criticism of politicians in the past few months has at times been grossly unfair, because some of the military's procurement decisions have been operationally disastrous and extremely expensive. That is particularly true regarding protected vehicles. We still do not have enough of the right type, and are forced to use vehicles that are inappropriate for the tasks being undertaken.
When troop numbers were increased to 21,000 this year for the surge, the military implied that the job could be done with that number of boots on the ground, but now, like Oliver, General McChrystal is back for more, according to his report. The US Administration have every right to be cautious of the continual escalation in numbers when the overall strategy appears to be based on reforming the country as a whole and on imposing a western style Government. That strategy, in my opinion, can never work.
There was a very interesting article in the Small Wars Journal by Major Omar Khan of the Pakistani army. It is very worthwhile reading. He begins by describing a number of things that cannot be done in Afghanistan and ends up saying what he believes can be done. I assume that he is a Pashtun, so perhaps has a certain interest in the matter. The essence of the case he presented was that districts, rather than provinces, of excellence should be created, which would require fewer troops. The emphasis would be on farming, small businesses, banks, the provision of paved roads and a model transport system, all of which would act as an example for the rest of the population to copy. He says that in most cases the Afghan people and the Taliban are not driven by the fear of God as we believe, but by absolute poverty. If we can show examples of what can be done, those ideas will spread widely and we will have a greater chance of success.
Let us compare that to the McChrystal report, which had not a squeak about roads in it and barely a mention of agriculture, which was listed eighth out of 11 points of importance in the civil-military campaign plan-perhaps not surprising, given the total failure of the different departments to co-operate and work together so far. I hope that Ministers can ensure that the civilians and the military work more closely together.
The linchpin of Government policy appears to be the building up of the Afghan national army and police force, which they hope will take over from coalition forces in due course. This is a policy destined to fail, not least because of tribal differences. At present, for example, a large number of Tajiks are being used to secure predominantly Pashtun areas, and I understand this is exacerbating the situation rather than ameliorating it.
We have to admit that current policy is failing to win insurgency skirmishes and indeed may be being used by those who have been recruited as part of a tribal uprising.
With the complete failure to understand these conflicts, a decision will have to be made in the future about whether we should ever be involved in them again. General Richards has stated that
"we simply can't afford to retain a full suite of capabilities for all eventualities".
Some huge decisions will have to be made in the future about our defence situation and our role in the world, and what we can and cannot afford. Whichever party is in power after the next election-and I believe it will be mine-it will have to solve this issue.
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