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5.20 pm
The Minister for International Defence and Security (Baroness Taylor of Bolton): My Lords, this has indeed been a very well-informed and wide-ranging debate. I will endeavour to cover as many topics as possible, but it may be impossible to deal with every item that has been raised. I am sure that the House will understand that I want to spend much of my time talking about Afghanistan, as the noble Lord did.
I am afraid that, as too often on these occasions, I must start by speaking on behalf of the whole House in offering condolences to the families and friends of those who have been killed on operations in Afghanistan in the past few days. They are Sergeant Phillip Scott of 3rd Battalion the Rifles, Rifleman Philip Allen of 2nd Battalion the Rifles, Rifleman Samuel John Bassett of 4th Battalion the Rifles, Rifleman Andrew Ian Fentiman from 7th Battalion the Rifles, and Corporal Loren Owen Christopher Marlton-Thomas of 33rd Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal). It is right that we should start by recalling their sacrifice and, indeed, the sacrifice of others. I know that the House always finds that a salutary occasion, as I do, and I think it right to concentrate my comments on the operation in which they were engaged.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, began by talking about morale, as the noble Lord, Lord Astor, has just mentioned. He talked about the devotion to duty of those who are on operations; we can all echo that, and praise those who have been involved. It has been a difficult year; 98 of our personnel have been killed, and the coalition as a whole has lost 473 people, but it has been extremely hard on the Afghans as well. As the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, reminded us, many hundreds of civilians and members of the Afghan national security forces have lost their lives this year, while NATO figures show that 223 Afghan military and police were killed in action in August and September alone.
It is right, then, to concentrate our attention on this particular issue and-as I think other Members of your Lordships' House have said-we really have to keep reminding people why we are there. We have not to forget that nearly 3,000 civilians were killed in one day on 9/11, and that those attacks were planned in Afghanistan, which was a safe haven where al-Qaeda
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It is important to remember that when we come to the issue that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, mentioned: the need to make sure that we have public support. There is no doubt of the support for our operation on any side of this House, or, indeed, in another place. However, we need to explain to the public as often as we can exactly why we are there, and what the dangers of our withdrawal would be.
That means tackling some of the critics head on. Mention has been made today of corruption, which concerns many people. We are right to be worried about that. President Karzai had his inauguration today. It was good that he said in his speech that he needed to emphasise the need for Ministers to have integrity and professionalism. That applies not just to Ministers at national level, but to regional governments as well. We should not be naive and assume that because it was in that speech it will happen. We must all keep the pressure on to ensure that he moves in that direction. However, that is not an excuse for inactivity on our part.
Some are saying that, because al-Qaeda is now very much located in the borderlands of Pakistan, there is no point in staying in Afghanistan and we should just concentrate on Pakistan. However, if we were to abandon Afghanistan, who really believes that al-Qaeda would not take root and have an easy life there again? We might be involved in doing the same kind of activity all over again.
Some argue that we could just be "fortress Britain", and that we should spend more money on our intelligence services, something that we have considerably increased our spending on over the past few years. The men and women of our Armed Forces are protecting us from terrorist attacks in Britain just as much as the police and the intelligence services do here in the UK, so we cannot think of "fortress Britain" as an alternative.
Some say that we should leave this to other countries. That would not be fair. We are vulnerable. No one country, even America, is big enough to take this issue alone.
Some people argue that our presence in Afghanistan is a boost to violent extremism around the world. I have even heard one commentator say that we would not have had 9/11 if we had not invaded Afghanistan, forgetting the timeframe. There is total confusion there, because people merge all these issues and make silly remarks. It would be a great boost to extremist ideology if we were to retreat now. We cannot do that.
Some also argue that Afghanistan is not the only country where there is a risk of terrorism taking root. That is true. However, our operation in Afghanistan does not mean that we are failing to work with other nations to counter terrorism elsewhere. It is true that the majority of plots made against the United Kingdom have had connections to the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is where the great threat to us is, which is why we must be where we are now.
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There has been mention of whether this should be an open-ended commitment, and whether any progress has been made. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, said that the public needed convincing both that it was not open-ended and also that progress could be, and was being, made. It is important to realise that we are now in Helmand, suffering all the difficulties and taking the hits that we are, because we are extending the whole area of Afghanistan that is under some form of control. Three or four years ago, Helmand was a no-go area. It is true that we do not have control over that entire area, but the major areas of population are now being taken back from the Taliban and developing their own internal government with our help. Some progress has been made, despite all of the difficulties.
Questions were raised about the conditions that have been laid down for the extra 500 troops; that is, 500 on top of all those that we sent for the election period. It is important to realise that there are good reasons for putting down those conditions. It is true that we have called up the 500, but we must also make the right preparations for their deployment-for example, by ensuring that the kit that is needed for the extra troops to deploy is ready in time. We would be criticised if we did not do that. The burden-sharing condition that we laid down has been extremely important in exercising some leverage on our allies. There is a real hope of extra contributions from others. We are working very hard and not deliberately delaying; we are planning sensibly and co-operating with our allies.
We are moving in the right direction. Our ultimate objective is exactly the same as it was in 2001-to protect our citizens from terrorist attacks by preventing al-Qaeda having a safe haven in the tribal belt in either Afghanistan or Pakistan. For us to be safe Afghanistan needs to be safe and Pakistan needs to be secure. As the Prime Minister says, this is not a conflict out of choice, but a conflict out of necessity. That is the message that we all have to keep getting through.
The issue of equipment has been raised somewhat, but the fact that it has been raised less than on some other occasions shows the significant recognition of the improvements that have been made. At the beginning of any campaign it is probably the case that there is a degree of readiness, but it is never going to be complete. You can never be sure exactly what problems you will face on a battlefield. Obviously, nothing can eliminate all the dangers of the battlefield. A counterinsurgency campaign is extremely difficult. Yes, there are issues as to how many helicopters we have. As our commanders have said, we have sufficient for operations. We should remember that helicopters are a pooled NATO resource; we do not use just our own. However many helicopters we have-and we could always use more-we cannot hold the ground from the air. Therefore, those risks will always be there.
Our forces are as well equipped as any professional Armed Forces in the world. The acknowledgement of that from a whole range of quarters has been good to hear. I know that those who have visited Afghanistan and talked to the troops there find that they say that very clearly. The amount of equipment that we have
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I am also pleased that we have managed in many ways to get closer co-operation on equipment from our allies. Indeed, the recent developments on the European helicopter initiative are extremely promising. It is a multinational initiative, which includes pilot training sponsored by the European Defence Agency, and with good co-ordination-as I know some Members will be pleased to hear-between NATO and the EU. More co-operation of that kind is something that we need to work on and do in the future.
Looking to the future, we are very heavily committed at present and we must be aware that we need to look, in the Green Paper and the Strategic Defence Review, not only at our experience of the recent past but at the whole spectrum of threats that may encompass us in the future. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, we have to think about our role in the world. I reassure him that we do not think that Britain should become a Switzerland, as he suggested it might. I hope that he finds that reassuring. The Green Paper, which will look at the whole spectrum of possible threats that we might face, will be very realistic and will help us to work out how we should be using our Armed Forces to defend our own interests and how defence itself must change to meet the problems that lie ahead.
There is some interesting thinking going on about the kind of issues that we will have to face. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, and others raised some of the problems, as did the noble Lord, Lord Howell, when he opened his remarks by talking about the spectrum of changes, the rise of Asia and all those other aspects that are going to be so important. There are many threats to which we will have to respond, including globalisation, interdependence, climate change, population growth, energy security and proliferation. The whole range has been covered during this afternoon's debate.
We have the problem of many fragile, failing or failed states, asymmetric threats and non-state players. The world is very different and is changing at a remarkable rate. In such environments and facing such challenges, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, mentioned, conflict prevention and the promotion of security will always be important, perhaps increasingly important, because they are better than post-crisis cure. I hope that using soft power, anticipation and the information and influence that we have will be considered important because we have to look at what we can prevent rather than just at where we need to intervene. What used to be called defence diplomacy should perhaps be called defence and security diplomacy to enable us to explore these matters in the new circumstances.
We need to help the international community to improve its approach to all the issues that have been mentioned. We have discussed the need to protect civilians in conflict-we have been given some alarming and harrowing examples of that. Last week I was in New York, where the United Kingdom took a lead role in persuading the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution that strengthens the role of protecting civilians in peacekeeping missions. As the right reverend Prelate mentioned, peace does not always mean safety.
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We have to ensure that we improve the ability of the world community in undertaking operations to react to the whole range of new situations, dangers and threats that it faces. There is scope for progress and considering new ways forward. We recognise that we have to work with other partners on all these issues. We need to work through NATO, the EU, the UN and changing informal coalitions because, as my noble friend Lady Kinnock said at the start of the debate, multilateral solutions to global problems such as conflict and instability are not just the best solutions but the only way forward.
As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, said, we cannot do everything alone; indeed, nobody can do everything alone. That means that we have to ensure increasingly that our international institutions are shaped in such a way as to allow for the planning and buy-in from other countries that we need without imposing too many stalling mechanisms and procedures. That can be a big problem.
There is no easy solution. We have to consider all the issues appearing on the horizon. We need to optimise our capacity-building capability through military training and education. The United Kingdom has a good record in that respect. We have to consider how we can use soft power-security co-operation and influence-to its greatest effect and make it part of mainstream Ministry of Defence activity. We also have to ensure that we have full co-operation among all government departments. I was particularly pleased that, in a paper published earlier this year, the Department for International Development rightly acknowledged that poverty reduction could not be separated from progress on politics and security. Defence can help to establish the conditions on the ground to make this happen. It is important that we ensure that all these elements work together. The other thing on which we have to concentrate is getting better co-ordination of effort within and between the international community and regional institutions. We have to work together as closely as possible on governance and stability issues.
I should say a word about personnel issues, especially as we have just held remembrance services. It is important that we build on the very good work in the service personnel Command Paper of last year. I am pleased that my right honourable friend the Leader of the Commons has today announced an initiative on the employment of service spouses, which has been widely welcomed and shows that we can build on the wide range of activity that we have carried out in terms of looking after those who serve our country in this way and their whole families. Whether in compensation, housing, employment, or health, significant strides have been made in the past 12 months, but we need to build further on that. In fact, we announced this month a new concept: the welfare pathway. We have launched a local pilot scheme with Kent County Council to try to make sure that there can be more co-ordination between all the agencies, whereby any service personnel or veteran knows where to go for an initial point of contact to obtain information in different ways.
In five minutes I should like to discuss and respond to many other issues. However, I cannot wind up without saying a word about Europe. I hesitate to do
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As regards the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, of the changing world, there was much with which we could all agree. Indeed, we can agree on the importance of the Commonwealth and its potential to be used even more in terms of soft power. That is one reason why I am pleased that at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting next week, Britain will be represented not only by my noble friend Lady Kinnock, but by the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister. That shows that we are taking the Commonwealth extremely seriously and, therefore, that divisions should not be there. I am tempted to say that the tenor of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was, "be nasty to Europe, but be nice to the Commonwealth". I did not think that that was a comprehensive foreign policy, and there was a touch of what my noble friend Lady Kinnock called "diplomacy by tantrum", which is a phrase that may be used on many occasions in this House and elsewhere.
While I am mentioning Europe, perhaps I may say a word about ESDP, an issue raised by my noble friend Lord Anderson, and some of the work which is going on there and is sometimes ignored. Someone mentioned piracy; Operation Atalanta, which the UK hosts at its headquarters at Northwood, is an exceptionally good example of where the EU can be proactive, but can work with other players, including NATO and some of the large countries with which we do not normally work. And, lo and behold, we have managed to carry out that operation without the need for any great new superstructure. That shows that co-operation can and should go ahead, but we should not create unnecessary superstructures.
It is also interesting that the EU is considering what it might do to help the situation on the land in Somalia-not by going there directly, but by training some of its security forces out of country. That proposal was made recently and is being considered. It is not without difficulties, but it is certainly worth exploring.
While I am on the subject of Europe, perhaps I may mention the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Roper, which were very detailed and technical to many people. We are in discussions with his committee about the new powers which the Lisbon treaty will give national parliaments and the undertakings that the Government gave during the passage of the European Union (Amendment) Act of last year. They will need to be considered by the Procedure Committee, and my noble friend the Leader of the House will take forward the discussions shortly.
There is a range of other issues, but I do not have time for them all. I will say one thing about development. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and the noble Earl, mentioned Africa and the need for food security. These are high priorities to which we give particular attention. There was a world food summit recently, which two
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I will mention cluster bomb legislation, which has been welcomed throughout the House. I hope that the House and another place will pass the legislation quickly since it has general support. I will also say a word about the points made by my noble friend Baroness Goudie and the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, about the role of women in development. The points were serious and the Department for International Development recognises them. If you can improve the situation of women by improving their health or giving them access to family planning or employment, you are more likely to change a whole community and ensure that progress is made.
Lord Bramall: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that, while the crisis in Afghanistan continues-it is a crisis, whichever way you look at it-the Ministry
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Baroness Taylor of Bolton: My Lords, I am happy to clarify that point. It is not the case that the Ministry of Defence is overspent because of operations. The operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been extremely important. It is significant that the money for those operations has come from the Treasury. It is a big commitment. Around £18 billion has come from the Treasury for operations since 2001, on top of the increasing budget that the Ministry of Defence has had year on year. There are problems with spend, but they are long-term and caused by decisions taken a long time ago, not by operations.
Debate adjourned until Monday 23 November.
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