Afghanistan

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

It is always the wish of Members on both sides of the House that our troops should come back with the minimum of loss, given the wonderful job that they do on our behalf. As I have said today, the number of our forces in Afghanistan is regularly above 10,000. It has, on occasions, reached the 11,000 mark, but that is not the case at present. That is inevitable, however, given the complexities of the reliefs in place, the rest and recuperation changes and the temporary surges that I described earlier. I hope that I gave the House a proper description of what is happening on the ground. I think that it is better to make it transparent when we deploy increased numbers, so that the House and the country can thank every one of our service personnel for the level of sacrifice that they are making.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State has made it clear today that troops “may” begin to be withdrawn this year, depending on the conditions. However, the Prime Minister has previously stated that troops will begin to be withdrawn this year. Did the Prime Minister inadvertently mis-speak, or has the position changed?

[Dr Fox]

The Prime Minister has made it very clear that, although we would like to see British troops coming home as soon as possible—which family of any member of our armed forces would not want to see that?—that will happen when conditions on the ground are appropriate. As I said today—I repeat the Government’s position—it may be possible to see some troops coming home this year, but that will be dependent on the conditions on the ground.