UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan

Debate between Bob Ainsworth and Matthew Offord

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I want to begin by joining the Defence Secretary in paying tribute to those soldiers who have lost their lives in Afghanistan since the House last met. Every day our troops in Afghanistan put their lives on the line to protect our national security, and we must never forget that. I also join him in the comments that he made about Dr Karen Woo.

As we have heard in the debate so far, many Members have different views on our presence in Afghanistan, but I hope that one thing we all agree on is the excellence of our armed forces and our duty to support them and to recognise their courage. We are in Afghanistan as part of a NATO mission under a UN mandate to protect our security because that country, under Taliban rule, became the safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorism. The Government can count on our continued support for a comprehensive strategy in Afghanistan that brings together military, political and development efforts. That is the only way to achieve success and enable the Afghans to take control of their own security.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) said, before he left the Chamber, “Why don’t we just do what we did in Libya?” Well, as I understand it, they sent a bomber in to try to kill the leader in Libya, Colonel Gaddafi. What tent or cave do we bomb in Afghanistan? It is ridiculous to suggest that that kind of strategy would bring success in Afghanistan. The only way forward, in my view, in the view of the coalition, in the view of the commander and in the view of all the troops to whom I have spoken, is a patient counter-insurgency operation to protect the people and deny the ability of the insurgency to take control of the country.

I congratulate our forces on having reorganised the Helmand operations, assisted with the inflow of the US marine corps, and reconfigured the operational areas in Helmand to get the maximum benefit from the new force densities now available. As part of that force rebalancing we have given over areas such as Musa Qala, and as the Defence Secretary has just clarified further, we now plan to do the same in Sangin, where we have tragically suffered many losses. We will soon have a concentrated area of responsibility in central Helmand valley, where we will be well placed to progress. The Defence Secretary was absolutely right to resist those who wanted to move to Kandahar and sacrifice the knowledge that we have gained at such a high price in Helmand.

There are now about 30,000 ISAF forces in Helmand province alone. It is, and always was, a coalition effort. However, with respect to our many allies, since 2006 Britain has provided forces that no one other than the United States was capable of fielding in that most difficult province. We have done so after taking military advice, and retired soldiers who wish to claim that we, the previous Labour Government, did not fully resource the mission, should reflect on that. They should also remember that we doubled the number of helicopters available, delivered hundreds of new vehicles and took tough decisions about cutting other military capabilities to provide more counter-improvised explosive device equipment. That meant that as the Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Jock Stirrup, has said, our troops were fighting with equipment that was

“frankly the best that they’ve ever had”

[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman has outlined what the Labour Government did, but will he also congratulate the current Government, who have decided to double the operational allowance and maximise rest and recuperation periods for those deployed? Does he believe that servicemen and their families will welcome that?

[Mr Ainsworth]

Yes, and I congratulate the Government on that. However, I would say to the hon. Gentleman that the changes were introduced at the same time as a freeze in service pay.

I have a couple more questions to ask the Secretary of State about things that I hope the Government will do in a timely manner. I do not know whether he is going to respond to the debate, because I know he has to leave the Chamber.

Force densities are not the only thing that we will need to succeed. We need the right equipment, and I wish to ask two specific questions about that. Last December I made some changes to the defence budget, partly to address some of the pressures ahead of the strategic defence and security review and partly to prioritise equipment for Afghanistan. That included an order for 22 Chinook helicopters. Why have the new Government not gone ahead with that order? The Secretary of State, the very man who continually criticised our record on helicopters, seems now to be allowing delay in that order, and I should like to ask him why. Equally, in the summer of 2009 I made it my business to intervene to put maximum speed and effort behind the development of a light protected patrol vehicle. Why have the Government not yet placed that order?

As we have discussed, the Deputy Prime Minister has said definitively:

“By 2015 there will not be any British combat troops in Afghanistan”.

Yet in a debate that I attended earlier this week the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), the Defence Secretary’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, said that we should think of that announcement in the same terms as General Petraeus’s clarification of the US position. He said that there were a lot of conditions, and that there would still be special forces there. I absolutely agree with the Defence Secretary that we must be as clear as we can with all the sets of people involved in such an important matter as our intervention in Afghanistan, but the situation is currently not clear.

There appear to have been definitive statements from both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister that irrespective of what happens, the combat mission will end in 2015. The Secretary of State knows that that is causing angst both within and outwith our armed forces. He did his best today to finesse that argument, but too many intelligent people who follow the record carefully know that there is a problem. Unless there are conditions-based timelines rather than an arbitrary finish date, the success of the mission is not helped. He need only read this morning’s edition of The Daily Telegraph to see the confusion that can occur, with people believing that Sherard Cowper-Coles’s departure indicates that the Government no longer have comprehensive determination to pursue the mission in Afghanistan.