UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I do not think that I am to be the night watchman in this debate, but I shall be as brief as I can. I shall not recapitulate the messages that have already been given. That might be a relief to hon. Members, but it might not inspire them to do the same.

I am not an expert in these matters. I have never worn a uniform. I am acutely conscious that there are experts in the House, and that Members on both sides of the House have worn a uniform. I am also conscious, however, that whether or not we have worn a uniform, all of us here are responsible for either ordering or consenting to send young men and women into harm’s way, and that is why I want to speak in the debate. I was struck by what the Secretary of State said about there being four audiences for our debate today. I believe that there is also a fifth audience: the British public. My hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) and for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) also touched on that point.

There have been many casualties in the war—Afghan civilians and British soldiers have been killed and maimed—but a casualty that we cannot afford is the loss of the consent of the British public for this war. We need to ensure that they are on our side, and on the side of the troops as they go about their business. I do not feel that we have been as successful as we might have been in reassuring the British public, and I would like to give the House some examples of what we can do to get them on to our side.

First, we need to ensure that our troops have the right kit and the right support. I visited some friends in Gloucestershire during the recess. They are a military family, and their son is currently serving in Afghanistan. His father was in the Army for 20 years, during all of which time his wife followed him all round the world. They are not peace campaigners, they are not sitting out there in the peace village, but they are concerned about what is happening in Afghanistan and about our troops. Why? Because their son has big feet, and for that reason, the Army was unable to equip him with the right sized desert boots before he deployed. If we cannot put the boots on the feet of the men who are going out to fight, it is understandable that the public, the servicemen and their families will be concerned about our commitment to their welfare and our determination to see the struggle through. I am therefore pleased that the Secretary of State has announced £189 million of further spend on equipment and some £67 million to be spent on countering improvised explosive devices. I hope that that will help to turn around the perception among some servicemen and their families that they have not had the right kit.

It is also important to show the public that the war is being won and success is being had. In a speech of a day or two ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood)—he is not in his place now, but has spoken very eloquently on this subject—said that when he was in Lashkar Gar over the recess, he visited an ice factory. Now that might be a very mundane thing to do—we all visit factories in our constituencies and probably visited many of them during the recess—but it is quite striking to have an ice factory in Helmand, where just a few years ago there was combat, and now infrastructure is being built, jobs created and services provided. We have to show—we have to get the journalists not just at the front line, but at what is happening behind it—that we are improving the situation on the ground and moving towards a tipping point where the Afghan national army, the police force and the Afghan Government will be able to look after themselves so that we can begin to withdraw. We have to tell the story of that success to the British public, so that they know what our strategy is for withdrawal.

The third important element to get across is the need to tell the story of the price of failure, which has been touched on already by other hon. Members. If we fail to see this struggle through in Afghanistan and the country unravels, that will seriously undermine the situation in nuclear-armed Pakistan. We do not want to see jihadists going around saying, “We’ve beaten the west in Afghanistan; we can beat them everywhere”. We need to ensure that the public understand that if Afghanistan unravels, it will not be the end of the matter, as there will be other Afghanistans. The futile price that our servicemen and women will have paid in Afghanistan will be paid again and again in other places.

We have been there for nine years. It has been a long time. Mistakes have been made, but that is the past, so let us leave that where it is and look now to the future. We have a new Government in Britain and a new commander, General Petraeus, in Afghanistan, who has a new strategy. I therefore think that there is an opportunity to re-engage with the British public and show them that there is a way forward. We can then bring them fully back on side. I trust that that is what our Government will now seek to do.