Afghanistan

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As the House would expect, I make my judgments about military matters—in particular, the resilience and capability or otherwise of any particular forces—on the basis of military advice, and that is the military advice that I am receiving. However, I am not sure that my hon. Friend is necessarily right in seeing nothing but a reinforcement of the insurgency after the end of 2014. On the one hand, ISAF will not be present in the same numbers or in the same role, but on the other hand, there is no doubt in my mind that the presence of foreign forces has been one of the great recruiting sergeants of the insurgency, and that the removal of foreign forces changes the dynamics. There are definitely Afghans who would have signed up to the insurgency to fight foreign soldiers but do not wish to join up and kill their Afghan brothers in the ANSF.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Finally, I call the very patient Mr Stephen Mosley.

Points of Order

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

If the Secretary of State has an answer to that question as it concerns the workings of the House, I will ask him to comment.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am not sure whether it would be in order, but if you say that it is, I will happily place in the Library of the House a document that shows the fields. This document will have been circulated in the Army today and it will become publicly available, but I am happy to put it in the Library of the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

It is certainly in order for the Secretary of State and his Ministers to give information to Members of this House. I am grateful to him for reacting so quickly to a request to do so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman knows that it is inappropriate and out of order now to carry on the arguments rehearsed during the statement. However, if the Secretary of State would like to give further information on a point of order about information to Members of this House, I will allow him so to do.

[Mr Hammond]

Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be interested to know that the document I intend to place in the Library will set out the fields and the numbers against each field. However, unless my hon. Friend is a very credible detective, I doubt that he will be able to determine much about the geographical distribution of those redundancies.

Defence Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order.

[Mr Hammond]

I have heard these arguments from my hon. Friend before. I have always been clear that we have no choice but to reduce the size of the Regular Army to operate within our budgets. The difference between an Army of 102,000 and an Army of 82,000 is £1 billion a year. He does not have that funding available, and neither do the Opposition. If we are to operate within our budgets, we have no choice but to draw down the Regular Army as we withdraw from Afghanistan and to build up the reserve strength that will primarily be needed if we again become embroiled in an enduring operation with six-month troop rotations.