Deployment to Mali

John Baron Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on deployment to Mali.

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

On 14 January the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds), made a statement to the House outlining the UK’s deployment of two C-I7 transport aircraft to provide logistical support to France, as well as a small detachment of technical personnel deployed to Bamako airport to assist with the reception of the C-I7 aircraft. Since that announcement, we have decided to extend our support to the continued provision of one C-I7 in support of the French for a further three months. There are currently about 20 people deployed in Bamako supporting liaison with French forces and, following a French request for additional surveillance support, we have deployed a Sentinel R1 aircraft to Dakar, Senegal, with supporting ground crew and technical support staff of about 70 people.

EU Foreign Ministers agreed on 17 January to establish an EU military training mission to Mali—EUTM—and work is ongoing to scope that mission. Today in Brussels, representatives from EU member states, including the UK, will meet to discuss the individual member state contributions to the mission. The UK is prepared to contribute up to 40 personnel to the EUTM, either in an HQ or training team role. We do not envisage UK personnel fulfilling a force protection role, and it is quite possible that all 40 personnel will not be required, dependent on the contributions from other member states. I can assure the House that we will not allow UK personnel to deploy on any mission until we are satisfied that adequate force protection arrangements are in place.

Today in Addis Ababa the African Union is hosting a donor conference to discuss how the international community can support the African-led intervention force, AFISMA, in delivering the role that the United Nations Security Council has mandated it to fulfil. The UK will today offer £5 million for two new UN funds to support the strengthening of security in Mali, with £3 million directed to AFISMA and £2 million to activity in Mali that facilitates and supports political processes for building stability. The UK is also prepared to offer up to 200 personnel to provide training to troops from Anglophone west African countries contributing to AFISMA, although the numbers required will be dependent upon the requirements of the AFISMA contributing nations. To establish those requirements, we have deployed a small number of advisers to Anglophone west African countries that are likely to contribute to the AFISMA mission, to assess their needs and to gain situational awareness.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office Ministers will provide an update to the House on the outcome of the discussions in Brussels and Addis Ababa at the appropriate moment.

[Mr Baron]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and thank the Secretary of State for his answer.

British involvement in Mali and the wider region is deepening, and it is clearly in everyone’s interests that we do not allow legitimate Governments to fail, particularly when faced with extremists. It is no secret that I opposed our recent interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, because I fear that one can be drawn into ever-deepening conflicts. Afghanistan illustrated the dangers of being sucked into larger deployments. That mission morphed into something much larger: it changed from a mission to defeat al-Qaeda or deny it the use of Afghanistan to one of nation-building.

Drawing on our lessons in Afghanistan—and, perhaps, on other interventions—will the Government clarify the following points? We need greater clarity on the role of British troops. The Government have said they will not be placed in a combat role, but there are a host of grey areas between combat roles and support roles. What exactly will these advisers do? Will they be involved in logistics or training, or will they advise on strategy? Equally importantly, how will they be protected? Are we deploying troops on the ground to protect these advisers, or are we relying on our French colleagues to provide that protection?

May I also ask the Secretary of State what exactly is the exit strategy? It is very easy to get drawn into these situations, but it is not always clear what the endgame and exit strategy are, and even what the endgame looks like. What are the contingency plans if military progress does not go to plan? Is there talk on the table that we should perhaps be deploying or committing, or be prepared to commit, more troops if the fighting goes badly? At the moment, that is all going well, but the situation can change very quickly.

Finally, what lessons should we learn from United Nations Security Council resolution 2085, which was passed last year and called on local African nations to lead the combat role in defeating these extremists in northern Mali? There was tremendous delay in the implementation of that resolution. What lessons have we learned from that, because we seem to be playing catch-up? On a related but slightly separate issue, what is the international community’s broader strategy on encouraging local forces to play a more proactive role, not only in Mali, but in the wider region, in combating these extremists? These are legitimate questions and the British public and we as a House need to ask them, because there is a real danger of getting drawn into a much larger deployment, particularly if things do not go to plan on the ground.

[Mr Hammond]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his questions. First, the UK has a clear interest in the stability of Mali and in ensuring that its territory does not become an ungoverned space available to al-Qaeda and its associates to organise for attacks on the west. Secondly, we have established military co-operation with France, which is an important part of Britain’s strategy for the future, and this situation, along with the Libya campaign, is an opportunity for us to demonstrate the validity of that working relationship with France. The role of British troops, as I set out in my response to the urgent question, is clearly not a combat role, and it will also not extend, as we envisage it at the moment, to a force protection role. We are looking for force protection arrangements to be put in place, probably by the French, but certainly by the European Union in relation to the EU training mission.

My hon. Friend asked me about the exit strategy. France has made it clear that it envisages a short intervention to stabilise the situation on the ground while the African forces from neighbouring countries and the Malian army deploy to sustain the situation in the longer term. We concur with that strategy. I should say, again, that it is not our intention to deploy combat troops; we are very clear about the risks of mission creep and we have defined very carefully the support that we are willing and able to provide to the French and the Malian authorities.

My hon. Friend referred to UN Security Council resolution 2085 and the time delay in deploying African forces. I think it is well known that the intention was to deploy African forces in support of the Malian authorities later this year, but the situation on the ground has become more urgent, hence the decision by the French to intervene. Some of these forces require equipment and some require additional training, and the response time to the mobilisation envisaged by resolution 2085 has perhaps been longer than we would have liked. The lesson we can learn from that is that if we want local forces to be able to deploy and respond to resolutions of this nature, we may have to take a more proactive role in resourcing them to do so.

On the broader strategy for encouraging local forces to tackle extremism, part of our defence posture, set out in the strategic defence and security review 2010, is to devote an increasing proportion of our defence resources to upstream engagement, building capacity in fragile nation states to allow them to deal with early threats to their security, rather than waiting for the situation to degenerate to the point at which it requires outside intervention.