Strategic Defence and Security Review

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The hon. Gentleman makes a useful point. We will be discussing a wide range of future issues, including air defences and the common threats that we face. The hon. Gentleman’s point is important but, as he recognises, it will have to be balanced against a number of other interests. We fully recognise the problems and anxieties that the uncertainties will create until the decisions are taken, but we will try to expedite them as best we can while fully understanding the issues involved.

As I said, the SDSR dealt with Afghanistan and the future 2020 force so, if I may, I shall take them in turn. Our armed forces are in Afghanistan first and foremost to protect our national security by ensuring that transnational terrorists cannot find safe and unhindered sanctuary there, as they did before 9/11. There is no difference across this House and those who seek to do ill to British forces or British interests should understand that there is a united House of Commons behind our armed forces.

Under the leadership of, first, General McChrystal and now General Petraeus, we have the right strategy in place to succeed. We now have the right number of troops in theatre with the right equipment and we will soon agree a plan for the transition of key responsibilities to the Afghan Government at the NATO summit in Lisbon in a couple of weeks’ time. We now have to be patient and let the strategy run its course.

The Foreign Secretary set out to Parliament last week the steady progress that is being made in the security mission. Afghanistan is the top foreign policy priority for the Government and the main effort for defence and we will do all that is necessary to achieve operational success and ensure that our forces have the tools they require to do the job. I am grateful to the shadow Defence Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary for showing such an interest in detailed briefing on the subject so early in their time in office.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Of course the Opposition support what the Government are doing in Afghanistan but, as we saw from the events of this week, as al-Qaeda is displaced from Afghanistan, it ends up in places such as Yemen. May I urge the Secretary of State to recognise that when we take action in one country, it affects another, and can we please also pursue a strategy to ensure that Yemen is as stable as possible?

[Dr Fox]

I am not sure that I accept the basic premise that it is an either/or situation. We have to deal with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Even if we deal with them effectively, that does not mean that there will not be a terrorist threat from elsewhere. We need to be ever vigilant and to recognise that the problem of dealing with an ideology is that it can occur in any part of the globe. We also need to be aware that it is most likely to be present and to have effect where there are failed states.

I believe that proper joined-up government that is willing to consider how we support failing states and how we get improved governance, resources and development into those countries is one of the best ways of ensuring that the ideology never takes root. It is true in whatever dispute we are talking about that people who have nothing to lose may gamble with it, whereas people who have a stake are far more likely to be circumspect about what happens. That is one of the best ways to deny territory to those with that sort of fanatical ideology.

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[Mr Murphy]

My hon. Friend, who has paid close attention to these matters over a long time, is right. Those of us who supported the decision to take military action in Iraq and who supported the action in Afghanistan appreciate that those two conflicts have been conflated in public perception, which has not helped the debate about Afghanistan. She raised an important point about the misunderstanding and misapprehension about Helmand province. We heard from the MOD yesterday that Helmand province accounts for 1% of Afghanistan’s population. The UK’s forces are engaged in some of the heaviest fighting, and in some of the most difficult and most complex areas of the insurgency, but there has been remarkable progress, in Helmand and in other parts of Afghanistan. It is right that she has put that on the record, and that we celebrate it here.

The work that is going on in justice, law and order, civil administration, economic activity and freedom of movement in Helmand and Afghanistan, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) will have seen and read about, is a cornerstone of a lasting political settlement, as are efforts to eradicate institutionalised corruption. Part of such a settlement relies on meaningful engagement with former insurgents. As a precondition for engagement, those who want a political stake in their country’s future must permanently sever ties with violence and accept the Afghan constitutional framework. In doing so, their interests will be recognised but constrained by the laws of the land and balanced by the interests and views of others. As the Government take that important work forward, they will continue to have the Opposition’s full support.

I want to address a number of the points that the Secretary of State has made about Afghanistan recently. The first concerns the role of women in Afghan society. Many now rightly assess that women’s role in Afghanistan has improved markedly beyond the pre-Taliban days in Afghanistan. Things continue to improve more slowly than we might wish. Nevertheless they have improved significantly, and I urge the Government to remain vigilant and ensure that, as former Taliban fighters are reintegrated, the welcome progress made in guaranteeing freedom and equal rights for women is not compromised in accommodating those with harder-line opinions.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South said, the Government have set 2015 as a target for the conclusion of our forces’ combat role. We all wish to see our forces home as soon as possible. When I, along with my right hon. Friends the leader of the Labour party and the shadow Foreign Secretary, met General Petraeus recently, we talked about the conditions-based progress towards full withdrawal. It is essential that the UK Government are clear in private and public about the stages and conditions in advance of our withdrawal.

Crucial to Afghan and international ambition is the capacity of home-grown security forces to take on greater responsibility. It is important for the Government to make it clear whether they have undertaken an assessment of the capacity of Afghan forces to meet the 2015 timeline. Although the immediate concern about the quantity of recruits has abated—with 305,000 now in service—there remain genuine worries about the quality of some of those undoubtedly brave recruits. There is clearly a shortage of trainers for the Afghan forces, and although the UK is doing its bit, it is essential for that fundamental issue to be resolved quickly if the Afghan security forces are to be able to perform the functions that the Afghan Government wish them to. I urge the Government, therefore, to continue to monitor not just the quantity but the quality of the Afghan security forces. There is also, of course, a wider societal issue in Afghanistan concerning levels of literacy, which impact on the ability of the Afghan armed forces—but that is a longer term societal challenge.

Finally, on Afghanistan, we welcome the commitments that the Secretary of State and Prime Minister have given in assuring the House that the impact of the defence review is not intended to affect the front line in Afghanistan. However, Opposition Members—and, I am certain, many Government Members—will be seeking a constant assurance that nothing in the small print of the defence review or those flowing from it will affect our efforts in Afghanistan right up until the end of combat operations.

More widely, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) asked about Yemen. The Leader of the Opposition rightly asked the Prime Minister about that at Prime Minister’s questions this week, and we were reassured by the Prime Minister’s response. It is important that Yemen does not become a safe haven for terrorist recruitment, training and operations. It is also important that the country’s economic decline and instability do not threaten regional security and economic interests. Continued conflict and loss of livelihoods could result in increasing poverty and a humanitarian crisis, and mass migration within the country and beyond. It is crucial, therefore, that we work with the Yemeni Government to counter the terror threat, including through our support in helping them to disrupt al-Qaeda.

Terrorism, however, is not the only threat facing Yemen. Al-Qaeda looks to exploit instability where it can, and it is of strategic importance for the UK to remain engaged in Yemen.

[Keith Vaz]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State on his appointment, and welcome his wise words today. Let us get the language on Yemen right. It is not a failed state, as some have said, but it has the capacity to fail if we do not assist it. We must follow up the promises made to the Yemeni Government in London in January to provide basic help, such as security scanners, which I understand have still not been delivered. Let us help Yemen and engage with it, rather than criticising it.

[Mr Murphy]

My right hon. Friend is experienced in such matters, and he is right to raise that point. So far today we have not heard anyone speaking of Yemen as a failed state, but it has the capacity to become so, with all that that means. I am sure that the Government heard my right hon. Friend’s plea for scanners. The Prime Minister was asked about that at Question Time on Wednesday, and gave a categoric commitment to continue to be engaged in Yemen. In addition to the scanners being delivered, I look forward to the Government making it clear that ministerial engagement will continue, with visits to Yemen in the near future. It is important for that political public commitment to be there for all to see.

There are points in the review that I and many others welcome: the commitment to hold reviews every five years, taking forward the previous Government's work on cyber-crime to prevent organised crime, terrorism and other states from making malign attacks on our infrastructure, the 25% reduction in warheads, and the continued commitment to increase funding for our special forces. However, among all the talk of fiscal deficits, I want now to turn to the strategic deficit at the heart of the Government’s plans.

There are strategic contradictions between the Government’s assessment of future threats, as laid out in the security strategy, and the tangible action to prepare for them, as laid out in the defence review. Those two documents were separated by just one day in their publication, but face in different directions in important ways. The security strategy rightly says that it will prioritise flexibility and adaptability across the armed forces, but the defence review surrenders some of that capacity in the Royal Navy. The Government said that they wanted to take tough long-term decisions, but have put off Trident—to appease their coalition partners, I think .

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[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the excellent speech of the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys). She rightly widened the debate beyond the defence part of the defence and security review to include other aspects of global policy that affect the security of our country. That is what I intend to do in the brief time available, and I shall try to follow her example in not taking up all my allocation.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) correctly predicted that I am here not to increase my knowledge of defence, although if I had wanted to spend four hours listening to the country’s experts on defence, this would be the place to be. It has been a fascinating debate. As the Chairman of the Defence Committee said, we have in this House people who know a huge amount about the subject.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) on his appointment as shadow Secretary of State, and all the Front Bench team.

In the time available, I want to raise three aspects of the review, the first of which is security and the importance of recognising the counter-terrorism agenda within the wider defence and security strategy. I shall probably make a loyalist speech as far as the Government are concerned, certainly compared with some of the speeches from Conservative Members, because I fully support the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy in the security review.

The third and fourth parts of the review document deal with counter-terrorism and acknowledge this country’s success over several years in joining up various aspects of government. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) is here, because he was co-author of the Home Affairs Committee report that strongly recommended the establishment of the National Security Council, which the previous Government strongly resisted, although I never discovered why. As soon as the new Government took office, they accepted the Committee’s recommendation, and we now have a Committee that spans all Departments and all the experts who sit under the chairmanship of the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister and can draw all the strands together to look at the security of the country as a whole.

My second point is about the counter-terrorism budget, and I believe that the review document preserves that budget. From what I have read of it, there is a commitment to ensuring that the previous Government’s initiatives and the new initiatives proposed in the strategy are pursued. That means—I hope—that the fears of people such as John Yates, the head of counter-terrorism in the Metropolitan police, will not be realised. The House will recall that in a closed session of the Association of Chief Police Officers conference earlier this year, Mr Yates raised the possibility that the counter-terrorism budget would be cut. I think that the review preserves that budget. Indeed, from the opportunities that I and others have had to probe the Government on the issue, I think that that aspect of the home affairs budget is to be preserved, although perhaps the Minister will confirm that when he replies to this debate.

My final point concerns Yemen. I should declare my interest: I was born in Yemen and I spent the first 11 years of my life there. I have led parliamentary delegations to Yemen over my 23 years in this House, and the only reason we have not visited this year is the security situation. However, I plan to go in the next few months with other Members of Parliament, and if anyone would like to come—including you, Mr Deputy Speaker—we would be delighted to take them. My concern is that people outside this House have talked about Yemen as though it were a failed state. It is not a failed state; in fact, it is probably the most democratic of all the states in the middle east, with the exception of Israel. It is, however, a country that is capable of failing, which is why we need to give it enormous support. We need to engage with the Yemeni Government and the Yemeni people. We need to ensure that our international development budget is increased, and not kept to its current levels, because even though Yemen is one of the most beautiful countries on earth, it is also one of the poorest. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—as the branch of al-Qaeda in Yemen is called—is determined to feed on the poverty of the Yemeni people and make the case to them that nobody is interested in what happens in Yemen.

The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) paid tribute to the security services and the authorities at East Midlands airport when the Home Secretary made her statement on Monday. As the constituency MP for the airport, he will know of the concern—indeed, the shock—of local people that a package that started off in Yemen should have gone through Germany and ended up at East Midlands airport. While we have been sitting here over the past four hours of this debate—I am not saying that I have been sitting here for that time; rather, the House itself has been sitting—the French Interior Minister has made a statement. He has said that it is thought that one of the bombs—we do not know whether it was the one on its way to Dubai or the one going to East Midlands airport—was going to be detonated within 17 minutes of its being found.

There is a serious problem, but what do we do to help Yemen? We do not cut off all its freight, and we certainly do not want to stop people coming here from Yemen. Instead, we need to give Yemen the security equipment that we promised at the London conference in January. Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a conference of the Friends of Yemen, who were given certain assurances, one of which was that equipment would be sent to San’a and Aden. [Interruption.] The Minister shakes his head, but the answer is yes, and other Ministers have confirmed that to me. There was an assurance that security equipment would be given to Yemen, so that it could perform the task that is being performed at our airports in this country, thereby preventing packages of that kind and any passengers carrying such devices from leaving Yemen.

My message to the Government is that if we are talking about the security of our country, we have to remember that security does not stop at our borders. The hon. Member for South Thanet talked about piracy off Somalia, another country that is in great difficulties. What do we do? We do not leave those countries on their own; we engage with them and ensure that they have support. As part of the review, I hope that we will understand that issue. If we do, not only will the people of Yemen and the world be safer; more importantly, the people of our country will be, too.