Afghanistan

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance because it is important to give people a sense of an end time to these combat operations. As he said, it is always difficult to change the lay-down of British armed forces. I think that the early decision I made to focus on central Helmand and to get out of Sangin has been hugely important in ensuring that we have the right concentration of forces on the ground to do the job that we need to do. It is always difficult to come out of somewhere, but it is an important measure to make us more effective. That does not mean that lives have been lost in vain, however, and the Americans continue to do excellent work in Sangin. Nevertheless, we have to make hard-headed and difficult decisions for the long-term good of our armed forces and country.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

In his discussions with President Karzai, did the Prime Minister raise the issue of the exodus of thousands of Afghanis from Afghanistan? As he knows, I have raised this matter in the House before. Fifty thousand Afghanis crossed the border between Turkey and Greece last year. Although he accepts that the threat from al-Qaeda is receding in Afghanistan, it is increasing in Yemen. What are we going to do about country shopping by al-Qaeda?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right. One of the roles of the National Security Council is to sit down and look at the scale of the threat that we face, and where that threat is coming from. Clearly the threat picture is changing, in that the number of threats coming out of the Pakistan-Afghanistan area is receding, and the number coming from Yemen and Somalia is growing. The nation has to work out how smart we can be in combating that threat. That means learning lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan about how best to combat extremism and violence in those countries. I am determined—with the good advice of the Home Affairs Committee, I am sure—to learn those lessons.