Afghanistan: British Equipment and Training

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I do not have the precise information about the value of kit that over the years was handed to the Afghan national security forces. In so far as a limited amount of government equipment was left, some was handed over to our American allies, but no equipment of any military use has been left that may fall into other hands.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is but one of a number of very serious and regrettable consequences of a premature and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some of this weaponry, such as rifles and pistols, and equipment, such as trucks, is pretty easily used, mended and deployed. But there are also, thankfully, modern aircraft and armoured vehicles which tend to need more skilled operators and technical maintenance including regular software updates. This is a NATO problem, not just a UK problem, because this equipment will be sold to the highest bidder and not just possibly used but, more importantly, reverse engineered, which will create very difficult problems for our future deployment of it. What steps are we and our NATO allies taking to monitor and interdict such possibilities?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point that this is broader than the United Kingdom. As the Chamber will understand, the NATO alliance activity in Afghanistan—obviously by implication of what it was doing—raised an inevitable risk; do you help and try to support, which includes providing equipment? You cannot have a crystal ball to see into the future. As I said earlier, when it became clear the Taliban were taking control of Afghanistan and an evacuation plan had to be conceived, careful thought was given to controlling what was under our control, and that was the equipment that we had. I have explained the situation in relation to that.