G8 and NATO Summits

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I am immensely grateful to the noble Baroness for joining in the tribute to our servicemen, who do such an extraordinary job abroad, not just in Afghanistan but elsewhere as well. I join her in celebrating the visit of Aung San Suu Kyi next month. As soon as we have a date, we will of course let everybody know so that they can make their arrangements to come along and listen to her speak.

The noble Baroness asked about the timetable for the expected drawdown in Afghanistan. I confirm that there will be 9,000 troops on the ground by the end of this year. We need a clear pathway for drawdown based on conditions on the ground. I am sure that is well understood. We are responsible for three districts. I and other Ministers will keep the House updated as to how that timetable progresses, as we will with the situation post-2014, where we have agreed, rightly, to provide assistance with an officer training college in Afghanistan, along with Australia and New Zealand. That will be the baseline of our commitment, although we will of course listen to other requests. There will therefore be a NATO training mission as opposed to the NATO combat mission currently.

The noble Baroness also asked about the relationship with Pakistan and, in particular, the control of ground lines across Pakistan. We believe it is essential that these are reopened and are confident that progress will be made. We would like it to be more rapid and will have to wait and see until we get a settlement.

The noble Baroness made much of something that I think is equally important—the political settlement in Afghanistan. If there has been a military surge, we also need a political surge. There is no military solution for Afghanistan, but there may be a political one. As the House knows, we have made an offer to the Taliban to lay down their weapons and to join the peace process within Afghanistan. The political process has not progressed as quickly as we would like, hence the need properly to train up Afghanistan’s own security forces and police, making the country safe to hand over. However, we are fully committed to a political process. I can also confirm that the position of women in Afghanistan is extremely important, not just to this Government but to many other Governments who play their part in Afghanistan. We must hope and believe that the work and progress that have been achieved over the course of the past few years will hold—in perpetuity, I would hope—in Afghanistan after the troops have left.

I cannot update the noble Baroness any further on the situation in Baghdad and the discussions with Iran, but I can confirm that in the G8 next year the position of Africa will play a major part. This Government are immensely proud of their record of support for developing and underdeveloped nations and our commitment to expenditure and the work that has been done. We will call upon other countries to make similar commitments.

As for the United Kingdom economy, I thought the noble Baroness was unnecessarily churlish today, in a week where we have seen that inflation has fallen, that unemployment fell last month and that, for the first time since 1976, we exported more motor cars than we imported. We are reducing the deficit and we have historically low interest rates. That seems to be a good record. Of course, I say that with no ounce of complacency. We all know that we are living in extremely difficult and complicated economic times. There is a good deal of uncertainty in the world, particularly within Europe. The noble Baroness said that we had no plan except for austerity, but you have only to look at what the French President said, not that recently but last year. He said that the national debt is the “enemy” of the Left and of France. We agree with that. Much more recently, on 6 May, he said:

“The means cannot be extra public spending, since we want to rein it in”.

Austerity and growth are not mutually exclusive but you cannot have one without the other. That is the most important thing. It would be much better if we agreed about these matters across the Benches in these extremely difficult economic times. However, we have the flexibility of our own currency and the Bank of England, and I very much hope that that will lead to growth in the long term.

[Lord Jopling]

My Lords, will the Leader of the House tell us whether there were any discussions about the lamentable stand-off that exists between NATO and the European Union, which prevents a great deal of necessary co-operation? This stand-off has been going on for far too long because of the difficulties between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus. Was anything discussed to try and settle this long-standing issue?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, we will continue to work hard to resolve these issues, not just within NATO but within the EU. My noble friend has tremendous knowledge and expertise on this subject, and he is right to draw it to the House’s attention. I cannot promise that there will be an early solution, but he can rest assured that we will continue to work on it.