Kabul Conference

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Of course people will question at all times what we are doing, and that should be expected because it is so difficult and costly. However, there is a straightforward answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question about the difference between 2014 and 2011. In 2011, the Afghan national security forces will not be remotely ready to lead their own operations throughout the whole of Afghanistan, whereas on current trends and performance, they will be able to in 2014.

There is another way of thinking about the hon. Gentleman’s question. If we were simply to abandon the current situation now and say, “We are not going to work with the Afghans to deliver a situation in which they can look after their own security,” what would we say to the families and friends of those people who have already died in this effort?

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Prime Minister on beginning the process, which I hope they will accelerate, of disentangling our troops from a bloody and unnecessary commitment? I appreciate that my right hon. Friend has to continue to deploy the argument that the security of our streets requires the commitment of our troops to prevent the re-establishment of al-Qaeda. But can he, in the privacy of this Chamber, reassure me that he does not actually believe it, since logically it would require us to deploy troops in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and elsewhere where al-Qaeda already has a presence?

[Mr Hague]

My right hon. Friend understandably refers to the privacy of this Chamber, given that we have all said things in it that were widely unnoticed by the rest of the world, and which, when we said them in a television interview two weeks’ later, were news to the rest of the country. However, perhaps that is because not enough of our friends are upstairs regularly enough. However, I do not agree—[Interruption.] Well, I will not go any further down that road. I do not agree with the wider thrust of my right hon. Friend’s question. I would not want the House to think that we are now, as he put it, disentangling ourselves. As he can see, there is a huge British commitment to the international efforts in Afghanistan over the coming years. That is true in military terms and in development terms, so I would not at all put it in the way he has described.

If we failed in, or abandoned, Afghanistan, the opportunity would be there for terrorist bases to be established again in Afghanistan, and it would give great heart to terrorists based in other countries—whether Yemen or Somalia—and embolden them in their own campaigns.