Lord West of Spithead
Main Page: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord West of Spithead's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(11 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, 24 LECs have been killed while working for UK forces and 122 have been injured since 2006. As I said, we are in close contact with our NATO allies about how to take this matter forward.
My Lords, the Minister must, I am sure, believe that this is weasel wording and not good enough. How we behave towards these people is a question of trust and honour and this really is not good enough. It gives a very bad message for any of our forces in future operations about whether people should help them. We have to move forward rather faster and more certainly on this issue.
As I said, my Lords, we will not abandon these people. It is a very complex subject. I have met a number of these people, as I am sure a number of other noble Lords have, in Afghanistan, and this relates not only to interpreters but also to people with other skills. Not all of them want to come to this country. Afghans are a proud people and some want to stay and use their language skills to help their country. If possible, we want to help them to do that. The Afghans will not thank us for removing some of their most able people.