Kabul Conference

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I recognise that it is my hon. Friend’s constituents who will go out to Afghanistan, and that is often the case with me—Catterick garrison is in my constituency and many of the forces based there have been in Afghanistan in recent months. He is right to point out what has happened with the Kajaki dam, but it is also important to point out the improvements that are now taking place and will be taking place in Afghanistan under the commitments given at the Kabul conference. They include priority programmes on agriculture, on access to safe drinking water, on half a million more jobs in agriculture, and on training in technical skills in the next three years up to 300,000 people who have never attended school, so that we can see—as long as these plans are implemented—major improvements in the lives of the people of Afghanistan.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

There are some future risks in having an ever-stronger Afghan army if it is alongside a still systemically corrupt and weak Government. The Foreign Secretary referred in his statement to the Afghan Government’s drawing together for the first time across government a strategy to deliver widespread reform. However, toward the end of his statement he also acknowledged that measures to enforce transparency, anti-corruption and accountability have slipped. Can he therefore tell us how credible Karzai’s commitment is to a reform strategy, how robust the plans are, and how reliable the oversight and review mechanisms to which he referred will be? Will they ensure that the process of reintegration will not involve simply creating a new matrix of corruption?

[Mr Speaker]

That was four questions, but one answer will suffice.