Business of the House

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her well-attended debate yesterday. The Government will be introducing legislation to reform the FSA, as she knows, and that will provide the House with an opportunity to debate the issues she has touched on.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

In the first five years of the Afghan war, only two British soldiers died in conflict. As a consequence of the incursion into Helmand province that figure is now 341. When can we debate the report of the Public Administration Committee that shows the appallingly trivial reasons why that decision was taken, which proves that the incursion into Helmand was a blunder on the scale of the charge of the Light Brigade, but with three times as many British deaths?

[Sir George Young]

Obviously, I regret any loss of life in Afghanistan. I believe that the House debated this issue, on a motion tabled by the Backbench Business Committee, in September. The new Government will respond formally in due course to the Select Committee report, which welcomed their aspirations to think more strategically through the National Security Council.