Afghanistan and Pakistan

Robert Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a contribution. I had not planned to speak, but having listened to speeches from Government and Opposition Members, I felt compelled to bring some sanity to our discussions.

I am a member of the Select Committee on Defence, and I have decided not to read the report by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs because, as the House will know, we are producing our own report on Afghanistan and I thought that it might prejudice our inquiry—although I accept that there is probably a debate to be had about why two august Select Committees are doing reports on the same subject almost at the same time.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), who has left the Chamber, discussed, in a speech that did not just span 40 years but which seemed to go on for 40 years, the art of stopping the war. Perhaps I am being naive, but the way to do that is by winning the war, not by pulling out because we do not particularly like how it is going in the short term. I am slightly confused because I found myself agreeing more than would normally be the case with the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), who offered a great deal of common sense on the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Defence Committee had the opportunity to visit the United States a couple of months ago, and we spent a week or so at various locations, including US Central Command, the Pentagon and Norfolk. We were privileged to visit the Walter Reed hospital, where we met a number of what the Americans call wounded warriors—their very brave men and women who have suffered life-changing injuries. The Committee was overwhelmed not just by the courage and sacrifice of those very young men and women but by the fact that many of them were determined, despite the horrific injuries that they had suffered, to go back to Afghanistan, both to be with their comrades in arms and because they genuinely believed, despite what they had been through, that it was a fight worth having. If they did not see it through, the sacrifices that they and their friends had made would have been for naught. I was humbled by our meeting with those brave men and women.

On our visit we also met General Mattis and General Allen, with whom the Foreign Affairs Committee and others in the House will be familiar. It is fair to say that we were pleased when President Obama announced that General Allen would succeed General Petraeus as commander in Afghanistan. If there is a lesson from the past 10 years, it is that continuity of command is crucial. There is no point in changing senior personnel and strategy every two or three years, whether in the military or in political leadership, and I hope that the Prime Minister will think carefully before he makes any moves in the next three years while the job moves towards completion.

I am uncomfortable with the Prime Minister’s statement this afternoon about withdrawal. There is an inconsistency in his logic. On the one hand he talked about conditions and progress, but he gave an arbitrary unilateral date of 31 December 2014, which sets a calendar against which the Taliban can measure progress. We should withdraw because the conditions allow us to do so, and because we have completed the missions on which we set out.

[Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s general concern about an arbitrary time line, but if the US has set an arbitrary time line, given how dependent we are on the Americans’ scale of operation there, surely we have little choice but to match their arbitrary time line.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I shall respond briefly to it. It is not often that I say this, but the US has been more nuanced than we have. It is not something that the Americans do particularly well, and I am not sure that many of them can spell the word, but they have said that although that is their goal and they are beginning to pull out their surge troops, they are not absolutely committed to their end date.

There is a simple hypothetical question that the House may wish to consider: what if, as we get to the end of 2014, President Karzai says to President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron, who I expect will still be Prime Minister at that point, “We’re almost there but we need another six weeks, or another two months”? My understanding is that President Obama has made it clear that there would be an element of flexibility. Our Government have said that there is absolutely no flexibility. I think we need a plan B, and we need to have an element of flexibility built in, so that if it is a matter of extra weeks, or even a couple of months, a small number of combat troops may stay.

Afghanistan

Robert Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on a couple of points. To say that we will draw down from combat operations at an earlier date than when we can expect the Afghan national forces to be able to sustain and lead their own operations would be a mistake, and I would resist his call to set an earlier date. Indeed, to be fair to his party’s Front-Bench team, I do not think they have ever maintained that there is a purely military solution to the problems of Afghanistan, and neither have we. We have always stressed that a political process is important as well, and I have often heard the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband), and the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), who is sitting just in front of the hon. Gentleman, say that. The difference between what Mr Gorbachev has been talking about and what is happening now is that this is not the Soviet Union imposing its will on Afghanistan: this is 48 troop-contributing nations, with more than 70 nations assembled to give various support at the Kabul conference, operating under a United Nations mandate to liberate the people of Afghanistan from what happened before, and also with the important goal of maintaining our own national security. It is a different situation, therefore, and I disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis of it.

[Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)]

With a clear date set for a military draw-down, is the Foreign Secretary aware of concerns in the development community that that could lead to less political interest in Afghanistan and, therefore, less commitment to long-term development aid? Can he reassure those working in development that there is a long-term recognition of how much we need to maintain that commitment to development aid?

[Mr Hague]

There is a very strong recognition of that, as my colleagues from the Department for International Development are saying from the Front Bench. Development aid to Afghanistan is being increased and for the long-term future we will have a major national interest in the stability and prosperity of Afghanistan and of Pakistan next door. Pakistan is on its way to becoming our largest recipient of development aid in the world, and we put in huge and greatly increased resources there to try to bring stability to the whole region. So, yes, our work in Afghanistan will have to continue in that form long into the future.

Emerging Economies

Robert Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Browne]

I did not doubt that for one moment.

I welcome this opportunity to debate the new Government’s policy on the emerging economies. Strengthening the UK’s relations with the fastest-growing areas of the world economy is one of the key foreign policy objectives of the coalition programme for the next five years. That was explicitly stated by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary when he opened the foreign affairs debate on the Queen’s Speech and observed that

“we live in a world where economic might is shifting to the emerging economies”—[Official Report, 26 May 2010; Vol. 510, c. 174.]

In the House, we all recognise the ongoing importance of Europe and north America to our foreign policy goals, but we must also be clear about where new opportunities increasingly lie. That means elevating our links with the emerging economies and expanding powers in other parts of the world as part of a distinctive British foreign policy. That is why, only a few days after the Government were formed, the Foreign Secretary and I were meeting counterparts from Mexico, Chile and several other emerging powers at the EU-Latin America-Caribbean summit in Madrid. The following week I also held talks with Foreign Ministers from Vietnam and Singapore, among others, at the EU-south-east Asia summit, which was also held in Madrid. I give an undertaking that I will be making our relations with emerging economies my biggest priority, with visits to several key partners, in the coming months.

Why is the issue so important? We live in a time of fundamental change, both economic and political. The last decade of the previous century saw a shift from the bipolar, cold war world that we had all become familiar with. The first decade of this century has seen another shift, just as dramatic, from a G8 world to a G20 world. Global economic decisions were once made by a grouping of European and north American nations in conjunction with Japan, but today such decisions are increasingly taking place within the G20—not only a much bigger group, but one that represents a much broader range of countries from every continent of the world. The UK strongly supports the G20, which reflects the economic realities of the 21st century and recognises the rise in the strength of powers such as China, India and Brazil. The next meeting of the G20, in Toronto a few days from now, will be an important opportunity to take this work forward.

It is impossible to get through one of these discussions without a barrage of fascinating statistics that people can take home, and I have a few to run past colleagues on both sides of the House. It is important to remind ourselves of how dramatic the change that we have lived through in recent years has been. In the past decade, China’s economic growth has averaged 9.9% a year, while the UK’s has averaged just 1.7% over the same period. India’s growth over the same period has averaged 7%. In 1980, China’s proportion of world GDP was just 2.6%; by last year, that had risen to 8.5%. According to some predictions, China’s economy may well equal that of the US as early as 2027, and by 2050 the Indian economy may well be bigger than the five largest European economies added together.

[Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)]

My hon. Friend talks about the statistics for China. It is important to realise how much of that growth is needed just for its economy to stand still. If growth falls below about 8%, then unemployment starts to rise. When we look at the Chinese economy from outside, we have to understand what a challenge it faces.

[Mr Browne]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Huge levels of growth, by European standards, are necessary to take the Chinese economy forward and to realise the aspirations of an enormous population, hundreds of millions of whom still live in absolute, as well as relative, poverty.

It is easy to characterise these debates as being about China, India, Brazil and other countries with large populations, but there are also regions, particularly in Asia, that are developing at a fast rate. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries—the south-east Asian bloc—have, between them, a larger population than that of the European Union. Over the past decade, they have had an annual growth rate of 5.7%— not as high that of as China, but still very high by European standards, albeit having started from a much lower base. If we think of groups of countries that are increasingly willing and enthusiastic about the prospect of working together as single blocs in that way, their relevance will be obviously apparent to everyone in this House.

Foreign Affairs and Defence

Robert Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I think that we also all agree that this is not a problem to which there is just a military solution. That point was often made by the previous Government—it was often made by the right hon. Member for South Shields—and we have always agreed with it.

One of the matters that we discussed with President Karzai in Afghanistan at the weekend was the process of reconciliation for which the peace jirga is about to be called. Sixteen hundred representatives from all over Afghanistan will be asked to come together to give the Afghan Government a mandate to proceed with a process of reconciliation, as well as a reintegration of former Taliban fighters at local level.

Of course there are huge concerns about the situation in Afghanistan, and we must respect those concerns. That is why the Government are spending an enormous amount of time on the issue, and that is why our first foreign policy priority is to show, and to know ourselves, that we have a proper grip on the situation. We must show that we are taking stock of the political situation in Afghanistan and our military role—taking stock not in the sense of deciding whether to support the international strategy there, but in the sense of deciding how best to support it in the months and years ahead.

[Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)]

I welcome the commitment to a long-term political solution and the recognition that there has to be such a solution, but ultimately, if the Afghan people are to embrace a political solution, they must feel confident that the NATO forces are there for the purpose of a long-term commitment to bring sustainability and hand over security in a way that will not cause them to see the political system failing around them. If they are to buy into that future, they must believe that a long-term commitment exists.

[Mr Hague]

That is a very good point. Where progress is being made in Afghanistan, it is being made because the people in those areas have faith in the continuation of the security improvements that have been made, and in the continued presence of the forces that have helped to deliver them.

It is possible to see those improvements. This weekend, for instance, when my right hon. Friends and I were in Nad Ali—a much-contested place—we were able to walk about and meet local people. We could walk around the whole town, visit the bazaar, go to the local clinic, and walk freely in the streets with the district governor. That would not have been possible only eight or nine months ago. Amid all the anxieties about Afghanistan and the casualties that we commemorate and recognise in the House each week, it is important for us also to explain to the British public where things are succeeding in Afghanistan, so that the full context is available to them.