Afghanistan

Thomas Docherty Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are seeing progress on that, and Britain has invested in the wheat seed distribution project in Helmand. However, one of the lessons that I have learned from going to Afghanistan repeatedly over the last five years is that we can talk all we like about destroying crops and the rest of it, but if we want to do something about poppy cultivation the real key is building roads, because we have to enable the Afghans to get their produce to market. If they do not have legitimate produce to get to a legitimate market, the drug dealers will prey on them, give them their poppy seed and collect their poppy at the end of the harvest, and the job is done. This is about roads and government capacity as much as it is about the criminal justice system.

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

Given the Prime Minister’s remarks about the need to build Afghanistan’s political structures, he will have seen today’s media reports, so can he confirm whether the UK is considering sending senior civil servants or senior Officers of this House to Kabul on either a permanent or a temporary basis?

[The Prime Minister]

I had the great honour of meeting the Speaker of the Afghan Parliament. As I understand it, there will be good and strong relations between this Parliament and the Afghan Parliament, which is beginning to establish itself—but I will leave decisions on what Mr Speaker wants to do to Mr Speaker.