Foreign Affairs and Defence

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I love listening to the right hon. Gentleman, as he knows, but he is so entertaining that I think we should store up his intervention for a little later in my speech. I will certainly allow him to intervene when we need a bit of refreshment.

The Government have established the National Security Council to bring together strategic decisions about foreign policy, security and defence policy and development, and we have appointed a National Security Adviser. Unlike the National Security Committee of the previous Government, which seemed to have little discernible impact, our National Security Council is at the centre of decision making in Government on these issues. It has already met three times in the two weeks since we took office, including this morning at the Ministry of Defence, and it will be a major means of involving domestic Departments—many of which have an increasingly international aspect to their work—in the pursuit of national foreign and security policy objectives, so that foreign policy will run through the veins of the domestic Departments of Government as well as those of the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on becoming Foreign Secretary—something that Conservative Members have been looking forward to for a long time? One of the biggest criticisms levelled at the present Opposition when they were in government is that they failed to update the House regularly on what was happening in Afghanistan, and failed to keep the nation involved. May I ask my right hon. Friend to honour his promise to keep this place updated? Perhaps he could begin by outlining what he found on his recent visit to Afghanistan, what is happening in Nad Ali and Marjah, and in impending operations in southern Kandahar.

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The brief answer to his question is “Yes, we will honour that commitment” and I shall set out in a few moments how we are going to do that. When we were in opposition, we called for more regular reports and quarterly reviews about the position in Afghanistan to be presented to this House. We shall certainly honour that and we will make a major statement on how we see things before the Kabul conference takes place. If my hon. Friend will allow me to develop my argument in a logical order, I will come on to Afghanistan in a few moments.

I was about to say that in the opening days of the new Government, we have reached out immediately to our allies. The Prime Minister has visited Paris and Berlin, and I had extensive discussions with my European counterparts at the EU-Latin America and Caribbean meeting in Madrid last week. As I speak, my hon. Friend the—

--- Later in debate ---

[David Miliband (South Shields) (Lab)]

Let me start by warmly congratulating the Foreign Secretary on his new responsibilities. He established himself in the last Parliament as the pre-eminent parliamentary debater of his generation, taking on those of us who were in government with determination, panache and, often, a great sense of humour. I assure him that he will need those skills again in this Parliament to take on all those in the Cabinet and on the Government Benches who hold diametrically opposed views to his on foreign policy issues. He has also performed the invaluable service of showing that a stint as Leader of the Opposition is merely a stepping stone to greater things, so I am grateful to him for that as well.

We wish the Foreign Secretary well. He starts with one great advantage: his trusty sidekick the Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household, the hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), who spent three years training to be Minister for Europe, has been sent to the correctional facility otherwise known as the Government Whips Office. The hon. Gentleman told the Essex Echo that he was pleased to have been sent back to where his career started. I am tempted to say, “Not half as pleased as Ministries all around Europe,” but we wish him well in his mercifully silent post.

There are now six Ministers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, compared with four in the last Parliament. It turns out that we were right all along to say that it takes a Lib Dem and two Tories to do the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). We certainly will not take any lectures from the Government on lean government given the number of Ministers they have now appointed. We will want to know what smoke and mirrors the Foreign Secretary is going to use, given his complaints about swingeing cuts in the Foreign Office, regarding Monday’s announcement of £55 million-worth of cuts in the Foreign Office budget. We look forward to getting further details about how that will be organised.

There are six Ministers in King Charles street, but I am sad to see no room for the hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson), who worked tirelessly in opposition to lift the historical tone of our debates. He prepared for every Question Time. He honed his one-liners. He was always unfailingly nice about the civil service. He did all the right things in preparation for the call from No. 10, but I am afraid that, although he is a loyal party man, the reasoning behind his demotion must be a source of some concern. In explanation, one of his colleagues told The Times last week:

“I suppose there has to be an Old Etonian in every department”.

The tragedy for the hon. Gentleman is that he went to Thorpe grammar school, and he had to be replaced by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham). So much for the classless society in the new Conservative party.

The Opposition will support the Government fully, comprehensively and with absolute good faith where it is appropriate to do so. Nowhere is that more necessary than on Afghanistan. All three parties went into the general election supporting our troops. All supported a political settlement as the way to end the military conflict. All put great premium on the importance of delivering real improvements in the lives of the Afghan people. All also supported regional engagement of Afghanistan’s neighbours—all the neighbours. We will continue to do so. Our troops deserve united support from the House and that is what they will get. The Foreign Secretary did not play politics on Afghanistan when he was in opposition, and we will follow exactly that path. War is more important than politics.

In that spirit, I hope we can convince the new Defence Secretary that any attempt to suggest that there has been a big shift in policy away from a focus on Afghan education in favour of a concern with British security is not well merited. We know that a comprehensive approach requires military effort and civilian effect to create the conditions for a political settlement. The Foreign Secretary made that clear in his remarks. I hope we can agree the following: that security concerns took us into Afghanistan, that security and development need to go together, and that the political surge of which the Prime Minister spoke yesterday was started in the last Parliament, set out in General McChrystal’s successive reports and needs to be continued—not in the absence of military pressure, but as a complement to it.

The Opposition will want to be assured about key aspects of the Afghan mission. The Foreign Secretary did not have time or did not want to give us details of the hold and build phase of the Marjah operation. We will be concerned to see that Afghan capacity arrives to ensure that that takes place. The planning for the Kandahar operation is being done in quite an open way by the international security assistance force, but where is the Afghan capacity and what is being done to avoid a false choice of warlordism or Talibanisation? In respect of Southern command, the reorganisation of which is happening under US leadership, we will be interested to know how the US Marines fit into the ISAF structure.

As for the development of the Afghan police force, the Foreign Secretary will know that we support strongly the plans of Minister Atmar, but we want to see them implemented. We are zealous in our support for and pursuit of an agenda of so-called reintegration and reconciliation—the political engagement of former insurgents. This is core to the development of an inclusive political system. Especially in the light of the difficulties with the so-called peace jirga scheduled for 2 May and now much postponed, we will want to see when that is to be organised. We will also want to know how the crackdown on corruption of which the Foreign Secretary has often spoken—the cancer eating away at the heart of Afghan society—is going. What did President Karzai promise him on Saturday and what will he do if the promises are not delivered?

[Mr Ellwood]

The shadow Foreign Secretary raises a number of important questions, to which I am sure we will find the answers in due course. A question I pose to him, which comes in the light of the resignation of Colonel Bob Seddon, is about the shortage of explosives officers in Afghanistan. Will he comment on the 40% shortage of explosives ordnance officers, which is causing those who are in theatre to be very tired, resulting in more mistakes?

[David Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman is a former military officer and knows well the extensive work done over the past two years not just to send specialist officers to Afghanistan to tackle the threat of improvised explosive devices, but to ensure that they had the most up-to-date equipment. If he looks at the figures given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) shortly before the general election, he will see the extent to which the IED threat is being countered. But as he knows, as the presence of British forces grows and as other ISAF expertise grows, the bombs and the bomb making are also becoming more sophisticated. I think he will find that there is more to that 40% figure than he is quoting.

We will also make the case for continued engagement with Pakistan. The Foreign Secretary did not visit Pakistan this weekend, and I am pleased to hear that he is to go soon. I regret that he did not go this weekend, because if there is one thing that we have learned in the past nine years, it is that there will be no peace in Afghanistan without peace in Pakistan. It is good that the right hon. Gentleman will go, but south Asia is a part of the world where actions speak much louder than words, and symbolism and respect are vital. Neglect of Pakistan has in many ways landed us in the current difficulties and it must not be repeated.

On Pakistan, the Government would do well to engage with the European Union. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman did not make mention of the plans for the rearranged EU summit with Pakistan on 4 June, or of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan group, which meets under the auspices of the UN. The EU spends just half a euro per person in Pakistan, compared to five to 10 times as much in other parts of the world that are not only more developed, but less crucial to our security, and I hope he will give greater priority to that issue.

On a range of issues, the new Government have promised to take forward commitments made by the previous Administration, and we welcome that. Let me start with the middle east. The right hon. Gentleman used some of the words that we used, but not all of them. There are a number of areas where we will be looking to see his commitment. He did support the proximity talks, and we welcome that, but we want to see a determination that they should address substantive issues, not simply procedural ones. He did not dwell on the settlements issue, but it worth reminding the House that they are illegal in international law and an obstacle to peace. We want to see direct support for the Fayyad plan to build a Palestinian state within two years. The Quartet took the unprecedented step of supporting the plan on 19 March at its meeting in Moscow, and we want to see that support from the British Government too.

In respect of Gaza, the enforcement of resolution 1860 in all the aspects that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned is vital. A “Gaza last” policy will not, in my view, work. It is vital that the people and significance of Gaza are not forgotten. I hope he will continue to engage the wider region, because unless the Arab states shoulder a share of the responsibility, there will be no solution.

We will want to be updated on developments in the Dubai passports case. The Dubai authorities have announced that more British passports were involved and the House will want to know what the Government are doing on this issue.

The Foreign Secretary spoke of his ambitions for the non-proliferation treaty review conference, and the transparency that his colleague is announcing at the NPT review conference today is welcome. I welcome also his determination to look again at the nuclear posture of this country. He will know that it is remarkably similar to the one that the new American Administration have taken, and it is worth looking at the small areas of difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Miliband]

That is an absolutely shocking allegation. It is not true, and I want to tell the hon. Gentleman why. It is a shocking allegation because the idea that the last Government spent their time simply increasing the aid budget rather than increasing its quality is contradicted by every single independent report, national and international, on the issue. [Interruption.] I will come to his point about support for the MOD in a moment. This country has gone from being a laggard on international development to being recognised as the leader—not simply because of the amount of money spent, but because of how it is spent.

Anyone who spent time in southern Afghanistan—with officers from our armed forces, British diplomats and British aid workers—would go away proud of the work being done there. At the moment, a DFID official is the head of the combined military and civilian mission in southern Afghanistan. Frankly, it is nonsense to suggest that DFID officials and DFID money are not supporting our security and other priorities.

[Mr Ellwood]

rose—

[David Miliband]

I will not give way now, while I am warming to the theme. The Foreign Secretary said blithely that he was interested in increasing the quality of aid. It would behove him well to recognise the massive changes that have happened in the past 13 years on that issue—not just in the bilateral aid that we spend, but in how European money is spent. The truth is that in 1997 the way in which the European Union spent its development budget was a scandal. That has fundamentally changed in the past 13 years.

Let me also say that we were pleased that in the wash-up period leading to the general election the Conservative party accepted our legislation on vulture funds. In Labour’s manifesto, we pledged more action on such funds yet in the coalition agreement we have only a promise of yet another review. I hope that when that review happens, it will be swift and result in some action.

[Mr Ellwood]

rose—

[David Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman has been trying to intervene and I am happy to give way to him.

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful to the shadow Foreign Secretary. To go back to the point about DFID, I should say that, yes, on both sides of the House we pay tribute to the great work that it does across the world, but it has taken a long time to catch up with its new responsibility, which was never part of its original remit, to support our military in difficult environments. That is our complaint on this side of the House. Yes, things are better in Afghanistan now, but it has taken five years for that to happen. We are testing the nation’s patience on how long we can stay there, because reconstruction and development have taken so long.