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Iraq

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, who now has an important position in holding the Government to account as Chairman of the Defence Committee, for his comments about the British forces. He is right that when they are asked to do something, they do it. They do not take part in controversy, debates or decisions—they just go and do it. The right hon. Gentleman asked whether it is difficult to recruit. Yes, it is, and it has been for some time. We can speculate about the reasons for that and do what we can to try to discover and address those reasons, but one reason is certainly high employment and low unemployment, which has been the case for a while. The controversy surrounding training, Deepcut, bullying, Iraq and other issues probably does not help to convince the gatekeepers—the mums and dads—of the attraction of the armed forces. A range of issues might make it more difficult to recruit to a professional Army. I have recently returned from Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. My hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for the middle east has visited Basra and elsewhere in Iraq. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State and I spend a lot of time with troops, so I can tell the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) that morale is high. Troops are given a great welcome by many Iraqis and by people in Afghanistan who recognise the important job that they are doing, contrary to some of the impressions given by the media here. His first comments welcoming the role that the troops are playing are an antidote to some of the reasons why we might be finding recruitment difficult.