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Afghanistan: UK Forces

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and from these Benches we offer our deepest condolences to the families of Corporal Thorpe and Lance Corporal Hashmi, and our sympathy to those who were injured and their families. I can be relatively brief, given that we had such an extensive debate only last Thursday, which covered many of the issues relevant to the Afghanistan operation. I have some sympathy with the military commanders who are trying to set up what is a difficult and challenging mission, which is in a process of transition from the US coalition to the NATO operation. They are getting a surfeit of advice, I suggest, from all quarters. I do not believe that it is the role of us in Westminster to try to micromanage the tactical decisions in the operational theatre. I agree with the Statement’s assertion that a serious force was sent out. We recognised that at the time when there was cross-party support from us all for the operation. We recognise that it is inevitable that as the situation develops changes will be needed depending on the intelligence gathered. We need an assurance from Ministers that requests from commanders will be dealt with promptly and will not be resource constrained. This is a real operation that cannot operate with resource constraints. I understand that the Prime Minister has today given such an assurance. In that case, perhaps the Minister will revisit some of the questions we asked on Thursday about mobility and in particular about helicopter lift and how this new opening of the treasure chest might help things. I am happy to give him one suggestion: that he might tonight go back to his office and authorise the necessary work on the eight Chinook HC3s that have been sitting in a shed for some years now, grounded through incompetence in how they were managed before. All that is needed is money to get those helicopters flying again. How long will it take from him making the decision tonight to our getting eight more Chinooks into theatre? While I accept that the commanders may not at the moment be asking for more close-air support, it is clear that the current trend is for more engagements that are likely to cause difficulties in availability of close-air support. Indeed, the Sunday Times gave a graphic account of the difficulties for a unit when it is engaged by the enemy and has to wait several hours for close-air support to turn up. Will the Minister at least assure us that the Ministry of Defence is looking at options for how this might be taken forward if it looks as though we need extra forces? I am glad that the decision was made not to bring the Harriers home; that was a wise decision in the event but perhaps we need to think about how we rapidly reinforce the Harriers. In all of this, we must not forget our allies who own aircraft that could give close-air support and helicopter lift. Are we pressing them to prepare in case they are needed in future? I mentioned on Thursday the end of the Canberra aircraft. I was at RAF Waddington on Saturday for the farewell to the Canberra. I learnt there—I was not aware of this—of the amount of work that the Canberra PR9 has been doing in Afghanistan over the past four years. It is a unique reconnaissance capability, which will disappear on 31 July, not to be replaced. The Statement referred to enablers. The reconnaissance capability that was there was an enabler; we are losing enablers, not necessarily gaining them. We, too, support the aims of the Afghanistan operation. We regret that the adventure in Iraq meant that we had done too little, too late in the past four years in Afghanistan. We need to make sure that we do not make that mistake again.