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Afghanistan: UK Forces

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Astor, made a number of points about the Statement, many of which I fundamentally disagree with. His central tenet was that our Armed Forces are not receiving full support from this Government. That is absolutely not the case. As was made clear today by No. 10, if extra resources are needed by our forces, those extra resources will be found. We need to recognise that these issues are, first and foremost, a matter for the military. It is for the military to assess what is required and for military commanders to decide. It is not for politicians to decide, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Garden, for saying that it would be wrong for Westminster to micromanage these issues. The noble Lord, Lord Astor, mentioned what he called highly reliable sources on the ground, but I think that we should listen to the commanders of our forces in Afghanistan. The commander of the British forces in Helmand has been quoted as saying that they are well trained, well prepared and well equipped. As today's Statement said, there have been no requests for combat troops or air cover. Therehave been requests for enablers and engineering equipment, but if our military commanders decide that they require additional equipment, resources or troops, those will be found. It must be recognised that we have said from the very beginning that this was going to be a difficult mission. I met the Chief of the Defence Staff this evening before coming to the House and he went through with me the thinking that has gone into this mission. As he said, we always knew that it was going to be a difficult mission, that we would take casualties and that this would be a difficult summer. But the force package was agreed at all levels and was appropriate at the start of the campaign. No campaign evolves exactly as planned: you have to adapt. As I said in the House last week, for a variety of reasons, the pace of this campaign has been faster than we originally anticipated, particularly in the north of Helmand province, and we need to respond to that. The Secretary of State and the Chief of the Defence Staff visit Afghanistan regularly and for some time they have been clear about how the situation is developing. It is important that we do not pay too much attention to whoever these highly reliable sources on the ground may be, or to the press reports that we have seen over the weekend, but that we look at the situation in context. I do not agree that we accept that our forces are there to be shot at with impunity—quite the opposite. The force package that we have sent is very robust. It is there to protect the people who are engaged in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. As the noble Lord, Lord Garden, said, the need to send artillery and the Air Assault Brigade was recognised from the beginning because of the environment that we were entering. We have recognised from the start the challenge in Helmand, but we know what we are doing and we are up to the task.