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NATO Summit

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution and his recognition of at least two of a number of significant developments and areas of progress. He is right to point out how significant it is that the NRF has reached full operational capability—an advance for NATO. We ought not to consider any individual summit as a defining moment for NATO, either immediately after it or retrospectively. Our collective commitment to Afghanistan has set a number of challenges for NATO as an alliance, and the issue that he mentions is but one of them. As for the idea that the challenge occurred when we deployed into Afghanistan, and had not existed in the NATO alliance for some time, we have made progress on the issue, just as we have made significant progress on partnerships. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has a particular interest in the subject of partnerships, and I look forward to the Defence Committee, of which he is chair, addressing the relationship between NATO and the EU in the future. Of course, the Department will co-operate fully with that investigation and that report. When we make progress, we should not seek to present it as failure. Progress is progress, and there has been significant progress.