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NATO Summit

The basis of my hon. Friend’s question utterly misrepresents the facts. There was serious war fighting over the summer in Helmand province, but the suggestion that our troops are bogged down is far from the truth. In fact, in most of the province, our troops move around quite freely, and there has been significant improvement in some areas. Construction work, for example, is starting to result in marked improvements to security in areas where previously there was violence. There is, of course, continued violence, but not at the tempo or scale of a few months ago. I repeat what I said earlier at the Dispatch Box—war fighting in Afghanistan tends to be seasonal, but there is no reason to assume that that is the only explanation. To describe the current situation as my hon. Friend did is to misrepresent it. As for the length of time, it will take us as long as we need—no one is suggesting that there is any alternative but to do what we need to do in building the nation in Afghanistan.