---

Middle East and Afghanistan

My Lords, we have for many years enjoyed power and influence in the world for two reasons: a sophisticated, professional foreign service and highly trained Armed Forces. The Government are on the way to destroying both. The FCO budget, as distinct from DfID, is 0.2 per cent of total public spending. Of its staff, 6,000 are UK-based; 10,000 are locally engaged. The FCO's international priorities, as set out in Active Diplomacy for a Changing World, include expertise in human rights, conflict prevention and energy security and concentrate on improving diversity and bringing in people from a wider background. Unfortunately, many of the decisions are taken and much of the policy-making is done in No. 10 Downing Street. Despite what Active Diplomacy describes, accurately, as the language and negotiating skills of the Foreign Office, the Prime Minister sent the head of his own Strategy Unit—a serving diplomat but, I think a specialist on Europe—to negotiate with Syria, just as he sent the noble Lord, Lord Levy, as his personal negotiator to the Middle East and Latin America. The head of the Foreign Policy Centre that he created was ““horrified to discover”” that our foreign policy was based on the UK's national interest and has only recently taken the view that we do not need arms or defence because, "““our influence comes from the fact that everyone respects us””." Much valuable knowledge in the FCO of the probable consequences of trying not just to get rid of Saddam but to fit the Shia and the Sunni into the same tidy Procrustean democratic bed in Iraq has been ignored. Our Armed Forces are now paying for that. Equally, negotiating with Syria, Iran—and, perhaps, in the context of the future of the Kurds, Turkey—will require deep knowledge of the history of the region and not simply negotiating skills. It is not too late to draw on that knowledge. The same is true of Afghanistan, which is a harsh land and, history tells us—although the Government do not seem to read much history—is by tradition both warlike and fiercely Islamic. It is wholly unlikely to change its traditional attitude to women—I wish that I could think otherwise—or to abandon tribal structures for democracy. Do we really think that the Army is there to hold the ring to allow a Western civilisation to emerge, with the help of DfID, at some unlikely future date? This country cannot afford to lose highly trained soldiers on what is likely to be a long, long war of attrition in which there may be no decisive victories. The military mission in Afghanistan needs to be redefined. We are committed, under the defence planning assumptions, to one enduring medium-scale military deployment, one enduring small-scale operation and one non-enduring small-scale operation. The strategic review considered that we should never do two major operations at once, but that is exactly what we are doing. We are failing to use our resources properly and to give our overstretched forces the support that they need. Both the National Audit Office, in its report on 3 November on recruitment and retention in the Armed Forces, and the 35th report of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body are ringing alarm bells. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that those warnings, including the fact that the commitments routinely exceed current manning, are being heeded not in some distant future but now. According to the National Audit Office, four major reasons are given in a list of 28 for military personnel to think of leaving the service. One is the impact of service life on family life: 64 per cent, overall. Another is quality of equipment: 49 per cent. Another is uncertainty over the future, given current changes in the forces: 54 per cent. Most disturbing of all is the "““feeling that the work of the Services is no longer valued””—" 55 per cent. Those are issues of both morale and efficiency and it is essential that they be addressed for reasons of both recruitment and retention. One problem which concerns both the NAO and the Armed Forces Pay Review Body is defence medicine and the need of the wounded soldier to be treated in a military environment. The NAO reviews a number of pinch-point trades—the trades where there is real trouble and not enough people. Case studies 10—““General Practitioners, Tri-Service””—and 11—““Accidents and Emergency and Intensive Therapy Unit Nurses, Tri-Service””—are relevant and disturbing. The NAO expects that GPs will remain on the operational pinch-point register at least until 2010, and points out that 50 per cent of medics in field hospitals in Operation TELIC in Iraq have been provided by the Territorial Army and that medical support personnel have also been provided by some coalition partners and even some contractors to meet some of the forces’ commitments. There is much to be done to remedy this serious pinch point, although, despite everything, the Territorial Army has done a brilliant job. I believe there are four or five dedicated wards in the country, usually with a ratio of 70:30 of military to civilian nursing staff. In how many of those are service wounded—I do not expect the unfortunate Minister to answer this—surrounded by confused geriatrics because of the policy of giving the NHS first call on all beds? The average number of patients in one week has gone from 40 to 80. There are not enough trained military personnel to train others; there is, in particular, a severe shortage of nurses trained in intensive care and emergencies, whether to serve abroad or at home. How many guides on deployment are being breached? The Tory Government’s closure of all military hospitals under Treasury pressure was the fatal first step for defence medicine, but this Government’s policy of so-called dedicated wards has done little to meet the needs of our service men and women through three wars—the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, the effect of the troops’ prevailing belief, as reported by the NAO, that their work is no longer valued, is a vital morale issue. The effect on both retention and recruitment can only be serious at a time when we are committed indefinitely to two major operations. Her Majesty’s Government need to recognise that this is a significant and dangerous situation in which the Armed Forces need immediate and visible commitment to defence from the Government, rather than an announcement from the Chancellor, while visiting troops, of more aid for Iraq and an announcement from the Prime Minister of the doubling of aid for Pakistan and an offer of large funds to pay for so-called faith schools. So long as Her Majesty’s Government choose to commit the Armed Forces to major ventures, they have a duty to ensure that they get the resources they need, time for training, proper roulement, essential armaments and medical services, and due care for families. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body has also produced a full report on service medical and dental officers—a supplement to its 35th report—which reports a shortfall in medical officers of 21 per cent by July 2005, with undermanning in critical consultant specialties of 40 to 60 per cent. By July 2005—over a year ago—the TA strength of medical officers was only 310 out of a requirement of 680. Forty-eight per cent plan to leave the service within five years. Both recruitment and retention are seriously and adversely affected by the disparity between the pay of NHS doctors and nurses and that of those in the services. The Government must not, as they did with service housing, require the MoD to find the necessary money at the expense of other, very often urgent, operational needs. This is what has happened year after year when it comes to keeping long-standing promises to provide decent housing for families. Each year, the MoD has to say, ““Sorry; something more urgent has cropped up””. The Government must provide new money, and urgently, both for retention and for recruitment. No one knows, for instance, how long the commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan will last and what their nature will be. The Armed Forces Pay Review Body estimates that its recommendations both on retaining those in place and on recruitment will add £9.9 million to the Director General Army Medical Services pay bill. This is not too much to commit to the urgent needs of the services, and it should be ring-fenced. Let us at least use the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan to ensure that our Armed Forces can survive and do their job as they should be expected to do. I should add that I warmly support what the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams of Crosby and Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, have said about the possibility of buying the poppy crop. I feel very strongly that to do so for medical purposes would be a solution and would save lives. It would also, to some extent, break the power of the Taliban, as part of its power over the people is its position as brokers for the poppy trade. I hope that that will be taken into consideration. It seems remarkably sensible and simple.