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Bosnia-Herzegovina

My Lords, I add my condolences on the sad death of Rifleman Coffey, who was a light infantryman before he became a member of the Rifles, the regiment in which I once had the privilege of serving, like the noble and gallant Lord. The striking point is that this young man, who only joined, I think, in August 2005, was already on his second tour. He had to be asked to do a second tour in Iraq. This adds considerable weight to the suspicion of my noble friend Lord Astor that the optimism expressed by the Minister in this Statement may surely, in many people’s minds, be severely coloured by the worry that it has not necessarily been made on a purely objective judgment of the situation in Bosnia, but arises from the reality of the troops’ situation and the problems of manning-level faced by our Armed Forces. I ask the Minister, first, a question he has already partly addressed: if our hopes are disappointed, what arrangements are there for going back to restore what may be, by then, a much more difficult situation? Secondly, does this enormous reduction of forces in one go have the support of the Bosnian Government?