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Defence in the UK

The point that I am trying to make, Madam Deputy Speaker, is that the gap between ground truth, as the military call it, and what Ministers and others are told, is deeply dangerous to the security of people in the UK. That culture emanates from headquarters in the UK and Government Departments. If one speaks to senior officials in the Department for International Development, the Foreign Office or the Ministry of Defence, one is told that everything is on track: in reconstruction, for example, in the case of Afghanistan. The ordinary Afghans on whom our success depends, however, have seen none of that. The same officials repeat the mantra that one cannot have reconstruction without security, but are less good at responding to the point that in the provincial capital, which is reasonably secure, the ordinary Afghan people have seen no reconstruction. I could go on. My point is that well-intentioned Ministers, such as the Minister of State, do not get the messages about where the problems are quickly enough. When they do, they are soothed into believing that measures are in place to mitigate them. Deeply regrettably, Iraq is now a done deal in terms of its effect on the perception of the UK by much of the Muslim world and a substantial minority of our own Muslim population. Afghanistan is a noble cause and a multi-billion—