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Defence Policy

My hon. Friend speaks for everybody in the House when he makes a plea for the plight of the people of Darfur, given what they have gone through, to be given the appropriate priority. I do not think that anybody would contradict him. However, as he also rightly points out, we must increasingly accept that there are different ways in which we can support different operations. I am proud, as I am sure others are, of the cross-party political leadership that we in the United Kingdom have given on Darfur and of the contribution that our Prime Minister made, along with other international partners, in leading the United Nations to an unequivocal resolution that allowed the forces that he recognises as necessary to be deployed. That is underpinned by consistent and persistent investment in development for Darfur, and the support of others. I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware, however, that the sustainable improvement of the security of people in places such as Darfur can be supported in many other ways. One of the most important is to make an appropriate contribution to the training and development of security forces in Africa, so that people who have a direct national interest, as has been mentioned, in the settlement of some intransigent conflicts in Africa have the capability and capacity to do that. Our military personnel’s valuable ability to train others in the skills learned by the British Army over centuries has been used across Africa. My hon. Friend can rest assured that we will continue to do everything that we can to support the deployment of forces in an appropriate way. The most important part of that is to give consistent international political leadership on the issue.