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Defence Policy

I am concerned about two aspects of my right hon. Friend’s remarks. First, as I made perfectly clear when answering an intervention on my speech, I realise that one can grow poppy in places other than Afghanistan. If we do not deal with consumption while at the same time seeking to deal with supply, then for as long as there is a market here in the developed world for heroin, somebody, somewhere, will grow poppy in order to produce it. I well understand that; his point is redundant if he seeks to persuade me of it. Much more importantly, does not my right hon. Friend realise—I hope that he will develop this point, because there is no discord across the House regarding his argument about where the priority of our military effort should lie—that a significant amount of the insurgency in Afghanistan is paid for by the production of heroin, so there is a direct correlation between that and the violence that is visited on the people of Afghanistan and directed at our troops?