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Local Government and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I heartily agree with that. Of course, this will be denied by the Government, but that is the view of the rural communities. That view is buttressed by what is happening to post offices. Lincolnshire faces a swathe of closures of apparently productive and profitable post offices that serve the community. The Public Accounts Committee constantly examines areas of waste and incompetence. We do not get involved in party politics; last week, we examined job-creation schemes. One such scheme was spending £73,000 per job, yet my constituents see that profitable, successful post offices that serve the rural community face extinction. We are talking about people who often work for small salaries and who provide an essential public service. No business case is offered for this, and gagging orders are served, so we cannot be given the facts. We write to Ministers and to the chairman of the Post Office, but we do not receive answers. The Government must address the real feeling of rural communities in this country that they are suffering in so many ways in terms of funding. Our Lincolnshire police force is at the bottom of the Government funding league—no county is more badly funded. I now come to my main theme. Places such as Lincolnshire are, for the first time in their history, faced with a wave of immigration. So many of the issues that my councillors were talking about last week were based on worries about immigration. In a sense, we can have a healthy debate, because one can now talk about immigration without being accused of indulging in racist undertones. This immigration is coming from eastern Europe. The people are extremely welcome, individually and in groups, and they are hard working. However, 40 per cent. of the children in some schools in Boston speak only a foreign language. We welcome them because they will contribute to the community and within just a few months they will learn English. Apart from having difficult, foreign-sounding names, like the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), they will be completely indistinguishable from British people in a few months. However, where is the Government funding to provide all the services that those people need? This is not a traditional immigration debate about people who have a different ethos coming to places such as Lincolnshire. This is simply a practical debate about how we ensure that the roads, schools and all the rest of it are in place to provide for people. The Government need to provide some answers. But, if we are to be honest about the immigration debate, we must also consider immigration from outside the EU. Personally, I think that the Muslim minority in this country provides an enormous amount of individuality and creativity, and is hugely beneficial. However, the Government have mishandled the whole Muslim question in two ways. First, they have been far too weak in dealing with Muslim extremism. The Government have not made it clear that people are welcome in this country, but primarily because they see themselves as British. We have only to look at the wave of Jewish immigration into this country in the early part of the 20th century to see how successful that community has been in integrating fully into our society. It is now represented in many spheres, right at the very top of society. We have to be firm with the leaders of the Muslim community and say to them, ““You are very welcome, but you have to integrate””. I am very concerned about the creation of a ghetto mentality in the Muslim community, with Muslim faith schools, in which people spend too long in an introverted system. I would much rather see them integrate fully into the education system. The other way in which the Government are mishandling the issue is in foreign and defence affairs. I shall stray a little into that area, if you will forgive me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I think that I am allowed to do so. The Government have alienated the Muslim minority in this country and throughout the world through their policies on Iraq, in particular, and Afghanistan, to a lesser extent. It is well known that I voted against the Iraq war, and I shall not go over that again. However, in the Liaison Committee over the past year, I have repeatedly asked detailed questions of the former Prime Minister, and I have also asked the Secretary of State for Defence what on earth is going on in Iraq. Answers have not been forthcoming. We have had an answer from a senior serving officer, responsible for thousands of troops, who told a Sunday newspaper that the decision to pull soldiers out of the centre of Basra last month came after commanders concluded that using Iraqi forces would be more effective. He said:"““We would go down there dressed as Robocop, shooting at people if they shot at us, and innocent people were getting hurt. We don't speak Arabic to explain and our translators were too scared to work for us any more. What benefit were we bringing to these people?””" The article also states:"““British forces have struck a deal with Shia militias to withdraw to a single base at the international airport in return for assurances that they will no longer be attacked.””" The fact is that the invasion of Iraq was a fundamental diplomatic and military disaster. It has given enormous impetus to Muslim extremism and we are still making mistakes there. We are still alienating Muslim opinion. We have got out of Basra and it appears that the only victors there are the Muslim militias. I voted against the war and I think that we should get out as soon as possible. There are also real dangers facing us in Afghanistan. I know that terrorism is a real problem there, and we should by all means go in there to deal with it. But if we think that we can impose our western liberal values on Iraq or Afghanistan, we are deluding ourselves.