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Afghanistan

My Lords, like many other noble Lords, I welcome this additional contribution to the means to help Afghanistan obtain the end that we want and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, I welcome in particular the military commitment and the additional equipment and helicopters, which are as welcome to the Afghan army as they are to anyone else. However, I shall repeat a question I asked during the debate on defence we had some two weeks ago. Will these additional resources include equipment required by our forces to train before they go to Afghanistan, rather than merely receiving the equipment when they get there? Without practicing on it, their effectiveness is unnecessarily delayed at the moment that they arrive.