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Defence in the World

I agree with my hon. Friend. We have repeatedly debated and discussed this matter, and I have repeatedly answered questions on it from the Dispatch Box. I have always had a realistic approach to it. It is a function of capacity, appropriate capability and political will. An increasing number of nations are showing the political will and developing their capacity and capability to deploy. Let me take the example of helicopters, which exercises this House. There are many thousands of helicopters throughout the world. It is debatable whether they are all well equipped enough to be capable of safe deployment into the environment of southern Afghanistan, for example, where helicopters are now flown routinely in a way in which, in the recent past, they would have been flown only by people with very special skills. That is why, in the context of the NATO summit, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced an initiative to enable the equipping and training of the pilots of those helicopters to allow their deployment. It is not just a question of saying, ““That country doesn't have people there””—we have to ask ourselves, ““Does that country have the deployable capability, and would we want those resources to be deployed alongside our own forces in that environment?”” We are improving in all those respects in the international community and with our allies daily. That is reflected in my hon. Friend's comments.