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Afghanistan

The timing of the new announcement was dictated by the decisions that were made. Once they had been made, I determined that I would come to the House at the earliest possible opportunity to explain them. Unfortunately, I had to be at a NATO meeting last week, on Thursday and Friday, otherwise I would have been able to make the statement earlier. I always try to make statements to the House at the earliest possible opportunity. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's introductory remarks and am delighted that he and his party are in exactly the same place as the significant majority of those in the House and, indeed, in the other place in respect of what we are seeking to do in Afghanistan. Of course, many people say that the mission is impossible. They either say that it cannot be done and we should not be engaged in Afghanistan, or they misrepresent the situation. They do exactly what I suspect the hon. Gentleman fears in respect of the coincidence of the visit of the President of the United States and the statement, which is to look at everything that we do militarily through the prism of Iraq. That is deeply unhelpful. I have spent a lot of my time as Secretary of State trying to persuade our media that Afghanistan is the right place for our people to be. The fact that 40 countries are involved and that many of the most developed social democratic countries in the world are present with troops on the ground is an indication of just how right it is. This morning I had a conversation with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, in which his support for what we are seeking to do in the context of the Security Council resolution was completely unwavering. We all have a responsibility to try to shift British public opinion. I believe that it has shifted in relation to the rightness of the mission and the military objectives, and we now have to shift it in relation to the progress being made in all the other complementary parts of the comprehensive approach and explain to them that we need strategic patience in order to do what we are doing in a very difficult and challenging environment. As for counter-narcotics, this year we will, as usual, have to wait for the official count as regards the assessment of the poppy crop, but early indications suggest that we have stabilised or reduced the production of poppy. There may be several reasons for that. The hon. Gentleman rightly identifies that that generates an opportunity. The whole focus of our efforts in northern Helmand is designed to put together the secure spaces that we have generated and to control the ability to communicate between them. That is part of the key to creating a secure logistical environment for moving other, legitimate, crops around so that they will not be taken advantage of by the Taliban. That will be key to building sustainable alternative crops for the farmers in Helmand province.