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Defence in the UK

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I am not suggesting abandoning completely movements on the ground or the broader role on the ground that he describes. I welcome the new vehicles that are going out and anticipate that there will probably need to be more in the future, but as part of the overall mix we need more helicopters. We need the best equipped and protected helicopters. We need to ensure that they are of the highest possible standard. We need to meet new crashworthiness requirements and we need a balanced mix. Above all, we need those helicopters quickly. If we look forward to 2013 and 2020, decisions will need to be made very soon if we are not to have a situation in the future that is even worse than the situation now. The hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) made some points about communications. He was right to touch on some of the difficulties arising from some of the statements that have been reported about the situation in Afghanistan. Attention is increasingly turning to Afghanistan as our role diminishes in Iraq. As the hon. Gentleman said, in the past week or two we have heard two interesting contributions from very well-placed people, one of whom was the most senior British commander in Afghanistan in recent months, who made the comments as he finished his time there. I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that the British commander was not really saying anything very new, anything very different or anything particularly shocking. However, the way that his comments have been written up in the media is bound to confuse members of the public, who, regrettably, have not bought into what we are doing in Afghanistan in the way in which I would have liked them to have been. That will not have been assisted in any way by those reports. Similarly, the British ambassador in Kabul seems to have made some very interesting observations. Whether he had anticipated their being quite so widely circulated, I am not sure, but he has made some interesting observations about the difference between our approach and that of the Americans. In particular, I am thinking of the American actions within Pakistan's border regions, which are clearly causing a great deal of trouble in Pakistan and, probably, a fair few headaches in Afghanistan, too. Again, the Government have a real challenge on their hands. They must come out and explain afresh what we are doing in Afghanistan and clarify some of the confusions that will have grown up in the public mind. I say that in the knowledge that marines from the west country, including 1,000 or so from Chivenor in my constituency, have gone out to Afghanistan, taking over from the Paras. I worry about what their families understand to be the purpose, the challenge and the state of what we are doing in Afghanistan in the light of the reports that they must be reading in their newspapers. We wish them well, but I believe that the Government need to restate the case for what we are doing out there. I fear that we need to hear what exactly the British view of the new American strategy is. We need to join up defence and reconstruction, as has been said, to ensure that we can create a long-term picture of a viable state able to survive on its own. The biggest problem for the new ministerial team remains that of overstretch. We could begin to address that if we were to get out of Iraq entirely. The sooner we do that, the sooner the team will be able to make any meaningful headway in tackling overstretch. Finally, I pay tribute to all those in the armed forces at home and abroad, to those who have come back from their tour of duty and to those who are preparing to go, and to all who train, support and equip them. It is vital that they understand that in this House everybody very much appreciates what they are doing. There is a duty on us all to try to explain to the public what the troops are doing and to ensure that they succeed in these very necessary tasks, which they are carrying out in our national interests.