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Democratic Republic of the Congo

The whole House is indebted to the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Joyce), not just for sharing his knowledge with us today but for the work that he does on the all-party parliamentary group. I share many of his concerns, and I hope that the Minister will take particular note of his comments. He, like the Minister, is right to say that ultimately, we need a political solution. It is a shared position on both sides of the House that, frankly, we do not believe that the British armed forces have the capacity—at least in the immediate future—to contribute in large number to any extra troops that go to eastern Congo. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that MONUC needs some reinforcement. In our view, it was impossible for it to do the job asked of it prior to the current crisis—let alone in the light of the current crisis around Goma—without reinforcements. I think that he and I agree that the Government need to go a little further on this. It is not credible to argue that the objectives of defending Goma, maintaining the immediate ceasefire—such as it is—and disarming the Hutu militia in the medium term can be met without MONUC's being reinforced. I do not accept that we can deal with this just by redeploying the existing MONUC forces. The Minister keeps saying that this is the largest UN deployment across the world, but Congo is the size of western Europe. He may say that most of the problem is in the Kivu region, but as the hon. Member for Falkirk reminded us, MONUC is having to deploy in a whole range of different areas in Congo—in the Ituru and in north DRC. So MONUC is really stretched, and I do not accept the Government's position that this can be dealt with simply by redeployment; there needs to be extra capacity. That is what Alan Doss believes and what the UN's own peacekeeper office has argued for. The possibility of an EU force has been discussed in this House and elsewhere, and like the hon. Member for Falkirk, I am concerned that it is the British Government who have talking that possibility down. It has been suggested that President Sarkozy and others in the EU have been keen to see this force, but it is the Brits who have been talking it off the table. I hope that that is not so, and that the Minister who replies will answer that point. What has the British Government been doing about the EU proposal, and why are they not championing that idea to ensure that our European partners provide some troops in this crisis when they are needed?