---

Defence in the World

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. I suspect we will never know quite why it was, but the discussion that the hon. Member for Woodspring imagined taking place in the Leader of the House's office sounded altogether authentic to my way of thinking. Although the debate does, in a sense, mark the end of most of our activity in Iraq, I am sure, and hope very much, that we will regularly debate not only the state of security in that country and the wider region but the progress of economic development—a subject that has been mentioned—so that we can judge over the longer term what the overall impact of the west's involvement there has been. However, our attention now rightly focuses largely on Afghanistan, where our troops are working tirelessly, but where it is widely recognised that we have a long, hard job still to do. There is no prospect, in any way, of a quick fix. The death toll has risen quickly in recent weeks, and the insurgents are constantly employing new and ever more deadly methods, to which we have to find new ways of responding. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), who speaks in the House on defence procurement matters, said in response to a question on Monday in this Chamber that more and more equipment was being delivered to the front line, and we have to hope that that is right. In some cases, he did not give many indications of numbers and quantities; I suppose that he might reasonably say that he would not want to broadcast some of that information. However, we still have serious ongoing concerns, both about the provision of armoured vehicles—I readily acknowledge the significant progress that has been made on that—and about helicopter lift capacity, which will become a real problem the longer the engagement goes on in Afghanistan. I think that it was the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) who tabled a question some months ago about the likely availability of helicopters in years to come, as existing helicopters go out of commission. Making even the most optimistic assumptions about the in-service date for new helicopters that will follow, one can see that there are serious problems coming up in the next few years. I still do not feel that we have heard any adequate response from the Government on how we will get our helicopter lift capacity up to that which the troops need in Afghanistan. I welcome initiatives such as the one that the Government undertook with the French Government to try to boost the availability of helicopters at a European level, but thus far, I do not think that it has yielded much. I hope that they will stick at it, though, and I hope that more NATO countries will provide helicopters for the operation. However, the last time I saw an answer on the subject, only three had been committed; they were from the Czech Republic. The lack of helicopter capacity is becoming a big issue. People have been going on about it for a long time, but I just do not feel that a response commensurate to the challenge has been forthcoming. I know that we await decisions on some routine procurements, whether they be from AgustaWestland or whoever, but I wonder whether the sheer scale of the problem will require interim solutions to be found, even if ultimately longer-term solutions will point in a different direction. There is an availability of helicopters, although they are possibly not of the sort of capability that we would ideally want in the helicopters that we will build and develop in the long term. However, there are short-term solutions, if the Government are willing to consider them. It has already been said in this debate that any consideration of Afghanistan increasingly needs to take into account the situation in Pakistan. Obviously, the Americans have done that by appointing a single envoy to deal with both problems. There are very worrying developments that should cause us all concern. The unstable state in Pakistan is greatly worrying. Although its Government's forces have hit back seemingly quite effectively recently, the underlying problems are there for all to see. Also, increasingly reports are coming through of Taliban elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan coming together—up to now they have had certain tensions, and there have been difficulties between them—because they recognise that they have a new challenge to face, particularly as America is committing more troops to Afghanistan. It is hard to predict or sense exactly how that will play out on the ground, but it raises the point that, as far as quite authoritative reports would have us believe, the Pakistan intelligence agency had, for good or ill, been providing resources to the Afghanistan elements of the Taliban in anticipation of having to deal with them at some point after the west had completed its operations in Afghanistan. Those elements are now cosying up to the Pakistan Taliban, so we end up with the possibility—by no means unprecedented—that the Pakistani military will find itself confronting an enemy to whom it has contributed arms and equipment. That, I hope, will at the very least give it pause for thought in terms of the future, because there is a self-perpetuating cycle in the region, whereby funds that are given for one purpose end up having a completely different and unanticipated impact. The spill-over between the two countries is potentially difficult, because to date NATO's Afghanistan operation has relied very much on safe and easy routes through Pakistan and on the resolute support of Pakistan. The question of whether in the future we will be able to count on that to anything like the same degree worries me considerably. I, like the official Opposition's Front-Bench team, have said in previous defence debates that there is a long overdue need for a strategic defence review. It remains a mystery to me why the Government, uniquely, do not seem to think it necessary. We know that the Ministry of Defence is under intense budgetary pressure: there is, by anyone's reckoning, a black hole in its budget; we regularly discuss in the House the impact of overstretch and ongoing operations; and we know that the difficulties, needs and demands on the defence budget will increase inexorably year on year. However, we know also that, in the wake of the economic crisis, the next Government will have a major task on their hands to try to control public expenditure in such a fashion that restores some equilibrium to the nation's finances. They will have to take some immensely difficult decisions, balancing the different demands on the public purse which will come from the different Departments. In that context, in particular, a strategic defence review is absolutely fundamental and necessary. We have to ask the basic question, what does the nation expect its armed forces to do in the years to come and how can we achieve that? The question has also to be asked, are we all still of the view, as I am, that we should continue the task set out in the previous strategic defence review of acting as a force for good throughout the world? Some have called it liberal interventionism, and if the answer is yes, that we are, what are its implications for manpower, equipment and expenditure? If those of us who believe that we should remain willing to play such a part want to take the public with us and convince them that, in the climate that I have described, painful and difficult choices have to be made between competing demands on the public purse, the only way in which we can hope to do so is by having a major national debate about the armed forces' role and the resources that should be made available to them. The only sensible way to go about that is through a Government-conducted defence review, and I very much hope that, whatever Government are in power after the election, which cannot be far away, they will see that, if we want to continue to play such a part, we need to take the public with us.