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Defence Policy

May I start by paying my own tribute to the fallen, to their families, to the families of all servicemen and women serving abroad and, indeed, to our remarkable servicemen and women, wherever they may be? I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Havard) said. Indeed, I was also in Washington last week. The McChrystal paper is required reading for anyone who wishes to take an interest in Afghanistan. I am quire sure that he is correct, and I detect behind his paper the hand of a very senior—now, sadly, retired—British officer, Lieutenant-General Sir Graeme Lamb, who is advising General McChrystal closely and from whom many ideas to which the hon. Gentleman referred derive. I shall deal with four separate points, because the general Afghanistan question has been very well covered by other people and will be covered by others. First, I pay a tremendous tribute to the work of the Defence Medical Services and congratulate them on their achievements on operations. They have been through a torrid and difficult time, which flowed from substantial but necessary changes at the end of the cold war. I do not think that anyone believed it possible that they would be involved as they are today, but they are now the world leaders in trauma medicine, and soldiers who would normally have died are surviving on the battlefield. That is a great thing. Survival rates are beating all expectations, but those survivors, bless them, will present problems for the whole Government and for our country in terms of looking after them for the rest of their lives, and we must ensure that we honour those obligations. I think it extraordinary what surgeons, nurses and others achieve while working in field conditions in one of the most hostile environments in the world.