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Defence Policy

May I start by asking you, Mr. Speaker, whether you had a moment to read the first few lines of the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), because many of us are going to be squeezed for time? I shall, thus, try to cut short what I was going to say in order to allow others to get in. I wish to draw the House's memory back to July, when, in one horrendous day in Afghanistan, five members of 9 Platoon, C Company, 2nd Battalion The Rifles were killed. Many years before that, I commanded 9 Platoon, C Company, which was then in the 1st Battalion The Royal Green Jackets. July was a very intense time for me, so what must it have been like for the families of those who were wounded, the families of those who were killed and the general family of the regiment at that time? It must have been too awful to contemplate. It was deeply depressing at that time to hear Ministers say that those deaths and injuries were not caused by a shortage of helicopters. That is technically correct, but we all know, as does anyone who has been involved with the operations in this part of Afghanistan and as do their families, that if we had even a fraction more lift per head of people deployed, which is enjoyed by, for example, the United States forces, we would be able to have a much wider footprint in that area and we would be able to be unpredictable. Thus, we would be able to dominate the ground and limit the opportunities for the enemy to create this awful daisy-chain network of improvised explosive devices that has been so damaging to our young men. I get the big picture of what we are doing in Afghanistan—I understand all the arguments made this afternoon by more eloquent people than I about the need to create stability in the region and the risks of getting this wrong. However, I have had to work pretty hard to get my head around it, and I am certain that many people outside this House do not understand what we are doing there. The Government have a major job to do to get the public to understand the importance of our mission there. It was brought home to me more recently—just the week before last, when I went to the Selly Oak facility—how difficult it is to raise one's mind above what is happening to the young men and women whom we are sending to serve in this part of the world. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) in paying tribute to the Defence Medical Services. Particular praise should go to Brigadier Chris Parker, who has revolutionised Selly Oak, along with others before him—he certainly would not want me to label him as being the only saint, because there are a great many. It is a remarkable place to visit, and we must understand that he is fighting in that unit every bit as operationally as those right on the front line in Afghanistan. I also visited Norton House, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association—SSAFA—accommodation for families, and I pay tribute to its wonderful atmosphere and to the wonderful people who run it. Most of all, I pay tribute to the way in which DMS has embedded itself in the hospital trusts in Birmingham—we should understand that we are not only talking about Selly Oak hospital, but a range of facilities. Such embedding is entirely the right policy and it should have the universal support of everyone in this House. I also pay tribute to the support that now exists for the development of the Army recovery centres, and I speak as a trustee of Help for Heroes, to which some hon. Members have been kind enough to pay tribute today. Such support offers a further opportunity to address some of the points made by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) and others: we must not only look after people when they are recovering from their wounds, but remember that we must give them lifelong protection, because the latent mental health repercussions of injuries might need to be revisited. I am full of admiration for the development of that new concept of care. We have to understand that those who are serving in Afghanistan are having to dig pretty deep into the manual that they perhaps have not looked at since they were at Sandhurst, but that is part of their DNA. I think that it is called "Serve to Lead". They have to dig pretty deep in leadership terms at battalion level, company commander level, platoon level and even section commander level. They are having to think very hard about ways of motivating their men to do extremely dangerous work. It is remarkable what they can achieve. I heard, for example, of a platoon commander who had to buy a goat from tribesmen in order to ensure that his men had enough to eat. I am not criticising the Government—when one is on operations, one has to make do. I know that from experience. When re-supply does not happen, one has to think and to think fast. Some remarkable things—