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Armed Forces: Future Defence Policy

My Lords, I had the privilege of visiting Afghanistan as part of a parliamentary delegation just 12 months ago. We went to Camp Bastion and Kandahar, but we could not go to the sharp end, the forward operating bases, because of a lack of helicopter lift capacity which I shall return to in a minute. It was a privilege because one could see at first hand the professionalism, cheerfulness and dedication of the men and women of our Armed Forces. One felt alternately humbled and proud of what they were doing on our behalf. In my few minutes, I should like to address some of the issues that arose during that trip; to ask the Minister what progress has been made towards improving or resolving them over the past 12 months; and to draw to his attention some of the implications for the upcoming defence review. The first issue is the achievability of our objective, which the Government say is to provide security for the Afghan people so that, in a stable environment, they can begin to run their own affairs. A first flight over Helmand province shows the scale of the challenge: villages cling to hilltops and larger settlements string out along the valley floors. To provide security to such an area is immensely difficult, and no doubt as our forces pull back to the forward operating bases at night, the Taliban emerges and wreaks the most terrible vengeance on those who have shown any disposition to collaborate with us. The brutal truth is that there are not enough boots on the ground. We had between 25,000 and 30,000 troops in Northern Ireland, and even there we hung on to the security situation by the skin of our teeth. Helmand is altogether a different matter, and the 500 more men to be added to the 10,000 we have will make precious little difference, and there are no more troops to be had, given the present size of our Army. So the Government have to think carefully about the basic objective they have set for our Armed Forces. Secondly, I address the question of helicopter lift capacity, and here I associate myself with the remarks of my noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater, and I want to address the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. While we were there we were told that six Chinooks were available, but when you inquired more closely, there were not six available because two were permanently tasked to Special Forces use, so there were four. One of those four was tasked, quite properly, to casualty evacuation, and the other was on permanent rotational maintenance because of the hostile environment in which they have to operate; so that left two to provide heavy lift capacity for the British Army. It means that more visits have to go by road with a consequent increase in the vulnerability of our soldiers. It is not just a shortage of machines, but also a shortage of pilots to fly them. The pilot recruitment and retention process has clearly gone off the rails. Perhaps the Minister can give us the up-to-date position not only on the number of machines but on recruits and on plans for recruiting ex-RAF pilots who had gone to fly helicopters in the North Sea by offering them bonuses to re-enlist. Thirdly, I should like to address the issue of the misuse of specialist arms of our forces. The Minister made a carefully phrased point by referring to the "adverse effect on frequency of tours". The fact is that we are asking specialist engineers and communications personnel to undertake far more frequent tours than is provided for under the military compact. The Minister needs to address the point at which the balance will be redressed and people will have the time between tours that was originally allowed for. But there is a wider issue. We met the paratroopers who had taken the turbine into the Kajaki dam. One of the troopers said to me, "I have not jumped for 13 months"; that is, August 2007. Is it the Government’s policy to use paratroopers permanently in a standard infantry role? Have they had the opportunity to carry out their paratroop training since our visit last year? If they are to be used as standard infantry, there are implications for morale among those people who join up with a specialist arm in mind. Fourthly, I associate myself with the remarks of my noble friends Lord Freeman and Lady Park about long-term mental health issues for ex-servicemen. Modern explosives have hugely increased concussive power and there are concerns that even where personnel emerge undamaged physically from an IED, there is long-term mental damage. I am sure that the Minister will have seen the research from the US Army about the impact some 10 to 12 years on of exposure to these blasts. Can he tell the House what research the Government are doing in the UK, what the outcomes are so far, and what the MoD proposes to do about it? Members of the Armed Forces in Afghanistan face their daily challenges with humour, albeit often of a rather black and even macabre kind. Several quoted Kipling to me, who of course wrote extensively about Afghanistan 100 or more years ago. I therefore close with a quotation from Kipling that is relevant to our debate today. Kipling lost his only son at the battle of Loos in 1915, and he wrote a poem entitled "My Boy Jack", a few lines of which read as follows: "‘Have you news of my boy Jack?’ Not this tide. ‘When d’you think that he’ll come back?’ Not with this wind blowing, and this tide. ‘Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?’ None this tide, Nor any tide, Except he did not shame his kind— Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide". The wind and the tide are blowing strongly in Afghanistan. Our Armed Forces are not shaming us; they are doing all that could possibly be asked of them. The question we have to ask ourselves, the Government have to ask themselves, and the Minister has to ask himself, is this: are we shaming them?