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Queen’s Speech

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, particularly on what he said about the importance of pressing President Karzai to get a grip on the situation concerning corruption. It seems to me that, at the moment, a great ball of anxiety is hanging over this country. In all conscience, there is plenty to be anxious about. At the centre of that depression lies our military commitment in Afghanistan, which featured strongly in the powerful debate in your Lordships’ House about a fortnight ago. It is so important that I do not apologise for returning to it today. It was common ground in that debate that we are at war in Afghanistan with the Taliban and, through it, with al-Qaeda. It is a war that I want to make clear I support; it is a war that we have to win. However, support in this country for the war is dubious, at best, and the support that it attracts is repeatedly and understandably shaken by every fatal military casualty that it, like all other wars, exacts. I find that worrying, because you cannot sustain a modern war if you do not have the support of the country behind you. I remember a noble and gallant Lord saying to me once that the very first thing that soldiers on active service said to him when he visited them was, "Is the country behind us? Is the country behind what we are being asked to do?". I can well believe that that is the case, so it is important to identify why this war increasingly lacks the support that it needs if we are to win it. I offer your Lordships two principal reasons and a possible remedy, or at least a signpost towards a remedy. The first reason is clear: people, as yet, are simply not persuaded that their lives would be made more dangerous in London, Cardiff, Leeds or Liverpool if we were to pull out and the Taliban could resume control over the whole of Afghanistan. The Government, I fear, have signally failed to win acceptance to that. I say that with regret, because I am persuaded that the Government’s case is right, but it is not easy to persuade people of that. People ask whether, even if the Taliban were to be driven from Afghanistan—and that is a pretty big if, given the nature of the country—it would not simply transfer to Waziristan. They ask, "What is this we hear about Somalia and other places that it could go to?". They ask, perhaps unjustifiably, "Is Pakistan really sufficiently to be relied on to help us, or is it more preoccupied with squaring up to India?". I am sure that the Government know that and have answers, but I do not think that they appreciate their need to do much more to convince people of their case. It will not be easy—not least because Ministers are so associated nowadays with spin, which is a disability that they brought on themselves—but they must publish as much supporting evidence for their case as possible. The consequences of failure are so great that some exceptional risks with intelligence may well be justified. The second main reason why support for the war is falling away lies in the perception that our military commitment in Afghanistan is open-ended. We have been told that we shall be there for as long as it takes to hold the ring, as it were, until a secure and democratic Afghan Government are in place, capable of defeating the Taliban and running a decent country. I fear that after the fiasco, or worse, of the recent general election in that country, riddled with corruption and invalidated by it as it was, people find the fulfilment of that vision hard to envisage. I am sure that the objective is the right one and that to leave before it is achieved would be—the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, reflected on this in relation to his visit to the medal parade on his regiment’s return the other day—to squander the sacrifices that have been made and to throw away the progress that has been made. It would be to court humiliation and contempt on the world stage. Several noble Lords have adverted to that. The trouble is that people have not been given any sufficient idea as to how the Government and their allies propose to go about securing that much-to-be-desired development. That leaves their scepticism about the whole operation unshaken. It all seems so amorphous and unspecific. My suggestion is that, as a first step, the objective should be given a much sharper focus. At the heart of it, a viable democracy must have public confidence that those who hold public office will do their jobs without being bribed and that, for those who proffer bribes to them, there will be no place other than prison. I suggest that the first step be to press President Karzai to put in place an independent structure to root out bribery—if necessary, with expatriate personnel to start with. There is a well tried example in Hong Kong, where since 1974 there has been a specialised Independent Commission against Corruption. It was given from the beginning a clear and simple strategy to implement: all pursuable allegations of bribery are to be investigated with a view to prosecution and the public are to be educated about the evils of corruption and bribery and persuaded to support the fight. I know that Hong Kong is not Afghanistan—for example, the rule of law was already well established there—but can we afford to ignore the results of that exercise? In the 1960s and 1970s, Hong Kong was one of the world’s worst sumps of corruption; now, it is seen as one of the world’s least corrupt places. At an early stage, the public began to notice the difference and they approved. They moved from expecting a culture of bribery to requiring a culture of integrity. The commission is now an untouchable icon. If we can secure the establishment of such a commission with such a remit, an essential foundation for a viable democratic Government will have been laid. If, on the other hand, we try first to put in place some comprehensive framework for good governance, any attempts to install specific reforms are liable to be frustrated by pre-existing and uneradicated corruption. I hope that when winding up the debate the Minister will offer some thoughts on that and, in particular, will say what significance the Government are inviting President Karzai to attach to the Hong Kong example of what can be achieved.