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Afghanistan and Pakistan

My Lords, I welcome the Statement. Along with other Members of this House and Members of another place, I visited Afghanistan in February of this year. I think that all of us were enormously impressed by the professionalism, to say nothing of the courage, of our troops there. They have undoubtedly suffered deaths and, perhaps more worrying, sometimes horrific injuries for the benefit of all of us. The Statement makes it clear that the strategy is to deny al-Qaeda a permissive base from which to conduct and launch terrorist operations and for training, and that, for that happen, there has to be a space for a stable Afghanistan to work. Perhaps I may ask my noble friend about two issues. The first relates to governance, because it is clear that it is key to the strategy. There are worrying aspects to it: the flawed presidential election; the endemic corruption, not only at the higher level but also, worryingly, within the Afghan police; and concern about some of the laws that have been proposed. How is progress on governance to be measured? Will my noble friend give a commitment to a regular review and report-back by the Government to Parliament on how governance is being strengthened and what progress is being made? Secondly, does she agree that, if successful, the benefits of the strategy to the Afghan people are obvious in terms of economic progress and greater freedom? These are issues which I believe the British people would endorse. Does my noble friend agree also that our strategy should be not just to deny terrorism but also to improve life for the Afghan people?