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Afghanistan and the EU Council

I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman spent most of his time raising issues that were not even discussed at the European Council. It would have been better if he had addressed in a bit more detail all the issues that I put to the House this afternoon. The first issue was those matters that relate to Afghanistan. It is very important to recognise that there is all-party agreement on these matters and not to exaggerate any differences between us at this particularly sensitive time, when more troops are going into Afghanistan, when we are persuading the Afghan forces to increase their numbers in Helmand province, and when we are trying to extend civilian and military co-operation so that we can tackle the Taliban insurgency effectively by weakening them and strengthening the Afghan state. I said to the right hon. Gentleman that we were increasing our presence in Helmand, but so, too, is the American presence in Helmand increasing. The number of troops in Helmand will go up from something in the order of 20,000 to 30,000 over the next few months. That will include, of course, the Afghan army's making a bigger contribution in Helmand. Over time, the balance will change between the alliance forces—if I can put it that way—and the Afghan forces. By 2011, across the whole of Afghanistan, the Afghan forces will exceed the alliance forces. On top of that, we have the Afghan police numbers, too. That is our policy for the gradual Afghanisation of security control. In that way, district by district and province by province, we can transfer to Afghan control. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that when I met the Afghan forces in Helmand yesterday, who were training on anti-explosive devices, those whom I talked to came from all different parts of the country to Helmand, both to be trained and to form part of a more effective army for the whole of Afghanistan in the long run. I said that we were proposing that humanitarian and civilian issues related to the co-ordination of the effort of Afghanistan were to be a main feature of the London conference. Now that Mr. Kai Eide has resigned as the UN representative—I believe that he will stay on until March, but he is retiring after that—we will, in my view, have to appoint both a representative from ISAF and one from NATO. I talked about this to the Secretary-General of NATO this afternoon. There will be a UN appointment and there will also be a NATO appointment. It is important to recognise that all these interests must be represented, but there must be greater co-ordination at the centre. As far as Afghanistan in general is concerned, I hope that Members of the House will feel that the measures that we are taking to deal with IEDs are important in protecting our troops and in destroying the morale of the Taliban. I have to say that when I was in Afghanistan yesterday, it was reported to me that 1,500 IEDs had been detected and dismantled through the expertise of our forces and, in particular, that of the engineers, who do such important work. If we can continue to defuse and dismantle, and therefore disable, these IEDs, we can reduce the rate of casualties that we have suffered over the past year—80 per cent. of casualties throughout Afghanistan and among British forces are due to IEDs. It is therefore absolutely essential that we take all the measures that I announced today to increase our effort to deal with them. I turn now to Iran. It is true that we have been at the forefront of proposing sanctions on Iran, but it is also true that taking unilateral action without getting European support and the support of the rest of the world would not yield the impact that we want. We are working with our European partners and with the rest of the international community so that the agreed and unanimous approach to what Iran has done can yield practical results in sanctions that actually work. The right hon. Gentleman also raised issues regarding the European Council. At the Council, we discussed a timetable for resolving budget issues, we discussed economic co-operation across Europe and we discussed the fiscal stimulus that has been necessary to bring the economy forward and to move economies out of recession. I have to tell him that there are 12 European economies still in recession and that a number of economies, including Germany, have suffered a far worse recession than we have. We have the highest employment rate in the G7, and unemployment here is lower than in most other countries that are comparable to us, as a result of the action that we have taken. I have to say to the Conservatives that there is agreement at the European Council that we needed fiscal stimulus so that the economy could move forward, agreement that we should have taken action to restructure the banks, agreement that the fiscal stimulus should continue, and agreement that we must all take action against unemployment and to help small businesses in these difficulties by providing Government funds. The only group that seems to stand outside that agreement within Europe and the rest of the world is the Conservative party that is represented on the Opposition Benches. On climate change, it is incredibly important that the voice of this House, from all parties in the House, says that we want developing and developed countries to work together to secure an agreement. That is why our offer of support is right if we are to get an agreement that shows developing countries that we mean business in tackling the issues that they face most of all as a result of climate change. That is why we were the leaders in a European agreement that has ensured that very substantial funds—about $3.5 billion a year—will go to helping developing countries adapt to and mitigate climate change, including through action on forestry. But we have a great deal of work still to do, because we have to get an agreement about the longer term as well as the short term. We have to get an agreement about intermediate targets and about transparency in all the issues that we undertake. I think that we in Britain have led the way with a climate change Act, and we have led the way with an announcement that we will be active in providing long-term finance to help developing countries. We have suggested a figure of $10 billion as a fast-track initiative for both the European Union and the rest of the world to follow, and there is now virtual agreement on that. We will continue to press for a just and fair settlement at Copenhagen. The reason why I want to go there tomorrow is to talk to all the parties about what we can do together. The reason why I think the Opposition should support Britain's being present is that we have led the way on the millennium development goals, we have led the way on debt relief, we have led the way on international economic co-operation, we have led the way on the restructuring of the banks and we are leading the way on climate change—something the Opposition could never do.