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Afghanistan and Yemen

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement. Before turning to Afghanistan, may I ask a couple of questions about the meeting on Yemen? We welcome both that meeting and the creation of a Friends of Yemen group, but is he confident that the Government of Yemen will take the urgent and concrete action on political and economic reform that they pledged to take when they were at the meeting? Did he detect a willingness from our European and other international allies to devote resources to the sort of specific initiatives that Britain and the United States have started in Yemen to buttress those efforts? I join the Foreign Secretary in paying tribute to the men and women who are serving in Afghanistan, whose work I have also seen for myself in recent weeks. I also pay tribute to their families here in Britain and to the 251 service personnel who have given their lives. I agree with his description of 2010 as a "decisive year" for Afghanistan. We welcome the hosting of the conference in London, and we support its conclusions. Like the Government, we are committed to ensuring that there is sufficient stability in Afghanistan for Afghans to look after their own security without presenting a danger to the rest of the world. To that end, the strategy that has been adopted in recent months must be given time and support to succeed, and must be accompanied by a viable political process alongside our military efforts. I want to ask about three main areas: the military strategy, the political strategy and the transition to Afghan control. On the military strategy, we welcome the decisions taken by other countries to commit additional manpower. Can the Foreign Secretary say how many of the 9,000 additional non-US forces that have been announced will be stationed in the south, where the heaviest fighting is? Will every effort be made to ensure that the use of those forces will not be hampered by restrictive rules of engagement? One new benchmark is the achievement of a total of 300,000 Afghan security forces by October next year. Can he tell us the projected cost of that expansion? Is he satisfied that the Afghan state will be able to meet the cost that that will entail over the long term? Can he assure the House that NATO trainers and mentors will be in place in sufficient numbers to achieve that target? The conference communiqué urges countries to provide more support for the reform of the Afghan national police. Can he say when the detail of that support will be fleshed out? Can he confirm that there is still no agreed national strategy for the reform of the police? When does he expect that finally to be in place? On the civilian aspects of the strategy, we welcome the appointment of a new NATO Civilian Representative and a new UN special representative. As it is also intended that there will be a new EU special representative with strengthened powers, what mechanism is being put in place to co-ordinate the work of those three officials to avoid the duplication that has happened in the past? On the political strategy, does the Foreign Secretary agree that the fairness and credibility of the elections that are now scheduled for September are of huge importance, given what happened in the presidential elections? Does he think it is the true intention of the Afghan authorities to run a seriously improved electoral process? How will confidence be given to opposition parties that they will be given a fair chance to compete in those elections? Corruption is one of the key problems that needs to be addressed by the Karzai Government. The communiqué talks about""empowering an independent High Office of Oversight"," Can he shed some light on the composition and powers that are intended for that office? As the Foreign Secretary has said, at the conference there was a major focus on the new Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund. Can he provide more detail about how the expenditure of that huge amount of money will be overseen? Who will be responsible for the distribution of the funds at a regional level, and how will oversight be ensured? Is he confident that the scheme will be designed to avoid creating perverse incentives for non-combatants to join the insurgency in order to benefit from the fund later? In his evidence to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, the Foreign Secretary proposed "relocation and deradicalisation programmes" for former Taliban members. Can he say whether such programmes have now been agreed and, if so, where they will take place and whether any lead nation will take responsibility for them? It is well known that Taliban elements operate in Pakistan's border area, posing a threat to both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Does he therefore envisage any of those funds being channelled to the Pakistani Government for the same purposes, or will we encourage that Government to make their own arrangements? On the final issue—the handover—the conference said that a number of provinces, but an unspecified number, would be transferred to Afghan control by the end of this year or by the start of 2011. Can the Foreign Secretary say whether that timetable has slipped, given the Prime Minister's specific commitment in November that five Afghan provinces needed to transferred by the end of 2010? The communiqué says that the goal is that Afghan forces take responsibility for physical security within five years, but President Karzai says that the training and equipping of Afghan security forces may take up to 10 years and that they will need outside assistance for up to 15 years. Does the Foreign Secretary share those assessments? The goals set at the London conference are important and worth while in our view, but we must remember that many of the commitments made at the last London conference on Afghanistan in 2006 have never been met. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that this time around, as the British public wait to see whether progress can really be made and whether our military effort can succeed, delivery on the commitments that have been made is absolutely indispensable?