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Conflict Prevention

I will try to be as brief as possible, Mr. Martlew. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) on securing this debate. There is a sense of irony in having this debate at this point in time, because we have just lost the 255th soldier in Afghanistan, which matches the loss of life in the Falklands. Furthermore, the US and the UK are preparing for the largest battle of the Afghan war so far. There is a sense of irony, but if anything, that gives a sense of urgency to the debate about conflict prevention. It has been interesting to see the movement over the past eight years, and the momentum that has been building in the search for an alternative route to avoid conflicts rather than to pursue them. That has been found across all parties, but it has been driven by the Government and from deep within the heart of the military, as seen in some of the statements that we have had. I congratulate my colleagues the hon. Members for North Southwark and Bermondsey and for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter), who are joint chairs of the all-party group on conflict issues. I apologise that they have had to shoulder the burden of the all-party group for a couple of years, while I have been battling to save the homes of my constituents at Heathrow—that is another debate, which I will not go in to. I would also like to put on record my tribute to Eddy Canfor-Dumas and all his colleagues who have supported us on a voluntary basis to develop the all-party group. They have shouldered the burden of the hard work. I came to these discussions in 2003 when, as a result of the work done by Diana Basterfield and others, I introduced a ten-minute Bill to promote a ministry for peace. The concept of the ministry for peace was about having an alternative route to that of conflict, in which the paradigm is changed so that expressions such as, ““the best form of defence is attack”” are seen as wrong. The best form of defence is actually securing peace and preventing conflict. How do we do that? Well, instead of having ministries of war or defence, we should imbed the search for peace in the heart of the Government by establishing a ministry for peace. It is a simple concept that has been taken up by the Government. I pay tribute to the infrastructure that has been put in place by the Government and to the personal role that the Prime Minister has played in pursuing conflict prevention at the heart of the Government. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey mentioned some of the structures put in place in recent years, but establishing the conflict prevention pool was a major breakthrough, bringing together the Treasury, the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DFID not only to co-ordinate a pool of resources and their work, but to bid competitively for resources to demonstrate how successful they could be in securing peace. That was a real breakthrough. The stabilisation unit has been developed. That is another joint unit involving the FCO, DFID and the MOD. Within the FCO, there is a unit that deals with conflict issues but specifically considers human rights. That is another agenda issue that has been discussed time and again in Adjournment debates but that the Government have now taken up. DFID has its own conflict, humanitarian and security department, which is tackling humanitarian, conflict and security and justice issues, particularly those underpinning poverty. Mention has been made of PSA 30. At least we have something that gives us a reporting-back mechanism, with some targets on time scales. We know the weaknesses and vagaries of it, but at least we are moving in the right direction. I was encouraged by the statement from Sir David Richards, the Chief of the General Staff, in January. It is worth putting on the record as a statement of intent from the military. He said:"““We must put much more emphasis on preventing conflict, on ensuring fragile states do not become the Afghanistan of tomorrow. Whilst this is much more than a military role, we must be structured and resourced to play what can often be a key part… We must get this balance right.””" We concur with that across the all-party group.