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G8 and G20 Summits

My Lords, first, can the noble Lord shed a little more light on the Prime Minister’s thinking on withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan by 2015? It was always the view in the past, as I understood it, that giving a date for withdrawal would be like signalling to the Taliban and al-Qaeda how long they would have to hold out before they would not have any opposition on the ground. My concern is that many people will think that this gives the Taliban and al-Qaeda an opportunity to scale down what they are doing, gather their resources and armaments, bring in fresh recruits and simply re-emerge when the foreign troops have departed. I wonder if the noble Lord can help me on that. Secondly, the Statement says that the biggest stimulus that we can give the world economy today is the expansion of trade. Can the noble Lord tell us when the Government are planning to appoint a Minister dedicated to trade promotion? I know that, among his many other duties, Mr Mark Prisk has been appointed pro tem to look at trade—but the fact is that he has many other duties. Previously, the noble Lord, Lord Digby Jones, my noble friend Lord Mervyn Davies, and indeed I myself were dedicated to trade promotion and expansion. When will the Government be able to match what they are encouraging the world to do by doing a little better at home?