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Adjournment debate on Tuesday, 8 December 2009, in the House of Commons, led by Paul Flynn. The answering member was Ivan Lewis.

Afghanistan Strategy

Westminster Hall adjournment debate on the Afghanistan strategy.

Secondary information

Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
502 c1-24WH 
Session
2009-10
Department
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Chamber / Committee
Westminster Hall
Proceeding contributions
Ed Davey | 502 c14-7WH (Link to this contribution) I congratulate the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) on securing this debate. We need many ...
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c17WH (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is about to sit down, so I thought that I would seek clarification. As with so ma...
Show all contributions (61)
Ed Davey | 502 c17WH (Link to this contribution) I do not think that I could have been clearer. Certainly, Ministers have recognised our position dur...
Keith Simpson | 502 c17-8WH (Link to this contribution) It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Fraser. May I congratulate the hon. Member for...
Keith Simpson | 502 c18WH (Link to this contribution) As I raised the subject, of course I will give way.
Paul Flynn | 502 c18WH (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c19WH (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case for the importance of exposing a strategy. Does he agr...
Paul Flynn | 502 c18WH (Link to this contribution) I am well acquainted with the military career of Siegfried Sassoon at Mametz Wood, where he fought w...
Keith Simpson | 502 c18-9WH (Link to this contribution) I will beg to disagree. Both my grandfathers served in the first world war, and they had no doubt as...
Paul Flynn | 502 c19WH (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Keith Simpson | 502 c19WH (Link to this contribution) Yes, I do. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), who speaks on behalf of the Libera...
Keith Simpson | 502 c19-21WH (Link to this contribution) Reluctantly, I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will excuse me. I have only a few minutes left and we...
Ivan Lewis | 502 c21WH (Link to this contribution) I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) on securing this important A...
Paul Flynn | 502 c21WH (Link to this contribution) You have distorted what I said.
Paul Flynn | 502 c21WH (Link to this contribution) That is an utter distortion. Of course there is a threat from terrorism, but it comes from Pakistan ...
Ivan Lewis | 502 c21-2WH (Link to this contribution) I shall not quibble with my hon. Friend at this stage. I urge him to go back, though, and look at Ha...
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c22WH (Link to this contribution) I want to echo a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) from the Fron...
Ivan Lewis | 502 c22-3WH (Link to this contribution) The development investment that we have put in has made a difference, and I will refer to that later...
Ivan Lewis | 502 c23-4WH (Link to this contribution) There must be a combination of building up the army and reconciliation and reintegration. As the hon...
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton | 502 c23WH (Link to this contribution) Much of the focus seems to be on building the strength of the Afghan national army, but given the tr...
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c13-4WH (Link to this contribution) First, al-Qaeda is not there for a tactical reason. It can easily move into an area where ISAF—the i...
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton | 502 c12-3WH (Link to this contribution) This links to an earlier point that my hon. Friend made. If we are critical of some of the Governmen...
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c13WH (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I hope that the Minister listens to him, because he has experien...
Paul Flynn | 502 c13WH (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman spoke too briefly. He agrees that the Taliban has control of 80 per cent. of the ...
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c3-4WH (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman has been consistent with his views in many debates, and he is showing that again ...
Lembit Opik | 502 c2WH (Link to this contribution) I am sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman's comments. Does he agree that there are approximate parallel...
Paul Flynn | 502 c3WH (Link to this contribution) I agree entirely. We all know that there will be a deal eventually, perhaps in two or three years. W...
Bob Spink | 502 c1WH (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman mentioned the tragic 100th death. That was the death of a soldier from the Royal ...
Paul Flynn | 502 c1-2WH (Link to this contribution) I will certainly talk at length about condolences and the soldiers. The 200th soldier who died was K...
Paul Flynn | 502 c1WH (Link to this contribution) A hundred British dead—why? That is the question this morning. A hundred British dead this year, thr...
Paul Flynn | 502 c4-5WH (Link to this contribution) Again, the hon. Gentleman makes some reasonable points about the state of Afghanistan, but let us co...
Paul Flynn | 502 c4WH (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is clearly a believer of fairy tales. He believes that there is going to be a hap...
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c4WH (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman's argument that the Taliban are somehow in control of 80 per cent. of the country...
Paul Flynn | 502 c5WH (Link to this contribution) I agree entirely. It is absolutely right that we should have a vote on that at some time.
Patrick Mercer | 502 c5WH (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Paul Flynn | 502 c6WH (Link to this contribution) I will give way in a moment, but I want to make some progress first. The other group on which we ar...
Brian H Donohoe | 502 c6WH (Link to this contribution) Is not the greatest failure that we did not go in and wipe out the poppy fields?
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton | 502 c5WH (Link to this contribution) Speaking from my personal experience as a development officer in Afghanistan, I wish to ask whether ...
Paul Flynn | 502 c5WH (Link to this contribution) Yes, of course I accept that, but that is not the problem. The problem is Helmand province. We are i...
David Drew | 502 c5WH (Link to this contribution) It is not only the Afghan people, but the British people who have been denied a point of view. At th...
Paul Flynn | 502 c6WH (Link to this contribution) That was mission impossible from the start. Going into Afghanistan with the aim of wiping out the po...
Patrick Mercer | 502 c6WH (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman's argument about going into Helmand province is well made, and from one point of ...
Paul Flynn | 502 c6-7WH (Link to this contribution) It is certainly true that our presence in both Iraq, where a million Iraqis died, and in Afghanistan...
Paul Flynn | 502 c6WH (Link to this contribution) I listen with some astonishment to the voice of the military on that matter. We went into Normandy b...
Lembit Opik | 502 c6WH (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman agree that trying to draw comparisons with world war two completely misses t...
Ivan Lewis | 502 c9WH (Link to this contribution) Following that line of argument, if we were doing the populist thing rather than the right thing, an...
Ivan Lewis | 502 c7WH (Link to this contribution) I am following my hon. Friend's argument with interest. Is it a myth that al-Qaeda, aided and abette...
Paul Flynn | 502 c7-9WH (Link to this contribution) The contrivance is that the Government conflate al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and they must understand—I...
Paul Flynn | 502 c9WH (Link to this contribution) If the Minister thinks that this debate has anything to do with populism, he is wrong. I have been s...
Paul Flynn | 502 c9-10WH (Link to this contribution) Let us say what the position is. The public feel strongly that we should be out—71 per cent. in the ...
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c10WH (Link to this contribution) It is a pleasure to participate in this important debate, considering the many announcements that ha...
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c10-2WH (Link to this contribution) Yes, absolutely. I correct the hon. Gentleman who suggests from a sedentary position that the Govern...
David Drew | 502 c12WH (Link to this contribution) But does not that make fighting the war even more difficult? Because there is no homogenous enemy, p...
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c12WH (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman makes a point that I cannot disagree with. That is why a vision is needed about w...
Tobias Ellwood | 502 c12WH (Link to this contribution) I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster), who has a lot ...
Subjects
Armed forces Deployment Foreign policy Peacekeeping operations Politics and government Pakistan Terrorism Afghanistan
Link
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