Clegg, Russell and Keetch quiz Brown on Afghanistan

• [Nov 30] Nicholas Clegg: ' . . WHICH NATO countries are offering troops, when will they arrive in Afghanistan and what will their role be on the ground?'

I welcome the Prime Minister's statement, and of course join him in recognising and commending the enormously impressive work and selfless bravery of our armed forces in Afghanistan. I also join him in welcoming the soldiers from 19 Light Brigade and others who are in the House of Commons today.

It has finally become mainstream to talk about the need for a big shift in our strategy in Afghanistan. When I first questioned the effectiveness of our action there six months ago and called for precisely such a step change, I was told that it was unpatriotic to do so. The Prime Minister's change of tone since then has been dramatic and welcome. Our approach to our mission in Afghanistan has always been simple: we should do it properly or not do it at all. So does the Prime Minister agree that success is not just about troop numbers, and that focusing on troop numbers, as he has done today, to the exclusion of other things is putting the cart before the horse?

There is no point in sending a single extra soldier unless the strategy that our troops need to succeed in their mission is in place. So why is the Prime Minister making any announcements about troop numbers today, when we will not know until President Obama's announcement tomorrow what the new strategy is and what chances it has of success? I have in the past criticised the Prime Minister for keeping quiet over Afghanistan and failing to speak out in support of our troops and their mission. Has he not now swung a little too far in the opposite direction, seeking to make an announcement on troop numbers before we know whether the things are in place that would allow them to succeed?

We know from previous successful peacekeeping missions, such as those in the Balkans, that we cannot succeed unless we have the support of all the big regional powers. In Afghanistan that does not mean just Pakistan, China and Russia; it also means Iran, which is now at loggerheads with the west over its unacceptable announcement of 10 new nuclear facilities. Can the Prime Minister tell us how he will find a way to take a tough stance with Iran while seeking to keep it engaged in securing peace in Afghanistan?

A centrepiece of the Prime Minister's announcement today was his benchmark-setting for President Karzai. What happens if President Karzai does not achieve those benchmarks? What efforts are the Prime Minister and others in the alliance making to develop a plan B of bypassing Karzai's Government in Kabul and instead dealing directly with local and regional government? I am sure that the Prime Minister agrees with me that, given Karzai's record on corruption, we should not hold our breath for him to change, but work on finding ways to succeed without him if he does not.

Let me turn to what the Prime Minister said about improved equipment for our brave troops, in particular the welcome delivery of new Mastiff, Ridgback and Warthog vehicles. Can he confirm here today that that means that the poorly protected Snatch Land Rovers are no longer being used by any of our troops out in deployment in Afghanistan?

Finally, let me address the issue of troop deployments by our NATO allies. The Prime Minister himself said that the deployment of any extra British troops would be conditional on other countries sharing the burdens, yet he refuses to tell us today exactly which other countries are sharing that burden. As he has made that a condition, will he now be clear and detailed in setting out what he expects? Which NATO countries are offering troops, when will they arrive in Afghanistan and what will their role be on the ground?

For several years now, since our troops first stepped into Afghanistan, the Government's strategy has been over-ambitious in aim and under-resourced in practice. I hope that today's announcement and the one that will follow tomorrow from President Obama finally turn the situation around, so that our troops have what they need for success and can come home as soon as possible, with their heads held high.

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Gordon Brown (Prime Minister; Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, Labour): Again, I think that we should concentrate on where we agree. We agree, I believe, that the strategy of moving to greater control by the Afghans themselves over their own security is the right one. We agree that that will require the extra military numbers that we are putting in theatre, but so too are other countries. We agree that that has to be complemented by a political strategy which, as I have argued for quite a long time, has to involve building up the Afghan army and police, strengthening local and national government by freeing it from corruption while at the same time giving people an economic stake in the future. I believe that on all these things, we are agreed.

As for the commitments that the Afghans themselves must make, it is not possible for us to give them a blank cheque. What we have to insist upon is that the promises they have made about cleaning up the corruption that is obvious in Afghanistan, and their promises about delivering troops that can be trained in theatre with Britain and other coalition allies, are upheld. The test, of course, is not the words that are in addresses and statements; the test is in actual delivery. That is why I have put more force on what has been done in the last few days since President Karzai started his second term than on the statements made before these early days. It is important to recognise that troops are being provided, that an anti-corruption task force is being set up and that people have been arrested. More, of course, has to be done, but we have seen a start to delivery on a number of key issues that we put to President Karzai and demanded he made commitments to.

As for vehicles in the field, we need some small vehicles as well as the large ones. We have more Mastiff, we have more Ridgback and we now have the Snatch Vixen, which has been upgraded, but I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we must ensure that all our troops have the best equipment possible. The truth is, as he knows, that we have had to move from a situation of face-to-face conflict with the Taliban to a guerrilla war conducted by Taliban members through the use of explosive devices to damage our morale and also to damage and kill our troops.

We have had to adjust our tactics to that, with different equipment, with extra work against explosive devices while at the same time bringing more equipment into the field, including unmanned drones to enable us to carry out surveillance where improvised explosive devices are being placed. We have had a great deal of success there, with more than 1,000-probably 1,500-IEDs dismantled as a result of what we have done. Where people suffer or are maimed or killed as a result of IEDs, we have a responsibility to do more. That is why we have increased the amount of equipment now available in the field for those tasks. More engineers will be going into Afghanistan in the next few months, to make sure that our increased number of troops are properly protected.

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we take very seriously indeed what he says about equipment and the provision of proper measures for the safety of our troops, but I believe the answer is in the investment we are making, the new helicopters going into the field, the new vehicles going into the field and the special protection against explosive devices.

• . . Bob Russell (Colchester, Liberal Democrat): In a few months, the Afghan national army will be bigger than the British Army. The Prime Minister has mentioned the 43 nations in the coalition, but he must accept that the vast majority of our major European NATO allies have not contributed troops on the ground in southern Afghanistan. May I ask him one specific question, which I believe will be a great help for our servicemen and women? May we have the deployment of more unmanned aerial vehicles-UAVs-to help detect terrorist activities?

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Gordon Brown (Prime Minister; Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, Labour): The hon. Gentleman is right to mention that. I think I mentioned in my statement that the numbers would rise. It is an essential part of our strategy that this surveillance takes place so that we can discover and then dismantle the IEDs that have caused so much damage to our forces. Everybody here knows that 80 per cent. of the deaths that have been caused over the past few months have been caused by IEDs. To track and dismantle them we need unmanned vehicles. We also need military intelligence and engineers in the theatre who are enabled to dismantle these weapons, which have caused so much destruction.

On the hon. Gentleman's more general point, I believe that we will see additional troops coming from coalition members that are not America or Britain.

• . . Paul Keetch (Hereford, Liberal Democrat): May I reinforce the comments of my colleague on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Sir John Stanley, about the role of other forces in Afghanistan? There was consistent criticism by British and US forces when we visited in April that NATO allies on a NATO mission were not playing their full role. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that the new troops going to Afghanistan from NATO and other countries will not be governed by so-called caveats? It is frankly no good having troops who will not fight at weekends, who will not fly at night and who go home at five o'clock.

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Gordon Brown (Prime Minister; Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, Labour): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we expect other countries to do more, but he is also a fair man and he recognises that, over the last few weeks, we have been trying to persuade NATO allies and, indeed, allies outside NATO to do more. But I think we also have got to appreciate that, in the end, we have got to build up the Afghan forces, just as Pakistan has got to have a more professional approach to dealing with terrorism, and that is where the answer to the problems lies in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We can do a great deal and we will have to do more, but, in the end, we want Afghan people themselves to take more responsibility for their own affairs.

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