Thursday 16th July 2009

Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex) (Con): I would like to associate myself particularly with the remarks of the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) and other colleagues who have spoken powerfully on both sides of the House on this very important matter. In common with the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid), a former Secretary of State for Defence, my heart goes out to the families of the fallen and the families of all the soldiers, airmen, members of the Navy and civilians serving in Afghanistan who are naturally extremely anxious at the turn of events taking place in that country.

Having said that, I regret having to say that the Prime Minister, who claims, rightly, the overall command of this matter, has in my judgment acted in a thoroughly casual way on this war. Since 2007, he has made just two statements to the House on the war in Afghanistan. That is not good enough, and I do not think this House has been kept anywhere near well enough informed. As colleagues such as the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife and my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) argued earlier, the co-ordination and overall arrangement of these matters has been absolutely disgraceful, and I think people should be very angry about it.

Whatever the sterile arguments-they were used on Monday by the Prime Minister who was dissembling in a less than frank manner about the situation of our troops in Afghanistan-at the end of the day the success of the operations in that country will all boil down to one thing and one thing only: the men carrying out these operations on the ground, those who support them and those committed to providing a holistic approach.

I want to speak today on behalf of the soldiers-the splendid, brave, long-suffering soldiers in the field, and those who support them. I would like the House to recall the words of Lord Wavell, when he said that

“in the last resort, the end of all military training, the settling of all policy, the ordering of all weaponry and all that goes into the

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makings of the armed forces is that the deciding factor in battle will always be this. That sooner or later, Private so-and-so will, of his own free will and in the face of great danger, uncertainty and chaos, have to advance to his front in the face of the enemy. If all that goes wrong, after all the training, the intensive preparation and the provision of equipment and expenditure, the system has failed.”

Well, we all know that it has not failed so far. The armed forces have never let us down, but I say to the House that the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Defence-not the present one-are letting them down by failing adequately to respond to their requirements for resources for the hugely demanding tasks laid upon them.

For the young soldiers of today, as for their truly illustrious forebears, warfare continues to represent the ultimate physical and moral challenge. In Afghanistan at this very moment, they are encountering a combination of extraordinary danger and rapidly changing circumstances amid conditions of chaos and uncertainty. Their skills, the skills and quality of their leadership, of their weaponry and of their equipment are all being very severely tested.

I believe that the Prime Minister’s shameful lack of urgency must become a thing of the past and that the Government must realise that we are at war. If they really mean what they say about supporting our soldiers with whatever they need, the Government must send more troops to Helmand-at least the 2,000 requested in the theatre capability review agreed between the Ministry of Defence and the Pentagon, and then refused by the Prime Minister and the Treasury. The Prime Minister should be deeply ashamed for such crass misjudgment, which denies commanders on the ground from holding hard-won objectives.

I want to say a few words about equipment. While everyone wants more, it is a fact that the soldiers’ personal kits-rifle, helmet, boots and clothing-are truly excellent; they have to carry an enormous amount of weight in extreme heat and their toughness and hardiness are beyond all admiration.

There are clearly shortfalls in the vehicle fleet, and on too many occasions soldiers are being forced to use them for missions, and in tactical situations, for which they were not designed. It is, for example, sad beyond words that the late commanding officer of the 1st Battalion the Welsh Guards had to hitch a lift on a logistics convoy in order to visit his own men on operations. The real problem is that there are simply not enough soldiers to carry out the mission set by the Government: to hold, clear and build; and further, to sustain a more vigorous counter-insurgency that depends on agility and surprise.

If the Government do not put in more troops, the mission could fail. However, I want to make it plain to the House that the failure would most definitely not be caused by a lack of guts and skill on the part of Tommy Atkins with his rifle and bayonet. I want the Minister, the House and the country to understand that the soldiers in Afghanistan do feel let down by a lack of helicopters and manpower, which obviously limits their abilities and opportunities for movement and assault. As a result of those two factors, they cannot be as tactically agile as they would like, and are thus forced

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into an inappropriate use of vehicles and tactical procedures that inevitably puts them at maximum, rather than minimum, risk of casualties.

Let us be clear: the soldiers feel let down not by the nation, but by the Government, and by a clearly weak and ineffective leadership in the Ministry of Defence. We in the House should be collectively ashamed that the finest army in the world is fighting in the most inhospitable, extreme and dangerous environment, under-resourced for an entirely valid and viable mission by a Government whose actions in these matters too often seem largely beyond parody.

Hansard Vol 496

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