Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex) (Con): May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the statement about the possible withdrawal of numbers of troops from Iraq was made, extremely unwisely and rashly, by the Prime Minister when he was in Iraq? Some of us believe that to have been a cynical pre-election stunt. Will the Secretary of State define for the House the overwatch obligations and commitments to which he refers but which he never enumerates?

Des Browne, Secretary of State for Defence: I have spelt out the detail of overwatch in the body of the statement that I gave to the House on what we have been doing, in practical terms, in support of the Iraqi security forces in the past week. Beyond that work, of which there are many practical examples, we are also training the Iraqi security forces and working on the border to train the Iraqi border police.