Lord Garden: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for relaying the Statement and providing me with an early copy of it. As I have said on previous occasions, from these Benches we support the mission in Afghanistan while regretting that the hapless adventure in 2003 into Iraq has meant that we have failed to give Afghanistan the priority that it was both promised and deserved, as the Statement tells us. While Iraq was not then a threat to the UK, even if it has now become one, Afghanistan was different. It provided a safe haven for al-Qaeda training camps, which produced thousands of terrorist graduates, some of which have already committed mayhem around the world, against British citizens, among others. To those problems, we must now add theflourishing narco-economy, which supplies the majority of heroin on our streets. We therefore have a direct and real security interest in the long-term stability of this war-torn land.

I do not join in the criticism on the definition of the mission. Unlike in Iraq, I agree that we have a coherent strategy in Afghanistan, which tries to bring together the political, economic and security dimensions. That is a good start—but making it happen is difficult and, as the Statement says, it is delivery that is complex. We focus very much on British involvement, but we must bear in mind all the time that this is a multinational effort and ensure that all components of that multinational effort keep in step in Afghanistan. It is entirely reasonable for our commanders on the ground to assess the situation, take opportunities, as the Statement tells us they did, to exploit particular openings—in this case to reinforce part of the north of Helmand province—and then to revise the force levels accordingly and change the mix if necessary. I welcome the fact that the Government have responded quickly to the commanders’ needs.

All of us who have followed what has been going on in Afghanistan have come to the same conclusion—that increased mobility for our forces is an important enabler. We have heard from across the Benches in the various debates the importance of transport helicopters. They are in demand for all operations, but are particularly important both in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Statement makes a rather vague reference to what is being provided in terms of extra flying hours and extra airframes. Does the Minister know how many extra helicopters there will be, what sort they are and what percentage of extra hours will be done? Whichever the answer is in terms of hours or airframes, it is not that that is the problem; the problem is providing the air crew to fly the helicopters. In answer to my Written Question on 24 May, the Minister showed just how hard-pressed the Royal Air Force Chinook, Merlin and Puma and the Royal Navy Sea King crews are already. What effect will the new level of activity have on our ability to train more helicopter crews, which we so badly need—if we are sending people forward, they cannot train people back at home; and on the excessive overstretch felt by this particular component, the helicopter air crew?

The phased enhancement of troop numbers is appropriate in reaction to the operational developments described in the Statement. The question there is what consequential effects there will be by having unplanned extra deployments and reinforcements going forward. What will be the effect on the training plans for those forces and on other theatres of operations? Will the Minister assure us that the Ministry of Defence is looking urgently at where it might scale back other commitments that our forces have? We keep on having the promise that things will be done, but could the Minister write to us with a series of things that will be done to reduce the load on our forces when it is possible?

I was astonished to see a month ago that we seem again to be volunteering for the guardroom by offering an enhancement to our NATO response force packagefor next year. We do not want to go looking for extra tasks at the moment—and when we look at the figures in the Statement, a snapshot of 18 per cent is meaningless. It is a question of what is the sustained effort that we are asking our forces to undertake—and for some specialists it is a continual load that goes on year after year, causing problems with retention, training and experience level.

I especially draw attention to the question of the reservists and the medical side. We have spoken about it before; the Statement says that we shall enhance the medical capabilities out there and we are using reservists for it. At the same time, when we dealt with reservists, the Government announced that we were reducing the number of medical reservists. Does that mean that we are going to reconsider that part of the equation now that we know that we need more?

The question of providing on-call close air support is not addressed in the Statement. The media have focused on Apaches, and there is some mention of them—although the problem with providing extra hours in that case is also a problem of providing extra crews to do it. But the Afghan veterans of the guerrilla war against the Soviet occupation do not fear helicopters as much as they fear ground attack fighters. The F16s and the Harriers can respond more quickly when our troops get into difficulty, and we have to ensure that we have an adequate number on quick reaction for that. If we are not sending more—and the Statement seems to suggest that we are not—what are we doing to generate more from our NATO allies?
That brings me to the effect that our change in the assessment of what forces we need has on our NATO allies. NATO assumes command at the end of this month in the south and some of the allied forces that we have mentioned have yet to deploy. Can the Minister tell us what briefing has been given to the North Atlantic Council to advise it of our changed perception of the requirement, and whether that has had an effect on the planned deployments by our allies? And what about phase four of this operation? We are only in phase three at the moment—the south. As the Statement says, we have done the north and the west and we are now doing the south, but we have yet to go to the east. Is that still on schedule for next year, or do we have a reappraisal of that?

Finally, I note that your Lordships seem to be establishing a routine, in that every Monday we have a Statement on Afghanistan, yet we are only two weeks from the Recess, which means that we shall not have an opportunity again until mid-October to discuss these matters. The Government in my view were very unwise to go back on their undertaking to have a debate in your Lordships' House on the overall policy towards Afghanistan and Iraq—and I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, is in his place, because he needs to lead in that debate. So how does the Minister see Parliament being kept in the loop through what may be some very difficult challenges in both operational theatres—Iraq and Afghanistan—throughout the summer?