Lord Garden: My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for repeating the Statement; however, I am absolutely astonished that we are only being told this today. On Tuesday of last week the Minister came to the House to talk about military matters, on Wednesday the Leader of the House repeated the Prime Minister’s Statement on troop reductions in Iraq, and on Thursday we had a five-hour debate on Iraq, with the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, answering for the Government. By that evening the media had wind of this announcement and all our phones were ringing. Afghanistan changes were not mentioned by any of the Ministers last week, and the Statement argues that the decrease in Iraq and the increase in Afghanistan are unrelated. That is a totally disingenuous argument. As the Minister knows, noble Lords from all sides of the House have been greatly exercised about the over-tasking of our military over a very long period. Any small relief that might have resulted from reductions in Iraq will now be negated by the increase in Afghanistan. Nor does the argument that the Chiefs of Staff believe that this is “manageable”, the word used in the Statement; it simply does not wash. It is the responsibility of the Government to set the commitment of the Armed Forces at a level which is sustainable for the resources they have been given. The Government have exceeded that level for the past eight years and seem not to care.

Members on these Benches support a focus on the Afghanistan operation and believe that the forces needed to do the job must be provided if we can. We do not enter into the counterproductive abuse heaped by some on our NATO allies. Indeed, the Statement this time is more critical in that regard. They held the fort in Afghanistan while we were away invading Iraq. Those forces are there still in the north and the west, and they are present in much larger numbers in the Balkans, while European forces are in Lebanon when UK forces are not. If we end up in an arguing match with our NATO allies, we will damage the alliance.

We were very much in the lead in our enthusiasm for the new plan in the south and east of Afghanistan and we therefore had a duty to ensure that we had adequate forces on call before starting. At least now we are trying to establish the appropriate force with the reserve that we should have had in the first place.
I too have a number of questions for the Minister. The Statement talks about four extra Sea King helicopters to support this manoeuvring force over most of the south of Afghanistan. I shall not go into the technical capabilities of the Sea King helicopter, but it seems a fairly massive task for the very small and inadequate force which will be asked to manoeuvre around. We still need more helicopters, and these will not be the answer to the problem, particularly in the summer. How is the Minister getting on with his longstanding task of procuring extra support helicopter capability? What effect will all this have on the air bridge? Has that been looked at? How is he getting on with procuring more for the air bridge?

It seems strange that we do not have any breakdown in the new force structure between reserves and regulars, but we will learn about it later. How is it that we have put together a force where we do not know which are regulars and which are reserves?

What effect will the problems with the Nimrod force, which is currently in difficulty, have on our operations in Afghanistan?

With regard to the morale of our troops, this may sound as if it is a long way from operations in Afghanistan, but it will be important to them: when will the Armed Forces Pay Review Body report be published? It is now more overdue than it has ever been, and it will be taken by the troops as a signal of how much the Government value what they are doing.

How do the Government reconcile the claim that we should be operating within the defence planning assumptions by the end of this year with the new announcement? Has that gone back as well? When was this new level of force decided? What notice did the Government have that they had to increase the forces to this level?

Has there been any progress between the US and the UK on agreeing an appropriate strategy for the opium harvest? That affects what these troops will be engaged in. Has there been any progress on control of the Afghan-Pakistani border?

There are many questions that need to be answered. While we support this deployment, I repeat what I said in Thursday’s Iraq debate: dividing our assets between two campaigns is not a recipe for success in either. We need to withdraw from Iraq and concentrate on Afghanistan. Today’s Statement has strengthened my view that time is running out, and it is the British Armed Forces that will suffer.