Debate on the Address

I am not sure that that intervention was wholly up to the level of the debate so far, which is not about differences in European policy. I have emphasised the agreement with what the Foreign Secretary said about EU enlargement and working with the United States, so I shall carry on to make two more points, then let others speak. We have troops in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, whose performance is one of extraordinary resilience and sometimes outright heroism. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), the shadow Defence Secretary, has always said that there would be two unacceptable outcomes in Afghanistan: to fail to act or to act and fail. Government assessments in the past have been rather over-optimistic, including when the Defence Secretary said in July said that neither the Taliban nor the range of illegally armed groups posed a threat to the long-term stability of Afghanistan. Such assessments seem complacent now, and were seen as such at the time. If NATO’s deployment were informed by the same thinking, it is no wonder that serious difficulties have been encountered. Again, not everything that should be done is in the gift of this country. The creation of an effective judiciary and the combating of a massive level of corruption must be carried out if we are not to face long-term failure, but other things are within our gift.