Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Defence

I am sorry, but I must now conclude my remarks. We hope that there is a successful Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. The Commonwealth has a role to play in conflicts and disputes around the world, but in our view the Government have neglected it over the past 12 years. We hope that they will put that right at the conference. We are behind the efforts to secure agreement at the Copenhagen summit on climate change and look for a binding commitment to keeping the rise in global temperatures to below 2° C and to taking action on deforestation. I join the Foreign Secretary in welcoming the Sri Lankan Government's announcement. We have all strongly urged the Sri Lankan Government to honour their commitment and return all people to their homes by the end of the year. We want to see a process of healing and reconciliation, which is so desperately required in that country. There are immense challenges in foreign policy, which we could all speak about at even greater length than the Foreign Secretary and I have. Where Ministers continue to do the right thing, we will continue to support them. However, there are many searching questions, such as those that I have raised on Afghanistan, that they must be prepared to answer. I hope that we will have those answers at the end of this debate.