Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Defence

It is important that we set out benchmarks by which we will be able to determine success, so that our electorates are able to see if we have achieved them, but that is very different from setting out an artificial time scale and then trying to make events fit it. It is wrong for all those reasons, and we must not be tempted to go down that route simply because it might buy a couple of points in the opinion polls in the short term. It is the wrong approach to a military campaign. An interesting point arose earlier in one of those great moments of clarification that we all hope to witness in these debates. The Liberal Democrats told us that the war in Iraq was illegal and the reason that they had supported the war in Afghanistan was because it represented their commitment to multilateralism. On that logic, I assume that if being in Afghanistan is part of their commitment to multilateralism, it would be intellectually inconceivable to have a unilateral withdrawal, whatever the opinion polls said. I now turn to the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats to see that that is a correct understanding of his party's position. [Interruption.] It is important what that silence says. I am not sure how Hansard will record the importance of that non-response, but all those present in the Chamber can understand exactly what it means. We had much discussion about the importance of NATO, which leads on to the speech by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), who spoke about the extension into the alliance of the concept of European defence co-operation. I accept that there is a role for the European Union where NATO cannot or will not carry out a particular mission or function. However, that role should be on the basis of additionality and not be a substitution for the commitments already signed up to in NATO membership. In other words, people simply cannot say, "We're not going to do the war fighting in NATO; we're only going to use our contributions for peacekeeping missions of the European Union." Therein lies the danger, because countries cannot have endless caveats and still be part of the NATO alliance. Sometimes we have to fight for peace and sometimes we have to die for it. We certainly have to be willing to pay for it, but if we have the concept of double-hatting or even triple-hatting, or if we have duplicating structures, they are not likely to strengthen NATO as the element of primacy in our defence, but weaken it. When it comes to the promotion of Baroness Ashton to her new European role, I would like the Secretary of State to confirm just one thing for us in his speech this evening. Will she take up her role as the head of the European Defence Agency, as set out in the original treaty? We simply cannot accept a supranational role for procurement inside the European Union. Procurement must be a national decision, based on sovereignty, with co-operation with others where we think that co-operation is in our mutual interests, but we should not have it forced upon us. Ultimately, joint procurement must be about procurement that gives us interoperability with those who are most likely to fight on the ground with us. When we look at what is happening, it is clear that that will primarily be the United States. There is a strong case in Europe for looking at our co-operation with the French, for example, but at present it does not go beyond that. Therefore, we could not accept wider co-operation. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) talked about the middle east. He was one of the few people who talked about the positive achievements that can occur on the west bank. He talked about Jenin, where we can see the fruits of economic and political co-operation. There was widespread support in all parts of the House for a two-state solution. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) talked about the western Balkans and the need to maintain the momentum of the Tadic Government towards EU membership, because instability in the Balkans has historically been hugely detrimental to this country's security. The hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) talked about Sri Lanka. He knows of my long involvement in Sri Lanka. Twelve years ago I negotiated an early part of the peace negotiations there. Victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is something that we should all celebrate. It is also something that many of us did not think possible. There is no doubt that Sri Lanka is at a crossroads. It has a wonderful opportunity to take a new direction. In short, Sri Lanka has to choose whether it wants to be Burma or Singapore. Sri Lanka can take the correct route at this crossroads only by having a one Sri Lanka policy, by having a reconstruction that is ethically based, not ethnically based, and by recognising that every citizen has to be judged by the value that they bring to the new Sri Lanka, not by any previous measurements of where they come from, nor by race or religion. As members of the European Union, we have to be careful not to lecture too much or give too few incentives in a country that is beginning to move very much in the right direction. We talked briefly today about Iran—about the problems that we face, about the nature of the regime, about the human rights abuses occurring there, about Iran's willingness to export terror and instability and about the fact that if Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state, we face a nuclear arms race in that part of the world, which is not something that we want to leave to the next generation. Finally, to return to Afghanistan, we need to get the strategy right. We need to dispel some of the anti-war defeatism that exists in parts of our country. I do not believe, as someone said earlier, that our soldiers have died in vain. Sadly, to say that only gives comfort to our enemies. The selfless sacrifice of our forces makes it all the more important that we get our strategy and tactics right. It is our duty to them to be clear why we are there, to be clear about the danger of losing and to understand what we mean by winning. This has been a good debate. We have enjoyed the least controversial part of the Gracious Speech, on which there has been a good deal of cross-party consensus, in contrast to some of the other elements of the Queen's Speech which, I am afraid, have seen a flagging Government increasingly resorting to the fantasy world of their bunker. This must be the first time that Her Majesty has been required to read out a living will. The general election cannot come quickly enough.