Harvey quizzes Hutton on Afghanistan Troop Deployment

11.32.40am GMT Sat 28th Feb 2009

• [Feb 25]: Nick Harvey (North Devon, Liberal Democrat): WILL the Secretary of State clarify the circumstances in which we would contemplate sending more British troops?

Last week, the Foreign Secretary referred to a "strategic stalemate" that appeared to rule out any more British troops going. From the beginning, rather a small number of western troops have been trying to overcome a large country and stabilise a large population. Is it not rather odd to congratulate the Americans and urge Europeans to send more troops but seemingly rule out any more British troops going? Are there any circumstances in which we would send more, or are we driving a hard bargain? If it is the latter, will the Secretary of State build on the statements made by him and others that military action needs to be accompanied by a political plan?

John Hutton (Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence; Barrow & Furness, Labour): I do not think that the problem in Afghanistan has been the lack of a plan. There is a carefully set out strategic plan for succeeding in the counter-insurgency campaign. It has a military and security component, to which the UK is making an important contribution, and there is also a clear economic plan involving reconstruction, social development and political progress in cementing support across Afghanistan for the new democracy. We have a comprehensive approach.

When it comes to Europe and others, we are right to be critical of the NATO effort and response in Afghanistan. It falls short of what is necessary on specific matters such as combat forces or even the mentoring and training role, in which there is an obvious deficiency in the support that we are providing the Afghan army and police. It is important to keep in mind the fact that there are 25,000 NATO troops deployed in Afghanistan, which is a not inconsiderable effort. We do damage to the alliance if we tend to dismiss that, and we should never damage the coherence of the NATO alliance. However, we need more, which is reflected in the recent US decision to improve troop levels.

We have never ruled out additional troop deployments in Afghanistan. The decision on whether we deploy is taken on the advice of our commanders about the specific capabilities that they need. We have made no secret of the fact that there is currently a serious threat to us from improvised explosive devices. We have attempted to respond to it, and we need to do more to counter that threat, which now accounts for 80 per cent. of our casualties. It is not the case that we are not prepared to do more-we might be. We will act on the basis of the advice that we receive from our own commanders and from our NATO allies.

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