Julian Lewis
Main Page: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)Department Debates - View all Julian Lewis's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Dr Fox
We have set out, in accordance with the plans President Karzai himself has set out, that we do not plan to have a combat role in Afghanistan beyond the end of 2014. The big question now is what we do beyond 2014 and what signals we send to Afghanistan and Pakistan about our determination to provide regional stability. We have already said that we will take charge of the officer training academy and are encouraging other countries to do the same. I anticipate that there will be a role for special forces and mentoring and training as well as what I have set out. That is one of the issues we discussed at the NATO summit last week, and we will set out further details at the Chicago summit in May.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
T4. Given the great pressure on MOD finances, has my right hon. Friend considered following the example of the shadow Defence team by accepting very substantial sponsorship from generous British defence companies, such as Cellcrypt?