Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Inquiry

7. If he will make an assessment of the potential merits of commissioning an inquiry into the UK’s withdrawal of personnel from Afghanistan under Operation Pitting.

The Foreign Affairs Committee has one up and running and the Secretary of State for Defence will give evidence in two weeks’ time.

I have no doubt that that Committee is doing a very find job indeed, but surely the damning evidence that it has received makes a full independent inquiry all the more important, not less so. Tens of thousands dead, millions facing humanitarian disaster, democracy and human rights in tatters, and many of billions of pounds spent—if that does not merit a full, comprehensive independent inquiry, what on earth does?

I think that the whole House can agree that the service personnel involved in Operation Pitting did an amazing job. I fear that the hon. Gentleman’s wider question might be better addressed to Foreign Office questions.