- Check against delivery -

Conference, everyday we ask our Armed Forces to do extraordinary things and every day they deliver.

We deploy thousands of men and women to some of the most dangerous places in the world. They are separated from their parents, partners and families. They face unscrupulous and intelligent enemies, in a hostile and daily changing environment. They risk their lives for our security. They never let us down.

We owe them an enormous debt of gratitude.

But we owe them more than just our thanks.

My duty as Secretary of State for Defence is to ensure that we support them. Support them on operations, support their families while they are there, support them when they return, and support them when they retire from the Armed Forces as veterans.

We continue to have a responsibility to them.

We need to make sure we listen to them - and do what we can to support the Armed Forces and their families in the manner which they deserve.

We acknowledge the problems, but we deliver on our promises.

We are getting our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan the equipment they need - better protected vehicles, more helicopters, world class body armour, and medical facilities that are second to none. And we will do more on the equipment package for current operations in the months to come.

The state of accommodation for some is a disgrace. But it is not a disgrace of our making - it is the legacy of decades of under funding. We are addressing this problem. To underline our commitment we are reprioritising our defence budget and I can announce today we will be putting an additional £80 million into modernising single living accommodation over the next 3 years. This on top of the £5 billion we are spending over the next decade will improve the quality of housing for the Armed Forces and their families.

For too long veterans have been denied social housing because local authorities have said, 'you have no connection to this area even though you have been based here for several years'. Conference - working with Hazel Blears, we will change this. Veterans and their families will be treated fairly and have the same access to social housing as everyone else in the area in which they settle.

But we can and will do more. I am also announcing today that starting from next month we will give our troops on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, in addition to the operational bonus, a 25% discount on council tax. We will start with those on the most dangerous operations first in a mark of our appreciation for the risks they take every day. And over the next year we will expand this discount to all those serving on overseas operations.

In health care, we are making genuine improvements. It is right that we treat our injured personnel through the NHS which provides the best specialist medical support in the world. But we also know that the best way to speed up the recovery of injured soldiers is to treat them in a military environment. That is why, while we await the building of a completely new hospital at Selly Oak with its dedicated military facilities, we have created a military managed ward with three times the number of military nurses to attend to their injured comrades.

Conference, it is past the time we recognise that operations affect the mental health as well as physical health of our military. We are expanding the mental health care we offer across the country and encouraging people to come forward, to get assessed, to receive the help they need. We welcome the debate that this and other issues about the treatment of our troops have generated recently.

So these are people from the heart of our communities, coming from our estates. They use the same schools as us, the same health service. They are looking after us. We need to look after them.

Conference, I know that in the history of our party, sending troops to war has divided us as deeply as any other issue. It still does today, particularly over Iraq. I understand that. Asking families to send their loved ones to war is a decision no politician - no political party - should ever take lightly. That is why the Prime Minister said in his very first statement to the House of Commons, and reaffirmed yesterday, that in the future Parliament will have the right to vote on going to war.

Conference, we were divided in the recent past over the deployment of troops to Northern Ireland. But I stand before you today as the first Secretary of State for Defence in almost forty years who is able to say our operations in Northern Ireland are over. Operation Banner is at an end. Peace and politics now reign in Northern Ireland.

One thing I have always been acutely aware of is that no conflict has ever been resolved by military means alone. Northern Ireland is a good example of this. That lesson informs our foreign policy. Over the last ten years in government we have learned the lessons of a comprehensive approach. David Miliband, Douglas Alexander and I have committed ourselves to working on it - where appropriate bringing together our foreign, defence and international development policies.

I believe our Armed Forces complement our foreign and development policy. We know that they can change a situation for the better by their deployment in a region beset by conflict. We have seen this in peacekeeping missions. The Balkans and Sierra Leone are but two good examples. We have helped deliver peace. And this year alone, the stability of Bosnia has meant that we have been able to withdraw our troops and bring them home.

And in Darfur, with our African partners and with the United Nations, we face one of the greatest challenge to implement these lessons.

Conference, in Iraq we face a complex and difficult situation. The Iraqi people have suffered from a violence unimaginable to most of us.

In the face of this our forces have done an extraordinarily good job. And we still have a positive contribution to make.

In three of the four provinces we had responsibility for we have helped people to get to the point of looking after their own security and governance. And they have done this successfully. We are still in the process of transition in Basra Province. We have made progress and, so, with the agreement of the Iraqi government and our allies, we were able to hand over our bases in Basra city to the Iraqi forces. Since then, the security in that city has shown improvements but challenges remain. Iraqi forces and Iraqi politics must now show they are up to the job. We believe they are.

We are now moving into a further challenging phase. We will continue to strengthen their security forces, to help to improve their government, to uphold their sovereignty. At some point in the near future, the Iraqi forces will be able to take over full responsibility for the security of Basra Province.

In seeing that process through, we will fulfil our obligations to the Government and people of Iraq and to the United Nations.

We will remain with them. To support the aspirations of all those who want a peaceful, stable Iraq.

Conference, Afghanistan is the noble cause of the 21st century. For decades, this proud nation was neglected by the international community. Repression, misrule, some two million Afghan lives lost.

But Afghanistan is no longer ignored. Afghans themselves can see a window of opportunity; to be free from occupation; free from warlords; free from the Taliban, and no longer a haven for terrorists.

For the first time, the Afghan people are not alone. The whole of the international community is with them. In the context of UN resolutions, 37 nations have joined together to support the Afghan government and their people to develop their country. We must maintain this broad coalition; the alternative would be to abandon the Afghan people and to allow terrorism to grow.

Afghanistan remains a fragile state. We are under no illusions about the challenges ahead. The Taliban do not want us to succeed. They have seen what has happened in the North and the West - where millions of refugees are returning home, and over 5 million children (boys and girls) are going to school. The Taliban look at this and they know that if we can achieve and maintain these successes, then they have no future unless they reconcile with the democratically elected government.

In every military action, our people have defeated them in every tactical engagement. It is the Afghans - their government and their security forces - who need to step up to the challenge of the Taliban. That means building local government, tackling the drugs trade, training a local police and a process of reconciliation where appropriate.

Conference, in both of these countries none of these achievements would have been possible without the brave men and women of our Armed Forces.

Conference, if you leave this hall with nothing else in your mind than that - and a willingness to express our gratitude to them - then we can hold our head up high as a party - and we can take on the Tories who say that we don't know about defence and we don't care about our troops - we can show them how wrong they are.

Conference, it has been fashionable for many decades to say Labour doesn't get defence.

But let me tell you - nothing can be further from the truth.

We understand defence and our Armed Forces contribution to it.

We know them. We understand them.

We mourn their loss. But we also remember their courage and their bravery.

We must send a message from this conference that we intend to honour our debt to them.