Mr Arbuthnot
I can quite see my right hon. Friend answering, “Well, this is a funny way to go about it,” but I will give way to him none the less.
Mr Hammond
I am tempted to say that it is even a grotesque way, Mr Deputy Speaker. In the spirit of my right hon. Friend’s remarks, perhaps I can try to help him. I understand his concern about the voluntary and compulsory redundancy numbers, but the simple fact is that we have set out a trajectory of headcount reduction among the civilian employees of the MOD and among the armed forces. At each tranche we have called for volunteers, and enough volunteers from the civilian population have come forward for no compulsory redundancies to be required. There has been an insufficient number of volunteers from the military population so, regrettably, compulsory redundancies have been required. I do not rule out the possibility that compulsory redundancies will be required among the civilian work force in future.
Mr Arbuthnot
My right hon. Friend is, as always, helpful. I hope that he will now address the issue on which there is some dispute of fact—whether those in the military on whom compulsory redundancy is imposed are allowed to offer themselves for retraining; we have heard variously both that they are and that they are not. That is an important issue.
I now turn to the strategic defence and security review—although I do not want to take too much longer because a large number of people would like to speak. One of the main aims of the Defence Committee is to see how the next strategic defence and security review, in whatever year it will be—2014, 2015, 2016; we do not yet know—can be better than the last one. Our criticisms of the last one included the fact that it was rushed to fit in with the comprehensive spending review, and was therefore undertaken without sufficient consultation with academia, industry, Parliament or the country. I heard my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister say that taking longer over decisions does not necessarily make them better, and that is true, but having proper full discussion in the country before such decisions are made would make them more informed.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)
Let me begin by paying tribute to Signaller Ian Sartorius-Jones of 20th Armoured Brigade Headquarters and Signal Squadron, who died on operations in Afghanistan on 24 January. Our thoughts at this difficult time are with his family and friends. All of us in this House are acutely conscious of the sacrifices being made in Afghanistan on a daily basis by the men and women of our armed forces. The experience of my first 100 days as Secretary of State for Defence has only reinforced my admiration for their selflessness, dedication and bravery, as well as for the commitment and professionalism of the civilians who support them. They are rightly a source of great pride to the nation.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) on securing this debate on behalf of the Select Committee on Defence, and on his speech, most of which I wholeheartedly agreed with. I am delighted to have the opportunity to address the House on the defence reform programme that I have inherited, on my approach to it, and on how I will take forward the delivery of the defence outputs required under the strategic defence and security review.
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend will know that the Government took a decision to give a large slug of parliamentary time to the Backbench Business Committee, to be allocated according to the priorities that Back Benchers identify. That was a bold decision for a Government to take. The result is that we have that defence debate today. I hope the Committee notes, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire said, the strong attendance, and that that will mean we have more defence debates on Thursday afternoons in future.
I am delighted also to have the opportunity to address the House—I have said that once so I will not say it again.
Mr Hammond
I agree.
Today’s debate is about the reform of defence. That reform is for a purpose. Sometimes, amid the minutiae of budgets and organisational structures, we need to take care not to lose sight of that purpose: the defence of this nation and our dependent territories against those who threaten our security and our national interest.
The challenge we face is to deliver that defence on a sustainable basis within a resource envelope that the country can afford. That challenge must be set in the context of the fiscal and economic circumstances, as other Members have noted. History tells us that, without a strong economy and sound public finances, it is impossible to sustain in the long term the military capability required to project power and maintain defence. The debt crisis is therefore a strategic threat to the future security of our nation and to the security of the west. Restoring sound public finances is a defence imperative as well as an economic one, and defence must make its contribution to delivering them.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that, in times of economic austerity, it is important that we develop collaboration with our NATO allies to enhance capabilities, so that we can engage with allies to combat some of the threats that we face?
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Part of the answer to the questions raised by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) is collaboration with NATO allies. They can share assets that they have and that we do not have, and we can reinforce their capabilities in other areas. The smart defence agenda is an important one—it involves collaboration among NATO allies in procurement to ensure that we get the best defence effect we can get with the limited budgets available.
As I have said, defence must make its contribution to delivering sound public finances, so even if the defence programme that we inherited had been in good shape, the spending review and the SDSR would have had to find savings to contribute to overall deficit reduction. However, the defence programme that the Government inherited was very far from being in good shape. At its heart, it had a £38 billion black hole filled with procurement projects that were at best hopelessly over budget and out of control, and at worst pure fantasy. They were projects announced by politicians—actually, mainly one politician—without any budget cover or prospect of ever being delivered, in a programme that had no proper contingency, no effective recognition of risk, and no provision for the “conspiracy of optimism” that was evident in MOD equipment cost estimates. The support programme systematically underprovided for the proper maintenance and sustainment of the equipment that was already in service. In short, Mr Deputy Speaker, it was a shambles.
Mr Hammond
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who will perhaps explain his way out of that.
Hugh Bayley
Were the capital programmes that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government inherited supported or opposed by the chiefs of staff at the time?
Mr Hammond
I am obviously not privy to the advice given to Ministers in the previous Government by their defence advisers, nor should I be, but if the previous Government were succumbing to recommendations from the defence chiefs, they were doing them no favours by pretending that they could deliver equipment programmes for which there were no funding lines or budget cover, and when there was no prospect of their materialising.
Mr Hammond
I am going to make some progress.
Does it matter that Labour’s programme was stuffed full of projects that would never and could never be delivered? I would argue that it did matter, because so long as the fantasy persisted, the doctrine and philosophy of our armed forces—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) listens, he might understand the point being made. So long as the fantasy persisted, the doctrine and philosophy of our armed forces were built around the notion of those platforms being delivered, when what the forces really need is a realistic programme that we can deliver and that they can have confidence in, so that they can start rethinking their doctrine and operating philosophy for the future around the platforms and capabilities that we will have.
John Woodcock
To aid this debate, could the Secretary of State just remind the House whether his party in opposition argued for a smaller or larger Army than the then Government were prepared to support?
Mr Hammond
What I say to the hon. Gentleman is that we face the situation that we face. We came into office with a massive deficit, which we inherited from the previous Government, and as I shall argue, we have taken the tough decisions that, frankly, the previous Government shirked over the last few years, thereby doing the armed forces and the country no favours.
By 2010, Britain’s armed forces had endured a decade of high-tempo operations without a formal defence review and were faced with a period of acute fiscal pressure. The case for reform to ensure that the armed forces were restructured and re-equipped to protect our national security against the threats that we would face, within a budget that the nation could sustain, was unanswerable. Tough decisions were necessary to deal with problems on the scale of the inherited defence deficit, and this Government took them. I am clear, as the Prime Minister and my predecessor have been, that whatever the pain, our first duty is to put our armed forces on a sustainable basis by restructuring them for the future and putting the budgets that sustain them on a stable footing. As the SDSR acknowledged, the process of transitioning to Future Force 2020 will require us to take some calculated and carefully managed risks against certain capabilities, most prominent among which are wide-area maritime surveillance, to which the hon. Member for Bridgend referred, and carrier strike.
I regret in particular the cuts in personnel that are required to deliver that rebalancing and make the armed forces sustainable. However, in case any confusion has been created over the last few days, let me clear up one point. The headcount of military personnel will have been reduced by around 18% by 2020 compared with the 2010 baseline. That is in contrast to a 38% reduction in civilian headcount. Regrettably, some of that reduction will have to be achieved by redundancy. Where that is necessary, every opportunity is being given, and will continue to be given, for military personnel at risk of redundancy to retrain for alternative roles of which there are shortages in the armed forces.
I heard the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire earlier. Following the publication of the Select Committee’s report, I have asked for a specific briefing on the point that he raised. I would be happy to share that with him after the debate—[Interruption.] I will share it with the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) as well, if he wishes. It includes a list of the shortage trades for which suitably qualified individuals who are facing redundancy are invited to apply.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
The large number of redundancies in the Gurkhas has inevitably caused concern among them and in my constituency. Will the Secretary of State give me a commitment that the Gurkhas will remain a unique and important part of the British armed forces?
Mr Hammond
The Gurkhas remain a very important part of the British armed forces. I think that my hon. Friend understands exactly the problem that we face in regard to Gurkha numbers. Their terms of service were changed as a result of decisions made by the courts and the campaigning pressure that was placed on the previous Government. That means that most Gurkhas have elected to extend their service to 22 years. Consequently, the numbers of Gurkhas in service are projected to be above the levels needed to sustain the two brigades that we wish to sustain. That has given rise to a larger number of Gurkha redundancies than we would have expected to see. That is regrettable but, I am afraid, inevitable.
We are making tough decisions to tackle the massive deficit left by the previous Government and the unfunded defence programme. If those decisions had been easy or popular, you can bet your life that the Labour Government would have taken them years ago. They did not do so, however, and it now falls to the coalition to do the right thing in the long-term national interest. Translating the strategic prescriptions of the SDSR into decisive actions was always going to be a process rather than an event. Turning the corner on a decade of mismanagement will take time and determination.
To shine a bit of light into the end of the tunnel, the Government announced in July 2011 that the MOD could plan on the budget allocated to defence equipment and equipment support increasing by 1% a year in real terms between 2015 and 2020. That amounts to more than £3 billion of new money over the period. Importantly, that commitment was renewed by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury after the autumn statement. That will enable investment in a number of programmes, including the procurement of new Chinook helicopters, the refurbishment of the Army’s Warrior fleet, the procurement of the Rivet Joint, or Airseeker, intelligence and surveillance aircraft, and the development of the global combat ship.
The MOD is currently undertaking its annual budget setting process, which is known as the planning round. I am personally engaged in that process, and I am increasingly confident that we are close to achieving a sustainable and balanced defence budget for the first time in a decade or more. That would be an immense achievement, and would allow us to plan with confidence and to spend well over £150 billion on new equipment and equipment support over the next decade, as well as delivering the force restructuring and rebasing that we have announced. A turnaround on that scale requires a major cultural shift. Defence must change the way in which it does things and the way in which it addresses problems. It must challenge the received wisdom around the doctrines used to deliver defence tasks and around the management of defence itself.
Last month, the Government published the first annual report on the SDSR, which set out in full the progress that is being made. Let me address a couple of salient areas of what the MOD calls “transforming defence”—that is, the journey from the mess that we inherited towards achieving a sustainable, capable, coherent and adaptable force, built on balanced budgets and disciplined processes, by 2020. As I have said, I am clear that the Ministry of Defence must balance its budget. I am equally clear that it does not exist to balance its budget; it exists to deliver effective defence within a sustainable budget envelope.
Sir Bob Russell
Does the Secretary of State accept that morale is very important, and if our soldiers, sailors and air personnel and their families are given accommodation that is not fit for purpose, that does nothing to help the Government’s objectives?
Mr Hammond
I reassure my hon. Friend that I absolutely agree that morale is very important. I shall come to morale in a moment, and I understand that accommodation plays an important part in that. He will understand that there are thousands of moving parts in the defence budget, and trying to bring them back into balance is a massive challenge. Inevitably, people will always ask us to do more, more quickly, whether on accommodation, front-line equipment or any other area. We must try to balance the equation and get the judgment right.
As I said, the Ministry of Defence exists to deliver an effective solution within a sustainable budget envelope. NATO membership and our defence relationship with the United States and other key allies, such as France and Australia, are a vital part of the strategic solution as we move to Future Force 2020. It will, of course, be a smaller force, but it will be equipped with some of the best and most advanced technology in the world. It will be configured to be agile, focused on expeditionary capability and carrier strike, able to intervene by airborne or amphibious assault, and with the ability to deploy, with sufficient warning and for a limited time, a whole-effort force of about 30,000, or to maintain an enduring stabilisation operation at brigade level while concurrently undertaking one complex and one small-scale non-enduring operation. It will be a formidable regular force, supported by better trained, better equipped reserves who will play a greater role in delivering defence effect on the back of the extra £1.8 billion that we will invest in them over the next 10 years. All that will be underpinned by the expectation that, in most circumstances, we will be fighting alongside allies, and it will be supported with doctrines that will effectively address the threats of the future with the assets that we will have.
The proposal is about finally moving on from cold war reliance on mass to the “lethal and light” doctrines of flexibility and agility that the challenges of the new century require. It is not just the armed forces that need to reconfigure; the management of defence needs to change too, by developing a laser focus on delivering defence cost- effectively and accountably, protecting the front line and the taxpayer at the same time. Under my predecessor, that transformation had already begun. The recommendations of the Defence Reform Unit under Lord Levene were broadly accepted. Many have been implemented and others are in the pipeline. The Defence Board has been reconfigured to provide for a clear, single, joint service voice on military priorities, and a greater role for non-executive directors under the chairmanship of the Secretary of State. I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) that the single voice for the military on the Defence Board is supported by an effective armed forces committee, at which the chiefs of the individual services are able to work together to determine their combined order of priorities for the Defence Board’s allocation of available resource. That priority order is then presented to the Defence Board by the Chief of the Defence Staff—a presentation that has become extremely effective, because it carries with it the authority of all three services and the joint forces commander.
The Defence Infrastructure Organisation has been stood up to rationalise the Ministry of Defence estate and reduce costs by 25%. Defence Business Services has been created to unify human resources and other back-office functions across the Department. The reform of the procurement process has begun with the appointment of—you guessed it, Mr Deputy Speaker—Bernard Gray, who has now had four name checks, I think, so far in the debate, as chief of defence matériel, and the establishment of the major projects review board to hold those responsible for failing projects firmly to account.
This year will see the transformation accelerate, with an evolution towards a leaner, more strategic head office; the introduction of a stronger financial and performance management regime across the whole Department; the service chiefs being empowered to run their individual services and their delegated services budgets; the new joint forces command being stood up on 1 April; and the start of the reform of the MOD’s defence equipment and support business on the basis of a new matériel strategy.
The next few years will also see the beginning of considerable change on the ground as the rebasing programme set out in July last year is taken forward and the Army begins its return from Germany, as well as its withdrawal from Afghanistan and its internal restructuring to deliver five multi-role brigades. I know those last changes, in particular, are of great interest to individual Members. The House will understand that many of the changes are interdependent and complex, but I can give a commitment that I will make further announcements on the details of individual elements of the transforming defence programme as and when it is appropriate to do so.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Sir Menzies Campbell
First, I should apologise for being unable to be present at the beginning of the debate due to other responsibilities.
My right hon. Friend is right to say that the basing decisions have caused a great deal of disappointment. In the case of my constituency, the closure of RAF Leuchars, which has provided nearly 100 years of service in aerial warfare, has been particularly difficult to accept. Part of the argument in favour of that closure was that there would be specific deployments of units of the Army to occupy the base. So far, very little detail has been made available. May I encourage my right hon. Friend to ensure that the announcements he has just foreshadowed will be made as soon as possible?
Mr Hammond
I can reassure my right hon. and learned Friend on that point. RAF Leuchars is not so much closing as transforming its role to become the home of one of the five multi-role combat brigades after the rebasing of the Army back to the UK.
The purpose of all the changes is to increase the investment we can make in service people and their equipment and training, to increase investment in the front line by making the back office more efficient and more accountable, and to deliver value for money in defence. I know that change is unsettling and that the threat of change and the uncertainty it brings can sap morale, which my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) mentioned. I will make every effort to ensure that the people who are directly affected by the proposals are kept fully informed as they progress and that we get the changes made as quickly as humanly possible.
Mr Hammond
I will not give way to my hon. Friend a second time, as I am conscious that a large number people wish to participate in the debate.
People remain the greatest asset of defence and, despite the tough decisions that must be taken, we will do all we can to protect them. This Government understand our duty to the country and to our armed forces. We have made the tough choices necessary to put them on a sustainable footing for the defence of national security and of the United Kingdom’s interests around the world. We know that making those changes will not to be easy, but I have no doubt that the British armed forces that will emerge will be formidable, flexible and adaptable, supported by the fourth largest defence budget in the world, meeting our NATO responsibilities and equipped with some of the best and most advanced technology on earth.
To get there, we need not just the series of structural and organisational changes I have set out, but a cultural shift in the way the organisation thinks and works. We need a shift in military doctrine to deliver the defence effect we will need, using the capabilities we will have; a shift in civilian culture to one of discipline, individual accountability and delegated decision making; and a shift to a leaner, fitter, more empowered and more empowering organisation. This is a programme of renewal and change of a scope and on a scale greater than anything else being delivered across the public sector. It is a blueprint for a sustainable future for the UK’s armed forces as one of the world’s most capable fighting machines. That is what Britain needs and what our armed forces deserve, and as we move forward to deliver it we will never forget that at the heart of this organisation are the servicemen and women who are prepared to put their lives on the line for us day in, day out. We owe it to them to make sure that the transformation we have embarked upon delivers its full promise.
Mr Murphy
I have learned from experience that it would never be wise to misrepresent the words of the shadow Chancellor, and I dare say the hon. Gentleman is doing just that. We have been pretty clear; we cannot commit to reverse specific cuts that the Government have made. Similarly, before the 1997 election we said we would stick to the size of the state for the first two years of a Labour Government. It is important to be clear: before that election, we committed not to reverse individual spending cuts.
On defence reform, we know that we must meet the ambitions for our forces that we share across the Chamber, and which the Secretary of State referred to at the end of his comments. Reform is more important than ever before and when the Government make the right choices, they will have our backing. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who spoke with real passion about an important issue that can often be quite dry. Much of the restructuring of the MOD announced in the Levene report was as welcome on the Opposition Benches as it was, in the majority of cases, on the Government Benches, in particular, greater financial powers for service chiefs. Some of the rebalancing of the equipment programme, notably cutting tank regiments, was necessary and has our support.
Unfortunately, that is not the case for every decision taken in the Government’s controversial and much criticised defence review, which has set our country’s defence policy on an uncertain path. However much some try to depict the process as a success, the evidence to the contrary is striking. The strategic defence and security review was immediately reviewed in a three-month study that announced thousands of further redundancies in our forces and the civil service. There are new unfunded liabilities on the balance sheet and further cuts to the equipment programme appear imminent. The conflict in Libya saw military equipment planned for the scrapyard recalled. The UK has been left with serious capability shortfalls for a decade, most notably the carrier strike capability gap. Military experts have repeatedly been open in their criticisms, and all in all it is a cuts package still in search of a defence strategy and there should be a rethink.
On forces welfare, I welcome much of what the Secretary of State has said in the announcements that he has made in advancement of forces welfare, but last week saw 400 Gurkhas being made redundant—the second painful cut they have had to endure in just a few months. The whole House will recall that the Prime Minister championed those remarkable soldiers in opposition, and many will agree with the Defence Committee’s statement that the level of compulsory redundancies among those in uniform is “grotesque.” That comes alongside cuts to front-line allowances, and permanent changes to pensions that will disproportionately affect members of the armed forces and their dependants, who rely on their pensions at an earlier stage in life than almost anyone else.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. One standing up, one sitting down, not two standing at once.
Mr Hammond
I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman says he is giving way, then stays standing up for another three sentences. I am confused. He says the redundancies in the armed forces are grotesque, but he says he will not reverse the spending cuts that the Government have announced. Which is it? Is he going to reverse the cuts or is he going to accept the redundancies?
Mr Hammond
The right hon. Gentleman is not going to wriggle out by putting it in an historical context. A tranche of military redundancy is going on right now, and regrettably there will have to be further tranches. Would he scrap them and, if so, where would he get the money from?
Mr Murphy
It is ironic and peculiar that the current Secretary of State is seeking a commitment from the official Opposition to reverse cuts that he has not even yet announced. It is a ludicrous way to conduct politics and economics.
This cut comes alongside cuts to front-line allowances, and permanent changes to pensions, which will detrimentally affect those who require to take their pensions earlier in life. A corporal who has lost both legs in a bomb blast in Afghanistan will miss out on £500,000 in pension and benefit-related pensions. War widows will also lose out enormously. A 34-year-old wife of a staff sergeant killed in Afghanistan would be almost £750,000 worse off throughout her life.
Ministers blame deficit reduction but the argument does not add up. These changes are permanent, so the impact will be felt long after the deficit has been paid down and the economy has returned to growth.
I believe it is uncomfortable for us all that Sir Michael Moore, the chairman of the Forces Pension Society, has been moved to say:
“I have never seen a Government erode the morale of the Armed Forces so quickly”.
What has been the Prime Minister’s response? It has been a Cabinet Sub-Committee of his Ministers. To those in the front line, that will be little consolation. Indeed, given some of the decisions that have been taken, they are likely to want fewer, not more ministerial meetings. As I have previously said, I think there is a case for fewer Ministers in the Ministry of Defence in and of itself.
As the Secretary of State has rightly said, UK armed forces are a “force for good” across the globe, bringing peace to the Balkans, promoting stability in Sierra Leone, building capacity across Africa, supporting the actions around Libya, the normalisation of Northern Ireland and counter-terrorism at home and overseas, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. We want our forces to continue to play such a world-leading role, but their ability to do so is being challenged by the decisions of the Government.
Mr Leigh
I accept some of what my hon. Friend says. However, I pray in aid the recent United Kingdom National Defence Association report, “Inconvenient Truths”, which was written by former defence chiefs. It said:
“Our assessment is that current force levels are inadequate to hold off even a small-size invasion”.
Admiral Sir Sandy Woodward wrote in the Daily Mail:
“The truth is we couldn't defend anything further than the other side of the Channel”.
Air Commodore Andrew Lambert was quoted in The Guardian as saying that the
“British public is not aware how thin the ice is…or how bad things could get”
and that the Falkland Islands are
“ripe for the picking.”
I am not saying that I want this to happen or that it will happen, but I am afraid that we in this House must occasionally sound warnings—that is our duty.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Gerald Howarth)
My hon. Friend raises concerns that are widespread around the country, particularly in the light of the sabre-rattling by Argentina. However, all the advice that we have received says that the Argentines have neither the capability nor the intention to repeat the folly of 1982 and that the military deterrent we have in place is fully up to the task. I assure my hon. Friend and the House that, in this 30th anniversary year, all of us, as Ministers, are much seized of the matter.
Mr Leigh
I am grateful to the Minister. We pay tribute to him and to his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence for the sterling work that they do and the way in which they have defended the defence budget.
The Secretary of State said that part of our strategic defence is to have a balanced budget. We all understand that. However, he is using precisely the arguments that were used time and again in the 1930s when people warned of our military weakness and successive Chancellors of the Exchequer argued that we were well defended, rubbished the figures that were being given to them about our military weakness, and said that the most important thing was that the country had a balanced budget.
We do not blame our right hon. and hon. Friends the Ministers and the Department of State for this. We know that they are fighting their corner; the previous Secretary of State put up a tremendous fight. However, there must be some rebalancing. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) said, we are now spending more on winter fuel allowance than on the entire Foreign Office budget. We must have a reordering of strategic defence capabilities, because there is nothing more important than defence. In 1980, the Army had 160,000 soldiers. That number is set to fall to 100,000, and the Government have announced that they want the total strength of the Army to go down to 84,000 by 2020. The Army will have been cut by 12% since 1997. Air Force personnel are being cut from 90,000 to 40,000. Those figures are deeply worrying.
The previous Government said that 25,000 soldiers, 8,000 sailors and 17,000 airmen were surplus to requirements precisely at the moment when we were fighting two major wars. Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of the Army, has said that we are facing a situation whereby the Army is massively overstretched and many soldiers are having only one year between operations, with much of that time spent away from home. We must appreciate that we live in an increasingly dangerous world. We must, as a House, be prepared to make tough and difficult decisions and be determined to reorder our priorities and say that our defence forces are essential for all our futures.
I was recently struck by a passage in Martin Gilbert’s book, “Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years”, that quotes Churchill on the night that Eden resigned:
“From midnight to dawn, I lay on my bed, consumed by emotions of sorrow and fear. There seemed one strong young figure standing up against long, dismal, drawling tides of drift and surrender, of wrong measurements and feeble impulses. Now he was gone. I watched the daylight slowly creep in through the windows and saw before me in mental gaze the vision of Death.”
John Woodcock
Oh, there are no wind-ups. Perhaps the Minister could find time to intervene in the short time remaining to make something clear. There are significant cuts to the MOD police. Do they mean that there are plans to reduce the MOD police presence at Faslane or Coulport? Would the Minister like to intervene?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)
indicated dissent.
John Woodcock
Okay. If he wants to write and make the position clear at a later stage, that is absolutely fine.
John Woodcock
On the risk that has been created around renewal, the alternatives to Trident review, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East referred, will be led by the Minister for the Armed Forces—it is a shame he cannot be here for the debate. Essentially, the review uses Government resources actively to explore the idea of adapting Astute class submarines for nuclear capability that falls far short of being a deterrent. That could be a cause of increased proliferation and could increase the risk of confusion. If a cruise missile is launched from a submarine at a point of war and the aggressor nation does not know whether it is nuclear or conventionally tipped, the prospects of escalation and horrible consequences increase. The Government have put that in train and we await the review.
In conclusion, the delay in the proposed in-service date of the successor to the deterrent is—it must be stressed—driven not by national security or primarily industrial concerns, but by a political fudge to delay the vote until the next Parliament. That creates increased costs for taxpayers because the overall cost of renewing our deterrent will increase. In addition, it risks stretching the life of the current Vanguard class submarine to the limit of safe operation. Pressure on the delivery timetable of the successor has been increased by putting political deals above the national interest.
Thomas Docherty
My hon. Friend is right. The Times paints a disturbing picture today. We on the Defence Committee and the wider defence community have for some time had serious concerns about the capability of Lockheed Martin to fulfil the aspirations set out. When the Minister appeared before the Defence Committee, it was disturbing that he adopted a relatively blasé approach to the problem, in direct contradiction to the postures of Secretary Gates, who has already been name-checked, and Secretary Panetta, who have been turning the screws on Lockheed Martin. As the decision has been rushed, we might have to go back and reverse it, and go to the F-35B, which would be not only embarrassing but a vast waste of money. We have only two other options: as my hon. Friend says, the F-18 Super Hornet, a proven air frame, of which the Australians have just ordered additional quantities, and for which Secretary Panetta has announced an additional order, or the French variant, which, to be fair, would at least solve the Charles de Gaulle issue.
On the carriers themselves, it is no secret that I have absolute scorn for the decision that was taken to take the Invincible class out of service. In fact, despite the claim of a minority on the Government Benches that the Libyan operation justifies the decision, the reverse is true, as it demonstrates absolutely the need for carrier capability throughout the decade.
Thomas Docherty
The Minister shakes his head. Perhaps it would help him if I were to quote the commander of the Italian navy, Rear Admiral Treu, who said:
“Libya is really showing that these aircraft”
the Harrier—
“and their carrier are needed. They are five minutes from the operational zone, which reduces fuel consumption and wear and tear. With less reliance on in-flight refuelling, it is easier to do dynamic tasking and shift operation, and they cost less to operate than Tornados and Eurofighters”.
I have the greatest respect for the Minister and I know he cares passionately about the future of aviation. He has been a strong voice in the Government—dare I say, one of the few strong voices for the defence industry in the Government—but what does he know that our First Sea Lord, our commanders in the field and our allies do not?
Mr Gerald Howarth
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind tribute, although I am not sure whether it will be career enhancing. Nevertheless I will take it in the spirit in which it was given. Of course carriers would have been advantageous, but they were not necessary in the circumstances of Libya. The Government are going ahead with the Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales carriers precisely because we understand the need for carrier strike. We had endless debates about that in the SDSR and we came to that conclusion, which is the right one in my view. In Libya, however, we did not need carriers; HMS Ocean did a great job for the Army Air Corps Apaches.
Thomas Docherty
I am most grateful to the Minister. He is obviously very clever, because he has led me straight on to my next point, which is about the replacement for the Invincible class, the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier. He perhaps forgot to mention that, even some time after 2020, when we eventually get a functioning aircraft carrier, it will only be part-time. We will only be able to operate it for perhaps 150 days of the year, so we must be really hopeful that those who seek to attack us only do it on the five or six months a year when we are able to respond. It reminds me of Asterix the Gaul and the scene where he comes to Britain and the British have gone home at 5 o’clock to have their tea. That is pretty much the kind of part-time Navy that we will have if the Minister gets his way.
Dr Murrison
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. It may not be by chance that the Germans are chief among those who wish to shelter under a European defence force, because Germany, of all our allies and friends, is the country one can most easily identify as a major economy that does not pay its way in terms of our collective security, which it so obviously enjoys. When the Minister is in Brussels, I very much hope that he will do everything he can to put pressure on the Germans in particular to make a fuller contribution to our collective defence; but it has to be through NATO, not through the European Union. The lesson of the past few years and the difficulty with the European Union in respect of our economic position—the greatest existential threat the UK faces at the moment—is that we cannot rely on Europe for our security. Our cornerstone has always been NATO and it will continue to be.
Mr Gerald Howarth
I assure my hon. Friend that whenever I represent Her Majesty’s Government in Brussels I clearly make the point that NATO is a cornerstone of our defence and that other nations should jolly well divvy up in their own defence.
Dr Murrison
I thank the Minister. Recent activity in the south Atlantic has shown us that the threat from a Government playing to a national gallery has to be addressed.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) on initiating the debate, and the Backbench Business Committee on choosing it as today’s topic. I was particularly pleased that my right hon. Friend started the debate by emphasising the unpredictability of future conflicts, a point re-emphasised in the strongest possible terms by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray). Having listened to the Secretary of State for Defence today, I believe that what he is trying to do is create a balanced budget without sacrificing the aim of having the balanced forces that we need. That is a necessary approach, and we should resist the temptation to say that we ought to sacrifice particular capabilities forever, simply because we cannot conceive at this moment of going to war, or entering some lesser conflict, unless we are in coalition with allies.
I was impressed by some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who pointed out the gaps in capability resulting from the cancellation of the Nimrod MRA4. In a later intervention she referred to the problems relating to the loss of fixed-wing aircraft carrier aircraft capability. If we acknowledge the certainty that we will be unable to predict the vast majority of cases in which we shall need to send our armed forces to war, and couple that with a restricted budget, which means that we will often have to choose either what is commonly and derogatorily called salami-slicing, or abandoning certain capabilities permanently, I believe that the salami-slicing approach, unpleasant though it is, is broadly the correct one—because we do not know when, where, against whom or how we will have to go to war. We cannot predict which of the vast range of military capabilities that we currently have we will need to use. Therefore, in straitened economic circumstances when we cannot afford to spend as much on defence as we would like to, and as indeed we feel in our hearts we ought to, we must nevertheless preserve what are called “nucleus” forces, which give us the potential when the need arises to expand on the capabilities that we have retained, even though at any given time those capabilities have seemed to be inadequate.
In that connection, if Ministers are working within an economic envelope—that is not the best terminology to use, but it has been used today so I shall continue with it—in times of peace, we can all understand that, but, whenever we end up in a serious armed conflict, those economic considerations are always relegated to second place, and Ministers simply have to put aside considerations of affordability in favour of the absolute necessity of taking the measures which that conflict situation requires them to take.
It is now just over 30 years since my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), a gentleman called Councillor Tony Kerpel, a former chief of staff to a former chairman of the Conservative party, and I set up a coalition. It was not quite the sort of coalition that we have today, which, as hon. Members may know, is so close to my heart; it was the Coalition for Peace Through Security, and its purpose was to fight for the changeover from Polaris to the first generation of Trident and for the deployment of cruise missiles in Britain so that eventually we would be able to negotiate a deal, which we did in 1987, to get rid of intermediate nuclear forces on both sides of the iron curtain in Europe.
I am therefore very happy to reassure the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), in his absence, that I do not feel at all proprietorial about the arguments in favour of the nuclear deterrent. I am absolutely delighted when people such as the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who I know had not intended to speak today, rise to their feet and defend it with such vigour.
I was pleased, but I shall look very closely at Hansard tomorrow to see exactly what the shadow Secretary of State said when I asked him to clarify and confirm his party’s commitment to the renewal of Trident, and in particular to the successor generation of submarines. I invite my hon. Friend the Minister, given that the Secretary of State did not refer to it, to clarify our own position on that very subject.
Mr Gerald Howarth
Prompted by my hon. Friend, I am delighted to say, as he will know, that in the SDSR and in our Trident value-for-money review the Government committed to renewing the independent nuclear deterrent: submarine-based, continuously at sea, patrolling. That programme is being taken forward. Initial gate was in May last year, and I assure him that all the work is continuing and in progress. If I may, I also take this opportunity to salute my hon. Friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), and Tony Kerpel on the then coalition, because I supported it at the time and am delighted to be in government supporting it now.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this debate. I congratulate the Chairman of the Defence Committee on getting the debate going successfully.
This debate feels a little like déjà vu for me, because my maiden speech was about the future of the strategic defence and security review. I fully understand the budgetary constraints that the Ministry of Defence faces. Although I said in my maiden speech that we needed to control public expenditure, I also argued that we needed to ensure that there was enough money in the defence budget to deliver the requirements that we had. I remind the House that if that does not happen, we could find ourselves in the same position as the Soviet Union in the 1980s, when it suddenly ran out of money and was unable to deliver the defence capability that it espoused.
As we heard in the last debate, 50% of our trade is with the EU. I remind hon. Members that the EU is not doing incredibly well at the moment as far as growth is concerned. I therefore think that we need to look to other countries, such as China, Russia and India, where there are potential markets. To do that, we have to ensure that we have decent trade routes and that they remain open.
As the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, I am delighted to be able to speak up for the Royal Navy and 3 Commando Brigade, both of which are based in my constituency. I thank Ministers for committing the Government to ensuring that Plymouth remains a principal naval strategic port. That is very important.
Keeping our trade routes open is important for the import and export of goods and will be fundamental for growth. As an island nation, we are dependent on sea routes. It is incredibly important to have a strong Navy with good frigates and submarines, and aircraft carriers when they come forward. I pay tribute to the Royal Navy and 3 Commando Brigade in my constituency. They have worked incredibly hard to ensure that we have that security. We must only look at the piracy situation to see how well that is going.
Plymouth is a global centre for marine science, engineering and research. The Royal Navy is a key part of that. It is important that Plymouth maintains its global reputation for that. As many of my hon. Friends will know, this year we are commemorating the death of Captain Scott in the Antarctic, which took place 100 years ago. I am grateful that there has been a great deal of interest in that subject. We need to ensure that Plymouth remains the home of the Type 23 frigates and that when the decision is eventually made, we have our fair share of the Type 26s when they become available.
We have heard suggestions that there may be problems north of the border up in Scotland. It would be helpful if the Minister spent a little time telling us what alternatives we would have should the Scottish Executive and the Scottish people seek independence. He can rest assured that should the Scots be in the process of thinking that they may not want the nuclear deterrent or nuclear submarines, we in Plymouth are ready to pick up the baton and would be happy to open negotiations to try to ensure that we have them.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)
I do not have the opportunity of winding up today, but I can say that we welcome my hon. Friend’s offer.
Oliver Colvile
I thank the Minister.
I was somewhat dismayed earlier this week when I heard the news about the Defence Committee’s report and found out how many people had left the military and the civil service. Somewhere along the line, we have to ensure that people who have served in the military and picked up good and worthwhile skills are able to use them in employment elsewhere. When my father, who served in the Navy as a professional sailor, having gone to Dartmouth at the age of 14, left as a signalman, he was able to go and get a job as head of outside broadcasting at Rediffusion Television. He was member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and he did not have to take exams, or anything like that, in order to prove himself. In those days, it was possible to transfer and use such skills. If our military are to get the best jobs that they possibly can, they will need to use their training and backgrounds. If we are able to deliver on that and to make them feel valued because of the work that they have done, we will be in a much stronger position.
I am keen to ensure that we in Plymouth are in a position to look after the defence of our country so that when Drake’s drum eventually begins to beat—although I hope it never happens—we can answer the call.