Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

Well, they keep digging. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the role of the cadets, who play an important part as a bridge between society as a whole and the armed forces. They are greatly to be encouraged, and we are looking at ways in which we can make them more effective as part of the SDSR.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

When the Secretary of State was in opposition, he repeatedly and convincingly made the case that delays to projects ended up costing the UK taxpayer more and put at risk our prized skills base. Will he rule out any such delay in the Trident successor programme or anything else in the strategic defence review?

[Dr Fox]

I would love to be able to give just such an assurance, but as I pointed out earlier, with a defence budget of £35 billion or so a year, we inherited an overspent equipment programme of £38 billion. The Opposition may not regard that as a priority, but dealing with it is a priority for the coalition Government if we are to put our armed forces and our defence industry on a sound, stable and predictable footing for the future.

UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan

Lord Walney Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

rose—

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Fox]

I completely agree that although the military element is absolutely essential it cannot be the only element in our approach to Afghanistan. I shall come to that point a little later.

[John Woodcock]

Members on both sides of the House will support the Secretary of State in what he has just said. Does he accept that his Government must be more focused in communicating the mission? [Interruption.] That is not to say that the previous Administration got it right either—I am not suggesting that for a moment—but the ability of the Government and all Members of the House to communicate what the mission is about is paramount in our responsibility to our armed forces in Afghanistan.

[Dr Fox]

I completely agree. In fact, that issue is discussed even more widely—not just in the United Kingdom but throughout the coalition. One of the issues we discussed at the recent defence ministerial summit was how to improve strategic communication and how to maintain the resilience of our operation by maintaining the support of our publics, recognising that one of the problems is that the Taliban do not have to maintain the democratic support of anybody at all. Communication is a strength but also a potential weakness and it is correct that the right strategic narrative is essential in maintaining support and resilience.

We need to be clear about where successes are occurring, and part of that communication is telling people about successes. Less than six months ago, Afghan national army strength stood at about 107,000 trained soldiers, with a target of reaching 134,000 by October 2010. The Afghan Government met that target two months early. The Afghan national police force has grown to more than 115,000. I am the first to admit that challenges remain with its capability, but notable successes have been achieved, even over the past few weeks, such as the interdiction of bombers in Logar province just last week. Good things are happening, and we must not allow ourselves to believe that there is a non-stop tale of failure, as some would like to portray the situation.

In Helmand, the Afghan national army and police, working side by side, with minimal ISAF support, led on the planning and conduct of Operation Omid Do, which has extended security into former insurgent safe havens in northern Nahr-e Saraj. Increasingly, ISAF patrols operate jointly with the ANA as partnering is rolled out. Of course, there are risks associated with partnering and we are trying to reduce them to a minimum, but partnering is the quickest, most effective, and so the safest, way to build a capable Afghan national security force—the key to bringing our forces home.

Failure would not only risk the return of civil war in Afghanistan, which would create a security vacuum; we would also risk the destabilisation of Pakistan with significant regional consequences, as the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) correctly pointed out. The second reason why we must not fail is that it would be a shot in the arm to jihadists everywhere, re-energising violent, radical and extreme Islamism. It would send the signal that we did not have the moral resolve and political fortitude to see through what we ourselves have described as a national security imperative. Premature withdrawal of the international coalition would also damage the credibility of NATO—the cornerstone of the defence of the west for more than half a century. Our resolve would be called into question, our cohesion weakened, and the alliance undermined. Our influence over the region and our contribution to wider stability would be severely diminished.

Afghanistan

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

It is likely that the uplift in the UK numbers from the reserve will be about 300, or possibly a little less, and they will remain there until October. That is when we intend to withdraw them.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I press the Secretary of State further on the ongoing combat role of our troops? He will keep his options open, will he not? If in three, four or five years’ time there continues to be a need for a significant number of British troops in a combat role, he will be prepared to keep them there, will he not?

[Dr Fox]

I do not intend to give any comfort to the Taliban by talking about what might happen if we are not successful. We intend to see this mission through, to do what is required to put in the numbers needed to make the mission a success, to ensure that the equipment is there and to play our full part in the international coalition. We intend that the strategy as set out by General McChrystal will be met within the time scale he set out.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I have a degree of sympathy with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says, but it is worth pointing out, at a time when the economy is going through a great deal of trouble, that the defence industry provides 300,000 manufacturing jobs—jobs that actually make and sell things to the benefit of this country’s balance of payments. The defence industry contributes a very high value to Britain’s exports, and it punches above its weight. It will be the aim of the Government to increase Britain’s defence exports, partly as a way of securing British defence jobs in the longer term, because the more markets we have, the less the British defence industry is dependent on the British domestic economic cycle.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I agree with the Secretary of State about industrial capacity. Before he moves on from the deterrent, will he clarify whether the value-for-money Trident review is solely considering the ballistic missile submarine system, or are alternative systems being considered?

[Dr Fox]

There are a number of elements in the Trident renewal programme, and we are looking for value for money in each of them, and trying to see where we can, if possible, get that capability for lesser cost. However, there is no question but that we will move ahead with a continuous, minimum, credible at-sea nuclear deterrent for the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my neighbours, the hon. Members for Fylde (Mark Menzies) and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), on their excellent and persuasive maiden speeches. That sentiment is all the more heartfelt, given that probably more than half my constituents also wish that they were fellow Lancastrians.

No function of Government is more important than the defence of their people and support for those who put themselves in harm’s way. It is therefore absolutely right that in this review, the needs of country and of the front line must come first. Our manufacturing base is critically important. I represent a constituency where 5,000 people are employed in Barrow shipyard alone—the foundation of the whole economy. There is a supply chain that reaches right across the UK, with the Trident successor set to provide work for nearly 400 suppliers stretching from Aberdeen to Portsmouth. Furness would be decimated if production were to cease. Yet I know that it is the contribution that employees in my constituency make to their country’s security that gives them such pride. They include workers at BAE’s Global Combat Systems making the M777 howitzers for troops in Afghanistan, the likes of Oxley and Marl responding to urgent operational requirements such as infrared lighting to support night driving in that difficult terrain, and workers at BAE’s Submarine Solutions building the Astute class boats that will potentially, in future conflicts, lessen the need for front-line troops to put themselves in harm’s way.

My case is not that the strategic defence review should create defence priorities to sustain our prized industrial base; rather, jobs and capacity within the UK must be maintained precisely because they are essential to keeping our nation safe. We must of course be more efficient and make some very difficult choices, but retaining a unique industrial capacity will continue to give us a military edge in key fields in responding quickly to the next urgent operational requirement and producing subs whose maintenance is not reliant on offshore expertise, compromising our sovereignty and security. How we create a capability through a new defence industrial strategy is critically important, but so, of course, is what we create.

I want to devote the rest of my speech to the importance of taking the right decisions on our independent nuclear deterrent.

[Mark Tami]

Before my hon. Friend moves on to the nuclear issue, does he agree that many countries have often found that when they simply buy off the shelf from the US, it is a bit like buying a car and finding that there are lots of blanks where all the important gizmos should be, because the Americans keep them for themselves? There are also lots of ongoing costs regarding servicing and the black box technology that the Americans keep for themselves.

[John Woodcock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Very difficult decisions are involved in this review, but we must not overlook the advantage that home-grown, home-made kit gives our armed forces out in the field of combat.

Of course, as parliamentarians and as individual human beings, our instinctive feeling towards the ultimate weapons of mass destruction that the deterrent represents is one of deep hostility and revulsion. It is a responsibility on all of us to strive for a world free from nuclear weapons. So for all the thousands of people who depend on it in my constituency, if abandoning the deterrent now would make the world safer from the threat of nuclear holocaust, it would be my duty to embrace that. However, unilaterally scrapping or delaying the renewal of Trident would make our country and the world less safe, not more so. Instead, it is vital that we secure genuine progress on the multilateral non-proliferation talks that are currently under way. While the threat persists, as we know it will for the foreseeable future, it would, as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) argued well, be wrong to jeopardise our country by stalling on renewal.

We must guard against the dangerous spread of woolly thinking on this issue. We must not repeat the costly mistake of the last Conservative Government, who left too long a gap between completing the Vanguards and starting the Astutes; and we must resist opting for a platform that, while still capable of great evil and destruction, is no longer an effective deterrent against a hostile strike. Today, I am afraid, the Secretary of State again refused to say whether the new value-for-money review of Trident is considering only the cost of a new ballistic missile submarine platform, or alternatives to it. As the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) said, the surprise decision last week to suspend work on the successor programme suggests that the review may be more significant than we had first thought, because the former approach—driving out unnecessary costs as a programme develops—is what any Government should do all the time. The latter approach, however—considering alternatives to the successor—needlessly reopens a question settled in the 2006 deterrent White Paper. Even if new Ministers end up reaching the same conclusion as the previous ones, this could cause serious delays in a timetable which is already very tight, and ultimately spell a further gap in the order book that could again see skills lost and thousands laid off.

If the Government reach a different conclusion, however, serious consequences would follow for the public finances, jobs and the security of the nation. As far as I can tell, the Secretary of State has said that the Government remain committed to a submarine-based deterrent, so let us consider the alternatives that fit those criteria. On the option of refitting the Vanguard class submarines, we could do that, but relying on a relatively short and very expensive life extension would mean taking a massive punt with our national security.

It is also time to puncture the seductive myths around the second alternative: redesigning the Astute-class submarines so that they could carry nuclear warheads. There is a myth that this option would be cheaper, but it would not. It would not simply be a case of nailing an existing warhead to an existing Tomahawk missile and shoving it aboard one of the seven Astutes that are already slated to be built. We would need to construct many more new warheads from scratch, at vast expense and possibly in contravention of our non-proliferation treaty obligations. We would need to procure a new missile system, again at huge cost. We would need a costly redesign of the sub, as one cannot just slot a nuclear missile into a tube designed to fire a conventional Tomahawk. Finally, we would need many more submarines than we have at present. A fleet of conventional Astutes would still be needed to guard the new ones—they could not just double up—and missile size constraints mean that it could well be necessary to build many more vessels than the four ballistic missile boats they would be replacing.

This would not only cost UK taxpayers more but leave them significantly more vulnerable. The range of cruise missiles is much lower than that of ballistic missiles, and they can be much more easily stopped, so the UK would be left with chilling nuclear weapons, but without the strategic deterrent capacity that ultimately makes the horror of nuclear war less likely. That is truly an option that would deliver less for more.

I suggest that some who argue for a cheaper deterrent really mean that we should not have a deterrent at all. They should just come out and say that. To those who usually dislike American dominance but seem happy to leave the US and the French with the responsibility of protecting the world from nuclear war, I say, fine, but let them make that clear too. It is wrong for our country’s security and our ultimate aim of a nuclear-free world, and yes, it is wrong too for jobs in my constituency and across the country. However, a debate on those terms would at least prevent us from wasting money chasing an unrealistic middle way at a time when there has never been a more pressing need to ensure that every pound of defence spending is invested wisely.