Strategic Defence and Security Review

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

In congratulating the Backbench Business Committee on choosing this extremely important topic for debate, I would say very gently to the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) that I do not view it as an important occasion for party political knockabout, or as an occasion to talk up one of the regions or nations of Great Britain in the way he did. The nature of the debate was much better typified by the excellent speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Defence Select Committee, who approached criticism of how the SDSR is being handled in the most sensible, intelligent and balanced way. That is what we ought to be doing.

As chairman of the all-party group on the armed services, it would be wrong if I did anything other than start by paying the most wholehearted tribute to the men and women of our services who are doing such fantastic jobs in Afghanistan. There are two types of occasion, both very important in my life, on which I would not be able to look people in the eye, if I felt that the SDSR was doing anything other than its best for our armed services. The first are the regular occasions on the high street of Wootton Bassett, where the families of the fallen servicemen stand in silent tribute alongside the townsfolk. If I thought I could not look them in the eye and say, “The House of Commons and the Government are doing their best for our people in Afghanistan,” I would not be doing my job.

Equally, when, as chairman of the all-party group, I welcome back each brigade returning from Afghanistan—the next is 4th Mechanised Brigade, which is coming to the House of Commons on 23 November—it is important that we are able to say to those people, “We here have done our best to enable you to do your job.” And I hope that is the underlying principle behind the entire SDSR.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will forgive me if I leave behind the more broad and clever discussions about the SDSR, how the foreign policy baseline is being considered, and how the whole strategic consideration is taken forward. Cleverer people than I will be advancing those arguments today, so in the short time available to me, I intend to leave those to them and instead focus on one extremely important aspect of the SDSR—the strategic air transport fleet and where it is based. Hon. Members know that I have a personal interest in these matters, although I do not intend to make this an entirely constituency-based contribution. I will seek to advance the argument that proper consideration of our strategic transport fleet is a vital, underlying principle behind the entire SDSR.

We have a fairly major crisis on our hands. The C-130K fleet, which has done such a fantastic job over many years—50 years altogether, I think—is nearing the end of its life. But so too, as I understand it, is the C-130J fleet. Those new Hercules were brought in very recently, but the tremendous battering they have had in Afghanistan means that many of them are nearing the end of their economic lives—in other words, their maintenance may well cost more than renewing them.

Equally, we are faced with the dreadful procurement shambles surrounding the A400M. We do not know when that plane will finally come into service, and we do not even know whether it is the right plane. It probably is—we are probably moving towards accepting the A400M as the right way forward—although many in the RAF would have preferred further C-130Ks and C-17s. However, the procurement and bringing into service of the A400Ms have been beyond words a shambles, and we do not quite know when they will be in service.

Just this morning, we saw a report from the Public Accounts Committee saying that the procurement process for the fleet of 14 new AirTankers that we are buying is equally shambolic. We do not know what the cost will be and we do not know how the planes will operate, and if we do not do something about it pretty quickly, we will have a real problem on our hands. And of course the VC10s and the Tridents are nearing the end of their useful lives too. We also have a fairly major crisis on our hands with regards to the air bridge to Afghanistan and all our air transport requirements, so I hope that the SDSR will pay real attention to that. I am sure that it will. It seems to me that a combined fleet of C17s and new Hercules C-130Js has an awful lot to recommend itself, but it might well be that we are too far down the track we are on.

Without boring the House, I will focus briefly on how the previous Government concluded that we should close RAF Lyneham. We have two air transport bases: one is RAF Lyneham and the second is RAF Brize Norton, but the previous Government proposed that we close RAF Lyneham and put all our air transport assets—both cargo and personnel—into RAF Brize Norton, reducing from three to one the number of runways we have, over-cramming RAF Brize Norton and leading to all kinds of complications and a vast capital investment in that base.

A large amount of money has already been spent on RAF Brize Norton, and I am not a good enough accountant to say whether so much capital has been spent already that it is impossible to reverse that decision, but I hope that it is not. Some of the accounting I have seen with regard to the move is questionable to say the least, and pouring good money after bad is not necessarily the right thing to do. I hope, therefore, that the SDSR will re-examine the bringing together of all our transport assets at Brize Norton, from a strategic and tactical standpoint, from my own constituency standpoint and from a financial standpoint. I presented to the last Government a dossier of thoughts on these matters, which I will ensure that the MOD has before the end of the consultation period next Friday. I hope it will make it a central part of the considerations on the SDSR.

With regard to my own constituency, if I am not successful in persuading the SDSR to reconsider the closure of RAF Lyneham for the RAF, I would like it to consider the base as a suitable place to bring back some of our 25,000 soldiers who we hear will be returning from Germany. It is close to Salisbury Plain and to all sorts of other military assets across Wiltshire. It is a secure base, has plenty of space, accommodation and buildings, and its runways will always be there, so it would be an ideal place for quick deployment of the Army. And the local community across Wiltshire, which would be so badly affected if the base is closed entirely, would welcome the Army there.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I understand why the hon. Gentleman is making the case he is making, but is he aware that there would be a considerable cost to the Government in bringing the troops back from Germany in that we would have to pay the German Government considerable sums in order for them to take back some of those capital assets?

[Mr Gray]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. There would be a large cost in bringing our troops back from Germany, not least in providing accommodation for them when they got back here. Lyneham probably does not have big enough barracks, so there would have to be some capital investment. None the less, looked at over a longer period, I would hope that our presence in Germany would no longer be required. I know that the coalition has expressed its desire to bring our troops home from Germany, but the hon. Lady is right to say that there would be an economic consequence of doing so.

The base at Lyneham would be ideal for many Army requirements—one thinks in particular of the Royal Logistic Corps, which has two bases, one of which is in my constituency, at Hullavington, with the other at South Cerney. Bringing some of the Royal Logistic Corps people together in one place at Lyneham would be sensible, although there are a variety of other Army requirements for which Lyneham would seem to be ideally suited.

I would like to make one final plea to the Minister. If the RAF indeed leaves Lyneham, which we hope will not be the case, and if a satisfactory Army use for the base cannot be found, there are plenty of other things it could be used for. I have seen military bases vacated before—RAF Wroughton, under the previous Conservative Government, is one example that springs immediately to mind, as is Corsham in my constituency. What tends to happen is that Defence Estates sits on the vacated base and nothing happens for many years. People cannot make up their minds what will happen next, the economy of the area spirals downwards, vandals move into the base, nothing happens, and there are terrible consequences for the local area.

If my pleas to keep the RAF at Lyneham or to bring the Army in are not successful, will the Minister please guarantee to do one thing—something that I am glad to say my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister undertook to do in responding to me at Prime Minister’s questions some time ago? Will the Minister pull out all the stops to ensure that the appalling consequences for my constituency that would result will be minimised by the MOD and other Departments, and that Defence Estates will take steps to move out of the base as swiftly as possible, hand it over to local industry—or perhaps to low-cost local housing or other useful local purposes—and engage with the county council, myself and others to ensure that we create something in Lyneham that is economically and environmentally better for the area? We need something that we can look at and say, “We’re sorry that the RAF had to leave Lyneham after so many years of such distinguished service to the nation; none the less, that had to happen under the SDSR. What we now have at the vacated based at Lyneham is better than what we had before.”

Finally in the context of my constituency, let me say two things. First, I have seen the airmen and women from RAF Lyneham serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a variety of other places around the world. I know them and their planes well, and there is no finer group of people than the C-130J and C-130K pilots, engineers and others. The second group of people to whom I should like to pay tribute are the good people of Wootton Bassett. Tribute has been paid to them in the House before, but they make a vast contribution to the defence of this realm and to raising appreciation of our armed services. Week by week and in all weathers, they turn out and stand in the High street. They seek no thanks and no honour, but my goodness me, what a fantastic job they do, as they stand in proxy for all of us, in paying tribute to our fallen heroes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

In June, when the SDSR was announced, I welcomed the fact that that was going to happen, following through on the work begun by the last Labour Government and by Bernard Gray, who delivered a report with entirely sensible and incredibly well thought through proposals that needed to be acted on to improve the efficiency and delivery of goods and services to and by the MOD. However, the CSR-SDSR time pressure being placed on industry, the MOD and other defence-related organisations is causing increasing uncertainty and real concern. That concern has been evidenced both here at Westminster and across the UK in areas that either depend on the viability of the defence industrial base or have service personnel stationed at them.

The Defence Committee, on which I sit, is forthright in its comments in its first report about the way and the speed in which the SDSR process is being undertaken—the case that was so well made by the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot). I think that everybody in this House appreciated the frankness with which he delivered his comments.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady not concede that there were some strong suggestions when the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) became Prime Minister that there would be a new defence review and a defence White Paper, neither of which was delivered even up until the point of the election, and that that is why we are having to undertake this review so quickly?

[Alison Seabeck]

The hon. Gentleman needs perhaps to get some of his facts in order. The last Labour Government’s position and how we took forward the need for a review were set out very clearly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) earlier today. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not in the House to hear his comments.

The Committee acknowledges that there is a need for this review and for regular reviews in the future. We have been touching on the future needs of the UK and considering the future potential threats, as well as how they fit in with foreign policy, and I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) described some of the issues from a pan-European perspective in an interesting and thoughtful way. The Committee came to the view, which I share, that there is huge potential for mistakes to be made and that those mistakes could be irreversible.

In their recent evidence to the Committee, businesses added their voice to the debate. They felt that the process was moving too fast and that there had been little and in some cases no contact between senior defence industrialists and some Government Departments, including the Treasury, which I find astonishing. However, that tallies with the comments made by the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire about a cacophony of anxieties. That was clearly evident from the comments that were made to us.

Indeed, when my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) asked whether there was a risk that the cuts could affect the industries’ capacity to continue to deliver and therefore put the defence of the realm at risk, the answer came back as a clear yes from Ian King, chief executive of BAE Systems. He went on to say that for

“some of the capabilities in the programmes, you are at that critical point where if you cut back on them you will not be able to reconstitute the capability, and it will be lost to the UK. That will have an impact on the economy, because of the high-end skills that we have in the sector. Also, if you think of defence exports, an area in which the UK, I think, punches way above its weight, you will not be able to sustain that going forward.”

From my constituency’s perspective, those words cast a long shadow, and I make no excuse for being incredibly parochial. We have in our dockyard one of the most highly skilled and efficient work forces in the country—a company that is growing and adding value to the UK economy through its exports and to the local economy through the well-paid jobs it provides and the way in which they bring spending power into Plymouth and the sub-region. Babcock signed up to the terms of business agreement that the last Government set in place, which gives real value for money and provides significant efficiencies. It would be extremely difficult for the Government to get out of that agreement without significant cost.

The terms of business agreement reinforced the announcement in the maritime change programme that was made under Labour and my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) that Plymouth would continue to be a centre of excellence, particularly for deep maintenance work, and I trust that there is no intention to change that position. Our dockyard and naval base, to which I shall return, support about 7,000 jobs directly and about the same number again externally, including small and medium-sized businesses in the supply chain. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) flagged up the supply chain in relation to the Astute submarine. I have here a map that shows clearly at least 100 main contractors for the carriers, 13 of which are in the south-west. Each of those 13 contractors has a multitude of smaller companies feeding into it, supporting UK defence.

We need those jobs. A recent BBC-Experian survey flagged up just how vulnerable Plymouth would be without them. We are 309th out of 324 local authority areas in terms of our dependence on public sector—including MOD—investment and jobs. If we were the subject of significant job losses, we would be disproportionately hard hit. Because of our peripherality, we are not in a position, without significant Government investment in transport and digital links, to attract large private sector companies of the type that the Business Secretary and the Chancellor seem to think will fill the gaps left by the removal of any public sector involvement. We know that that investment is not going to happen.

The city of Plymouth has an exciting growth agenda, but that could be scuppered if the wrong decisions are made in the defence review. The cost to the Treasury of the loss of fiscal income and increased benefit payments for unemployment and housing, as well as the loss of spending power and therefore of income because of the VAT increase, would be significant. If Plymouth does not thrive, the whole sub-region will suffer. The planned local economic partnership proposed by the Conservatives could struggle without a hub such as Plymouth that is really thriving. What has the Business Secretary got to say about this in relation to the SDSR? He really should have a view, as should the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and for Communities and Local Government, not least because Plymouth city council will be left to pick up the pieces as it had to when cuts were made to the defence industry under the previous Conservative Government. We know from bitter experience that it takes decades to recover from such a position and that that places a huge burden on the local authority. Perhaps that is why the Conservative leader of Plymouth council has added her voice to the campaign that is being taken to her party’s Ministers to ensure that the SDSR does not damage Plymouth’s economy.

Plymouth has the largest naval base in western Europe and has the capacity cost-effectively to take more work and more vessels. There is a very strong economic argument for making better use of our flexible facilities. We need to support the skills base by bringing more ships alongside, perhaps moving them from Portsmouth. The hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) gave an extremely robust defence of the two carriers, and I utterly support that position. We could align the regular day-to-day maintenance with the deep maintenance.

Let me draw hon. Members’ attention to an incredibly robust article in Warships International Fleet Review by Francis Beaufort, entitled, “Will ‘coalition of idiots’ shut Devonport, give the marines to the army and send ASW”—anti-submarine warfare—“‘on holiday’?” In the article, he comments

“None of Portsmouth’s fleet support facilities compare with Devonport’s. The latter can refit nuclear-powered submarines, handle deep work on surface warships…as well as offering a world class Operational Sea Training centre for the Royal Navy,”

and so it goes on. The article also touches on flag officer sea training from Plymouth, which brings in a healthy income and can operate only in Plymouth because we have fast access to deep water. That is not the case anywhere else in the UK and certainly not in Portsmouth, where ships would have to negotiate busy shipping lanes. The Thursday wars that are operated so easily in and out of Plymouth simply could not be done anywhere else. So, I hope that that is not being considered as something to be moved.

The Navy needs to retain its amphibious strength. Significant investment has gone into, and is going into, Plymouth to support the Royal Marines, who are due to move there from Poole shortly. That capability is crucial to the shape of the future fleet and links to the need for the two carriers. I strongly counsel against any move to mothball the three vessels and landing craft that are currently based in Plymouth.

If the Treasury and MOD can sort out their turf war, they should look at whether, given the statements of the Prime Minister and the Foreign and Defence Secretaries in the run-up to the election that we must retain three naval bases, there is scope for minimising Portsmouth in a way that enables it to capitalise, as Plymouth cannot, on the commercial interest in the site and the higher land value of the MOD asset there, while retaining a Navy presence in Portsmouth, including its headquarters.

Devonport has a long naval history, with its infrastructure, skilled personnel and natural providence. The MOD could do a lot by protecting and, indeed, expanding Plymouth, but at the very least the new Government should stick to the findings and proposals of the maritime change programme and the naval base review which underlay the Government’s guarantee of a bigger and better future for Devonport, because it simply makes sound economic sense.