Afghanistan

David Crausby Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

History teaches us that in any insurgency or conflict, we inevitably move from a military phase, taking on the violence of insurgency, into a phase where there is both military contact and diplomatic activity, and hopefully from there into a phase of diplomatic resolution on the political stage. I think that we are at a point where, as I said earlier, we will increasingly be looking not simply at the military position or the security situation on the ground, but at the political level. What has come across in the House this afternoon appears to be an increasing view on both sides that the political arena will be increasingly important. That is in no way to diminish the importance of the security environment within which those political talks will take place, but without the success of the political element the security gains will not provide a stable and secure Afghanistan.

[Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

Following today’s announced cuts in RAF training, which will deny us the use of pilots who are virtually qualified, what guarantees can the Secretary of State give on the impact on heavy lift supplies to Afghanistan, which the Afghans will never deliver themselves, and the delivery of helicopter support to both our troops and theirs on the ground? Surely he realises that the Government must not impose an increasing burden on a diminishing number of our pilots.

[Dr Fox]

There were in fact no cuts announced today, other than in some of the newspapers, which were catching up on some of the announcements in the SDSR. No changes that were made in the SDSR will have any impact on operations in Afghanistan.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Crausby Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

None of us wanted to see reductions in the defence budget for their own sake. What the House and the country need to understand is that the size of our national deficit is a national security problem. Next year, this country will be paying £46 billion in debt interest against a defence budget of only £37 billion. Even if the current Government eliminate the deficit within five years, that debt interest will rise. That is money being paid for nothing because the last Government were unable to contain their urge to spend, spend, spend.

[Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

T4. Can the House be assured that the pace of submarine production at the Barrow shipyard is sufficient to retain the skills that will deliver an independent, British-made successor to the Vanguard submarine?

[Dr Fox]

Yes. In the SDSR, we are committed to the seventh Astute submarine, partly to ensure that the skills base was there as we went through to the successor programme. We regard the ability to build and maintain our nuclear deterrent successor programme as part of our sovereign capability.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Crausby Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Peter Luff]

The hon. Gentleman has a habit of asking me questions that I cannot answer. No decisions have been made yet, although they are currently being made. However, I can reassure him that we are considering carefully which system of “cats and traps” should be fitted to the carriers. Once again, he has made a point very well on behalf of his constituents.

[Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

Two new aircraft carriers fitted with joint strike fighters will put Britain’s naval strike force in the premier league, but how can the Minister justify the absolute necessity in the longer term if he is prepared to accept no aircraft cover in the shorter term?

[Peter Luff]

I am amazed that the hon. Gentleman has even asked that question. It is clear that we can accept the capability gap now to ensure that we have a truly capable carrier in the future—and it will be a truly capable carrier thanks to the decision to change the carrier variant, which will significantly enhance the power and projection of the vessel.

Defence Treaties (France)

David Crausby Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The Government have been very clear, as we were throughout today’s statements by the Prime Minister and President Sarkozy, that this is an agreement by two sovereign nations agreeing to co-operate where it is in their mutual interest to do so, but totally retaining the capability to act separately where their respective national interests require it. Many of us feel much more comfortable with that model than the supranational idea of defence mediated by the bureaucrats of the European Union.

[Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

How can the House be assured that amidst co-operation on nuclear matters between us and both the French and Americans at the same time, our independent nuclear deterrent will remain independent for a very long time?

[Dr Fox]

For a long time there has been a French-American bilateral relationship and an Anglo-American bilateral relationship on the nuclear deterrent. As the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), will know, there has been discussion for some time about whether the relationship should be trilateral, given the cost of the programmes, but the decision has been taken that for the moment the double bilateral relationship will continue. We are strengthening the third, Anglo-French, part of that, because we believe it is in our interests to do so for reasons of both cost-effectiveness and our obligations under the non-proliferation treaty.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Crausby Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Howarth]

May I take this opportunity from the Dispatch Box to congratulate my hon. Friend on his election as Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs? As a result, the Committee is in very safe hands indeed, and the House should be grateful for that. He is absolutely right: we do need to be flexible, and we do need to make NATO much leaner and more able to react to circumstances as they arise. However, he is also right to point out the pressures under which we are all labouring at the moment. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, we have inherited no money in the kitty with which to defend the country.

[Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

NATO’s new draft strategic concept—to be discussed at the NATO summit—suggests that participation in missile defence is open to all allies. What conclusions has the Minister drawn regarding Britain’s involvement in new missile defence systems?

[Mr Howarth]

As the hon. Gentleman knows well, the strategic concept will be discussed at the Lisbon summit, but as yet the Secretary-General’s paper on it has not been seen. However, I understand that missile defence is a matter of interest, and I know that, as a former member of the Select Committee on Defence, the hon. Gentleman takes a keen interest in such matters. Indeed, when he and I were on the Committee, we both looked at missile defence. This is an important area that NATO needs to address, and I hope it will be addressed squarely in the context of the strategic concept.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

David Crausby Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this important debate.

These are difficult economic times, with more problems to come, no doubt. The temptation to cut the defence budget is inevitably high. If there are efficiency savings to be made, we should make them, but they must be made in the back office, and not, in these circumstances, in any way that affects the front line.

[Robert Flello]

Does my hon. Friend agree that something that we should look at very carefully is the number of top brass? Indeed, the suggestion has been made that there are more admirals than there are vessels in the surface fleet.

[Mr Crausby]

It is important that we use our helicopters for what we need to use them, and not use them to ferry our top brass to other functions.

If we can make efficiency savings in the back office, I am in favour of doing so, but may I take the opportunity to emphasise the fact that there is nothing more important than the defence of our people and the land in which we live? To cut any further our already stretched resources will put our security and service personnel at even more risk. I do not accept that our forces are overstretched, but only because they demonstrate the absolute reverse through their ability to cope. However, they have certainly been under immense pressure for too long, and that simply must not continue.

I have consistently held the view that the defence budget is too small. To cut it now would be unthinkable. Education and health are vital, and it is right that they should be ring-fenced, but their importance will pale into insignificance if our way of life is threatened by terror or, even worse, if we find ourselves under the heel of a foreign power. The difficult question is, as always, estimating the level of the threat that we face, but we must always err on the side of caution and fear the worst. The justification for defence expenditure should be based primarily on necessity, rather than affordability. In conjunction with the strategic defence review, we must look at our foreign policy commitments, because we must decide what sort of country we want to be before we make up our mind on our strategic defence position. We could, for example, model ourselves on Belgium, Switzerland or Scandinavia, and send the message to the world that we do not intend to do anyone any harm, in the vain hope that they will not do us any.

Alternatively, we could growl fiercely at our would-be aggressors, declaring that if they give us a problem, we will sink our sharp teeth into them. One thing is clear: we would be unwise to flip between the two models. It is sensible not to be too aggressive, but Britain’s history, its place in the world, and our culture define us as a nation. For my part, I confess to feeling much more comfortable with an ability to bite potential invaders, as opposed to begging for forgiveness and pleading for mercy.

George Robertson, in the last defence review in 1998, said that the cold war had been

“replaced by a complex mixture of uncertainty and instability.”

That certainly has not changed. The 1998 review was radical, and it reflected a changing world. The reality is that the Ministry of Defence has reformed, and made considerable progress since 1998. Our forces are much better configured to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Change was essential, and there is room for more, to enable us to meet and to defeat the new threats that we face, but such ambitions do not come cheap, and no defence review is effective if it is used simply to save money.

Government after Government have failed to provide the financial resources needed, which is simply unfair on our Army, our Navy and our Air Force, and it just cannot go on. We are extremely fortunate that Britain’s armed services have dealt with a lack of resources in most ingenious ways—it is what we would expect—but make do and mend cannot last, and time to train, and to recover, is absolutely vital to maintaining the world-class standards of our forces. I therefore urge the Conservative-Liberal coalition not to make the same mistakes as previous Governments by under-resourcing and over-expecting. If we are not prepared to lay out the resources that will increase our forces’ size and complexity, we have a responsibility to downgrade our global role.

I do not think that we should do so, but we cannot have it both ways. As the 1998 review explained, we can decide not to have a significant military capability. What was true in 1998 is even more true today, and we must now add Iraq and Afghanistan to our commitments. We must always be prepared to be able to defend ourselves against threats that we do not expect. For example, the discovery of oil around the Falkland Islands means that we must be ready to defend ourselves against increasing tensions in the south Atlantic. My genuine fear is that coalition government is not exactly the ideal vehicle for the task in hand, especially a coalition as diverse as one including Conservatives and Liberals. I really hope that I am wrong.

An important question is the future of tranche 3 of Eurofighter Typhoon. In the general election campaign, the Liberals said that they would cancel tranche 3, and the Conservatives said that they would retain it—I agree with the Conservatives. It would be interesting to know what the coalition intends to do with Typhoon—and the industry is entitled to know sooner rather than later. The prospects for our new aircraft carriers are another worry, and their acquisition is in the interest of those who will gain useful employment from their construction. Much more importantly, they are vital to Britain’s independent defence capability.

We need two aircraft carriers, and we must have joint strike fighters to fly from them, and indeed the support ships to defend them. The Treasury must be quaking in its boots, because all of that will be expensive, but I return to my earlier point: our defence capability must match our foreign policy expectations. If we are not willing to keep our forces up to speed, we should not expect them continually to perform miracles without resources. In conclusion, the most important job for the coalition is not just delivering an effective strategic defence review, but paying for it.