Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

There are two issues. First, why would we want to get involved in further joint co-operation? Clearly, economy of scale needs to be taken into account in the difficult budgetary environment. Secondly, who would the key partners be? In looking at key partners, we certainly consider operational effectiveness and those countries that are likely to deploy and to spend on the research necessary to get the capability we would want. Clearly, for such partnerships, the two front-runners are the United States and France.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

Does the Secretary of State accept that there may be circumstances in which it is more effective to share responsibilities rather than equipment? Will he tell the House whether, as a result of his meeting in Paris last week, there was any discussion of the possibility of sharing responsibility for nuclear deterrence?

[Dr Fox]

We have repeatedly made it clear that we believe that having an independent nuclear deterrent is a vital part of the United Kingdom’s sovereign capability, and we intend to keep it that way. Where we can co-operate on technical matters with the French, without interfering with our sovereign capability in any way, it would make sense to do so.

UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

rose—

[Dr Fox]

I give way, for absolutely the last time, to my right hon. and learned Friend.

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

I think that there are many in the House who want to hear the Secretary of State and welcome the opportunity to do so. Indeed, I think we should be grateful to him for his generosity in giving way.

I want to take the Secretary of State back to the terms of withdrawal. The shadow Defence Secretary rightly referred to what General Petraeus has been saying recently, but there is another dimension—the decision of President Barack Obama, who is on record as saying that he intends to start withdrawing troops by June or July of next year. That decision, of course, is not unrelated to President Obama’s prospects for re-election: it is directly related to the electoral cycle. If President Obama fulfils his pledge, how does the Secretary of State think that that will be consistent with the outline of the British Government’s position which he has just given the House?

[Dr Fox]

The American Administration have made it very clear that they are talking about the beginning of draw-down from its very highest level some time next year. That will coincide with the period when the Afghan national army is greater in number than the ISAF forces, so there is an element of logic to that position. However, President Obama has also made it clear that it was important to send a signal to the Afghan Government that they needed to have an idea of a time scale within which they would begin to develop the skills that they will need to be able to take over control and governance of their own country. Indeed, many believe that since the President embarked on that approach there has been a renewed sense of urgency in Kabul about exactly how the security forces were to be trained and the rate at which that occurred.

I believe that the Taliban’s only realistic hope is that international resolve to continue the war will collapse before the Afghan Government themselves are effective enough to stand on their own. The message that we need to send from the House today is that that hope of the Taliban is an empty one. The steady development of the Afghan national security forces underpins the strategic collapse of the insurgent position. It is said by some that the Taliban have time on their side—that they just have to wait us out. To an extent, the opposite is true. Their window of opportunity to defeat ISAF before the establishment of increasingly credible and effective Afghan security forces has shrunk, is shrinking further, and will shrink further.

Our message to the Afghan people is a clear one, and it needs to be communicated by our deeds as well as our words. We are neither colonisers nor occupiers. We are there under a UN mandate. We are there as a coalition of 47 countries from across the globe. We are not in Afghanistan to create a carbon copy of a western democracy, and we are not there to convert the people to western ways. We seek the government of Afghanistan by the Afghans, for the Afghans. We insist only that it does not pose a threat to our security, our interests or our allies.

When it comes to the defence and security of our country, we are at our strongest when we speak with one voice—when we are clear about what we are seeking to achieve and have the support of this House, and the public, for that endeavour. I hope that today’s enterprise takes us one step closer to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ainsworth]

That most certainly has the potential to encourage speculation. People will speculate that the helicopters have not been ordered—they will not arrive until 2012—because they will not be needed. That adds to the Government’s difficulties with their message on Afghanistan. Conservative Members condemned our policy and said there was a lack of foresight before they election, but they are now delaying decisions to order helicopters. They said one thing in opposition and say another thing in government, but they must expect to be held to account.

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

Is not the outcome of the defence review another element that will influence people’s perception of the Government’s intentions? I know no more than anyone else, but if, for example, there were to be a reduction in the number of infantry battalions, irrespective of our intentions, people will perceive that our capability for a longer period in Afghanistan is materially affected.

[Mr Ainsworth]

As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, we will have the opportunity to discuss the defence review and the future of our armed forces next Thursday, but there are some real concerns. Those who in opposition complained about the number of helicopters are delaying a decision on helicopter numbers now that they are in government. Those same people also said in opposition that we should have three extra battalions in the Army, but they now appear to be saying that we can take 5,000 or 10,000 heads out of the Army. That is a debate that we will have next week. I want our troops to come home as soon as possible, and I want pressure for progress to be put on the Afghan Government, but that must not be done at the price of giving comfort to the Taliban.

This week reports emerged—and they have been alluded to already today—that injured war heroes from Afghanistan and Iraq may be forced out of the Army. The Defence Secretary tried to suggest that this was a Labour policy, but it was not. Nobody injured would have faced compulsory discharge. That was made clear by General Richards and my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones),the then Veterans Minister, when they announced the Army recovery capability policy earlier this year. I hope that the Minister will tell us today whether the Government intend to force injured soldiers out of the Army. Those who have made these heavy sacrifices for us deserve our gratitude: they do not deserve to be treated in this way.

We have always said that the Government have our full support as they proceed to take difficult decisions in the best interests of our mission in Afghanistan and our troops who are doing a fantastic job. But the Government cannot expect to get away with false criticism, mixed messages and empty promises any longer. We have a duty to hold them to account.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)]

As I said in the earlier part of questions, it remains our intention to proceed as planned, but this, of course, like everything else, is part of the strategic defence review.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

My hon. Friend will have observed that the Secretary of State declined an opportunity to state that he would publish the results of the Trident value for money review. May I urge him to publish the foreign policy baseline, which is the starting point of the defence review, so that the House can have the opportunity to debate the Government’s foreign policy objectives before we are presented with a fait accompli in the defence review itself?

[Dr Fox]

During the debate on the strategic defence and security review, I set out the foreign policy baseline, as I have on previous occasions, and as the Foreign Secretary also has. It will be considered as part of the debate inside the National Security Council as part of cross-departmental security reviews.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

It is not an obligation, but I certainly think that it adds credibility to our position as a member of P5. As I have said, our position on nuclear weapons is that in a dangerous world, when we are looking to 2050 or beyond, we cannot play fast and loose with Britain’s defences. We do not know what threats will emerge or what will happen in terms of future proliferation, and we are simply not willing to take a gamble.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

The Secretary of State began this passage of his speech by talking about returning to first principles. That allows me to take up an issue that he dealt with a moment or two ago, which is this: in determining the structure of our armed forces, in determining the location of bases, and in determining procurement decisions, must we not accept that the motivation has to be what is in the best interests of defence? If I may be excused for putting the matter pejoratively, we should not be using defence as some kind of job creation scheme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

The defence review inevitably involves, as we have heard this afternoon, the consideration of abstracts and concepts, but the 300th death in Afghanistan is eloquent reality. As the shadow Defence Secretary indicated a moment ago, for every one of those people, 300 families are in mourning. We have a brief acknowledgement of the sacrifice, but for those families, the sacrifice goes on for as long as they live. Particularly when we see the montages of the 300 people who have lost their lives, we must think about the promise, discipline and service that have been cut down by the fact of their deaths. That is why on these occasions we should think more than in a perfunctory way about what it costs to defend our country and the sacrifice that, sometimes painfully, must be made.

Iraq and Afghanistan have skewed our priorities, but more than anything else, they have breached the assumptions of the 1998 defence review. They have put an intolerable financial burden on the Ministry of Defence, and indeed on the Government’s Contingencies Fund. I spend a little time referring to Iraq and Afghanistan because neither the duration nor the intensity of either was anticipated by the 1998 defence review, which was none the less regarded as a successful operation. Indeed, if I may pick up a point that the shadow Defence Secretary made, part of that success was due to the degree to which there was consultation, and the degree to which people were invited in—not asked to make written submissions, but actually allowed to sit face to face with John Reid and George Robertson, and to argue the case with them. If that is not to be possible on this occasion, the Government will, in a sense, be restricting themselves, and perhaps shutting off a degree of help, assistance and contribution that would enable the conclusions of the defence review to be well founded.

The principles of a defence review are easy to articulate. One must establish the foreign policy objectives or baseline; assess what military capability is necessary to enable one to achieve those objectives; and finally allocate the resources. In 1998, the Government never published their foreign policy baseline, but if they had, it would not have included the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, because that came after 1998, in a speech made by Prime Minister Blair in Chicago. However well founded and well regarded it is, it is an element of British policy, with military consequences, that was not embraced by the 1998 review.

The review envisaged one short-term, high-intensity conflict going on at the same time as a medium-term operation such as peacekeeping, but in fact we had two hot wars being fought simultaneously, plus Sierra Leone—a notable success of Prime Minister Blair’s, in my view, and, of course, there was Kosovo, where, it has to be acknowledged, he was responsible for holding the feet of the rather reluctant American President to the fire, thereby producing an outcome that all of us regarded as the best possible.

In spite of the success attributed to the 1998 review, there was a continuing argument about resources and, in particular, helicopters. The reason that I point to that is that we imagine that there is some kind of immaculate conception of a defence review, but the truth is that it is based on assumptions and judgments, and the unexpected will almost certainly be part of the terrain that defence has to cover in the next 20 or 25 years.

There is an element of rush about the review. When one considers the complexity of the issues at stake, setting a time limit of a few months is unwise. I would like the foreign policy baseline to be not only published, but the subject of debate in this House, because it is on that baseline that subsequent decisions will rest. If there is not unanimity, or at least general consensus, on the foreign policy baseline, what comes thereafter will undoubtedly be regarded by some as flawed.

[Angus Robertson]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is generous to give way. Does he appreciate that it is not simply carrying out the strategic defence review within the time scale that is problematic, but the fact that the comprehensive spending review and the Ministry of Defence’s planning round 11—PR11—are all happening at exactly the same time?

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

Indeed. During earlier exchanges, the thought occurred to me that, if there were any Treasury Ministers looking in on the debate, they certainly were not getting any encouragement about a willingness on the part of anyone in any part of the House to give up any capability or programme, or any installation or base that happened to be in their constituency.

[Mr Davidson]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

No, I will not, because I will deal with the hon. Gentleman in a moment. The central question is: what role do we want Britain to play, and how much, as a nation, are we prepared to pay for that? On this occasion, the question is: how much can the nation afford to pay? The blunt truth is that a large part of the review will be an expenditure review, and not necessarily a defence review.

I have some sympathy for the hon. Gentleman in his argument about the carriers. The carriers are the answer to this question: should Britain have a global role? However, can Britain afford a global role? If I might offer him a moment or two of advice, perhaps he will find that line of argument a little more compelling than his understandable determination to maintain jobs in his constituency.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman not agree, though, that we also have international responsibilities that must be met, including towards Britain’s overseas territories? With regard to the carriers, one overseas territory for which we still have a huge responsibility is the Falkland Islands. Given those far-flung territories, we must have the defence capability to meet those responsibilities.

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

It is all a question of flexibility and adaptability; the hon. Lady will find that in the Green Paper. Take, for example, Afghanistan. We enjoy aerial supremacy there. There is no challenge in the air. That has been enormously important in the provision of close air support or interdiction, in the protection of our forces, and, indeed, in allowing them to take part in the kind of operations in which they are now engaged, but just imagine if there were not host nation support—if we did not have available airfields. The obvious platform from which to provide close air support and interdiction would, in that case, be a carrier, so carriers have enormous utility in a variety of circumstances. That is one of the reasons that I think that we should build the carriers; they provide the sort of flexibility and adaptability that lie at the very heart of the Green Paper. In that sense, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) may find, much to his surprise, that I am rather more sympathetic to him than he anticipated.

In the days of the cold war, we had the four-minute warning. Now we have an eight-minute warning, perhaps almost to the same effect. The reason that I have such enthusiasm for the Green Paper is that the shadow Defence Secretary, then Secretary of State, invited the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) and me to be part of the group of people who considered its terms. We are not responsible for everything in it, but I hope that we made a valuable, or at least valid, contribution to it. Page 32 talks about partnership, and asks

“how we can strengthen European nations’ contribution to global security, including through more effectively aligning resources and priorities; how we can further improve cooperation between NATO and the EU”

and

“whether there is scope for increased role specialisation or capability-pooling within NATO and the EU in order to create a more coherent and capable output”.

It is partnerships of that nature that will enable us to provide the all-round spectrum. No one here who I have heard so far has sought to argue that we should finish with one particular capability. There is a determination to maintain an all-round spectrum, but we cannot afford that. The only way in which that will be done is with our neighbours, and as part of a partnership.

On Trident, let me say briefly that my views are well known. I do not see how one can have a value-for-money assessment unless one considers what alternatives are available. In that sense, the review, which the coalition document embraces and endorses, will be much wider than many people think.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s comment from a sedentary position—he was the lone voice on the Conservative Front Bench arguing for the RAF.

The hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) gave a beautiful description of what is a beautiful constituency, and she is a good salesperson for her local tourist board. She also paid tribute to Colin Breed, with whom I served on the Defence Committee and who had a keen interest in defence matters. She mentioned HMS Raleigh—if you want to see the best of British youth, Mr Deputy Speaker, you need to go to HMS Raleigh. As a Minister, I was honoured to attend a passing-out parade there last year, and it is humbling to see those who were once raw recruits passing out, with their families in tears, and going on to make a great contribution to our Royal Navy.

The hon. Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) made, I think, a fitting tribute to her predecessor, as well as to a very good old friend of mine, Eric Forth, who once represented the area, which I had not realised previously. She also rightly pointed out her constituency’s contribution to our armed forces, and I am sure that she will be a strong advocate for that constituency.

The hon. Member for Winchester (Mr Brine) represents a strong military area, which I was fortunate to visit on numerous occasions as a Minister. One of those visits was to launch the armed forces welfare pathway with Hampshire county council, with which I hope the new ministerial team will continue.

I have to say that the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), in defeating Dr. Robert Spink, has done a favour to us and the rainforests of South America, because we will no longer have to put up with the nightly petitions he used to present. I thank her for that contribution to the environment. She also said rightly that she represents her constituency with pride, and I am sure that she will do a good job. She made the point that her constituency is a large contributor of men and women to our armed forces, and I wish her well in representing that constituency.

The debate had a large number of contributions. There is usually consensus across the House in such debates, although one would not think that if one saw some of the press comments, or the spin that came from Conservative Front Benchers, before the election. However, this is a serious subject, and we ought to ensure that Members in all parts of the House, as well as in the wider community, are involved in the review.

The right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell)—who nowadays, I have to say, looks a bit like the unhappy father of the bride at a shotgun wedding—

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

Happily I am not paying for it.

[Mr Jones]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman may not be paying for it personally, but I think that his party may well do so.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman made a good point in saying that foreign policy clearly underpinned the review. He also made a good point about finance. One thing that I think the Government Front-Bench team will soon recognise is that the enemy is not in the Ministry of Defence or in its own parties, but across the road in the Treasury.

It was remiss of me not to welcome members of the Front-Bench team to their new positions. Let me also say that I am sad that the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who were collateral damage in the reshuffle, are no longer in that team. They worked very hard in opposition, and always dealt with me courteously when I was a Minister.

I think that we have taken a simplistic approach to finance in the context of the review. When we were in government, we fell into the habit of assuming that the civil service was bad and the military were good. I had the privilege and the great honour of being a Minister in the MOD, and I want to record my thanks to the civil servants and the military personnel with whom I worked. The MOD comes in for a great deal of criticism, but one thing that I would not question is the commitment and dedication of the individuals in that Department. It is true that we reduced expenditure on civil servants by cutting their number by 45,000, but savings will now have to be made across the board, and it would be wrong to make them in such a simplistic way.

An important question that has emerged today relates to the parameters of the debate that is to take place. We need to ask whether decisions have already been made, and whether some areas will be ring-fenced. In opposition, the Conservative Front-Bench team made it clear that they wanted to increase the size of the Army. My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce) said earlier that he would not quote things back at them. I am sorry, but I cannot help doing so.

In opposition, the then hon. Member for Woodspring—now the Secretary of State—was keen to ensure that we had a bigger Army. On 18 February 2008, he was asked by Adam Boulton of Sky News:

“So are you saying that you want… a bigger army?”

He replied:

“We want to see a bigger army.”

That rather contradicts what he is saying now, and what he was quoted as saying the other week in The Sunday Times—that

“nothing had been ruled out—even cuts to the numbers of uniformed personnel.”

Are we to believe that what the Conservatives said before the last election was just the rhetoric of opposition? Was it not, in fact, a cynical ploy to give the impression that they were the party that was standing up for the armed forces?