Defence Spending (Wales)

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mrs James]

I am not surprised; I think that is to be expected. The people of Wales know what is to be expected, as do people in other parts of Great Britain.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend says that the people of Wales know what to expect. Yesterday, I looked at the part of the Ministry of Defence website about defence in Wales. It said that the £14 billion investment in St Athan was still to go ahead. Would it be helpful if the people of Wales were able to look at that website and see accurate information? Perhaps when the Minister responds, he will announce that the website is in fact accurate.

[Mrs James]

I urge people to look at that website. We must have the most up-to-date information, and I hope that the Minister will give us good news today.

In my closing remarks, I will quote the memorial in St Athan. It says that the boys of the coalfield will

“dedicate themselves to complete the task so nobly begun.”

I hope that the Minister will return to his Department and dedicate himself to completing this task for St Athan, the people of Wales and our brave soldiers.

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[John Glen]

No, I shall make a little more progress and come back to the hon. Gentleman in a minute.

If the best place is St Athan, there is a need to bring certainty to the decision and clarity on the time scale and scope of the project. However, I do not believe that money should be spent in Wales just because it needs the investment. That is just one part of the decision. It is critical to ensure that any consolidated training college addresses the broadest possible needs.

[Mrs Moon]

I am extremely pleased to see my colleague from the Select Committee on Defence here today and I pay tribute to the work that he does as a Member for whom I have a great deal of respect. However, what he is suggesting today is that the Ministry of Defence has failed over the past three years rigorously to examine the proposal for St Athan. He is suggesting that civil servants and Ministers have neglected to consider all the issues that he has raised. That is just not true.

[John Glen]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I have a great deal of respect for her and her knowledge of this subject, but it was her party that was in government for several years and had an opportunity to bring this matter to a conclusion before the election. I wonder why it did not do so.

For me, the challenge remains the need to rationalise defence training and spending across the three services to the broadest possible extent. Let us consider leadership and management training. There are a huge number of locations throughout the UK. There are separate leadership schools and centres of excellence. There are vast numbers of adventure training establishments and music schools. I am frustrated that there is not enough clarity about taking the process that I have described to the furthest extent and perhaps giving greater scope for initiatives such as those that I am discussing.

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[Simon Hart]

It is only a matter of time. Despite that, I do not agree with a word that the hon. Gentleman said. The Government faced some extremely difficult choices—hon. Members have heard that expression before—in the context of not only defence spending, but every other form of inward investment in Wales. The evidence speaks for itself, and the Minister will no doubt put us right. We should also not allow ourselves to be tempted into believing that this is somehow the end of the road for St Athan, because it has been made perfectly clear that it is not. However, we will hear more about that, and I do not want to steal the Minister’s thunder.

I said that this would be a brief contribution, although it has been slightly longer than I had intended. However, as an ex-serviceman on the very fringes of the military, I think it is simply nonsense to believe that decisions can be taken on the basis purely of local need or local economic considerations, rather than the nation’s overall defence needs in the overall context of the UK economy.

[Mrs Moon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hart]

No. I am coming to an end.

We are holding the telescope to the wrong eye if we think the nation can proceed in that way economically or in a defence context. I am delighted that we are facing up to that issue, because Labour Members have not done so before. That depresses me, and every intervention by a Labour Member has simply confirmed my fear that they are prepared to take decisions with no possible concern for the economic, local or defence consequences.

[Mrs Moon]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hart]

No. I will finish now. I am sure that the hon. Lady will then have the floor.

To end on a lighter note, there is one decision on which I commend the previous Government: they ensured that the Welsh Guards regimental goat, William Windsor, survived their various assaults on the armed services in Wales. However, it is all very well the hon. Member for Swansea East referring to the many letters that she may have received from satisfied servicemen’s families. I do not know what world she inhabits, but I can assure her that, in the world that I have been inhabiting, I have had personal contact year after year, month after month, and day after day with people who are in the service of our country abroad who have been begging for some small improvement in their lot. They are deeply frustrated by the inactivity or incompetence—I do not know which—that, I am afraid, epitomised 13 years of Labour rule for those who happened to be armed servicemen.

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[Mrs Moon]

It is highly appropriate that you are chairing this Committee, Mr Gray, given your knowledge and experience in the field of defence.

As a newly appointed member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I have recently discussed with members across Europe their view that the British defence and security review was rushed. That is not just an impression in the UK, but across NATO, where there is concern at the result of the cuts for European defence.

We are here to look specifically at the impact on defence in Wales. I recall a statement of my mother’s that she threw at me many a time: “Decide in haste, repent at leisure.” That is the situation with the strategic defence and security review—a decision that is going to impact dramatically on our sovereign capability, our skills capability and our financial—

[Oliver Colvile]

The Labour Government were in power for 13 years yet, after the initial period, they failed to produce a review. Why did they not have a review much sooner, as the coalition Government have had?

[Mrs Moon]

The Labour Government held a number of reviews, but not full defence and security reviews. There was a constant review of our capability, which had to take place because of our involvement in Afghanistan. I do not think anyone can say that the Labour Government failed to review and assess constantly the needs of our armed forces.

I want to focus on the issues of sovereign capabilities and skills capabilities in the defence industry in Wales. I am particularly concerned that we are not looking at the impact of cuts on our long-term capacity to protect our troops with the equipment and the platforms that they need. Prime contractors are represented in Wales, as colleagues have mentioned. Defence manufacturers based in Wales include EADS in Newport, General Dynamics in Islwyn and Thales Optics in St Asaph. For every job created by the industry, 1.6 jobs are created elsewhere in the economy. It has been calculated that a £100 million investment in the industry creates 1,885 jobs throughout the UK economy, 726 of which will be directly in the defence industry.

I want to focus on the role of SMEs in the defence sector in Wales, and to make the case for supporting and nurturing them in the months and years ahead. According to research from the Defence Industries Council, there are more SMEs in the UK defence industry than in the French, German, Italian and Spanish industries combined. Interestingly, General Dynamics—in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans)—said in evidence to the Select Committee on Defence:

“GDUK believes passionately in building a strong supply chain based on British companies, and in particular SMEs; and we practise what we preach. 70% by value of our work on Bowman is undertaken by British companies.”

The Bowman programme is based in south Wales. In the same evidence, GDUK stated:

“We took a deliberate decision to concentrate that growth on south Wales. Following the recent signature of the contract for the Demonstration Phase of the Scout Platform, we expect the size of our work force to grow steadily over the next three years, again with much of that in south Wales.”

We have to remember that the impact of the growth of General Dynamics will rely strongly on 70% of SMEs being financially capable of surviving the current round of cuts and insecurity around contracting coming out of the MOD.

[Guto Bebb]

It would appear that we are again receiving a lecture about the role of defence spending in economic development. I am bemused by the fact that between 2003-04 and 2007-08, defence spending in Wales fell from £430 million to £390 million under the Labour Government.

[Mrs Moon]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to turn the whole debate. I am frightened by the debate, because the Government seem not understand that our defence capability relies on the defence industry being able to provide the equipment, and on our having the skills and the sovereign capability to provide our troops with the ability to defend this country.

[John Glen]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Moon]

No, I am not giving way again; our time is severely limited and I want to make progress.

I have made contact both with SMEs that form part of the supply chain of equipment to the MOD and with the large companies that I mentioned earlier. In my constituency, I have TB Davies, AMSS Ltd, Spectrum Technologies and TES Aviation, all of which are not only vital to the economy of Wales and of my constituency but provide the skills base that allows the MOD to provide the platforms needed by our armed forces.

It would be irresponsible not to consider the implications that the loss of the skills of the SMEs based in Wales would have for our prime contractors; we should remember that 70% of the work of those main contractors is allocated to SMEs. If we do not protect those SMEs, if we do not consider that skills base, if we do not consider our sovereign capabilities, we will put the defence of this country at severe risk.

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[Mr Brown]

Absolutely. I shall come to that later, but I have to say to my hon. Friend that I could not have put it much better. Until now, at least, there has been more than a fair degree of consensus on what was to happen at St Athan. It is somewhat disappointing that we are not getting the same feeling today.

[Mrs Moon]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Select Committee on Defence carried out a full and thorough inquiry into the proposed training academy at St Athan, and felt that it was the right place for it, and that it was the right activity to carry out there?

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend is an extremely knowledgeable member of the Select Committee, and is exactly right; indeed, the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) indicated the same thing at the start of his speech. It basically made sense, and the Select Committee gave it full backing.