Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Thomas Docherty and Jim Murphy

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Murphy]

I know I am testing your patience, Mr Deputy Speaker, but out of good manners I will give way to my hon. Friend.

[Thomas Docherty]

My right hon. Friend is being most generous, as are you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is he aware of the sheer anger felt in Fife that after more than a year of SNP Ministers saying that they would save RAF Leuchars, they have betrayed the people of Fife with a cynical policy U-turn?

[Mr Murphy]

My hon. Friend has campaigned long and hard on RAF Leuchars, as has the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife. It is remarkable that SNP Members have toured that part of Scotland promising to keep open three bases, but now describe the Government’s policy as a blueprint for the defence of an independent Scotland.

The SNP has been around since 1934 and has been in power in the Scottish Government for five years, but SNP Ministers have not even done the most remedial of thinking. Scotland currently sits at the heart of one of the most successful union of nations anywhere on earth. The UK has a seat at the United Nations Security Council, an invaluable transatlantic bond and a vital role in the EU, NATO and the Commonwealth. A collection of people from four different countries serving in Her Majesty’s armed forces have achieved great things together in the past and will, I am certain, do so in the future as well. The SNP wishes to turn the defence debate into a referendum about the location of Trident, as if moving it a few miles across the border would make Scotland inherently safer. SNP Members may be hiding today, but they cannot hide from the truth that their policies are incoherent and will take Scotland out of the RAF, the Royal Navy and the British Army, as well as having an irreversible impact on shipbuilding on the Clyde and Rosyth. Amid all the argument about the single question to be asked in the referendum, the debate must be about all of the answers that the SNP refuses to provide.

Where the Government are doing the right thing in the national interest, whether it is Afghanistan, Libya or defence reform, we will continue enthusiastically to support them. Therefore, today, I enthusiastically thank the Chair of the Select Committee and all its members for their forensic work in scrutinising the previous and the current Governments on their work on defence, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for enabling today’s debate.