| Previous Section | Home Page |
Mr. Rogers : While he is talking about service accommodation, will the Chairman of the Select Committee comment on the fact that, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes) in April, the Secretary of State said that
Column 710
unavoidable and essential repairs to service accommodation amounted to £323 million, and in an answer to me last week the figure had gone up to £360 million? The hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) said that troops seemed to be happier in the worst conditions, but does he think that the state of affairs implied by those answers is good?Mr. Mates : My remarks related to troops on active duty in the Falkland Islands, and the argument holds ground. The hon. Gentleman should go to see them because he would then understand the context of my remarks. I am talking not about baths and showers leaking, but about the most primitive conditions where people think they are doing any essential job and are thoroughly happy doing it. That is a remarkable characteristic of the British soldier in service. In Northern Ireland we were much impressed with what we heard and saw, particularly with the vigour with which the third brigade pursues its task of border security. I pay a sincere tribute to the men and women of the Ulster Defence Regiment, whom we visited when we were there, and whose job is possibly the most thankless of all in the services. That they can continue--most of them part-timers and civilian members of the community of Northern Ireland--to do that job knowing that their lives are at risk both on and off duty, at home, on holiday or wherever they may be, is nothing short of remarkable. I am glad to pay tribute to them for the way in which they carry out their work.
The Committee decided last winter to embark on an inquiry into the defence implications of recent events. We have finished that inquiry and will be reporting to the House soon, following our visit next week to Moscow and Berlin. Our report on the White Paper concentrates on, as it states,
"those aspects of defence policy which continue to deserve the attention of the House in the midst of dramatic changes." To put it in less grand terms, we have concentrated on the daily and weekly grind of Ministry of Defence life. I hope that it is helpful that we have done so.
Contrary to some reports, defence expenditure is not increasing. We tried to set out the complex picture in paragraph 2.2 of the White Paper, which I commend to the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) if he wants to look at a complicated sum and talk about facts rather than dogma. This year is already a tough one. In 1989-90, the Ministry spent much of its accumulated savings carried forward from recent years. Inflation has been higher than expected, which has meant a real terms fall in defence spending this year compared with last of about £700 million. Some of that was anticipated, but most of it was not. Sir Michael Quinlan, the Permanent Under-Secretary, talks of
"a very tight programme management problem."
We have seen the six-week procurement freeze, which is a desperate measure, although not a new one.
For the next years in the planning cycle--1991-92 and 1992-93--plans suggest a small annual real rise, partly because £260 million extra was found for 1991-92 in the public expenditure White Paper. But the Committee is not confident that the sums for those years will represent an increase. As we state :
"Past experience does not inspire confidence in recent Treasury inflation forecasts the planned small recovery in defence spending in 1991-92 and 1992-93 looks extremely susceptible to the cumulative effects of inflation."
Column 711
Inflation can eat away at the defence budget, although we are happy to congratulate the MOD on having managed for three successive years to keep rises in the price of defence equipment below the rate of general inflation. That is a tribute to successive procurement Ministers, and not least Sir Peter Levene, who has had an electrifying effect on the way that contracts are let within the Ministry of Defence and on competition policy in general.Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton) : Did not the Select Committee report that unreliable equipment in the armed forces costs the taxpayer £1 billion per annum? Why has the Committee made such a feeble attempt to get the Government to do something about it?
Mr. Mates : I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should think that it is us who are being feeble. There is a report tagged to this debate on the reliability and maintainability of defence equipment which I commend to the hon. Gentleman. If he wants to make a speech on the subject and catches Mr. Speaker's eye, no doubt he will do so. That is a worrying factor to which I shall turn later.
Mr. Cohen : About £1 billion per annum could be saved if we dealt with the unreliable equipment.
Mr. Mates : It is a bit rich for a Member who has done nothing but call for reductions in defence expenditure to say that we are not doing well enough in spending the MOD's money.
Mr. Benn : My hon. Friend's point is that there is massive waste in defence spending. The Conservative party always criticises people for what, allegedly, they waste--for example, local government. But when my hon. Friend points out the savings to be made--Rapier overspent by about £300 million--why do we not have a clearer indication of the Government's acceptance that there is major waste in the defence budget?
Mr. Mates : I do not know why the right hon. Member for Chesterfield puts those questions to me. Has he read the reports which my Committee unanimously agreed, and which have been critical of such matters? The MOD is due to answer those questions and I am not sure why the right hon. Gentleman should criticise me for bringing the issues to the attention of the House. It is hard to take such criticism from people who do nothing but criticise any expenditure defence.
There is no doubt that there is pressure from the Treasury in the public spending round to lop off the odd £1 billion from the defence budget-- it was ever thus--and leave it to the MOD to decide which pet schemes to abandon. A few years of that, some say, and the defence budget will be well down. That is crazy, and those who write and talk about it do no service to themselves or to the defence of this country. It is essential that any changes in defence expenditure reflect a planned and orderly process of matching commitment and resources, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said. Arbitrary cash cuts and deliberate attrition by inflation make prudent management of the defence budget next to impossible. In some senses, there will be little need to reduce service manpower because it is steadily reducing itself. The Committee has noted a shortfall from requirement of 12,342 in the services. The British Army of the Rhine is now below 55,000--the figure that used to be regarded as the floor. We looked at some of the measures taken to
Column 712
improve retention. Everybody has his favourite scheme. I am concerned about the fall in planned expenditure on recruitment advertising, to which the Committee referred, and about the huge falls in advertising for the reserves.The advertising budget for the Territorial Army is down 30 per cent. this year and that is difficult to understand when the reported difficulties in recruiting people to the services are so great. That does not seem to be a prudent saving. As we say in the report, the increases in the regular reserve, which simply reflects the number of people leaving the forces early and retaining a commitment. Few of those regular reserves seem to attend training, and Ministers should look carefully into that.
Women constitute about 5.5 per cent. of service strength. Wrens now serve at sea, and no doubt some of my colleagues will want to express their views on that. In any event, it is essential that the MOD keeps an eye on the effects of the decision. I also hope that Ministers will be able to announce that all the remaining differences between men's and women's pay and conditions of service will shortly be removed. There is no justification for any remaining differentials. Because of MOD policy, we still do not know what proportion of service strength comes from the ethnic minorities, but we know from recruitment records that the proportion is very low. Only about 250 ethnic minority service personnel join each year-- barely 1 per cent. of entrants. The Peat Marwick report was welcome, but the Committee calls on Ministers again to reconsider cap badge monitoring. There is nothing to lose from that and there could be much to gain. As for procurement, we refer to the need for another auxiliary oiler replenishment vessel soon. I note that when the Duchess of York named the "Fort Victoria" in Belfast on 12 June, describing it as a "floating supermarket", the Secretary of State was reported as having responded to questions about further orders by saying,
"I am not sure I can afford this one at the moment."
We hope that he can, and that a third one will be ordered soon. The Committee also drew attention to what is not in the White Paper--in particular, the older Royal Air Force aircraft which will soon need expensive replacements : Buccaneer, Nimrod, Andover, and Canberra. We also mention the long pause in deciding whether to go ahead with a new generation of nuclear-powered fleet submarines and further diesel-electric Upholder class submarines.
The Committee also looked at merchant shipping. As the House knows, we have been studying the defence implications of the availability of merchant shipping for some years. The White Paper has a depressing and worrying situation to report. It accepts that this remains an area of concern for the United Kingdom and the alliance. In paragraphs 5.12 to 5.21 we examine the figures in some detail, and we are worried about the continuing decline in United Kingdom merchant fleet manpower and in shipping in certain categories. For instance, we depend on roll-on roll-off ferries being made available by our NATO allies. That is reflected in the fact that most of the ships chartered for United Kingdom national exercises were Danish roll- on roll-off ferries--none of the 29 ships chartered was British, although on NATO exercises most ships chartered seem to have been British. Recent events may increase rather than diminish the importance of shipping for reinforcing our forces in Germany. The channel tunnel has obvious weaknesses as
Column 713
a means of reinforcement, so we look to Ministers for a further sign that steps are being taken to reverse the decline in the merchant fleet and in merchant navy personnel.The Ministry is now untied from the PSA for works services, so for the first time we had a duty to examine the MOD works programme--a formidable task. Nine per cent.--£1.9 billion--of the defence budget goes on works and maintenance. The Ministry is a huge landowner, with more than 250,000 hectares of land and with comparable property interests abroad. Among the many construction and modernisation projects are a substantial number for BAOR and Royal Air Force Germany. Some of them may prove to be unintended presents for Germany, although there are clearly commitments which will have to continue, however long and in whatever strength we remain.
In paragraph 4 we recommend that the possibility of replacing the old barracks at Aldergrove in Northern Ireland be kept open ; that would enable the previous balance of four roulement and six resident battalions in Northern Ireland to be restored which would reduce turbulence for service personnel in the Province.
The Ministry is looking for more land for training ; so much is openly declared in the White Paper. We discovered that since 1987 freehold holdings for Army training areas and ranges had risen by 3, 000 hectares. Sooner or later the Ministry will have to deal with the question of additional training land for forces withdrawn from Germany. Knowing as I do how desperately short the services are of training land, I add that this is a policy which, although it sounds strange, makes every sort of sense, and I hope that it will be pursued.
We have again examined MOD's new management strategy, which is reported to be proceeding well and on target for full introduction in 1991. With recent events in mind, it could hardly be introduced at a more vital or difficult moment. Tight budgetary control, the introduction of genuine performance indicators--on which we are obliged to report somewhat sceptically--and the setting of targets will all be needed if MOD and the services are to carry out what could be the most radical shake-up since the second world war. Finally, the Committee looked at defence research and development which, like works and maintenance, is a major and mostly unregarded part of the defence budget. This year R and D will cost £2.7 billion, or 12.6 per cent. of the budget. As a Committee regularly examining defence equipment procurement projects, we are only too well aware of how the money goes. Government policy is to reduce defence R and D's share of the nation's scarce technological resources--at present it accounts for almost half all Government-funded R and D. But the figures suggest that civil R and D is planned to fall faster than defence R and D. We cannot entirely share MOD's confidence that industry is increasing its share of financing defence R and D. All this is taking place at a time when the four principal MOD research establishments are to be set up in 1991 as the defence research agency. We are worried lest innovative strategic research be squeezed out by an approach dominated by the agency's commercial remit, based on a customer relationship with MOD and others.
I have mentioned research and development at £2.7 billion ; construction and works at £1.9 billion ; 250,000 hectares of land ; and 172,000 civilian employees. The list
Column 714
gives some idea of the scale of MOD's budget and of the scale of reductions in public expenditure that could theoretically be achieved. It is also a measure of the sheer scale of the management problem that making these radical changes presents. We shall be looking in the months and years to come at the way in which the Ministry handles these matters.I had intended to make some detailed comments on our two reports on reliability and maintainability of defence equipment and on Rapier, but as it is clear that hon. Members taking part in the debate have read them I shall leave the making of those remarks to them. Speaking on my behalf-- although colleagues may agree with some of what I say--I should like to mention the atmosphere in which these changes are taking place. My right hon. Friend was absolutely right : we could never have believed the speed with which recent changes have happened. Some are now saying that the pace will slow down and steady, so we shall have time to take stock. I venture a different opinion--I think that the process is likely to speed up.
Some of the positions that some countries are adopting in the negotiations are no more than that ; I do not believe that they will bear examination in the light of those countries' experience. The Soviet Union is naturally uncomfortable about a united Germany being part of NATO. While trying to negotiate--not very realistically--that the military forces of the new Germany should somehow be associated with both NATO and the Warsaw pact, which does not make sense, the Soviets are also trying to negotiate guarantees of the presence of a large number of Soviet troops in the new Germany for five to seven years.
We may have to allow the Soviets a transitional period. I should be all in favour of our negotiating one, but I believe that when the time comes matters will seem very different to the Soviet Union. When there is a united Germany that is part of NATO and the European Community, and when that new Germany speedily brings the living standards of those living in what is now the German Democratic Republic up to western standards, as we know it will, it will become even more uncomfortable for the Soviet Union to leave such an enormous part of its armed forces sitting in Germany in those new surroundings. One hears of strains already ; East Germany under the old order was much better off than Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, exciting comment among the Soviet forces about the differences between the quality of life there and in the Soviet Union
Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : I am interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman, as Chairman of the Defence Select Committee, would say to the proposition that a united Germany might be governed by the SPD, which might have won an election on a platform calling for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from German soil, with the result that a united Germany was in neither the Warsaw pact nor NATO. What does the hon. Gentleman say about such a proposal, which seems to be gaining a great deal of popularity with people in East and West Germany?
Mr. Mates : Not for the first time I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not think that what he suggests will happen and it is therefore not fruitful to speculate on it. At
Column 715
the moment both sides want the new Germany to be a member of NATO and the EEC. The European Community is the key to this matter. When the new Germany is formed--some people say that it will happen in a year while others say that it will take two years ; I do not wish to make a forecast--it will start to become a western nation. There is no denying that and it is what people in East Germany want. That will not be compatible with being part of a military alliance of the old order of the Warsaw pact. I cannot see any free German wanting that. I was speaking about the speed of change and how it will affect Britain and the other NATO nations as much as it will affect Germany. Contrary to what some people say, although there will be difficulty over a CFE-I agreement, it will happen because the Americans and the Soviets want it. Far from there being a pause, the pressure to move to another round of conventional troop cuts will be enormous. It may be partly because of the politics of the new Germany and certainly because of what I have said about the desire of the Soviet Union to withdraw its forces from the new East Germany because of the discomfort that the Soviet Union will face if it leaves them there for any length of time. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and his colleagues will turn their attention to that. Although we may have debates about the size of the Navy, the Army or the Air Force, over the next two or three years we shall see a relentless downward pressure on manpower on both sides. Provided that reductions take place logically and in sequence and are balanced, I am all in favour of them.It is wrong for people to talk now about specific reductions. That is putting the cart before the horse. Unlike some Opposition Members, I do not believe everything that is said in the press. I am totally content with what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence said about the debates that are taking place in the Ministry of Defence. If those debates were not vigorous I should be disappointed. People should argue their corners and at the end of the day it is up to Ministers to draw the arguments together. To talk of chiefs as ostriches because they are putting forward the points of view of their services is crazy and can only be said by those who do not understand the system in the Ministry of Defence. It may have many faults, but vigorous discussion and debate is certainly not one of them.
Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow) : The hon. Gentleman has sought to outline accelerating changes in continental Europe. Does the hon. Gentleman or his Committee think that the training grounds that are available in the United Kingdom may not be adequate in the near future?
Mr. Mates : I think that I alluded to that. We are desperately short of training grounds and always have been. We have never had enough and that is why we send troops to train in Canada, Kenya and Cyprus. That is partly to give them overseas experience, but it is largely because there is no way in which they can carry out in Britain the scale of training that can be undertaken in Canada. If we were able to offer such training in Britain, I suggest that the hon. Gentleman and his constituents would complain loudest.
My last point does not deal with peripheral matters : it is at the heart of the debate. I said in the debate on the Army, and I make no apology for repeating, that when we
Column 716
have gone through all these changes there is only one asset that counts and it is the people who serve in our defence forces. They are the people who matter and they must be able to find a career and a career structure for the next 10 or 20 years. We do not do them a service by giving potted examples of how to cut this, save that and change the other.I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State say that a rational look is being taken at the changes. I hope that that will be an urgent look because, as I have tried to depict, the changes will be fast. That brings us to what will inevitably be a political rather than a military conclusion about what we need to defend our interests. By "us" I mean the European Community and western Europe in general. We must decide how to defend our interests through the next decade and into the next century. We must decide how to structure our forces so as to provide a career for people, and we must equip them in a way that will help them to carry out their task. Those who are trying to do that backwards in the interests of cheap headlines do us no service at all.
5.35 pm
Mr. Michael Foot (Blaenau Gwent) : I hope that the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) will forgive me if I do not discuss in detail his remarks about the Select Committee on Defence. I do not mean any disrespect to him or to his Committee, but I wish to return to the speech of the Secretary of State for Defence who defended the Government's policy.
The Government's attitude and response to worldwide international events is grotesquely inadequate. The whole country must look at the Government's proposals to see whether we can get some better remedies and better prescriptions. That applies especially to nuclear weapons and the possibilities for nuclear disarmament, because those are the most important questions. To anyone who says that that is a peculiar way to think, I would say that President Gorbachev, who is rather popular in some quarters, takes the same view. He has said for years that we have to reach a time when we will be able to have full-scale nuclear disarmament.
The Secretary of State has presented a White Paper that does not deal with that matter at all. It does not mention the
non-proliferation treaty. In a few months the Government will have to give their view on that. The Secretary of State looks puzzled, as if he has never heard of it. Perhaps he has not, because many members of the Government talk as if they have never heard of it and as if they are not proposing to do anything about it. Under the preamble to the treaty that we signed--and if we had not signed such a preamble there would be no treaty-- we have an obligation to do our best to get rid of nuclear weapons. That is one of the reasons why other countries were prepared to sign the treaty. The Government have produced a White Paper in which that is not even discussed and they do not think that it is a matter of any significance. That is an absurd way to deal with what remains one of the major questions confronting the world. We have a much better chance of dealing with that question now than we will have in five or 10 years.
Anybody who doubts the significance of the squalid inadequacy of the Government's response should read what the Prime Minister said when she returned from Moscow after her meeting with the Soviet President. She
Column 717
did not seem to have learnt anything from her conversations there. Perhaps I should withdraw that in one sense, because she made one reference which showed that she had learnt something which perhaps she should have taught her Ministers. I remember our discussions on the previous two or three defence White Papers. There was one two or three years ago which reviewed Soviet policy but did not mention that the Soviet Union had been on our side during the second world war and had suffered considerable casualties. It seems that the Prime Minister has at least learnt that. The right hon. Lady referred to the fact when she returned from her visit to the Soviet Union and made a statement on 12 June.The Soviet Union and its President attach some importance to the fact that it lost 27 million people during the last world war. That, of course, has influenced its judgment on some of the issues that are now before us. I grant that the Prime Minister mentioned that, but the rest of her remarks suggested that she has learnt nothing from the events that have taken place and are taking place.
If we were to believe what the Prime Minister said, and if we and others were to act on what she said, we would be taking steps to intensify the risk of conflict, not to reduce it. In about six replies to questions the Prime Minister said :
"Wars are caused by the weakness of nations, not by their strength".--[ Official Report , 12 June 1990 ; Vol. 174, c. 143.] Does the right hon. Lady think that that is an adequate description of what has happened over the past 20 or 30 years? If she thinks that other countries should take notice of what she says, she is, in effect, issuing an invitation to every country to embark on a huge programme of rearmament. There are some countries and some peoples who believe the right hon. Lady. I do not say that they do so because of the statement that I have quoted, but if they read what she says and take the same view, they will act accordingly. We know that the right hon. Lady has some strange pupils in her school for rearmament.
Mr. Tony Banks : The right hon. Lady has a strange view of history too.
I doubt whether the first world war was caused because some nations were weak. It is much more likely that it was caused because some nations which had the greatest power thought, "If we do not strike now, other countries will become strengthened and will rise against us. We must strike first before that happens." In those fanciful days our fanciful methods of describing such matters had not been invented. We might have described what they had before the first world war as a strategy of calculated response. It was partly that which landed us in the arms race. It was in part the arms race, not the weakness of other countries, which led to the outbreak of the first world war.
Mr. Mates : I am trying to follow what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. What would have happened if we had had a deterrent strategy and capability in war? That might have saved us in 1939.
Mr. Foot : We thought that we had that with the Dreadnoughts. We had some of the most powerful weapons in the world but that did not stop the war. It did not stop the calculation of what was going to cause the war.
Column 718
The Prime Minister says--I suppose that some people must take some notice of her--"Wars are caused by the weakness of nations, not by their strength."
That is an invitation to every country to strengthen its weapons and to make itself stronger and stronger. It is an invitation also to take precautionary steps, if necessary, to prevent other countries from strengthening their weapons. That was the circumstance of the pre-1914 arms race which led to the first world war.
The war in 1939 might bear a closer relationship to what the Prime Minister said. Although the Secretary of State talked about these matters earlier this afternoon, it is a piece of cheek when representatives of this Conservative Government tell us how the second world war was started. More important than any comparative strength or weakness was the fact that Conservative leaders at that time--they had almighty power in this place with majorities as large as the present one--favoured the aggressors. They favoured Hitler. They favoured Mussolini in Abyssinia and the fascists in Spain. They gave them enormous power and encouragement. If anyone disagrees with me, they have only to read the authentic accounts of what happened. If they wish, they can read a book entitled "Guilty Men", which was published about 50 years ago. It wears remarkably well and is still extremely good. If anyone wishes not to accept the account which is set out in that book-- it was published almost this week 50 years ago--let him read "The Gathering Storm", which was written by Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill's book says that it was the perfidy of a Government who were prepared to align themselves with fascist powers that led to the second world war, not the weakness or strength of nations. If Conservative Members do not like to learn these historical truths, let them read "The Gathering Storm", the first book which Churchill wrote on how the war happened.
Mr. Keith Mans (Wyre) : If what the right hon. Gentleman says is true, will he explain why the Labour party before the second world war voted consistently against an increase in defence expenditure to counter what was going on in Nazi Germany, and why his party voted against conscription before the war so that we would be unable to meet that threat?
Mr. Foot : I must refer the hon. Gentleman to the unchallengeable works of reference to which I have drawn attention. He will find the story and the arguments set out much more fully and much better in those works. If he reads them, he will learn exactly what happened and why it was more the alliance of Conservative Ministers with Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and the rest than any single factor that led to the outbreak of war.
Let us bring matters up to date. Let us consider some of the countries throughout the world that are accepting the doctrine that was espoused by the Prime Minister when she returned from Moscow. It seems that it is a doctrine which is now accepted by the Government. The right hon. Lady said :
"Wars are caused by the weakness of nations, not by their strength."
Was she saying that we must all go and look for nuclear weapons? The dictator of Iraq is one of the Prime Minister's leading pupils. I am not sure whether the gun that was sent to Iraq was meant for full-scale nuclear weapons. No one has yet been able to discover whether
Column 719
that was its purpose. I hope that someone will be able to do so in due course. If the Prime Minister thinks that her doctrine is correct, there is no reason why a British Government such as the present one should not be fool enough to encourage the dictator of Iraq to follow it. If that happens, what about the others? Gaddafi made a statement today on the same subject. In effect, he said that he was determined to have nuclear weapons. Under the Prime Minister's doctrine, that is a valid course to take. Why not? It is sensible of countries with interests to protect to say, "If the British Prime Minister says that this is the only way to protect ourselves, we might as well follow her doctrine." It is not an academic matter. It is an extremely topical one. If the horror of a third world war ever comes to us, it will be the result of failure to do anything about the proliferation of nuclear weapons.I suppose that much the most dangerous place is the middle east. We have read about the trial of the Israeli citizen who did his best to try to tell the world about the Israeli weapon. Other countries are building up nuclear weapons as well. Gaddafi says, "If the others have these weapons, I must be allowed to have them, too." I have no doubt that the leaders of Iran think that they should have a nuclear capability, too, especially as the leaders of Iraq are arming their country with nuclear weapons. As I have said, it is not an academic matter.
The non-proliferation treaty, about which the Minister was sneering a short while ago, was signed for the reasons which I have advanced. About 10 or 15 years ago some wise statesmen said--this is one of the few wise things that has ever been done in the nuclear age--"We must stop the spread of these weapons." Indeed, that is the only way in which the race can be stopped. The Government are so little interested in these matters that they make no mention of them, even though three or four weeks hence they are supposed to go to a conference to present their views.
I agree that the future of Germany is likely to shape the future of Europe and much else, as it has done twice before in the lifetime of some of us. Let us suppose that a newly elected Government of a united Germany say-- this has not been said yet, but if the Prime Minister's doctrine were accepted it could well be--"We want nuclear weapons on the same basis that the British Government demand that they should keep their nuclear weapons." Why should not a Government of a united Germany say that? What would be the British Government's response? Would they say, "Yes, that is fine"? The Prime Minister's reply would surely be, "The more the merrier." Her view is that the more countries which have nuclear weapons, the safer we all are. However, that would not be President Gorbachev's answer, or that of whoever may be the Russian leader over the next five or 10 years. One of the reasons why that wise statesman President Gorbachev has been raising that issue ever since he had the chance to do so is because he saw the perils. I am sure he recognises also the perils in respect of Germany.
What is the answer? The Minister of State for Defence Procurement is quite capable of giving answers for the Government even when he is not speaking for them, so I would be happy if he will tell us his own mind now. What if a new democratically elected German Government representing a powerful consensus of the country says, "All we ask is that we are allowed nuclear weapons on the same basis as the British Government"? The Germans have not done that yet, but if they do it would be wrong, in my opinion, for us to agree to such a proposition.
Column 720
Long before that danger arises there should be a treaty, agreement and understanding about the abolition of nuclear weapons. I repeat that President Gorbachev has insisted on making the same point right along. He will put the arguments to the Government, even if they do nothing about answering them now.The Government's response to the great, exciting and liberating events in Europe is quite inadequate. I have listened to a number of such debates in the House concerning the response that the west ought to give to the new, convulsive events in the Soviet Union. I recall again one of the most significant debates that ever I heard in the House, which occurred a year or so after the fall of Stalin, when the Prime Minister of the day, Winston Churchill, made his last speech as Prime Minister of that Government. In those days, I used to sit below the Gangway, where my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) usually takes his place. He is not there now, but his place has been taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore). It is an interesting vantage point. One can see best of all from there what the Government are up to, though one has to be a little careful about what the members of one's own Front Bench are up to as well. From that place, I witnessed the 1954 debate, when Winston Churchill made a very different speech from that which the right hon. Lady made when she returned from Moscow last week.
Winston Churchill's speech was made at a time when the assurances were far fewer and when the prospects looked much grimmer. He told the House, the country and the world that the horror, perils and intensified dangers of a nuclear arms race and of nuclear war were such that a huge effort ought to be made by the west to make the proper response to the Soviet leaders of those times--who were a good deal less liberal than their counterparts today.
He pleaded for the United Kingdom and the United States to respond in such a way that a real disarmament agreement could be achieved. He was stopped partly by the Foreign Office and partly by American intervention. If he had not been, think how the world could have been saved the epoch of most of the cold war. Of course, Winston Churchill brought vision and imaginative statesmenship to bear on those issues, but we have seen nothing of that kind from the present Government. Are we, as a result of the west's failure, to see a great opportunity again trickle through our fingers, as it did in 1954 and on some other occasions? My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) has written that that was one of the great lost opportunities of the post-war world. It is all the more remarkable that my right hon. Friend should have said that in his book, because he did not say it at the time, and admitted as much. But some people did. Aneurin Bevan said it in this House--as did Churchill, speaking for the Government. If Bevan and Churchill had had their way, and had raised the debate above the lower ranges to its proper level, and if a proper response had been made to the Soviets, what horrors, perils and costs in human life we might have avoided.
We have another wonderful chance, yet all we hear from the Prime Minister is that wars are caused by the weakness of nations, not their strength. The sooner that the Government are swept away, the better it will be for the people of the world.
Several Hon. Members rose--
Column 721
Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. There is much interest in the debate, and it will be helpful to all concerned if right hon. and hon. Members limit their speeches from now on.5.56 pm
Sir Geoffrey Finsberg (Hampstead and Highgate) : That was a fascinating piece of rhetoric but it was basically devoid of fact. The right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) raised the spectre of a unified Germany asking for nuclear parity with, for example, Great Britain. Has he never heard of the 1954 Brussels treaty, which makes such a thing impossible? The right hon. Gentleman is fond of telling right hon. and hon. Members what he thinks they do not know, but he conceals the facts that he chooses to ignore. His whole speech was built on that basis, and showed that he has for years lived in a time warp. He still lives in the days of Aldermaston and the CND, but the world has moved on considerably since then. Only the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent could resurrect the discredited Gollancz yellow books.
What really matter are the contributions made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and by the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill). At the heart of the debate is the future of NATO and of the Western European Union. Both hold the key to what may happen in the world. Clearly, the hon. Member for Clackmannan has not read the recent report adopted by the WEU which sets out Europe's place in the alliance and makes it plain that the retention in Europe of North American troops is vital. That report was unanimously accepted by communists, socialists, conservatives, liberals and Christian democrats.
The Hague platform also made it clear that the nations of western Europe believe that there is a need for the nuclear deterrent for a considerable time ahead. That platform was endorsed by socialist France and Spain, coalition Holland, and by other western European countries. In arguing that we should not have the nuclear deterrent, Labour Members are out of touch with the rest of the world. It is not the House and the Government who are out of touch but the Labour party. That is why it failed to win office on three consecutive occasions, and why it will fail on the fourth.
Mr. George Walden (Buckingham) : I do not suggest that my hon. Friend makes his point with insufficient clarity, but it is worth mentioning that at various stages in Labour's recent defence thinking it has been in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament in the face of a communist regime. As that regime is now highly unstable, and it is conceivable that there could in the future be a militaristic, introverted, nationalistic regime in the Soviet Union, it is interesting to pose the question whether Labour would still be in favour of nuclear disarmament.
Sir Geoffrey Finsberg : That would depend on what the Labour party thought would win the most votes at the time that it had to answer the question. Given the present defence policies advocated by the Opposition, there is no possibility that they will win another election.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in his opening speech, there are no real signs of any reduction in conventional weapons by the USSR. There have been many promises and statements of intent--and I do not
Column 722
doubt Mr. Gorbachev's intentions--but we do not have sufficient evidence of reductions, and until we have, we must not let our guard down.Last year the Western European Union featured in the defence statement, as a result of the action in the Gulf and the aftermath of The Hague platform. I am sorry to see no mention of the WEU this year because the out-of-area danger still exists. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed) said, we cannot afford to overlook that danger.
The future of Europe's security depends upon America and Canada continuing to commit forces to Europe. Had America not become isolationist after the first world war, it is pretty certain that there would not have been a second world war. We have to make every effort to keep American troops in Europe.
When Mr. Gorbachev addressed the Council of Europe it was interesting that he made it plain that he believed there was a need, as far as the west was concerned, for America to remain in Europe. He did not call for the removal of American troops. Therefore, we have to make America feel that it is wanted and needed to protect this continent.
Surely NATO must include a unified Germany, which is going to come, at whatever pace. The USSR is rightly anxious because of the 27 million people killed in the war--I shall leave aside the 20 million murdered by Stalin-- and she has a right to be reassured that there is a way to protect her security. The USSR needs those assurances. I have a specific question for my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement, who is to reply to the debate tonight. On the day that the East German La"nder join the Federal Republic of Germany, under article 23 of the federal constitution the whole of Germany becomes part of the Western European Union, and all her allies in the WEU are obliged to defend her at the border. Do the Government accept that that is not a matter for discussion by the four-plus-two, but will automatically happen and that no documents need to be signed, as they were signed in 1954? I should like confirmation of that fact.
I have mentioned the Western European Union a few times because the Soviet Union has great respect for and a good relationship with it. The Supreme Soviet and the Parliamentary Assembly of the WEU have established annual visits for discussions and we found them to be most valuable when we were there about six weeks ago. At that stage we, too, were worried about the apparent stalling of the conventional forces in Europe negotiations. It was clear from talking to members of the Supreme Soviet that they had not yet satisfied the military as to what would happen to the military establishment. When one has granted virtually everything that the military establishment wanted for decades, one has to convince it of the need to make the sort of reductions required by CFE, or because of Mr. Gorbachev's promises. Let us consider just the withdrawal of Soviet troops from East Germany, Poland and Hungary. The Soviets have to face the problem of rehousing those soldiers when they return and that is why they must have the support of the military establishment.
Civilian members of the Supreme Soviet want to reach an accommodation with the west as rapidly as possible. NATO and the Warsaw pact have kept the peace in Europe for well over four decades. Now we need to build a new organisation to secure peace for both east and west.
Column 723
The European Community has no place in that because it has no defence powers or obligations whatsoever. The only organisation which has a treaty obligation to deal with defence is the Western European Union.We now face the prospect of success for the CSCE, but it lacks one vital factor--democratic parliamentary oversight. Proposals have been made at the Western European Union and the Council of Europe that parliamentary input should be built into the CSCE process. Whether it is for baskets 2 and 3 for the Council of Europe or basket 1 for the Western European Union is immaterial. What is not immaterial is the fact that something has to be done to make Governments accountable to the representatives of their national Parliaments. When one studies CSCE it is interesting to find that about 30 members are already either full or associate members of the Council of Europe, which leaves only half a dozen or so outside the council, and they could be brought in in a way that would be satisfactory to them. The Soviet Union is already a guest member of the Council of Europe, and it also already has an excellent relationship with the Western European Union. The confidence that we have established in those two organisations gives hope for the future.
Mr. Tony Banks : Earlier the hon. Gentleman referred to President Gorbachev's address to the Council of Europe, which was an excellent speech. However, President Gorbachev also talked about the common European home at that time, and I should be interested to know whether the hon. Gentleman believes that that objective is attainable. If we start talking about a Europe which stretches from the Atlantic to the Urals, what will be the position of the United States with regard to the defence of Europe?
Sir Geoffrey Finsberg : Briefly, the answer to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question is that, as Mr. Gorbachev made clear in that speech, he recognises that there will still be a need for the United States to be associated with the defence of Europe. That was very clear from his speech and the hon. Gentleman was there to hear it, as I was. The common European house is not a new idea. It was originated more than 20 years ago by a distinguished Austrian statesman, and has been recreated recently by Mr. Gorbachev. I believe that it is attainable, but no one can prophesy the time scale. Indeed, if the hon. Gentleman and I had debated what would happen in Europe 18 months ago, and had predicted what has happened, little men in white coats would have taken us away, and that would probably have been the only time that the two of us would have occupied a common home.
Another aspect of out-of-area threats is that we cannot ignore dangers that come from outside Europe. I do not believe that the Soviet Union takes a different view on that issue from this country or from NATO. If the Soviet Union and NATO were to abandon all their nuclear weapons, the sole result would be that the Soviet Union, eastern and central Europe and the emerging democracies there and the west would be at the mercy of nuclear blackmail from Libya, South Africa, Israel or China--it does not matter where. Therefore, one has to retain the residue of a deterrent and that is recognised by both east and west. I hope that official spokesmen for the Labour
Column 724
party in the House do not deny that, because it would be a tragedy if they were so out of touch as to say that such threats were not a real danger. We need to be alert.Europe today is a very different place from the Europe of 12 months ago, when we considered the previous defence estimates and debated them. The hon. Member for Clackmannan, who opened the debate for the Opposition, was highly critical of the part that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has taken in unfolding events. He is entitled to say that sitting in the fastness of this country. Those of us who have been lucky enough to visit Poland and Moscow and to talk to the Hungarians and the East Germans who have experienced free elections know that they are united in their belief that it was the efforts of the Prime Minister and Mr. Gorbachev that broke the log-jam in eastern and central Europe. Anyone who denies that is, frankly, a fool and one hopes that the Labour party does not want to be considered as such.
The Opposition's hatred and dislike of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister must not allow them to deceive the public into believing that she has not played a major role in opening eastern and central Europe to democracy. Next year will see even more change. In the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates), I pay tribute to him and the Select Committee on Defence for the enormous amount of valuable work that it undertakes when analysing defence issues which it then puts before the House. It is sad that we do not have sufficient debates on those subjects because defence issues are still at the heart of what makes this country survive. If we fail to match our intentions with our deeds we shall be in a sad way, but I do not believe that the Government propose to let the country down in that manner.
6.10 pm
| Next Section
| Home Page |