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on that. Attacking federalism is not the same as attacking our partners in Europe. I believe that he will find that most people support him. His philosophy and his policy, even if not some of his polemics, are with the grain of British public opinion and time will prove him right.6.39 pm
Mr. John Home Robertson (East Lothian): It is a pleasure to follow the new Chairman of the Defence Select Committee. I thought that he was a bit party political at the beginning of his speech. If he continues that way, he will have difficulties in the Committee. However, I am sure that we will be able to proceed in a constructive way.
For the second year running I have spent part of the recess driving a truck in a humanitarian aid convoy to Bosnia run by Edinburgh Direct Aid. I want to speak about peacekeeping operations with particular reference to the former Yugoslavia and to examine wider aspects of European security.
I was in Bosnia from 21 August until 14 September, which was a particularly interesting time to be there. We have all seen the television images of wrecked communities and ethnic cleansing, but I can tell the House that it is something else to come face to face with the women, children and old people of Srebrenica who endured three unspeakable years under siege in what was supposed to be a UN safe area before being overrun, terrorised and driven into refugee camps around Tuzla. I mention women, children and old people because there were not many men of working age in evidence. We can only speculate on what happened to them.
It is something else again to hear incoming artillery in the densely populated town of Tuzla and to be exposed to sniper fire in the capital of Sarajevo. For me, it was bad enough to share the deprivation of electricity and water with the besieged people of Sarajevo for just two days. The fortitude and dignity of the long-suffering civilians of Bosnia--Moslems, Croats and Serbs alike--is truly awe-inspiring. I had been in Bosnia before but not as close to the sheer brutality of the conflict. I had the good fortune to be on the spot on and after 30 August, when the United Nations and NATO finally set about destroying the heavy weapons that had been randomly massacring people in the UN safe area of Sarajevo for the past three years. It was an exhilarating experience for me and it was even more exhilarating for the local people. They cannot understand why we waited three long years while 11,000 people died in Sarajevo, including 37 as recently as 28 August.
It remains to be seen whether western Governments and the British Government in particular have the commitment to see that action through to a proper conclusion. I found it utterly bizarre that Britain, a member of the UN Security Council, announced the withdrawal of our 24 Air Mobile brigade from Yugoslavia on the very day that Richard Holbrooke announced a ceasefire settlement that requires a substantially larger peacekeeping force.
The House will remember being recalled from the Whitsun recess on 31 May to debate the deployment of the rapid reaction force. We were told that the UN would get tough with the chetniks and that the new force would secure the road to Sarajevo, defend the remaining safe areas and protect humanitarian aid supplies. We all supported that proposal unanimously.
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As a member of the Defence Select Committee, I hoped to see something of the British contingent in the rapid reaction force while I was in Bosnia. For whatever reason, nobody from that force could meet me officially--although I did catch sight of elements from time to time, including the 29 vehicles that were held up at a BiH Bosnian Government checkpoint at Gornji Vakuf for 17 days, which seemed to indicate a lamentable lack of liaison with the Bosnian Government. I had a personal reason for wanting to know about the deployment of the British rapid reaction force artillery on Mount Igman. Our convoy was planning to drive into Sarajevo by that route, so I contacted the Secretary of State's office to say that we were looking forward to having the benefit of British protection on the Mount Igman road in accordance with the clear ministerial statement about the purpose of the deployment of 19 Field Regiment--the Highland Gunners--on Mount Igman.I was truly amazed when the Secretary of State dispatched a Ministry of Defence civil servant to deliver a letter to me in Split, telling me that the Igman route should not be used by aid convoys but that we should take instead the route through chetnik
checkpoints--where it is standard practice for the Serbian siege forces to impose outrageous delays and to steal up to half the aid consignments on convoys. If I had taken that advice, I would have been a prime candidate to be taken hostage when the air strikes started nine days later.
The Secretary of State, having deployed an artillery regiment on Mount Igman to protect aid convoys, was telling us that the British force would not protect that British aid convoy and that we should submit to delay and depredation by the chetniks. I was left with the impression that the Highland Gunners had been marched up Mount Igman by a worthy successor to the grand old Duke of York and that it would not be long before they were marched back down again.
Happily, that was not the end of the story. The UNHCR told us that it was keen that we should go to Sarajevo by the Igman road and that such convoys were routinely escorted by French UN forces--as they had been for some considerable time. I was able to drive 10 tonnes of food over an extremely bumpy and steep mountain track that had recently been a free-fire zone for chetnik gunners, and where Edinburgh Direct Aid had suffered casualties in April.
It was impressive to see American aircraft in action overhead and French tanks and guns firing at threatening positions. It was extremely reassuring to have a French armoured personnel carrier escorting every one of our trucks. But as a British Member of Parliament, I was left puzzled about the disposition of our own forces on the mountain. I know from personal conversations with British soldiers that they are keen to be as tough with the Serbs as they have been with the other parties, to help resolve the conflict. I pay tribute to all the British battalions that have served in areas of confrontation between Bosnian Government forces--the BiH--and the Croatian HVO forces. I say that with particular feeling because I know that the Croats are in many cases the unsung villains of the conflict.
The Bosnian people whom I met were extremely sceptical about the British commitment to a fair settlement. There is a feeling that the British Government want to appease the chetniks. I am beginning to fear that that suspicion may be well founded. My overall
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impression is that the impetus of the British presence in UNPROFOR is not what it was during my previous visits to Bosnia. On the one hand the task of peacekeeping between the BiH and the HVO has largely succeeded and can be relaxed, which is welcome. On the other hand, the British contingent in the new rapid reaction force gives me the distinct impression of playing second fiddle to the Americans in the air and the French on the ground.Why did the Secretary of State go to such lengths deliberately to mislead a British aid organisation about UN policy on the delivery of supplies to Sarajevo? Are the British Government in the business of appeasing the Serbs and backtracking from support for the UN mission in Bosnia? That might be consistent with some of the noises coming from Conservative Back Benchers in recent debates.
The conflict in Bosnia is a humanitarian catastrophe and represents a serious threat to that part of Europe. We cannot blame the Americans for finding it difficult to understand what is happening and being unwilling to commit ground troops. The fact that we have waited three years, while 200,000 people have died, for an American-led peace initiative is an appalling indictment of the European powers. Whether or not we like it, there are likely to be more and more problems in and around Europe in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse--problems that will be seen as European rather than Atlantic responsibilities. The time has come for a European security structure. If the Secretary of State thinks otherwise, he must be an idiot.
As national forces--particularly our own--get smaller and military equipment becomes more high-tech and expensive, there are greater and greater constraints on what can be achieved by national forces operating independently. This may not be the most propitious moment to say nice things about the French, after their outrageous tests in the south Pacific, but I believe that Britain and France are the obvious prime movers in a new European security structure. Perhaps it is natural for me, as a Scot, on the 700th anniversary of the "Auld Alliance".
The time has surely come to recognise that Napoleon Bonaparte died in 1821 and that Britain was closely allied with France in both the major conflicts of the 20th century and in the cold war. French and British military forces have a lot in common because of responsibilities inherited from their imperial past. The French have particular experience of short-warning, small-scale, long-range deployments to a wide variety of terrains and climates and France was the first European country to develop a rapid reaction force. That experience and history of willingness to intervene demonstrates a lot of common ground with our own forces.
I know that the armed forces of both countries would be keen to co-operate more closely for European security and UN-type operations. Indeed, I am pleased to learn from the defence estimates that French and British forces have been working together in 15 joint exercises despite the nationalist postures of both Governments. Of course, both nations are working closely together in Bosnia.
If we were in a closer military association with France, and perhaps with other European allies, we would be in a position to take the lead in areas vital for European security and to seek to co-ordinate nuclear weapons policy
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to reduce warhead numbers and prevent any further nuclear tests. I am confident that we will move in that direction with a new Labour Government in Britain.However, the Secretary of State for Defence seems to want to pretend that we can opt out of the problem of European instability. He is presiding over drastic cuts in our military forces where even our remaining infantry units are 5 per cent. under strength. His outburst in Blackpool last week was the speech of a Minister who is unfit to govern and destined for a long spell in the wilderness. The really disturbing undercurrent in the Secretary of State's speech was the return to that old Tory character flaw of English nationalism and irresponsible isolationism. Lack of concern for far-away countries of which we know little contributed to the fascist victory in the Spanish civil war and was notoriously wrong in Munich in 1938. I fear that it could aggravate the situation in Yugoslavia now.
The refusal to take part in a new security framework for Europe would be wrong, short-sighted and completely out of tune with the historic sense of responsibility and duty of the peoples of these islands. We should be taking the lead to help establish that new framework, and the sooner the better.
6.51 pm
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury): I will not seek to follow the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) down the path that he took. I should like to focus on personnel issues--on the men and women who serve in our armed forces. It is appropriate to do so in view of the serious recruiting problems in the Army and the grim news that the voluntary redundancy programme in the RAF has been 100 per cent. over-subscribed.
I should like to concentrate on three points. The first is that it is essential that the Prime Minister's pledge that there should be no further cuts in defence should be honoured, and in a way that takes account of the rising costs of personnel. Secondly, the Bett report should be discarded because, if adopted, it would transfer our armed forces from a culture based on leadership and team spirit to a 1970s managerial one. Thirdly, I shall argue that we could achieve more within the existing budget if we made more use of reserves. In the mid-1980s, defence spending averaged about 5 per cent. of GDP but by the year after next it will have fallen to 2.8 per cent. By all measures, expenditure on health and education has grown over that period, yet people talk about cuts. Social security expenditure has blossomed enormously--in fact, by more than the cut in defence spending. At a time when we spend a lower proportion of GDP on defence than does France, even ignoring the huge hidden cost of conscription in France, it is essential that we honour in full that commitment to defence spending.
Defence should be the first priority of any Government. When an angry general is topping the opinions polls in Russia, which still has 40,000 nuclear weapons, and when we hear of the proliferation of nuclear technology in unstable third-world countries such as North Korea and those of the middle east, it is time indeed to listen to the
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people who paraded so proudly in the two parades this year and not make the same mistake as we made in the 1930s.Mr. Llew Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brazier: Please let me make a little progress.
Overstretch of the armed forces has been repeatedly referred to already-- for example, the fact that the Navy's tasks have increased by a third over a decade when the number of ships has fallen by two thirds.
When I visited a battalion of my local regiment in Northern Ireland, I discovered that a quarter of its men's families back in Canterbury were receiving counselling for debt or for marital breakdown. Morale is brittle. The forces desperately need stability, which brings me to my second point.
When the Government set up a commission to consider the career structure, manning arrangements and pay and allowances for our armed forces early last year, some of us were puzzled. It seemed to us that the armed forces were doing a good job on the reduced resources available. It was strange that we should consider reorganising them. When the report was published in April, appropriately close to April fool's day, it was immediately panned by the press and then forgotten. However, I understand that several dozen committees in the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces are considering its findings.
Michael Bett and his colleagues made a serious attempt to come to terms with the difficulty of the armed forces. They took a lot longer over their work than did Sir Patrick Sheehy on the police force. Nevertheless, I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces to drop the report. It would be a disaster if its findings were implemented.
Ten years ago, I worked as the secretary of the English subsidiary of an international group. It had roughly the same number of employees worldwide as the armed forces, and we introduced proposals very similar to those that Michael Bett and his colleagues recommend. It was all there--performance- related pay, individual job appraisals and career banding.
Much of the civilian world is moving away from that approach to life. I remember the petty jealousies that resulted from the endless job assessments and the problems that were caused in that organisation. The impact of such proposals on the armed forces would be much worse.
The great Roman general Scipio said:
"Of all factors that make for success in battle, the spirit of the warrior is the greatest."
My God, where would we be if we introduced such proposals into our armed forces? The commander of a ship or regiment is not some skilled technocrat who must be appraised each year to decide how much to pay him. He is a leader and a team player. That is illustrated by the Sandhurst motto, "Serve, to lead".
We have to remember that the armed forces are not there simply to do a job. Their ultimate purpose is not even tested in peacetime and involves self- sacrifice and the willingness to give all in a war. The young fighter pilots who risked their lives in the desperate weeks of 1940 while Britain teetered on the edge of the precipice into which the rest of Europe had fallen were not driven by performance-related pay and job assessments.
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There is more to the Bett report and it is difficult to exaggerate how much damage it would cause. A throwaway line in the report admits that the proposals to settle service families would be incompatible with the regimental system in the Army. Are we to tell the Black Watch, which is currently serving in Pirbright, that it will now be regionally based in Surrey because there are not enough barracks in Scotland for all the Scottish regiments? Even if we adopted a regional basing policy and settled the Black Watch in Surrey, what would happen when the regiment was moved to Germany?Let us consider applying the regional approach to the Royal Engineers. Is a sergeant who applies to do bomb disposal in Saffron Walden supposed to settle his family there and spend the rest of his career with the Royal Engineers in bomb disposal? The truth is that that approach has been used in the Royal Navy because the whole surface fleet uses two bases in southern England. The Navy can use that approach. For a committee composed of three civilians and an admiral to suggest applying that to the Army--
Mr. Brazier: --or, as my hon. and gallant Friend reminds me, to the RAF, which is spread all over Britain and has a substantial overseas base, is farcical.
The Bett report is wrong, but that is not to say that there is nothing that we can change on the personnel side. One major area of personnel policy needs a big change--the use of our reserve forces. In America, half of all uniformed personnel are reservists--even excluding regular reservists--and nearly two thirds of all fixed and rotary wing aircraft crew of the American air force and army are reservists. The Chairman of the Select Committee, in an excellent speech, referred to the fact that we had to hitch a lift with the Americans to get 24 Brigade to Bosnia. I believe that I am right in saying, too, that all the planes and ships that carried our troops were manned by reservists, who cost only one fifth the price of their regular counterparts.
Ninety thousand of the American service personnel who went to the Gulf were reservists. They included tank battalions in the US Marine Corps, fighter squadrons with the US Air Guard and an artillery brigade with the National Guard which won plaudits from our own Brigadier Hammerbech. How does our performance compare? We sent one aeromedical squadron of reservists and a few hundred individual reservists.
What is the state of our reserve forces? As a former reservist myself, I must inform the House that our regular armed forces--in spite of everything thrown at them and all the new challenges with which they have had to cope, and it has been an unsettling time for armed forces all over the world--are still in good shape. But our reserves are not. Their numbers are falling fast, among officers and other ranks. We have the worst wastage rate by far in the English-speaking world.
I have visited units in Canada, Australia and America and I have been able to see their exciting new ideas, directed as they are at almost all levels by reservist commanders. In Britain, the past four years have witnessed one mistake after another. Good units in the Territorial Army have been broken up and reorganised; bad units, for bizarre reasons, have been retained and sometimes even expanded. There has been a failure to get
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to grips with the problems with trust hospitals encountered by the medical units, whose members can experience discrimination when applying for civilian jobs.There has also been a failure here to take advantage of the opportunities available in the aviation world--opportunities that the Americans and, to a lesser extent, the Canadians and Australians have not missed. There have been slashing cuts in the training budgets of TA units, at the same time as we have maintained the costliest administrative overheads in relation to the size of the units concerned applicable in any English-speaking country- -
The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Nicholas Soames): Nonsense.
Mr. Brazier: If the Minister disagrees, let him ask his own officials how many permanent staff instructors and civilians there are in a British infantry battalion, as compared with those in a United States National Guard battalion or a Canadian or Australian battalion. I have visited all four, and I can tell him that they all have fewer than Britain has.
If we want to turn the situation around, we need to square up to one central issue. We still have some excellent reserve units and a proud past. One thinks of the Green Jackets Brigade, which made Dunkirk possible. Two of the three battalions involved were TA. One thinks of the heroes of Kohima--the Royal West Kent territorials, who were virtually wiped out in the battle when we turned the Japanese army around. It can be done, therefore. Unlike our English-speaking cousins, however, we do not have a reservist directing our reserve forces.
Although the House has heard me make this point before, I should like to illustrate it with a small but colourful analogy. Let us liken our regular forces to the tremendous musical and orchestral qualities of the BBC's Radio Three, which is recognised worldwide for its excellence. In that case, the TA counterpart would be Classic FM. A recent survey showed that it is the radio station most listened to by Members of Parliament. It is a wonderful organisation, but run on a basis very different from the BBC's. Do colleagues really believe that Classic FM would be the success that it is if it was organised by the BBC? Of course not. Running a good reserve force, too, is a very different discipline from running a regular force.
Sir Hector Monro (Dumfries): I am delighted by my hon. Friend's enthusiasm for the reservists, with whom he and I have been much involved, but will he impress on the Minister the fact that if we are to make dramatic progress with the reservists--and we must--we simply must have a reserve forces Bill in the next Session of Parliament? I know that Ministers cannot anticipate the Queen's Speech, but the House should realise the importance of passing such legislation in the coming year.
Mr. Brazier: I am most grateful to my right hon. and gallant Friend and I thoroughly agree with him. Although legislation is necessary to make more interesting deployments possible, on its own it is not enough. We cannot legislate for team spirit, for unit spirit or for fighting spirit. Other changes are necessary, and they should be directed by a reservist director, selected from the TA, with access to Ministers and chiefs of staff. That
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is what happens in every American state and in Australia and Canada, where nearly all the directors are part-timers with successful civilian careers.Over the past few years the regular forces have undergone a series of unhappy reorganisations. Much of the pain has been inevitable, as it has been all over the world, following the tremendous changes and opportunities deriving from the fall of the Berlin wall. Now, what our regular forces need above all is stability. That has to mean stable funding, including provision for the real increase in personnel costs which cannot be avoided if we are to meet our recruitment challenges. It also means not implementing the Bett report, almost all of which would be harmful to the armed forces. Finally, it means buttressing the forces with high-quality volunteer forces. We have a number of such units that show what can be done, but overwhelmingly it is not.
7.6 pm
Mr. Menzies Campbell (Fife, North-East): I am sorry that the Secretary of State is not in his place, because some of what I am about to say directly concerns him. I envy him, because he has one of the best jobs in the Cabinet. In his daily political life he has to mix with and be responsible for some of the most dedicated and professional people in the United Kingdom. It therefore gives me no pleasure to say that his speech last week to his party conference was not worthy of his office. In spite of his efforts today, in rather more restrained vein, his speech of last week has largely overshadowed this important two-day debate.
In particular, I believe that the Secretary of State's references to the special services displayed a gross error of judgment. He has caused grave offence not just to the Special Air Service but throughout the three armed services, whose members are punctilious about maintaining that they serve the Crown, not any political party. There are strong signs of their considerable embarrassment that they should have been associated with what was essentially a political speech.
The references to the SAS were the more inept, since it is a regiment that deliberately shuns publicity. As recently as this summer the Ministry of Defence went to court to prevent publication of material that might be thought detrimental to the SAS and its procedures. A speech containing language to the effect, "Don't mess with Britain", is a speech containing the language of the saloon bar.
In his speeches today and last week the right hon. Gentleman made much of the Tomahawk purchase, of which I wholeheartedly approve. It is an additional capability that the United Kingdom should undoubtedly possess. But the Secretary of State would have made a much more balanced speech, then and today, if he had told his audience and reminded the House that we are about to reduce our submarines' capabilities in some respects. We are going to confine our nuclear-powered hunter-killer fleet to 12. The Upholder class, only recently commissioned, is being offered around to potential buyers. There was great disappointment in the Ministry of Defence over the summer when the Canadians decided not to take up what I understand was a most attractive offer, made to persuade them to take the submarines off the MOD's hands.
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The Secretary of State mentioned the Apache helicopter. Purchase has been desirable or perhaps even inevitable since its outstanding performance in the Gulf war. In the course of the right hon. Gentleman's speech to the Conservative party faithful, and during his speech this afternoon, he made no mention of Eurofighter 2000, a European project involving Spain, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is vital for the Royal Air Force and for the British aerospace industry. He made no mention of project Horizon, which will provide the successor to the type 42 frigate. The project involves the United Kingdom, France and Italy. It is another European project involving co-operation between European countries.Why in neither speech did the Secretary of State not mention the Anglo- French air group? Why was there no mention of Anglo-French nuclear co- operation? These are illustrations of co-operation with the countries of Europe. If the foundation of the right hon. Gentleman's speech is to seek to establish the sovereignty of the United Kingdom and its Parliament and he does so by reference to what he says are possible political developments, surely he has an obligation to indicate the precise terms of the treaty of Maastricht. That was not done last week and it was not done today.
The treaty states that the European Union should assert its identity on the international scene
"in particular through the implementation of a common foreign and security policy, including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence."
That is a pretty inadequate foundation for the rather extravagant language of the Secretary of State.
In an assessment of the defence role of Europe, why make no effort to analyse the current attitudes of the United States, especially among members of the Congress who were elected in 1994, who do not share the same vision of the transatlantic alliance as many of their predecessors? If we want to concern ourselves with the long-term future of security in Europe, one of the fundamental issues upon which we must pass judgment is precisely what are the long-term guarantees that the United States is willing to offer Europe. The Secretary of State has told us that his speech at Blackpool was consistent with Government policy. That is an interesting observation. If he truly means it, it appears to some of us that his speech was not as consistent as he might have wished. In May 1994, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind), who is now Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was quoted in The Daily Telegraph . The quotation has never been withdrawn. It was to the effect that the evolution of an EC defence policy was an inevitable consequence of the Maastricht treaty.
The former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd), said during a speech to the Franco-British Council in October 1994 that discussing European defence called for
"co-operation in practice, putting our military assets, our men, women and equipment, at the service of European defence, linked inextricably as the treaty of Maastricht provides with the Atlantic Alliance."
The Government's memorandum, which was published on 1 March, recognises that there are circumstances in which Europe may have to act on its own. Indeed, at the
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NATO summit in February 1994, the President of the United States assented to the notion of combined joint task forces.Nowhere is there any proposal that suggests that Brussels should control the domestic defence policy of the United Kingdom. No political party in the United Kingdom is arguing for that. Above all, no one is telling Britain when and when not to fight. Instead of unfounded assertions about us being prevented from retaking the Falklands had some such policy been in place in 1982, perhaps the Secretary of State would have done better if he had told the Conservative party conference whether we would still have the capacity to mount an expedition of the same strength to retake the Falklands as we had 12 years ago.
The Secretary of State talks as if we have total independence. Everyone knows that the success of the Falklands campaign was based fundamentally on the intelligence resources of the United States, which were made available to the United Kingdom. Without those resources, the campaign could not have succeeded. The emphasis of political activity in north America and south America was an endeavour to persuade the United States not to make such resources available to the United Kingdom.
We should be having a discussion about the funding of defence budgets in Europe. There is a good reason for that. The United States wants to know precisely what contribution to burden sharing Europe will make if the continuing reduction in defence budgets continues. We should be asking ourselves how it will be possible to preserve a full range of capability. Does common procurement, force specialisation or financial burden-sharing provide a way of contributing to the maintenance of a full range of capability? The truth is that we are not wholly independent in defence terms. Even as we speak we have given up our sovereignty. How have we done that? The answer is that we have entered into the treaty that establishes the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, article 5 of which provides that we are under an obligation if any one of the other 15 members is attacked to go to the support of that country, if necessary using nuclear means to provide that defence guarantee. That obligation extends to Greece and Turkey. If NATO were to expand further to the east, it would involve an extension of the guarantee to any country that joined the organisation.
That seems to reflect a substantial concession of sovereignty to NATO. Members of the Government lose little time, with some justification, in pointing out that NATO has been the most successful defence and military alliance of all time.
Mr. Llew Smith: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that in certain circumstances he would accept the use of nuclear weapons?
Mr. Campbell: I have made clear, as have Opposition Front Benchers, during defence debates over the past two or three years, that the nuclear deterrent remains part of NATO's defence policy. It is a nuclear deterrent that is governed by the two principles of minimum deterrence and use as a weapon of last resort. If the hon. Gentleman is asking me to repeat what I said a short time ago, I should say that any country that becomes a member of
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NATO becomes subject to the NATO nuclear guarantee. That seems to be a pretty substantial concession of sovereignty.I think that it is well known that for the foreseeable future I regard a nuclear deterrent as a necessary part of the United Kingdom's defence. But two practical questions arise that we might hope to hear something about. First, what steps have been taken in relation to the overspending at Faslane to ensure that it does not happen again? I note that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Ms Squire) is nodding her head. Secondly, what is happening at Devonport and Rosyth? Unconfirmed reports over the past two or three months have led to a great deal of uncertainty, which is deeply damaging to the morale of both communities.
When the Government tell us that they alone have been the proper guardians of nuclear defence policy, we are entitled to remind ourselves that back in 1988 they were arguing that we had to have a follow-on to Lance. They told us that we had to have a new generation of short-range nuclear weapons. The Opposition argued against that. What happened? The answer is that our view prevailed.
Even at the beginning of this Parliament, the Government argued that we had to have a tactical air-to-surface missile with a nuclear warhead. The Opposition argued against that, and the Government had to concede. Only in the course of the past 12 months, after the acceptance that Trident could provide a sub-strategic nuclear system, did the Government concede and accept the argument of the Opposition that there was no further requirement for the free-fall bomb. Like others, I find the Government's silence over the French nuclear testing in the south Pacific difficult to understand. If the Secretary of State did as I understood him to do in the concluding part of his speech and to refer to that great association of peoples which is the Commonwealth, I wonder why it is that we have allowed ourselves to be so estranged from our Commonwealth partners, notably Australia and New Zealand, whose response to French nuclear testing has been robust and vigorous.
Mr. Corbyn: I am pleased to hear the hon. and learned Gentleman's loud condemnation of French nuclear testing, but not two minutes ago he was saying that he supported the retention and holding of nuclear weapons as part of an overall defence package. Does he not think that it is time to get rid of all nuclear weapons, and that the logic of all the opposition to French nuclear testing is also opposition to the existence of nuclear weapons?
Mr. Campbell: The logic of the opposition to French nuclear testing is that it is unnecessary. The degree of nuclear co-operation that already exists between Great Britain and France almost certainly makes it unnecessary. If I have persuaded the hon. Gentleman that we should embark on a campaign of multilateral nuclear disarmament, I have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Unilateral nuclear disarmament is unlikely to bring about an overall reduction in nuclear weapons, which put the world in great peril. I have argued--if the hon. Gentleman had been here on other occasions, he would have heard me do so--for a third strategic arms reduction treaty and for the UK to take a lead in
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multilateral nuclear disarmament. Indeed, I have argued as vociferously as any that there should be no more warheads on Trident than on the Polaris system that it is to replace.Mr. Llew Smith: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Campbell: No, I wish to make progress.
Central to the Government's stated policy is a desire to provide United Kingdom forces with the best equipment. That aspiration must be shared by every hon. Member, but it entitles us to ask some questions. When will the Royal Air Force get its first fully combat capable squadron of Eurofighter 2000? What is the up-to-date estimate of the cost of each unit? Is it true that consideration has been given to the leasing of F16s from the United States? What is the reason for that, and what would the cost be? What is the Government's prediction of the effect that such action might have on the possibility of exports? Will the decision to resume involvement in the future large aircraft programme be maintained? When will the next order be placed for type 23 frigates, and will all yards capable of building them be permitted to compete?
It was clear that the joint rapid reaction force, announced last week to a flourish of trumpets, was no different from that announced by the right hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands last year, and, indeed, which is referred to in the White Paper that we are debating this evening and tomorrow. There is a vital question to be asked and the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin), Chairman of the Defence Select Committee, asked it, but I should like to reinforce it. Who will provide the capacity for the heavy lift of that rapid reaction force? As we have heard, 24 Air Mobile Brigade experienced considerable problems in deploying to Bosnia. Is it true that more than half its helicopters were self- deployed--that they had to fly from the UK to Bosnia?
There is hardly a senior officer in all three services who will not tell one that morale is brittle. The services desperately need a period of stability. Some of "Front Line First" and "Options for Change" will not be fully implemented before 1999. I think that there is a universal view in the House that there should be no more reductions in defence expenditure. I say again what I have said on previous occasions: Northern Ireland and a political settlement in Northern Ireland should be no excuse for a further raid on the defence budget.
The right hon. and learned Member for Pentlands said, in justification of "Front Line First", that it was an effort to cut costs, not defence. But, for whatever reason, many Army units are now operating substantially under strength. Each of the 41 infantry battalions is under strength. In particular, they lack senior non-commissioned officers, the very backbone of infantry battalions. It is estimated that, by the end of the year, the Army will be 5,000 men and women short in the infantry, cavalry and artillery regiments. How many of those units have been earmarked for the rapid reaction force? It will not be much of an effective force if the units that make it up are depleted in number.
We hear also that the Parachute Regiment may be required to enlist Gurkhas because of its failure to attract sufficient recruits. If that happens, I hope that there will
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be no distinction made in rates of pay and that they will be paid precisely the same as anyone else who serves in that regiment. There are cries of early retirement among specialists in the medical services. We all know that naval overstretch, which is referred to less frequently perhaps than Army overstretch, has become a significant problem as a result of the Royal Navy's commitments in the Adriatic.My central criticism of the Government remains that they have still failed to place their defence resources in a proper strategic context. We must ask ourselves what are our long-term political objectives and what is the defence means by which we shall best achieve them. We need, therefore, a proper assessment of both foreign policy and defence policy. Labour Front Benchers, who offer on these occasions the expression, "a fundamental defence review", should take account of the fact that, in service terms, this raises considerable apprehension and does little for morale. I think that more explanation of what is involved and over what period would certainly be in the interests not only of Labour Front Benchers but of the armed services themselves.
Fundamental to all of this is the view that we must provide adequate resources and, if necessary, be willing to increase expenditure. That would have got a bit of a cheer at Blackpool, but the fact that the Secretary of State did not say it tells us rather more about the Government's position than all the rhetoric that brought him a standing ovation.
7.26 pm
Mr. Winston Churchill (Davyhulme): Much has happened since the House went into recess. The commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the end of the second world war were a fitting tribute to the hero generation who saved the world from Hitler.
One month before VJ-day, I drew to the Prime Minister's attention the scandal, as I saw it, of the derisory £100 annuity accorded to the holders of the Victoria and George Crosses in recognition of their acts of heroism. He was shocked to learn of this and undertook to consider the matter. How typical of the Prime Minister's caring nature and his patriotic instinct that he should move so promptly to rectify that injustice, and I should like to express my thanks on behalf of the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association for his prompt action in dealing with it.
In Bosnia, where Her Majesty's forces have served with such distinction over the past three years or more, for once things seem to have taken a turn for the better and the chances of putting into effect a peace agreement seem to be better today than they have for a long time. The United States, at long last, has taken it upon itself to play a significant role, underpinned by its determination to use air power when required, in securing an agreement between the warring parties. I should like to pay a special tribute to Richard Holbrooke for his tireless work and exertions, which appear to be bearing fruit at the present time.
In Bosnia, in recent months, it has been shown how far a modicum of courage goes. The Serbs have been confronted with force, backed, for once, with determination by the United Nations and NATO, and it has been demonstrated that they are not 10 ft tall. We were told by armchair strategists, here and overseas and,
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