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Dr. Reid: The Minister may shake his head. He does not think that it matters. I am not saying that it was intended; it may just be incompetence again.
The Minister can tell us whether there are special arrangements, private agreements, informal assurances that it will not happen, but we want it in black and white, in published regulations, because we in the Labour party, the armed forces and the people of this country want
nothing to do with financial press-ganging. We do not want any creeping conscription. We want no element of compulsion.
I will give way now to the Minister if he will give us an immediate assurance that there will be no element of compulsion at jobcentres, and that that will be written in black and white by tabling amendments immediately to the jobseekers regulations.
Mr. Soames:
I regret that such an important debate should descend into such unbelievable unreality. This country does not have conscription. There will be no compulsion. The armed forces do not want to recruit anyone who would not come willingly into their ranks. The proposition advanced by the hon. Gentleman is so fatuous, so idiotic and so stupid that it almost defies imagination.
Dr. Reid:
I shall give the Minister another opportunity. Will he guarantee that amendments to the jobseekers regulations will be placed before the House, exempting the armed forces from compulsion and removing the financial penalties of the regulations?
Mr. Soames:
I have already made the point as clearly as I could. If the hon. Gentleman does not understand it, there is nothing that I can do to help him. There will be no such thing as any of the things that he has described.
Dr. Reid:
I am surprised that the Minister is not prepared to say that he will exempt that. There are a list of exemptions under the regulations, including conscientious objectors, people who are disabled, jobs that are unsuitable. It would take five minutes to draft a regulation to exempt the armed forces from compulsion or to remove the financial penalties for any young man or woman who goes to a jobcentre. I am surprised that the Minister will not do that.
Dr. Godman:
It find it difficult to believe that these Ministers are so incompetent. Surely the Department of Employment must have issued guidelines to the managers of all jobcentres to say that they can only advise youngsters of vacancies in the armed forces. My hon. Friend should ask the Minister to ensure that a copy of those guidelines are placed in the Library. I shall speak to the manager of my local jobcentre in the morning to tell him that he only advises youngsters of these vacancies.
Dr. Reid:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I shall be doing the same at my local jobcentre. There are some 161 clauses in the jobseekers regulations. I had hoped that the exemptions would be part of the regulations, but the Minister has declined to give us an assurance that amendments will be tabled.
The criticism and incoherence of what the Government have produced on defence over the past few years is a tragedy, because there could be agreement on both sides of the House on substantial issues, such as our
commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as the cornerstone of our defence policy; the Western European Union being the European pillar; our approach, through intergovernmental means, to construct alliances abroad; and on joint activity with our allies and tri-service activity at home.
There is immense scope to build consensus in the House on central defence policy, but that will not occur if Ministers respond to criticisms that have been made
inside and outside the House merely by accusing those who make those criticisms of being ignorant, and claiming that Ministers are the font of all wisdom.
Lady Olga Maitland:
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will deal with a point that Conservative Members have been waiting for; we have listened now for half an hour. What is the Labour party's position on the defence review that it announced it would launch should it ever become the party of government? Would his party not be struggling to fulfil the commitments it gave at six Labour party conferences, which committed it to reducing defence spending by £4 billion--which, frankly, would gut our security?
Dr. Reid:
Cuts of that size would. That is why we have never accepted it. That is why we are equally surprised that the Government made a 30 per cent. cut. The Government have implemented Labour conference decisions that we have refused.
On a defence review, our position is well known. I need not rehearse the arguments again. The choice is whether to have change that is managed and coherent, or to have change that is done through a series of piecemeal reviews--"Options for Change", "Options for Change plus 1", defence cost studies and a sell-off of housing. A full defence review and managed change would give a strategic signpost five, 10 and 15 years down the road, which would give the stability to our armed forces that they have lacked over the past few years.
On the philosophy behind the Ministry of Defence's approach to defence planning, the Department has a growing obsession with markets. It is focusing on meeting cost targets rather than the purposes behind the use of military force.
On training, which the Minister mentioned, the Army Training Organisation is due to become an agency on 1 April 1996, under the control of the Adjutant General. The office of the Inspector General (Doctrine and Training) is to be broken up--a decision omitted from the defence estimates 1995. There is a risk that it reflects a diminished commitment to bringing together the formulation and articulation of land warfare doctrine and its importation into a system of all-arms collective training.
Similarly, the Secretary of State announced on 14 July, in a statement on the outcome of the defence costs study, that there would be an increase in collective Army training in Germany of between 50 and 100 per cent. as a result of additional funds that would be made available to purchase range time. The intention to increase the six weeks of battle group training has not been achieved. At a time when the defence budget is reduced, military readiness is relaxed. I hope that moneys for training will not be a soft target to provide financial savings.
With regard to personnel matters, which were not mentioned tonight, for all its limitations the average operational tour interval would first appear to be the most objective measure of the actual levels of commitment of a proportion of army units outside of using targets relating to operational and formation evaluations-- OPEVAL/FORMEVAL. However, providing that measure does not enable us to analyse the relationship between the commitments and the resources of the Army or particular arms in the Army. An additional measure of performance is necessary as the Army continues to adjust to the effects of the defence costs study.
The MOD sets its agencies detailed targets for annual performance and measurements of the outcome. Notwithstanding publishing the OPEVAL/FORMEVAL statistics, to which I have referred, there is no reason why it should not do the same for the performance of the Army if the Department wishes to be true to value for money in real terms, which is operational effectiveness.
Questions of procurement will be handled by my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Spellar) when he replies, if he is lucky enough to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. I merely say that there is increasing concern about slippage on equipment for the Army. The AS90 155mm howitzer had an original in-service date of August 1992, and the actual ISD is November 1993. An estimated over-cost of £33 million in a competitive contract is also illuminating.
The Bowman replacement combat radio system had an original in-service date of 1995. With a current ISD in 2000, Clansman is becoming increasingly vulnerable to electronic countermeasures, and lacks the data handling capacity to meet requirements for currently improved C 2 I systems. In other words, slippage in the actual provision of resources to the armed forces has operational implications which go beyond just the lack of use of new equipment, as I mentioned in the case of the Bowman replacement.
Equipment availability in the Army, even where it has been purchased, is disturbing. It is easier to evaluate changes in the structural readiness of the Army than the operational readiness because of the ambiguity in measuring the training of personnel and the working order equipment. Clearly, less quantifiable factors require monitoring when forces are more likely to be used.
Unfortunately, the Defence Committee's report on the 1995 defence estimates acknowledged that availability statistics from the Army battlefield equipment reliability return were
Although the precise data are classified, the Chieftain, Challenger and Warrior, which were all mentioned by the Minister, and MLRS, as of November 1994, had availability figures of, in some cases, barely 50 per cent. So the resources that the Minister mentioned in his opening remarks are apparently available only half the time, despite the fact that their full ownership is ascribed to the Army.
Those are a number of the detailed areas. I am sensitive to the fact that Conservative Members seem to think that I was making a personal criticism of the Secretary of State. I was quoting others who were. Let me turn to my criticisms, because those who think that the Secretary of State has some malevolence towards the armed forces for personal reasons, or that these mistakes arise because he is not an able, articulate, organised type of chap, are sadly mistaken.
"disturbing even when allowance is made for doubts about their accuracy and the methodology used."
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