| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Soames: In order to prevent the hon. Gentleman from feeling that he must continue down such a fatuous route, may I give him an unequivocal and total undertaking that such a thing will never happen?
Dr. Reid: We are already making progress, and I take that commitment as it is given. No doubt that assurance will enable me to shorten my contributions, even in Committee, although I suspect that will mean that I will have to lose quite a few good lines that I might have used.
Mr. Peter Hardy (Wentworth): Some time ago I visited the South Yorkshire police to look at the arrangements that it makes when policemen have to carry weapons on duty. The arrangements made me feel confident that a properly run civilian police force, where officers are armed, can draw up plans that serve the public interest and convey confidence and a sense of protection to the public. If we were to arm non-service personnel in the armed forces, does my hon. Friend agree that the arrangements operated by a good police force would have to be operated by the people whom the Minister has in mind?
Dr. Reid: My hon. Friend makes a good point. Everyone in the House recognises that the implications of fiscal rectitude and the downward pressure on budgets mean that efficiency savings have had to be found. We will not make cheap points about that. Objective, mutually agreed criteria were used to assess the effectiveness of Ministry of Defence police. Although those criteria were a means of achieving certain savings in line with the reduced size of the military estate, they were commensurate with the maintenance of security. We would not wish any of these clauses to be used merely as a means of saving money.
Mr. Keith Mans (Wyre): It is just under five years since we last debated an Armed Forces Bill. It is already clear from the speeches we have heard, especially that of my hon. Friend the Minister, that much has changed. When we last debated the matter, it was during the closing stages of the cold war. It is worth reflecting that then there were 313,000 armed service men; there are now 238,000. By 1998, when the reforms are finished, there will be 210,000. That is a reduction of 30 per cent. in the armed strength of the Army, 30 per cent. in the armed strength
of the Navy and 42 per cent. in the uniformed armed strength of the Royal Air Force. In 1990, we spent £21.7 billion on defence; this year we will spend 2.3 per cent. less in cash terms and 25 per cent. less in real terms.
I make these points simply to show how different the armed forces are now than when we last considered these matters. There are smaller numbers, they are required to carry out a greater variety of tasks, they are better equipped and, clearly, if they are to complete the tasks that they are assigned to do, they must be even more professional than they were five years ago.
Both this evening and during the special procedure that follows, we need to consider carefully the ways in which the Bill will apply to the smaller numbers in the greater variety of tasks that they do--and in particular the fact that there are now and will continue to be much larger numbers of civilians working alongside uniformed personnel in the years ahead, doing the same or similar tasks to those that uniformed personnel have been doing up to now. We must ensure that the legal framework that applies to the uniformed part of the force is right so that there are no inconsistencies with what the civilians working alongside them are doing.
I shall not follow much of what the hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) said. However, he made much of the case of Christina Menzies. I acknowledge that there is a problem in that area, especially in Germany where court martial procedures still apply to the dependants of service men. The hon. Gentleman will remember that, when we both sat on the Committee considering the last Armed Forces Bill, we and one other hon. Member suggested changes. It is my recollection that that proposal was not endorsed by the whole Committee, including Labour Members. I am pleased that there has now been a change of view, and that we can return to the matter in Committee.
I want to raise one other matter. It relates to the other Bill being proposed by the Ministry of Defence--the Reserve Forces Bill. I hope that, as the two Bills are going through the two Houses concurrently, we can keep track of them both. Certain matters relate to both, and it would be most unfortunate if we amended this Bill only to find that that had been overtaken by events when the other Bill goes through the House. There was a similar problem last time around with a number of other Bills, not relating to service men, that were going through Parliament. It is important that, when we consider the Bill in Committee, we take account of Government and other legislation going through the House at the same time and amend the Bill by the end of its passage if the need arises.
Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South):
This is not just another Bill. It raises important and contentious issues, but its special procedure makes it very different from other legislation. When the Government tried the
The special procedure, which surfaces only every five years--the reason is obvious--means that the Committee, of which I very much hope to be a member, investigates and then it legislates. That is something that the Defence Select Committees should be doing. Why should they be restricted merely to investigating, while those who legislate are an entirely different group of people? I was sad that, when the Defence Select Committee was at least given the option of taking over responsibility for the Bill, it turned it down. That was a missed opportunity.
The procedures laid down for the Committee mean that Back Benchers have rather more influence over the legislation than they have in the normal Standing Committees, where the Opposition and Back Benchers are, in most cases, rendered superfluous to the legislative process, which is a carve-up between the civil servants and Ministers. Sometimes I wonder whether Ministers have much influence over what happens. I hope that we will take advantage of the opportunity to do more than simply acquiesce in what is presented to us in the Bill or in the notes on clauses.
Another reason why the procedure for this Bill is different--this was alluded to by the Minister--is that the lineage goes back to the 17th century. In essence, it is the legislature's manifestation--which in some ways is an illusion--of its theoretical supremacy over the military. It is another reason why this is an important Bill.
I support the Bill in general, but there are two areas that cause scepticism bordering on cynicism--clauses 2 and 26. The former enables the armed forces to recruit personnel on local service engagements and the latter amends the very important Greenwich Hospital Act 1869. I heard what my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) said, and, if I do serve on the Committee, I shall vote against any amendment to that Act. Despite being 120 years old, it is still relevant.
On the face of it, neither of the two clauses appear to excite much opposition, yet they do. As someone who has professionally observed the MOD for more than 20 years, perhaps I will be forgiven the view that occasionally it is devious and wrong. Some people prefer to start from the assumption, at the other end of the spectrum, that it is honest and occasionally right. I fear that that is far too simplistic an analysis.
On the face of it, who could object to the MOD awarding itself the legal power to recruit personnel for local service under clause 2? I admit that the Minister in his brief speech could not be expected to give us all the information, but so far, the information revealed on why one needs this military home service engagement has been rather patchy.
In downsizing the armed forces, the Government have been largely unsuccessful. The downsizing is Treasury-driven--that is pretty obvious to anyone. It now appears that, at a time of high employment, people in the armed forces are being given a special inducement to remain in the services for longer. We read too about rather unusual methods of recruitment, which, in the circumstances, appear to be quite bizarre.
How many personnel will be required to serve at home only? Why does the MOD have to be given flexibility? I would have thought that having a number of military personnel who will not serve abroad would create inflexibility. I can understand a guy who has served abroad in some awful places wishing to settle down at the end of his career, put his feet up, go into a little guarding job, go home and be happy with his lot. If we had an Army of 2 million people, perhaps we would be able to afford the luxury of allowing some to operate on stay-at-home contracts.
But when the Army is down to such absurdly low levels in a dangerous and, some might add, deteriorating international environment, is it wise to block off a number of personnel who will serve their country only within the travel-to-work area laid down?
I do not wish to be hostile to people who are serving or will or might in future serve their country, but we cannot surely say, as we did in the old militia system of the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, that one's obligation to serve King or Queen and country will be determined on a narrow geographical basis. We cannot say either that perhaps they can serve elsewhere for 30 days in the year. What kind of engagements are cut and dried in a calendar month? I would like to explore that issue in more detail because it deserves to be explored. Will those personnel be part of the existing establishment or supplementary to it? That is an important question.
I suspect that one of the reasons why little clause 2 is included in the Bill is to provide the opportunity for the MOD to continue the process that it has been proceeding with for some 15 years: considerably downsizing the Ministry of Defence police. It says that they are far too expensive. Of course the police are very expensive, but we tend to think that it is necessary, in the interests of society, to have well-paid, well-motivated, very well-trained personnel who can deal with crime protection, crime prevention and a whole range of activities.
Given that the MOD possesses an enormous amount of land--it is the largest landowner in the country--and that it has an enormous amount of data, information, equipment and so on that need to be protected, somehow to argue that the police force is too expensive appears yet again to be compromising what should not be compromised: people's safety and the security of information that ought to be kept under MOD control.
The MOD police are expensive, but we pay for quality. The MOD appears to obsessed with privatising security. I can recall one senior member of the private security industry coming before the Defence Select Committee and saying that he would not bid for an MOD contract because he could not provide the required quality of service on the money that the MOD were paying private contractors.
I can understand why the MOD wants to change the mix of military police, contract security, the MOD guard service and the Ministry of Defence police, but I do not think that the MOD police should be reduced from fewer than 5,000 members today by--perhaps--2,000. I wonder what the critical mass for the MOD police would be-- I suspect 2,500 members, although it might go below that. I hope that the Ministry of Defence will explain in great detail that its objectives are not pecuniary--or vengeful since the MDP have escaped the Ministry's attacks on several previous occasions.
We want detailed explanations of why it is proposed to replace one group of personnel--perhaps 2,000 in number--by 2,000 or 1,000 or 500, or goodness knows how many. To make one group of people--potentially-- redundant to provide jobs for another group of people does not seem to be the best practice to expect from an employer.
The Ministry of Defence has not persistently shown that it is capable of making the right decisions on security. I can recall how in the early 1980s it almost got rid of the MOD police from the Royal Ordnance factories. The Defence Committee stopped that. I can recall the inquiry made by the Defence Committee into security at military installations after the disastrous Deal bombings. It was not obvious to the Committee at that time that the MOD had got the balance right.
In light of those and other mistakes, I am not entirely convinced that the procedure under way is for any other reason than to save money. If the MOD thinks that it can get away with justifying the calculation simply on the basis of the investment appraisal examples in the documents published recently, I am afraid that it is wrong.
The MOD police are important and flexible. They are civilians, and it is important that civilians should be in a dominant position in the establishments that they patrol and guard. Civilianisation and constabulary powers cannot be bolted on to the powers of a soldier. The MOD police are versatile. They conduct guarding, armed guarding, policing functions, crime prevention, and fraud investigation, which the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have recently shown will keep them in a great deal of work in the years ahead. It is believed that £23 million has been fraudulently removed from the procurement process alone. They can liaise with the Home Department forces in a way which soldiers cannot. I accept that their numbers will have to be reduced further because the MOD estate is diminishing, but the proposals are erroneous. I want them examined closely.
Of course, one of the ways suggested by the MOD to keep its police numbers down is based on the number of gates. It has said that there are too many gates. That appears to be the MOD's version of the wrong type of snow or the wrong type of leaves on the track. To say that there are too many gates at MOD establishments surely ignores the fact that they been appraised many times previously. What would happen if the number of gates were cut from, say, three to one? If the Minister drove his car out at 5.30 pm and saw several hundred people undergoing searches, perhaps he would reach the conclusion that defence establishments have more than one gate for very sound reasons.
I should like to make two further brief points. First, while the special Committee will be examining security, another Committee will be examining it--the Defence Committee. The Minister and those associated with him will have to explain things to two Committees. Not only will the Committee on the Armed Forces Bill be keen to know what is proposed.
Finally, surely Greenwich is part of our heritage and our history--even more so than county hall, because it must be infinitely more important to our history than a building only 60 years old. We know that the Government fouled up the sale of county hall, too. Do estate agents have pictures of Greenwich to show people? Perhaps my
hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) can tell me whether there are pictures, so that people can see how our history is being sold. The whole idea is tacky and obscene--an act of administrative and political vandalism.
I am sure that my hon. Friend will go into far more detail on the subject, but as an individual member of the Defence Select Committee I find it degrading that something as important as Greenwich is potentially up for grabs. Perhaps it will not become the headquarters of McDonald's, or of a South Korean or American multinational company, and perhaps we should be reassured by that.
But why should we alter legislation to allow the Secretary of State for Defence, who is the custodian of that part of our national history that is within his responsibility, to line himself up for what is potentially not only the sale of the century, but the sale of several centuries? To say that it is not really a sale is disingenuous.
That is not a party political issue; I do not believe that any issue that has been raised in the debate is a party political issue. I only hope that the Government can be prevailed upon to say that that wonderful set of buildings, some of international significance, must remain within the public sector. Of course the public sector is a dirty word for some people, but it is now so flexible that surely Greenwich could fit somewhere within it without falling foul of the ideological obsessions of some hon. Members.
Please let us throw out the relevant clause and remove the temptation to allow Greenwich to be disposed of to the private sector. The Government must think carefully about how the buildings could be retained, if not in the MOD then in some other sphere. I hope that, despite the cuts in the armed forces, that may be possible.
I hope I may be forgiven if I make just one party political point, because I cannot resist it. When Labour party conferences voted each year to reduce our defence expenditure to the average of that of our allies, I do not think that even they envisaged that by now the Conservative party would be well on the way to achieving that objective.
While we are examining our downsized set of commitments--although perhaps I should not say that, because it is the number of people who are supposed to fulfil the commitments, rather than the commitments themselves, that has been downsized--let us not go mad in the process. Let us realise that we are living in a difficult world. What happens in the Russian elections next month, or in the presidential elections a year from now, may have significant consequences for international security.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |