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The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Nicholas Soames): Is the burden of the hon. Gentleman's remarks the idea that the Royal Navy has too many tasks to conduct? Is he saying that his defence review would lead to a reduction in the tasks that the Royal Navy undertakes?

Mr. Murphy: Not at all. I have said that resources must match commitments. I remind the Minister that when his party was in opposition, one of his predecessors, Sir Ian Gilmour, was asked the same question by the Labour party. He replied that it was only when the Conservatives were in government that they would be in a proper position to look at the details of a strategic defence review. We cannot conduct such a review until we have all the necessary intelligence given us by the various civil servants and by the armed services themselves. What we can say is that, over the past five years, the Government have had every possible opportunity to conduct a defence review and have failed miserably to do so.

Perhaps the Minister of State for the Armed Forces will tell us, when he winds up, what is to happen to Britannia. I understand from another Conservative newspaper this week, the Daily Mail, that the national lottery might pay for a new vessel. I am sure that the Minister will scotch that rumour later on.

We are pleased that the Government have retained the fishery protection and hydrographic services, but we are troubled about the Royal Fleet Auxiliary--there is some doubt among the experts as to whether we have the answer right.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Twickenham(Mr. Jessel) will raise the question of the Royal Marines school of music. If he does not, I certainly will. Many of us were disturbed that it should have been moved from Deal. We find it particularly worrying that it is to be housed in temporary accommodation, bearing in mind all the trials with which that group of men and women have had to put up over the years. Temporary accommodation is not a good solution.

Will the Minister to make it absolutely clear--myhon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) will speak about the detail--what is to happen to the Royal Naval college at Greenwich? I am delighted to say that the Defence Committee, comprising Members from both sides of the House, is to take evidence at Greenwich in the weeks ahead. I hope that we will be given an assurance this week that there will be no repeat of the Admiralty arch fiasco. It did nothing for the reputation of the Ministry of Defence or its Ministers.

The Minister touched on the royal dockyards. My party has a two-dockyard solution to the problem. I should like now to elaborate on what I said earlier in an intervention,

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and what I shall say applies also to the type 23 frigate replacements. The perpetual delays emanating from the MOD are bad from a number of points of view: the first is that the House of Commons is not given a proper opportunity to debate the decisions. Decisions given in answers to written parliamentary questions are not the same as debates in the House.

As I said before, this debate should have been an ideal opportunity for the Minister to appear before us and for us to ask him questions about the replacements for the frigates and the future of the two royal dockyards. Someone told me today that MOD no longer stands for Ministry of Defence--it stands for Ministry of Delay.I am sure that the thousands of people who need decisions to be made for the sake of maintaining their jobs in Glasgow and Southampton are deeply troubled by the fact that the Minister can give us no information about the replacements for the frigates.

An answer given to a Conservative Member this week by the Minister states that he is considering a batch of frigates "of up to three". What does that mean--one, two or three? The differences are clearly enormous. If only one ship is to be built, thousands of jobs will be put at risk if the others are not built too. Moreover, we need to know when the ships will be built by--the turn of the century, next century? The answers are vital, and I hope that we shall have a proper opportunity to debate them in the weeks ahead.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warley, West(Mr. Spellar) will touch on procurement matters later if he catches the occupant of the Chair's eye. The Defence Manufacturers Association recently gave evidence to the joint Trade and Industry and Defence Committees as follows:

"Sadly, the MOD's procurement policies have, until now, done little of a positive nature to support industry's chances of retaining a competitive edge".

That was said in 1995. We are pleased, however, that the Minister said today that there will be more co-operation with our European partners--that is indeed good news.I only hope that the Secretary of State agrees.

My hon. Friends the Members for South Shields(Dr. Clark) and for Motherwell, North recently referred in this place to the considerable number of cases of financial mismanagement in the MOD. They ought to be put on record, not least because the Secretary of State told his party conference last year:

"Every day, every week, every month we will convert waste into weapons."

Well, he has gone about things the other way round: weapons have been made into waste, and the waste of money in particular has been staggering.

Eight hundred million pounds has been overspent on Trident construction facilities at Faslane; £6 million has been spent needlessly on consultants' fees for MOD housing plans; £8 million has gone on schemes to privatise the royal dockyards. But all these pale into insignificance compared with the £261 million squandered on refitting warships which are then sold off at rock bottom prices or even used for target practice. HMS Andromeda was refitted at a cost of £27 million and then sold for £65,000. HMS Battleaxe was refitted in July 1994 at a cost of £13 million--only two years ago--and sold by the MOD for an unknown sum--

Mr. Arbuthnot: I do not know where thehon. Gentleman gets his figures from, but I can assure

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him that the prices of the ships that the MOD sells are commercially confidential. The £65,000 figure he quotes is completely wrong.

It is also important to remember the significant change in the defence climate of the entire world when the cold war ended. A number of ships were going through their refit at the time, and it became plain that they were no longer necessary for our defence requirements. It was right to dispose of them, and we shall continue to dispose of such ships. Disposal generates significant sums which are then available for spending on new ships. Often, refitting for overseas owners provides a great deal of work for British shipyards.

Mr. Murphy: The figures are not made up; they come from parliamentary answers given to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields. We knew about the changes in world politics well before 1994. We are asking: why refit all these ships when we know that we are not going to use them? Had there been a proper defence review, none of this might have happened.

Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton): I know that my hon. Friend does not have time to watch much television, but did he see the "Spitting Image" programme last Sunday? It referred to the Polaris submarine HMS Renown, which was refitted in 1993 at a cost of £155 million. Since then, it has been left in dock awaiting decommissioning at a cost of £29 million per annum. Does that not add weight to his point?

Mr. Murphy: I fear that I did not see "Spitting Image" last Sunday, but I saw it the week before and I was much taken with the uniform worn by the Secretary of State for Defence. My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, North has also raised the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) makes so well.

Mr. Arbuthnot: The refit of HMS Renown--which took five years--was finished in 1992 and the ship then went out on three operational patrols. It was later decided that it was no longer needed because of the end of the cold war and because of the significant success of the Trident programme, which is under budget and on time.

Mr. Murphy: Perhaps the Minister of State for the Armed Forces will be able to enlighten us later about the troublesome question of the four unwanted Upholder class submarines. We understand that some sort of deal has been reached with the Canadian Government about training facilities for both the Army and the RAF at Goose bay. Can the Minister tell us what prices we are likely to get for our submarines and to what use we are putting the Goose bay facilities, which many people believe are under-utilised?

The Reserve Forces Bill is currently in the other place and I assume that it will be introduced in this House in the next few weeks--if the Government can decide what to put in it. The Evening Standard--another newspaper that is friendly to the Government--recently described the Reserve Forces Bill as

"one of the sloppiest and worst-drafted pieces of work in living memory".

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The Government tabled 200 amendments after the Bill was printed and before its Committee stage in the House of Lords. We shall not contest the legislation, but we hope that it will be better drafted when it comes to the House of Commons.

I believe that the Royal Naval Reserve has probably suffered more than any other reserve force during the past few years. It has only 3,000 men and women and 13 units. Eleven units have been closed, there is only one unit in Scotland and there is none in Yorkshire and Humberside. RNR ships have been lost also. We must offer worthwhile training at sea and proper command experience opportunities to our Royal Naval Reserve officers.

The complete loss of the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service in 1993 was particularly disturbing. We lost 2,700 volunteers and there are now fewer opportunities--nothing like those that exist in the Territorial Army--for men and women to serve as ratings in the Royal Navy. The Government must address that problem.

I pay tribute to the Maritime Voluntary Service, which has been formally constituted as a national training organisation and is a registered charity. It continues to grow, and shore premises and afloat billets have been obtained with assistance from a wide variety of organisations which recognise the importance of maritime skills. There are 50 units around our coast and its volunteers train to a very high standard. I am sure that the House will join me in supporting the MVS and in wishing it every possible success.

The sea cadets and the reserves link communities throughout the country to the armed forces and we are grateful to them for providing that essential connection.I shall make a constituency point and pay special tribute to the TS Kittiwake in Cwmbran. It took part in the recent VE and VJ day ceremonies and, like many such units all over the country, it provides marvellous opportunities for young men and women--including employment opportunities in the Royal Navy later.

I read today in Hansard that the Pay Services Directorate has been established. The Armed Forces Bill, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell, North has responsibility on behalf of the Opposition, deals with personnel matters, but I shall touch briefly on the subject of pay in the Royal Navy. The 1992 Tory manifesto said:

"Our Forces deserve the excellent pay and conditions we have secured for them".

There has been much to-ing and fro-ing in the Chamber this afternoon about saying one thing and doing another. The Tory manifesto said that, but this is what the Government have done: levels of pay for higher ranks have increased, but pay for lower ranks has fallen substantially in relation to average wages. The figures for average earnings reveal that, from the period 1979 to 1995, admirals' pay has risen by 12.3 per cent., leading seamen's pay has risen by 5 per cent. and able seamen's pay has decreased by 15.4 per cent. The Government say one thing and do another.

The biggest problem that we face--the Minister referred to it in some detail, as did the hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers)--is the Royal Navy's inability to maintain its existing operations. That is extremely worrying. It is highly unlikely that we could mount another Falklands campaign, as we no longer have the necessary sealift capability. We are told--we were not

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informed of it officially--that, last year, the Ministry of Defence directorate of operational capability conducted a "paper exercise" to ascertain whether this country could mount an amphibious operation similar to the Falklands campaign. It allegedly found weaknesses in our sealift capability.

The Merchant Navy has declined drastically--a fact which concerned the Defence Committee. It found that the number of militarily useful ships has decreased by16 per cent. since 1992. The number of British general cargo vessels has halved since 1986 and the number of ro-ro ferries has decreased by a third. In 1982, 51,000 people served in our Merchant Navy: today the figure is 17,000 and it is estimated to fall to 4,000 by 2010. Fifty-four ships were sent to the Falklands, but Britain sent only 11 to the Gulf, while France sent 27. Many of the British ships that were sent are manned by foreign crews, which causes some problems. For example, Japanese crews refused to enter the Gulf in 1992 and India withdrew its nationals from merchant vessels which were used in the Falklands campaign. The Chamber of Shipping recently said:

"It is now a fact that our armed forces rely on the willingness of the commercial market, the willingness of foreign owners, the willingness of foreign crews to provide the much vaunted flexibility and mobility of our armed forces rather than British owners and British seamen."

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