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5.59 pm
Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North): I shall not detain the House long. It is a pleasure to follow the measured and lucid speech by the hon. Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend). I commend him for the courage that he displayed in making his final commitment.
It is easy to get lost in the detail about billions of pounds here, hundreds of millions there and so many thousand houses. I do not suppose that we shall win the argument tonight, but I wish to clarify the situation so that people in the big wide world will understand the nonsense that is being proposed.
It is rather like my owning a house in south London that is worth about £150,000. I do not own such a property, but, if I did, I could put it on the market and
allow someone to buy it for about £100,000. In order to persuade someone to purchase my £150,000 property for £100,000, I would tell him, "Look, I shall spend £6,000 immediately doing it up and making it top grade. Having done that, I shall keep it in top condition for the next 25 years."
Mr. Mike Hall (Warrington, South):
"And I will pay you."
Mr. Cook:
Exactly. On top of that, I would promise to pay market rent on the property until I ceased to use it--however long that might be. I suggest that if everyone operated in that way, we would be in lunatic asylums. It does not make sense in the case of my single property or in the case of the Government's many properties. We have talked about the need to house the troops properly. No one suggests that we should not do that: that is how it should be.
What will happen in the future? What will happen when we withdraw from Germany, Cyprus, Hong Kong and the Falkland Islands, as we are bound to do? Will we be in the same position then as is Russia today? Will service men and women return to this country to find that they have nowhere to live? Will they be housed in tented accommodation, regardless of the climate? That is a distinct possibility if we go down this route. Can we expect a developer, who is responsible for the properties and who fills the houses with civilian tenants over time, to change his pattern of recruiting tenants in order to make way for troops who are returning to their homeland? It simply does not make sense.
We have been asked to believe that the defence chiefs of staff accept the proposals--an acceptance that my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) called into question. "Acceptance" is not the word used by the ranks of the defence force that I have encountered--I refer not to corporals, senior non-commissioned officers or middle-ranking commissioned men, but to those of the rank of air commodore, lieutenant-colonel and commander in the Royal Navy. They are all seriously concerned about the matter.
We are told that service families will be mollified. That is so ironic, it is almost insulting. When some service families first made their protestations, questions were asked about whether they were qualified to represent the views of all families throughout the forces. I considered that an insult at the time, but it is even more insulting for the Government to turn round now and say that they will accept some form of consultation. The right time for consultation was long before the proposals were put on the table.
Mr. Jonathan Aitken (South Thanet):
This debate was billed in advance as a great clash of the gladiators over an issue of high principle. There were predictions that it would end in a photo-finish in the Division Lobbies tonight. However, the debate is coming to an end not with a bang, but a whimper. In fact, there are two whimpers--the whimper of a Back-Bench revolt fizzling out, and the whimper of an Opposition who are retreating with their tail between their legs because their transparently opportunistic ploy in the form of a Supply day motion has failed. It deserves to fail ignominiously.
It is right that the motion should fail, first and foremost, because my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence made an excellent speech. He announced some important new concessions and clarifications that meet virtually all the concerns about the scheme that were expressed sensibly during constructive discussions in recent weeks.
Secondly, the motion should fail because the facts of the scheme speak for themselves. The message is clear: the glory of the scheme is that it is in the interests of both the service men and the taxpayers. [Hon. Members: "Rubbish."] Opposition Members have tried to conjure up all manner of hobgoblins, foul fiends and spirits from the vasty deep to justify their opportunistic Supply day motion. In the end, their grievances boil down to two highly fallible claims: first, that the scheme is somehow a threat to what is known in the jargon as the "service man's patch"; and, secondly, that it is a rotten deal financially.
I shall meet both those doubtful claims head on. The Secretary of State said--far more eloquently than I can--that the integrity of the married quarters patch is guaranteed and will be protected. Under the scheme, the purchaser will have no power to break up the patch, to move non-service families on to the patch, to slice up the patch, or to cherry-pick portions of it. Phantom arguments have been conjured up about problem families being moved into defence housing or security being lifted. They are complete and utter codswallop--old Canterbury tales. Nevertheless, we have dealt with those claims very efficiently.
The purchaser of the married quarters estate will not be able to call the shots as to which houses will be retained for service occupation and which will be released from the patch. That management function is exercised today by the Defence Housing Executive, and it will continue to exercise it into the future. It is subject to the overriding ministerial veto that maintains the paramountcy of service housing in order to meet operational requirements. There is no threat to the patch.
I turn now to the claim that the scheme is a bad deal financially. That does not stand up to serious examination. I shall speak personally for a moment. During my short life as a bird of passage in the ministerial aviary, I occupied two perches and I adopted two viewpoints--both of which are relevant to this debate.
First, for two years I had the honour to serve as a Minister of State for Defence, and, in that capacity, I believed it my duty to safeguard the interests of British service men. It was crystal clear that the defence married quarters estate had suffered over the years from under-investment, inadequate management and poor maintenance.
Time and again, on visits to military bases, it was possible to see those detrimental policies reflected in physically poor conditions such as leaking roofs, crumbling walls and far too many empty houses. The huge plus of this scheme is the introduction of much better professional management: over the next few years, £100 million will be spent on improving all those poor-quality houses to grade 1 accommodation standard. That is an enormous bonus, as service men on the estates will recognise when the scheme is explained to them properly.
From the viewpoint of a Minister of State--or, indeed, a Defence Minister of any kind--I can see that the scheme is in the best interests of service men. It is no surprise that the chiefs of staff, whose integrity should not be stupidly questioned, have come out clearly and said, "Let the service voice be heard. Let it be said, plainly and clearly, that this scheme has been supported down the line by the chiefs of staff, because it is in the best interests of service men."
Mr. Home Robertson:
The right hon. Gentleman says that the service chiefs of staff have supported the proposal unequivocally. Has he any evidence to support that?
Mr. Aitken:
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the exact words of Field Marshal Sir Peter Inge, Chief of the Defence Staff, who expressed such support in clear and explicit language only a few days ago.
As for the financial deal, let me correct--on an historical basis--a misstatement of fact by, I think, the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell), which has run through the argument in recent weeks. I refer to the claim that this is a Treasury-led scheme--
Mr. Menzies Campbell:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Aitken:
No, I will not. I am still replying to the point made by the hon. and learned Gentleman.
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