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9.46 pm
The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. James Arbuthnot): Today's debate has been notable for the tributes paid on both sides of the House to Warrant Officer Bradwell--I echo those tributes and offer to his loved ones the condolences of the House expressed on behalf of the country.
This is a two-day debate, but right hon. and hon. Members may well raise important points that my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces and I will be unable to cover during our speeches. We shall write to all those whose points we have been unable to cover.
The debate opened with a speech by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and was followed by a speech by the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) which was breathtaking in its rewriting of history. Before I turn to that speech--and I will because it was an important speech--I shall comment on the extraordinary speech that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Warley, West (Mr. Spellar). He clearly abandoned the concept of competition and committed himself to buying British come what may--a policy that would be barking mad.
I shall tell the hon. Gentleman why we bought Land Rover. We did so because it gives us the best. Without competition, we would never have had such an excellent product at such a price. That is the value of competition--a value that the hon. Member for Warley, West seems prepared to throw away.
In his speech the hon. Member for South Shields criticised the instability that he suggested was produced by Government policies, but at the same time he called for a defence review. We know why he calls for an extraordinary defence review. He does so because he wants to mask the desire of most Labour Back Benchers--with some honourable exceptions--for defence cuts. Nothing would cause as much instability to our armed forces as a defence review. The hon. Gentleman has not been able to point to a single member of our armed forces who would like such a defence review. The Labour party's commitment is not to defence--it never has been and it never will be. We know that defence is not its priority. Defence under a Labour Government would always be the milch cow for their real priorities. Even the Transport and General Workers Union wants to cut £18 billion from the defence budget, and he who pays the piper calls the tune.
The hon. Member for South Shields did give an astonishing display of candour when he said that there was insufficient interest in the Labour party for the issue of Trident to be debated at the Labour party conference in the past two years--
Dr. David Clark
indicated dissent.
Mr. Arbuthnot:
He said that there was insufficient interest for the whole defence issue to be debated in the past two years.
Dr. Reid:
The Minister has obviously been given another bad briefing, a year out of date. We said that the whole debate surrounding the decision whether to cut defence expenditure was so lacking in interest and had so little backing that it did not appear on the conference agenda. The Trident issue was debated and, for the second year running, multilateralism won the day, so Labour's position on that is the same as that of the Government. At least I have cut the Minister's speech short, so that he has more time to devote to the real subject of procurement.
Mr. Arbuthnot:
But that is not the point; the point is that Labour Members are keeping shtoom. Last year, 43 Labour Members signed an amendment to the motion in the defence estimates debate--an amendment calling for a cut in defence budgets and for the removal of Trident. This year, only 20 have done so, but that does not suggest for a moment that the other 23 have changed their minds. They have not changed their minds; and if they have, are we not entitled to ask why?
The right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) called for the removal of all nuclear weapons from British territory. Has he changed his mind? It would seem that perhaps he has; yet he has never said why. The hon. Member for South Shields once said that he would not be prepared to use a nuclear weapon. Has he changed his mind? It would be interesting to find out. And if he has, why?
Dr. David Clark:
In 1981 I was deputy defence spokesperson for the Labour party, and I resigned when the party went unilateralist in the 1981 conference. [Hon. Members: "Wrong again."]
Mr. Arbuthnot:
So why did the hon. Gentleman say that he would not use a nuclear weapon? Saying something like that destroys the deterrent.
I want to give the hon. Member for South Shields replies on the substance of some questions that he asked. He made an important issue of organophosphates and their use in the Gulf. I can confirm that the issue of the handling of the reports received by the Ministry of Defence and the reasons why they were not fully considered or acted on will be fully evaluated in the further work that we have immediately set in hand.
I very much regret that the information given to the Defence Select Committee and other hon. Members in the past few years has proved to be incorrect. The answers were given by Ministers in good faith, on the basis of advice from senior military and civilian staff in the Department. We are urgently examining the exact circumstances in which organophosphate pesticides were used and the extent of their use. Hon. Members will
understand that I would not wish to prejudge the outcome of that work, but my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces will report further to the House when the work is complete.
Mr. Dalyell:
The House of Commons might be forgiven for wondering why, when, as the Minister admits, the proper questions were asked, the Department or the Ministers--admittedly, previous to him--were so lazy, I repeat lazy, that they did not get the right answers years ago.
Mr. Arbuthnot:
Yes, and that is the point of part of the investigation that is taking place at the moment. I fully accept that the Department should have known the correct position much earlier, especially in the light of anxieties expressed about pesticide use. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces has commissioned a further investigation as a matter of urgency.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Sir J. Cope) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest--[Hon. Members: "Wyre."] I apologise. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans) referred to the future medium-range air-to-air missile. The assessment of bids is under way, and we hope to complete that assessment and to reach a decision around the middle of next year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre also referred to the defence budget, as did a number of other hon. Members. I can assure the House that the Government are committed to providing the armed forces with the manpower and equipment they need to undertake the tasks which our defence and security policies place on them. We will continue to provide the resources to sustain those capabilities.
While efforts to achieve ever greater value for money in defence continue, we have made it clear that, under this Government, the big upheavals are over. We have undertaken to provide a period of stability in the plans for our forces.
My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin), the Chairman of the Select Committee--
Mr. Arbuthnot:
I have only five minutes left and a lot of points to cover, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. I shall be making a speech tomorrow, but tonight I should like to answer as many questions as possible.
My hon. Friend referred to the decommissioning of nuclear submarines. It is our policy to store decommissioned nuclear submarines afloat at the place where they are decommissioned until a decision about their final disposal is made. My hon. Friend also referred to Jason, the small teaching nuclear reactor at Greenwich. As part of future plans for the royal naval college site there I am pleased to confirm that the reactor will be decommissioned. The appointment of AEA Technology as project manager, and of Dr. Bryan Edmondson as independent safety adviser, illustrates our commitment to safety and openness during the process.
Mr. Nick Raynsford (Greenwich):
The Minister will be well aware of the natural concern in Greenwich, which
Mr. Arbuthnot:
I could not have announced the decommissioning any earlier than today's debate: this is our first day back from the summer recess. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman.
My hon. Friends the Members for Romsey and Waterside and for Salisbury (Mr. Key) raised the important issue of the Warrior mortar. My Department welcomes the private finance initiative proposals from industry; I understand the commercial concerns that have led GKN to make its current proposals to supply Warrior mortar vehicles to the MOD. We take full account of relevant industrial considerations when making decisions about equipment, and we actively support GKN in marketing Warrior overseas. I have made it clear before to the House that Warrior is an excellent vehicle which has performed extremely well in operational service in Bosnia, just as it did in the Gulf. My Department will respond to the company shortly.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Hargreaves) discussed deployment of the deterrent and the question of the two Trident submarines. Our current deterrent is provided by two Trident boats and by RAF Tornadoes carrying WE177 freefall bombs. We have always planned to have only two boats in service for a short period; the Trident fleet will reach four boats by the end of the century.
Next, recruitment, which was raised by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre, who asked whether we would have similar difficulties in the following year. I can give him details of the achievement targets that we have reached. Against the targets for the first six months of this year, the Royal Navy achieved recruitment of 89 per cent. for officers and 85 per cent. for ratings. Figures for the Royal Marines were 100 per cent. for officers and 84 per cent. for other ranks. The Army predicts that officer recruitment for the whole year will reach 86 per cent. of target. For the other ranks in the Army, recruitment in the first six months of this year reached 86 per cent. of target. The point is that it was an increase of 40 per cent. on the performance level for the same period last year. The most promising indicator was the increase in recruitment in the infantry, where 86 per cent. of six-month targets compared with 53 per cent. over the same period last year. The RAF is confident that it will have achieved a recruitment level of 90 per cent. of its target for both officers and airmen by the end of 1996-97.
My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury raised the issue of Bowman and suggested that blind man's buff was being played. The procurement executive, including the
Chief of Defence Procurement, regularly speak to the two consortia that have been developing systems to meet our Bowman requirement, so there is no question of blind man's buff being played. But I listened to my hon. Friend's view with interest.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Tayside (Mr. Walker) asked some important questions about the air cadet council. There is no question that the review is being undertaken as a cost-driven exercise. It is to look at the role of the air cadet council, and the RAF still attaches great importance to the role of the air cadets.
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