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Mr. Soames: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Viggers: My hon. Friend knows that I have three minutes remaining, whereas he will have some time at the end of the debate.
The second area of medical care is secondary care. I am delighted that, with the choice of the royal hospital Haslar as the tri-service hospital, backed up by Ministry of Defence hospital units at Derriford, Frimley Park and Peterborough, the area of defence training will be at the royal medical defence college and that HMS Dolphin has been identified as a suitable site for that location. HMS Dolphin is opposite the royal naval hospital Haslar and having the secondary care unit there will make it easy to interchange the teaching and the practical roles within the armed forces.
I am satisfied with the current shape of the secondary care agency as it is evolving. It is right that we should take account of the fact that changing medical and surgical techniques are leading to shorter hospital stays, that the increased transportation of armed forces personnel means that patients might be brought back to the United Kingdom and NHS hospitals more quickly than in the past, and that the choice of the Gosport area allows a wider range of patients to be seen by armed forces doctors who usually treat fit and young male personnel, whereas in the Gosport-south Hampshire area they have a wide range of patients on whom to practise.
Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East):
I should like to touch on two problems: NATO enlargement and the new challenges facing Britain in terms of military procurement.
On NATO enlargement, it is traditional that, after the end of a great war, the loser enters a period of instability and turbulence. That is the condition that Europe now finds itself in. The cold war ended, perhaps, in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin wall and the great events in central and eastern Europe. We must deal with a Russia that is unstable and giving contradictory signals and extend that area of stability which is the NATO alliance and seek, so far as we can, to influence positively potential regions of turbulence beyond NATO.
We are coming to the point at which the future security architecture of the new Europe is beginning to emerge through the fog. Those outlines were delineated in September in the Stuttgart speech of Secretary Christopher, followed by that of German Foreign Minister Kinkel. Their aim is to try to keep as much movement as possible to preserve flexibility, yet to be sensitive to Russia's problems.
On that architecture, it is now clear that the terms of the first wave of NATO's enlargement will be known in the Brussels summit in December, followed by the meeting in late spring next year. Presumably on or near the 50th anniversary of NATO, in April 1999, that first wave will take effect. We know that the Visegrad countries, with the exception, alas, of Slovakia--because, under Meciar, it has slipped badly from the democratic way--will be among that first wave. We are less certain about whether Slovenia will be there and even less certain about Romania, but the shape of that first group is emerging.
Russia will then have to have its proper interests dealt with. That will mean that its concerns about the boundaries of the new NATO and of the conditions of enlargement will need to be considered sensitively without giving it a veto. That means, it appears, a new charter between NATO and Russia, in which Russia will be given a special status. That raises problems.
There are at the same time a series of regional alliances--not only Visegrad, but the Baltic sea and the Barents sea alliances and a series of positive bilateral
treaties that defy what has happened in history. Only last month, we had the Timisoara treaty between Romania and Hungary. Having served in the embassy in Hungary for some time, I understand the historic resonances of the problem over Transylvania. Russia is seeking to build up the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe because of its status in it. There is likely to be a new directorate of the OSCE, which will be determined at the Lisbon summit in December, so the broad lines of that security architecture are looming through the mist.
The problem is those countries that, for a number of reasons, are not privileged to be in the first wave, or perhaps in any wave, of NATO enlargement. In history, they are the countries in the middle. One interesting perspective on European history is that either Russia or Germany is dominant and it is middle Europe where the problems arise, so the question on enlargement that I pose to the Government is: how will we seek to reassure and look after the interests of countries that will not be in the first wave? I think especially of the Baltics. A sensitive response is needed.
How much thought is being given, for example, to twinning NATO countries with the Baltics and others--the Bulgarians and Romanians? What effort will the Ministry of Defence make to go into those countries to assist in training? What will be the shape of a super- partnership for peace or other arrangements that will be reached? In terms of the Baltic countries, will we seek a new regional security structure and try to subcontract much of the work there to the Scandinavians, who have a geographic and historic relationship with the Baltics? We cannot leave that unclear. There must be movement to those countries that would otherwise feel isolated and neglected.
On the new challenges on procurement, my starting point is that the current problems were foreseeable, but were not foreseen by the Government. Historians will see that we have missed a series of opportunities in the real procurement challenges. Way back in 1994, Ernst and Young produced an excellent report that concluded that, increasingly, there were two axes in the west in military production: the United States and Europe. We have to make a choice. We must avoid fortress Europe, but unless and until European nations begin to pool and merge their resources, we shall opt out of the race to be prime contractors for the major projects.
Market forces will not do it. Even since that Ernst and Young report, which was based on pooling data of industrial concerns for a year or two before, there have been even greater signs of challenge from the United States--not just the mega-mergers, the Lockheed Martins and so on, but evidence of increasing United States pressure on third countries such as those in the Gulf. We see it now in respect of the fighter aircraft in central Europe, and on Hungary, Slovenia and Austria. There is pressure to take United States products rather than Europe's.
We have a choice. Do we seek simply to keep our options open? Do we seek to forget the challenges? Or do we seek to build a European defence entity that is not anti-America, but recognises that, if we do not, we shall be swamped by the size of the United States industrial machine? There are signs that we have more obstacles than most countries.
We accepted the value-for-money concepts of Sir Peter Levene, but they could be defined so narrowly in buying off the shelf--the C130-Js--that we would effectively avoid wider industrial and European perspectives. There have been some unfortunate remarks from Sir Peter Levene's successor about there being no polarisation between the United States and Europe. They appeared in the Financial Times survey on procurement in August. I hope that he was misquoted.
I must mention the signal that the Secretary of State for Defence gave in his speech last year, and the Government's posturing on Europe which gives a clear signal to our European partners that we are not serious about Europe. That is part of the internal squabble in the governing party which, alas, has unfortunate repercussions for Britain.
There are, however, some positive signs--not only the comparison between this year's "Statement on the Defence Estimates" and last year's and the Government's response to the excellent first joint report of the two Select Committees, but various things that have been said. Even the Secretary of State, with his known anti-European prejudices, is being dragged kicking and screaming to support Britain's interests.
I shall end just with these questions in relation to procurement. I accept that there were wrong signals, for example, on Apache and on the C130-J, but the batch of decisions on procurement in July were positive. The response--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. Mr. Bruce George.
Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South):
I suppose I should be grateful that the Conservative party has run out of speakers, or some of my colleagues and I would not have been called. If we wait long enough, the time will come when Conservative Members keep out of the way. After giving a rhetorical flourish of criticism of the Labour party, hon. Members who have come to support their own Government have settled down to spend their time politely criticising them. Our debate on the defence estimates--the last before the general election--will give us, and more importantly the public, a chance to evaluate the truth of the Government's portrayal of themselves as a brilliant Government who are pro-defence and their portrayal of Labour as a party that comprises a bunch of pacifists who are unfit for office.
Towards the end of his speech, the Minister of State for Defence Procurement listed a number of procurement items that are to be ordered. In doing so he seemed to display the philosophy that the threat of a public hanging concentrates the mind. The imminent election has made the Government seek to give the impression that they have been funding defence projects almost ad infinitum, but we know that that is not so.
Any Opposition who neglect defence suffer the consequences: the Labour party deservedly suffered the consequences in 1983 and, to a lesser extent, in 1987. But Governments who neglect defence do so, not just at their own peril, but, more importantly, to the detriment of national security. I fear that the depth and nature of the defence cuts over the past 10 or 15 years have been to the detriment of national security.
I wonder whether the Government will attack the Labour party as they have done in previous elections. The Conservative party may be called the stupid party, but it is not that stupid. Its members must realise that they are on dangerous ground in thinking that the Labour party is the same Labour party as they faced in those halcyon days when the Tory party was identified with defence. If the Conservative party tries to make the defence issue one of confidence, it will suffer the consequences--I hope that it takes that course. I do not think that it will have the opportunity, as it had in 1987, of commissioning posters of soldiers holding their hands in the air in surrender. A consensus is emerging that the Labour party has become much better, while the Government have become much worse.
On the available evidence, with defence expenditure at an historic low and falling, it would be as sane for the Conservative party to proclaim itself the party of defence as it would be for it to proclaim itself the party of law and order when crime levels are at an historic high and rising. Labour is not the party of the 1980s. That period was an abberation for us in the same way--although it was less damning to the country--as the little holiday from realism undertaken by the Conservative party in the 1930s, which had disastrous consequences for this country and mankind. If the Conservative party wants to delve into history, I shall be delighted to join in an historical debate on defence.
The Labour party with which the Conservatives are now dealing is in the tradition not of the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), but of the party that joined the coalition in the first world war and recognised the rise of Hitler long before the Government of Baldwin and Chamberlain. The Opposition brought down the Government who had brought us to the verge of military catastrophe while the majority of Government Members sat on their hands or supported the Government. It is the party of Wilson and Callaghan, who sustained the nuclear deterrent and maintained defence expenditure at a higher level than Tory Governments who followed them.
The Labour party has little to be anxious about. We have learnt the lessons of the 1980s. If the subject is to be raised in the election, the Labour party should do more than hope that it does not become an issue; it should go on the attack. The Tories will say that defence expenditure has slipped a little. Let us remind the public that, when Labour left office in 1979, the budget for that year was 4.9 per cent.--the average was 4.55 per cent. for that period of office. The budget has now declined to 3 per cent. and will probably fall to 2.6 per cent.
Therefore, the chasm that existed between this country's defence expenditure under the last Labour Government and the Thatcher Government and the defence expenditure of our European partners has, under this Government, narrowed to a fraction. Opposition Members who want to see defence expenditure fall to the level of our European and NATO partners should perhaps support the Government in the Lobby this evening, because the Tory Government have narrowed the gap far more than a Labour party conference would wish to have done.
The Select Committee on Defence stated that the defence budget had been trimmed consistently since the inception of "Options for Change". The Select Committee has frequently stated that it is unhappy with the process of cut upon cut. It said that there had been no period of
financial calm--just the opposite. No plan seems to survive the next public expenditure round. Every activity is reviewed and revised again.
The priority in the public expenditure survey 1994 must surely be, as never before, to leave defence expenditure well alone. That did not happen, to such an extent that our Committee has given a warning that, unless the Government can come up with something serious and state that there will be no further cuts of any kind, it cannot recommend the defence estimates to the House. The absence of Conservative Members on the Committee suggests that they are going to sit on their hands or endorse the Government's defence policy despite the commitment given.
I was recently in Portsmouth, which houses the little that is left of our Navy. I seem to see more boats marked Brittany Ferries than representing the Royal Navy--so many ships were available for sale. I spoke to people in the merchant marine--there is not much of that left. The Government's record on the Navy is appalling.
The Defence Committee has been told that things will be all right on the night and that perhaps it was overstating the case on overstretch. But we were right and the Government were wrong. We have received pompous lectures on Gulf war syndrome. I suspect that, the next time we meet, any Government representative will show slightly more humility.
As for procurement, we are all aware of a number of items that have arrived late, have not arrived at all or have arrived greatly over cost. Phoenix, endorsed by the Government, represents the Government: its life span is about the same. The Government first began to think about something such as Phoenix in 1980; we shall get it in about the year 2000. Phoenix and the Government are both much maligned, and deservedly so. They both crash frequently--the difference is that the Government rescued Phoenix, but the electorate will not rescue the Government.
The idea of the Government wrapping themselves in the flag and then giving over Ministry of Defence housing to a Japanese consortium is bizarre. There are some charitable aspects, and I suppose we must forgive and forget. The consortium representing the successful bidders contains one Scottish member, so we may have a Robert the Bruce close or a William Wallace street. We must forgive the Americans, so perhaps we shall have a street named after John Paul Jones, who successfully defeated the British Navy. But I resent the idea of an Admiral Togo or an Admiral Yamamoto avenue. If we are to give over things to those countries that fought us in the war, perhaps we should have a consortium of Zulus, Sikhs and Sudanese to complete the farce.
This evening I should have been at the annual conference of the Defence Police Federation. I am afraid that the Government's vendetta against it and the Ministry of Defence police continues.
On a more positive note, rather than let the GKN Warrior production line fade away, I ask the Government to hear the pleas that have been made by Members on both sides of the House and seriously consider the offer made on the GKN Warrior mortar proposal. If the Government want the production line to continue, they must take positive action.
In its conclusions, the Defence Committee said:
8.49 pm
"We cannot recommend the 1996 Statement on the Defence Estimates to the House unless Ministers make clear in the debate that this year's statement will not again be undermined by further defence cuts in the 1996 Budget or by any other means."
That assurance has not been given. If Conservative Members are not prepared to give the Government the kick up the backside that they deserve, I hope that, at least privately, they have the courage to say that enough is enough, the cuts have gone too far and it is about time that we started building up our defences and not destroying them.
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