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Dr. Reid: The hon. and learned Gentleman is making a perceptive contribution. To complement what he is saying, I remind him that the reading of entrails is also done by the Germans and that I can think of nothing that is more calculated to give succour, in the run-up to the Bundestag's decision, to those who would seek to scrap German support for Eurofighter than the dishonest rumours and stories put about that an incoming British Government would ditch the programme. That is the point about the juvenile irresponsibility of those who would seek to make short-term party political points about Eurofighter.

Mr. Campbell: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not intervene in what seems to be a private fight.

Dr. Reid indicated dissent.

Mr. Campbell: I do not mean to deprecate what the hon. Gentleman says. I understand his point about the national interest. He must speak for his party. I speak for mine, and I point to my record of commitment for the Eurofighter project over several years as a justification for the view that the project must proceed, for the reasons that I have outlined.

It would be ludicrous to say that the future of the Royal Air Force would be threatened by any failure in the Eurofighter programme, but if the programme did not proceed it would substantially influence the shape and capability of the Royal Air Force.

I shall quickly mention one or two more procurement matters. I hope that the Minister may--if not today, then by letter--be able to say something to those of us with an interest in the matter about where the Government stand on the issue of the EH101. The Royal Air Force has an order for 22 in the utility version. That is a very large investment. The Minister of State for Defence Procurement knows that the Wessex, the Puma and the

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Sea Kings, in various roles, must all be replaced by 2010. There is now a head of steam behind the suggestion that variants of the EH101 would be suitable for their replacement. It would be useful if the Minister would share as much as possible the thinking of the Ministry of Defence on that important procurement issue.

It would also be useful if the Minister would--if not today, another time--give some hint of the Government's thinking regarding the offer by Lockheed in relation to the C17s. As the hon. Member for Wyre said, there is an important issue as between C17s and the future large aircraft.

Mr. Wilkinson: McDonnell Douglas.

Mr. Campbell: Indeed. I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon.

ASTOR has already been mentioned. A decision must now be made on the platform for the equipment, and I understand that a choice must be made between Gulf-Stream and Dassault. Can the Minister help the House with that--if not tonight, then later?

I am not persuaded in any sense by the siren voices that argue that the Royal Air Force should evolve into a support service. I remain convinced that it should remain a strategic force. I understood the Minister of State for the Armed Forces to confirm that as the present Government's policy; he has my support in that regard.

There is little doubt that, in United Nations or other peacekeeping or peacemaking operations, the Royal Air Force will be called on to provide air support for essentially ground-dominated operations, but the need for strategic use of air power on behalf of and in the interests of the United Kingdom may well arise in future. For that we need a Royal Air Force capable of that role.

7.27 pm

Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood): I feel like an aging Lothario: I need more and more inspiration to perform, and in parliamentary terms we have had that inspiration from my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces. There is nothing as exciting as a convert, and he certainly has the fervour of a convert. There is no one as fervent as an ebullient ex-hussar speaking up for air power, and he did so most effectively.

However, we need, not just parliamentary inspiration, but a bit of service inspiration. It is relatively easy for me; I need not go far--13 miles in fact, to the Polish war memorial at the corner of my constituency, by Royal Air Force Northolt. I look up and see the squadrons. For example, 303 Polish Squadron was the highest-scoring squadron in the battle of Britain. It only came in halfway through, declaring itself operational before it officially was.

Then I go further along the road, deeper into my constituency--I am always deep into my constituency, as we all are, especially with an election approaching--and I look at the main gate of the station. There I see a motto--my grandfathers were clergymen; they would have had to have a text--for my speech. It is relevant, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as you, a former Air Force man, will recognise. The words are:


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    meaning ready either to carry or to fight. We do both in this place. We carry the burdens of the long speeches to which we must listen, and we are always ready to fight when an election approaches.

Air power is the decisive instrument in modern war. The versatility that the service possesses is so relevant to our contemporary world, to carry the logistics for operations or, if necessary, to fight. The Royal Air Force must be capable of war winning or conflict prevention. An example of war winning was our contribution in the Gulf war. In the Falklands war, our air power was perhaps more naval air than RAF, but without British air superiority over the islands, they could never have been regained.

In Bosnia, as my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out, the decisive intervention of offensive air power, so long called for by Conservative Members, and at last unleashed, brought the belligerents to their senses and restored a semblance of peace, which ultimately was ratified in the Dayton accords.

The obverse of the Gulf war is the operation of the no-fly zones over north and south Iraq, which persists to this day.

A final example was mentioned by my hon. Friend. I remind him of his early military days--I, too, was an ADC once--when I say:


How wise it was to send a Canberra down to Zaire, rather than sending 10,000 men to beat around in the jungle.

To express it in language that our American friends would understand, General Patton said that armed forces must have the decisive capability of being able


That is important for a country whose military resources are so small. It is essential to be able to deploy decisive fire power at the critical point or, even better, by rapid deployment of force, to be able to deter. There was recently a classic example of such deterrence. When Kuwait fell, we rapidly sent our squadrons out to Saudi Arabia, and Saddam Hussein was checked.

I move on from such combative themes to speak about the shouldering of a burden, which the RAF does well. I have always been rather Gaullist in my attitude to logistics. The general always used to speak deprecatingly of "commissariat". Then I went to RAF Brampton and RAF Wytton, full of pessimism. I remembered Wytton, as ex-Pathfinder Force station, Canberras, reconnaissance establishment--all sorts of exciting things--and now headquarters of Logistic Command. I expected it to be bone-shakingly boring, but far from it--it was fascinating and thrilling. I saw some innovative and exciting work in husbanding and deploying resources, using, to me, unintelligible information systems which transform modern logistics.

If I may weary the House, I shall speak about the air transport aspects and the major improvements in the RAF's logistic and air transport capability which the Government have put in place. I start where I began, close to home, at RAF Northolt. How exciting it is that No. 32 squadron, the resident communications squadron, having been merged with the Queen's Flight, should be the Royal squadron. Everyone appreciates locally that it should be stationed at RAF Northolt. It is a sensible sharing of the

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resources of the Queen's Flight, although I am not suggesting that the new royal yacht should necessarily be used in the same way.

I must, however, add a note of caution. The operations of RAF Northolt are crucial for the Government and the armed forces--the headquarters at High Wycombe, Northwood and Bentley Priory, for example, as well as the Ministry of Defence and the diplomatic and other services. It is used also for communications purposes by civil aircraft. I urge the Government not to allow the civil limits to be increased. There are currently 28 civil movements per day, Monday to Friday, and the hours are 8 am to 8 pm. If the limits were changed, the tremendous support that the station has from the local community might be put at risk, which would be a great shame.

At times of tension--for example, during the Gulf war--there can be military movements at all hours of the day and night, seven days a week. The area is heavily built up and entirely residential. My constituents, and people in neighbouring constituencies, do not object to military movements, but they would object to a serious increase in civil movements. An experiment started in October and will continue until the end of March to begin civil flying operations from 0700 rather than from 0800. I hope that, at the conclusion of the experimental period, Ministers will think long and hard, and that they will not make the extra hour a perpetual feature of operations at the station. I hope that they will stick to the original hours of 0800 to 2000, and no movements by civilian aircraft at weekends.

The helicopter force is a crucial element of our air transport capability. In the service, it used to be regarded as the poor relation, but not now, thanks to the ordering of the EH101s and the Chinook 2s to augment the medium support helicopter force. I hope that the Government will soon be able to make the orders necessary to put in place the simulation facilities at RAF Benson, to get the show on the road and the training programme initiated.

The C-130Js were entirely the right decision, militarily and industrially. It is all to the good that the RAF is the launch customer. The Government need have no doubts that they did the right thing in ordering the aeroplane. However, there is still a gap in our capabilities--the heavy lift element about which we spoke previously.

I urge the Government preferably to procure, or to lease, the C-17. It is clearly the right aeroplane. It has been in service for many years with the United States air force. While I was at the Farnborough airshow, I had the great privilege of talking to the RAF exchange officer who had come across from Charleston on the aircraft. It still has important development potential. It could have an extra 10,000 gallons in the centre wing section for further range. It could have air-to-air refuelling capability. It can already receive fuel, of course, but as a tanker there is provision for Flight Refuelling Ltd.'s pods on the wings, the hard points are already there.

I shall quote some figures from a press release that was issued by the manufacturers McDonnell Douglas.


That is about three times the weight that a future large aircraft could carry.


    "It can take off from a 7,600 foot airfield, fly 2,400 nautical miles and land on a small, austere airfield in 3,000 ft. It can be refuelled in flight and its ferry range is 4,300 nautical miles."

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The feature of the C-17 aircraft is its volume. As my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) said, it can take a main battle tank, armoured fighting vehicles, helicopters that have not been dismantled, missile batteries and associated radar systems, Bailey bridges, vehicle recovery equipment and tank transporters. We are in the business of power projection, whether in peace or in war, and that is the kind of instrument that we need to have at our disposition. At present, we rely on the United States Air Force and on chartering civilian aeroplanes. I have nothing against such charters, but the C-17 is the right way forward.

I join those who have spoken in paying tribute to Sir Michael Graydon who has been an outstanding Chief of the Air Staff. By his patience, courtesy and reliance on rational argument eventually to win the day, he has set an excellent example. We shall be sad to see him go, but we are glad that Sir Richard Johns is to succeed him because we know that he is experienced and well qualified for the job.

It is exciting that the Government and Sir Michael Graydon have put in place the total-force concept. I shall not refer to speeches that were made a long time ago, but my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans) was exceedingly generous in referring to my consistent report for flying members of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. When I made my maiden speech on the subject twenty-six and a half years ago, I little knew that it was an idea whose day had almost come. Anyone who can get an idea across in a generation is doing well in this place. However, one also knows that it could take only another generation for it to be undone because that is the way of human affairs.

The total-force concept with a core of highly trained regulars is exciting. The process of reducing numbers has been painful but it is sorting itself out. The force is backed by a range of auxiliary capabilities with a merged RAFVR and auxiliary air force, and will come into operation as a reserve force from April. There will be auxiliary and medical, maritime and helicopter support, operational missile system, anti-aircraft gun and the Royal Air Force regiment units. As my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside said, there could be medical, provost or motor transport too. Of course, the raison d'etre of the service itself is being addressed--flying. It was always an anomaly that the Territorial Army had flying squadrons and the Royal Naval Reserve operated Sea Harriers capably in a reservist capacity but somehow the flying service could not manage to get its reservists into the air.

The services are backed by contractors and for the party that believes in business, that must be right. The companies that are involved in supporting the RAF, such as Marshall, Shorts and Huntings, to name but three, do the job very well. Their personnel should be members of the sponsored reserve so that they can be subject to the Air Force Acts and appropriately mobilised in time of emergency or war. At the end of five years, in spite of all the alarms and excursions, the traumas, excitements and sadnesses of rapid change, the service now has a total-force concept that will stand the test of time. It is well equipped and I confidently expect that, before long, the only big remaining gap in its inventory, apart from ballistic missile defence--heavy lift equipment--will be addressed through either the lease or the purchase of the C-17.

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