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The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): Sheer speculation.
Sir George Young: Does the Minister invite the House to believe that four or five Sunday newspapers decided, wholly independently, that the future of Britannia was a front-page story? It is more likely that there was a briefing. I want to know what briefing by Government officials or Ministers took place before that Sunday.
Mr. Gerald Howarth: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Sir George Young: No, I must make progress.
If the briefing was not given by the Ministry of Defence and if it knew that it was inaccurate, who gave the briefing and why? Was it a smokescreen to obscure something that was happening at the same time? The ultimate humiliation for the Secretary of State was when not he but the Chancellor confirmed, in an off-the-cuff remark in a television interview with Sir David Frost, that the Government were not going to replace the royal yacht.
I mention that incident with Britannia because it shows the Government at their worst. Their spinning has gone beyond the stage of deceiving the batsman; it is deceiving the fielders. The cynical manipulation of news and non-news, leading to the resignation of senior members of the Government Information Service, is one of the most sinister developments since 1 May. The Secretary of State may have been an innocent party in the Britannia episode, but that makes the cynicism of those responsible even worse.
Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife):
I, too, welcome the Secretary of State on his first appearance at the Dispatch Box in this annual debate. I also welcome the shadow Secretary of State. I hope that I do not insult both of them when I say that the speech that each delivered could as easily have been delivered by the other. In truth, the differences between the two sides of the House on defence issues are probably much smaller than they have been at any time over the past 20 years.
The debate takes place in a vacuum because, unlike such debates in the recent past, there is no White Paper upon which we can concentrate. In addition, the Secretary of State has made no clear statement on the foreign policy objectives that are to be served by the United Kingdom's
defence capability. He has been consistent in that because, of course, just before the summer recess he answered a parliamentary question to the effect that he would not make such a statement. In his evidence to the Select Committee on Defence he also declined to give a clear statement of foreign policy objectives.
It was with some enthusiasm, even anticipation, that I read the speech that the Secretary of State delivered to the Royal United Services Institute on 18 September. As an analysis of what needs to be done and how to do it, the speech can hardly be faulted, but as an indication of Government thinking it gave very little assistance. I was driven to the conclusion that it could just as easily have been delivered by Sir Malcolm Rifkind or even Mr. Michael Portillo after the period of compulsory re-education that followed his first speech as Secretary of State for Defence to his party conference.
The question that will haunt the Ministry of Defence is the financial one. The Secretary of State is right to say that defence cuts are not new. As he said, the defence budget is now 2.7 per cent. of gross domestic product. That is the lowest percentage since the 1930s and since the mid-1980s there has been a 29 per cent. reduction in real terms. Throughout the period of the reduction since the mid-1980s, it could hardly have been argued that the Conservative Government had the overwhelming support of Labour or indeed of my party, the Liberal Democrats. Those reductions were driven through in the face of substantial opposition from all parts of the House.
As long as the strategic defence review is driven by Britain's long-term defence needs, it will be a valuable exercise. One could argue that when it has been completed it will be difficult for the Treasury to make drastic changes to the defence budget because the Secretary of State will have available on paper exactly how much it costs to ensure that Britain is properly protected. The Secretary of State asserts on this occasion, as he has on many others, that the review is foreign policy led and not Treasury led. That is an entirely logical position, but those of us who have an interest in these matters cannot escape the conclusion that the ghosts at this feast are Whelan, Balls and Brown. They sound more like a Dublin firm of pawnbrokers than those who might be responsible for the future of Britain's defence effort.
There are not three balls but three posts in this defence review. First, the Government say that they are committed to the Eurofighter--costing about £16.5 billion--with the support of the whole House. [Interruption.] I have always understood that to be the stance of the Conservative Front Bench. If it has changed its position, it will no doubt explain that to the House and the country.
Secondly, the Government are committed to a four-boat Trident force. Thirdly, it is clear to anyone who pays any regard to these matters that there is no possibility of increased defence expenditure in the United Kingdom in real terms in the foreseeable future. Those are three substantial inhibitions on the scope of any defence review.
The Secretary of State has declined to state clear foreign policy objectives. I shall be helpful to the Government by suggesting a series of foreign policy objectives that they should adopt. First, they should be much more active in seeking to develop a common foreign and security policy with our allies in Europe,
maintaining, of course, the individual right of member states to decide whether their national forces should take part in any particular action. Against a background of static or even declining defence budgets, far greater integration in Europe is the only logical response.
Of course we must maintain the transatlantic link, but we should work for a more mature and less dependent relationship with the United States through NATO, with the emergence of the Western European Union as the agent for the European security and defence identity and as a strengthened European pillar of NATO. We should promote and expand joint European defence co-operation and force specialisation with our neighbours. We are already engaged in joint force operations with many of them. In conjunction with our allies we should also develop a comprehensive conflict prevention strategy to co-ordinate foreign, development, defence, trade and environmental policies.
There is a growing argument that the separation of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence is becoming increasingly difficult to justify. The bridge between those two Departments is the issue of security. There is great scope for considering the creation of one Ministry dealing with all Britain's external affairs.
The Government should resist the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and they should undertake to implement their responsibilities under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and encourage others to sign the comprehensive test ban treaty. We should press for a new strategic arms reduction treaty involving all the notified nuclear weapons powers. The Government should actively support and strengthen the ability of the United Nations in peace support and peacekeeping. That includes the establishment of permanent United Nations forces, enhanced intelligence gathering, improved military planning and a United Nations staff college. We should maintain our permanent membership of an enlarged United Nations Security Council and participate, as far as resources allow, in UN military actions across the spectrum of peace support and humanitarian relief.
Surely the Government recognise the need to work to control arms sales. We should end the sale of British arms or materials and dual-use technologies to regimes that abuse human rights. We should work with our European partners to create a European Union code of conduct that is clear, explicit and rigorous to prevent the transfer of weapons or weapons technology to countries that we know are likely to abuse them. We should certainly be concerned about a system of environmental protection and about free trade and human rights.
That is a set of foreign policy objectives for the Government. How much better would our debate about military matters be instructed if we heard from the Government about their foreign policy objectives. That would enable us better to assess whether the defence capabilities that they propose are apt to meet them.
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