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7.49 pm
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock): It is good to be back. The parliamentary summer recess was unacceptably long.
I am pleased that we are having this wide-ranging defence debate. I have enjoyed listening to a number of contributions, although I may not have agreed with all that has been said. I listened closely to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell). Bearing in mind the spirit of ecumenicism between the Prime Minister and the leader of the Liberal Democrat party, I feel that I can safely say that I agreed with everything that he said. I make no apology for flagging that up.
The shadow Secretary of State referred to NATO enlargement and complained that there was no great debate on the issue in this country. To an extent, he and his colleagues are to blame. Regrettably, the only debate that I recall being held on the Floor of the House was initiated by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) in private Members' time. Part of the reason why this
extremely important issue is not discussed in the House is that the House does not ratify treaties. I hope that, when the Government discuss their constitutional agenda, they will look at the wider issue of the House being able to confirm or ratify treaties or amendments to treaties. That would be good in general and would ensure that we had, in the House and elsewhere, a full debate about the important matter of NATO enlargement, which I whole-heartedly support in principle.
I very much welcome the fact that the Madrid summit gave Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic the prospect of early admission to NATO. My only regret is that Slovenia was left out for no other reason than that existing NATO members decided--for reasons that I accept--to tell Romania that it should wait for some time and, rather than leave Romania to face its disappointment alone, felt that they must leave out 1 million people in Slovenia to smooth over Romania's disappointment.
I welcome the extension of NATO because it is a matter of right. It is 51 years since Winston Churchill spoke at Fulton, Missouri and said:
The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), who is no longer in his place, referred to the Baltic countries which can legitimately aspire to join NATO. We must not, however, devalue or dilute the security guarantees, which is why the extension of NATO should be taken in geographical stages. Another criterion for new NATO members is that they must make a commitment not just to parliamentary democracy but to internal human rights. At least one Baltic state has some distance to go before demonstrating that it can accommodate its minorities within a democratic constitutional structure. That is an important incentive or carrot. The aspiration of joining NATO has contributed to the rapprochement between Hungary and Romania, so it is good that nations are told that they can join defence organisations--an important symbol of democracy--if they are prepared to ensure the robustness of their parliamentary institutions.
I welcome this debate for a number of other reasons. I want to place on record my gratitude to the Minister for the Armed Forces for his initiative in the campaign with which I have been associated to seek pardons for soldiers executed in the Great War on charges ranging from cowardice to desertion, sleeping at their posts, throwing away arms and hitting a superior officer. He agreed that there is now widespread support for acknowledgement by the state that injustice was done to those men, albeit a long time ago. I welcome the fact that he has referred the matter back to the various sections involved within the Ministry and I look forward to a positive response. It will
be welcomed by the men's families and the few remaining veterans from the Great War and, overwhelmingly, by British public opinion.
In the last Parliament, an early-day motion was signed by the majority of Back Benchers--perhaps even by a majority of the House--calling for a veterans Minister. I acknowledge that the present Government have gone some way, within the distribution of portfolios in the Ministry of Defence and other Departments, to meet the needs, aspirations and interests of people who have served in the armed forces and their widows or dependants. Nevertheless, I hope that a message will go back to the Prime Minister that there is a case for a Minister with a clear remit, among his other duties, to protect and promote the interests of veterans, their widows and dependants. It could be along the lines of the Minister for Sport. In all Administrations with a Minister for Sport, the Minister has had other responsibilities as well--for water, disasters and so on. This country, like most others, should have a Minister for veterans' affairs. I hope that the Prime Minister will consider that.
There are many veterans' issues. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) mentioned an ex-service man who volunteered for Porton Down. There is also Gulf war syndrome. I have taken a renewed interest in the disadvantage suffered by some war widows and war pensioners whose local authorities do not disregard their pensions in assessing housing benefit entitlement. I give a trailer for the Bill that I shall present on 5 November to try to end the exercise of discretion by a minority of local authorities. That is unfair both to pensioners in those areas and to local authorities that exercise their full discretion under the law.
I was pleased to go, during the recess, with a number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), to HMS Invincible on the initiative of Captain Clare, the commanding officer. We spent a day at sea seeing and experiencing the great skills and dexterity of the craft and its crew, which allowed us to understand more fully the importance of the facilities of that amphibious craft and, if I may use the words of the commanding officer on that occasion, the capacity of a carrier like the Invincible to be on a "global neighbourhood watch". I thought that that was an apt description of our role and of the capacity of our carriers and amphibious craft.
It is interesting that some 10 per cent. of the crew of Invincible are women. It was clear that that was not seen as a problem by the commanders or by the men and women who serve on Invincible. There was a period when that might have been novel, and when those women would have been pioneers, and there might have been some difficulties, but once one gets over the problem and embraces it, the issue goes away. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might find that a matter for levity, but I think that it is serious.
The shadow Secretary of State said that he gave a cautious welcome to what the Minister said earlier in his announcement about women in the armed forces. I thought that the shadow Secretary of State was less than generous. Intellectually, he knows that what was announced today was entirely sensible, demonstrably fair and long overdue. He knows that, but he has behind him some Blimps who cannot comprehend that a substantial proportion of armed forces roles can be filled by the
female gender. It is a great pity that he could not say more robustly that he agreed with the Government on the matter.
Mr. Robert Key (Salisbury):
I share the hon. Gentleman's admiration for the crew that day. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) was not giving a cautious welcome in that sense. There are problems, and I shall refer to some of them tomorrow--for example, the need to review the Army, Air Force and naval discipline Acts and to consolidate them into one. That opportunity has been missed for a decade. When there is joint service, as on that aircraft carrier, there are real problems concerning the different moral codes of the three services. That has caused genuine concern in many cases.
Mr. Mackinlay:
The matters to which the hon. Gentleman refers are not problems; they are matters that must be addressed. They are not reasons for not welcoming the principle of the announcement by the Secretary of State. I shall not labour the point, but the Conservatives could have embraced it more generously this evening.
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent behind which we must refer to it as the Soviet sphere."
What were the past 50 years about if not to acknowledge that, when countries are free, they are entitled to join an association of free nations? For half a century, we were telling the peoples of central Europe to look over the wall at how wonderful a market economy was. When communism collapsed, the Warsaw pact finished, the wall came down, the barbed wire was rolled up and they asked whether they could join the club, some people said, "Hang on a minute, not so fast." That is totally unacceptable. It is a moral issue that we should be able to invite countries that can demonstrate a robust and enduring parliamentary democracy into the NATO club, and we took that first step at the Madrid summit.
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