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7.47 pm
Mr. Nigel Beard (Bexleyheath and Crayford): Our Army, Navy and Air Force are recognised as unsurpassed in their capabilities and record. They are truly professional in roles as disparate as Northern Ireland and the defence of western Europe through NATO. They are admired world wide for their skill and discipline and bring great credit to this country. Nevertheless, there is a need to look closely at what we are asking them to do.
Times have changed radically over the past 10 years. The Berlin wall has come down, the Soviet Union has fragmented and today's foreign policy sees Britain's influence projected around the world through overseas aid and trade and the vibrancy of our arts and sciences and not just by military capability and alliance.
The previous Government made several ad hoc cuts in defence spending in acknowledgement of all these changes, but they were financially driven. It was not clear that our resulting defence forces were consistent with the tasks that we asked them to undertake. The current defence review is the first time that there has been a comprehensive assessment of our defence forces since the defence of NATO Europe against mass attack across the north German plain ceased to be the central focus of our defence policy.
The aim of the review must be to define the nature of British defence interests in the context of the new Government's foreign policy and to ensure their consistency with the scale and allocation of defence spending.
With the exception of Northern Ireland, which we must hope will soon not need to be a defence issue, none of the scenarios defining potential defence operations will involve a vital British interest on its own. We are most likely to be acting in concert with some of our allies in NATO or the Western European Union or the Commonwealth or the United Nations. It is impossible to imagine circumstances in which British forces should or would be called to operate entirely on their own. Even humanitarian aid operations would require some support from a host Government.
One of the major questions that the review must address, therefore, is, what type of collaboration with allies may be envisaged? Will it be collaboration with self-sufficient units, operating side by side with allied counterparts but capable of operating independently?
Or will it be an operationally integrated force of land, air or naval forces under an integrated command structure, the individual national components of which would be unable to operate independently?
Operational requirements and national pride have favoured national forces that are complete in themselves, but that may not be either the most effective or the most efficient arrangement in future. There is a great deal of uneconomic duplication among NATO allies in providing the fiction of independence for armed services that will never operate independently.
Changed circumstances have different implications for each of the three services and raise different questions. I shall discuss the Royal Air Force first.
With future operations more likely to look like Northern Ireland or Bosnia than the Gulf war, the overriding question for the Royal Air Force is whether our potential spending on aircraft is consistent with future defence roles.
A commitment has been made to the collaborative development and purchase of Eurofighters, with hard-won German agreement. It will secure Britain's aircraft industry and consolidate the trend towards collaborative programmes in Europe. Both those aims are laudable, but where is the scenario of future operations that would require even half of the 232 aircraft that we are committed to purchase? Even an engagement such as the Gulf war would not justify those numbers if we are playing an equitable role with our allies.
The previous Government's 1996 defence White Paper outlined plans to replace 37 Sea Harriers in a possible collaboration with the United States of America. The cost estimates given for the collaboration, at $30 million to $40 million per aircraft, are less than those for the Eurofighter, but for a far more complex aircraft. Unsurprisingly, the Rand Corporation and the US Congressional Budget Office have questioned the credibility of those estimates. The scene appears to be set, therefore, for the most familiar of all defence scenarios--an expensive project that ends with costs two, three or four times the original estimates.
Feasibility studies with potential US partners are also known to be under way for the replacement of 85 Harriers and 142 Tornado strike bombers.
Where is the foreseeable operational need for all those aircraft? How is such a potential financial commitment likely to be proportionate to their defence role? Is there a way in which the large number of Eurofighters to which we are committed could be diverted to meet parts of the other roles that are being investigated?
I come now to the Royal Navy. There has long been no call to deploy the Royal Navy world wide. There is no plausible operation that it could be called on to carry out without the integrated or collateral support of allies.
In the cold war, the submarine threat to naval and merchant ships was there, but with the break-up of the Soviet Union, where does that submarine threat now come from? Likewise, in the cold war the Navy had major roles in operations to defend NATO's flanks in Norway and Turkey. However, there is now no threat to Norway and I question whether any potential threat to Turkey from Syria or Iraq could justify a significant naval force.
On what basis, therefore, can the present size of the Navy be justified? Amphibious forces, including amphibious ships and the Royal Marines, are undoubtedly
consistent with worldwide emergency and peacekeeping operations and obligations to some of our dependent territories. The ships can lie over the horizon without political commitment to an operation, but they influence events and provide for intervention at very short notice.
Amphibious intervention in emergencies or peacekeeping roles and the protection of North sea and Atlantic oil installations give a clear, firm basis for naval planning in the future. It seems unlikely, however, that those operations alone could justify a Navy of the present size, which, according to the 1996 defence White Paper, is 15 submarines, 36 destroyers and frigates and 44 Merlin anti-submarine warfare helicopters.
The Army is a service whose force structure, doctrine and training have been comprehensively defined by potential NATO operations in north-west Europe. It is here, therefore, that there is the greatest danger of things rolling on with the momentum of the past.
Tank battles across the north German plain are now the least likely operation imaginable, but quite recently they were a preoccupation of the Army in Germany. Heavy main battle tanks such as Challenger no longer fit into any future operational concept. The need is for flexibility and mobility and easy movement by air--all of which define a lighter tank.
The 1996 White Paper catalogues 386 Challenger 2 tanks on order and 350 to come. Although those may replace the unreliable Challenger 1 tanks, their overall role must now be in doubt. The weight of Challenger limits its deployment in most parts of Europe, including Bosnia, and expensive aircraft are required to move it anywhere by air.
In the new era, the Army will retain a central role in our defence, but it will need to revise its operational concepts and force structure to provide for a more flexible and mobile role. With that will come a need to rethink the equipment in a way that is compatible with greater movement and manoeuvre.
The defence review being undertaken provides for modernisation of the armed services--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman has had his 10 minutes.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West):
I wish to make five brief points.
First, I believe that the decision not to replace Britannia is deeply regrettable and owes much more to political posturing than it does to sound judgment. It is much regretted in the New Forest, which is home to the CADLAND project.
Secondly, I add my voice to that of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) in calling for a Minister for veteran affairs. My constituency has a high proportion of retired officers, and the problems and anomalies that they bring to my constituency surgeries would be well served by such a Minister. Recently, the Royal British Legion at Milford-on-Sea asked me to raise that issue.
Thirdly, I should like to draw attention to the Secretary of State's statement on the opportunities available to women in the armed forces. I should have liked to address my remarks to the hon. Member for Thurrock, were he in his seat, because he expressed incredulity that my right
hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) could offer only a cautious welcome to the statement.
My welcome is only cautious because in my squadron I rely heavily on the skills of two female operators to maintain high frequency communications networks. They train with my squadron headquarters and are part of the team, but if we were to go into operations I would be denied their services. That situation has not changed as a consequence of the Secretary of State's statement because the Royal Armoured Corps is beyond its scope. That is why I am only cautious in my welcome.
Another reason for being cautious is that some people will use the successful integration of females into the armed services as an argument for going even further. I am glad that the Secretary of State ruled out the possibility of female soldiers serving in infantry regiments of the line. It would be operationally unsustainable and wholly repugnant if female soldiers were to fix bayonets and close with the enemy.
A third reason for exercising some caution in this respect is that, as the hon. Member for Thurrock must be aware, an administrative overhead applies to any attempt to integrate male and female soldiers as a consequence of the intimate circumstances in which they must serve and at the same time to maintain discipline. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux said:
There has been some loose talk about cutting the Reserves to some 40,000 members or doing away with the Territorial Army altogether. I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) that it is precisely because there is financial pressure on the defence budget that we should make even greater use of cost-effective Reserves. An argument that is being made against such an eventuality is the disappointing response in terms of volunteers for the high-readiness Reserves. I do not believe that that argument holds water. The effectiveness of the Reserves is much better measured by their outstanding contribution in Bosnia over the past few years. The disappointing number of signatures for the high-readiness Reserves is a failure on the part of the chain of command in its ability to inform soldiers and market the high-readiness Reserves.
To be effective, our Reserves must have adequate equipment with which to train. I draw the Minister's attention specifically to the decision to withdraw the series 3 Land Rover from service by the end of this year. I do not dispute for a moment the fact that the series 3 Land Rover should be withdrawn from service. It is extremely expensive to maintain. My squadron has two vehicles that are more than 18 years old, one of which was converted from civilian use and therefore has a limited range. I would have welcomed a decision to withdraw the series 3 Land Rovers as new vehicles were released. On 1 January, my light reconnaissance squadron will have no recce cars at all. To a light reconnaissance soldier, a Land Rover is as vital as a SA80 rifle is to an infantryman.
7.58 pm
"To be always with a woman and not to have intercourse with her is more difficult than to raise the dead."
As one is not capable of the latter, one is certainly not capable of the former.
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