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Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order.
6.39 pm
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex): I shall start by welcoming many of the changes in the strategic defence review. They take place against a sombre backdrop, with weapons of a highly sophisticated and extremely dangerous nature in the hands of unstable regimes and terrorist groups. The range of options for military action has increased greatly.
I welcome the expeditionary force changes. There will be considerable difficulties in shaping the policy, not least with the carriers. I hope that the Minister will give us a straightforward answer, not just some weasel words,
to the questions asked by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) and my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key). I am glad to see that the son of the joint rapid deployment force--the joint rapid reaction force--will give the United Kingdom a wider and broader golf bag of capabilities. I strongly welcome that. I consider that to be a good solid Conservative policy being built on in a sensible way.
It is important to place on record the fact that the changes to our armed forces are not taking place against a background of British military defeats and disasters. For the past 50 years, our armed forces have scarcely put a foot wrong. In the past few years alone, in the Falkland Islands, the Gulf, Northern Ireland and Bosnia, they have, literally, covered themselves with glory. The House might care to pause to remember that, during the Falklands campaign, regardless of the risks that it was running, the Royal Navy put ashore, on a hostile coast, during a difficult winter's night, a fighting force of about 5,000 men together with all auxiliary arms. That was an astonishing feat of arms.We truly have some of the best armed forces in the world and certainly, in my judgment, the best people. I urge the Government not to ruin that.
We welcome the equal opportunities initiatives. Anything that can improve recruiting and all the sideshow business is very important. However, I remind the Minister that, for the young service man and woman of today, the fundamental character of war will remain unchanged. Those highly trained young people will have to take part in a terrifying contest of wills for which they will need to be extremely highly trained and in which they will have to cope with extreme danger, in rapidly changing circumstances and conditions of great chaos and uncertainty. Their skills and the quality of their leadership, weapons and equipment will be severely tested. Such operations are sustainable only by men and women who are highly motivated by tremendous pride and confidence in their regiment, their corps, their service and their traditions.
I do not believe that the equal opportunities training centre at Shrivenham will have a great deal to contribute to the success of British military arms. I beg the Labour party to understand that the service ethos is worth defending to the very end. It does not mean that we should not try to improve the services as employers. The services have always been good employers and always look after their people. Of course, they can be criticised at the margins, but the Government must not ruin what is a priceless and golden asset in this country to accomplish a feat of social engineering and political correctness of the worst sort.
Changes are to be made and, in the strategic defence review, many of them are sensible changes. The services have a reputation, rightly, for intelligent, positive and humane leadership. It is clear from their success on operations that they have been supremely successfully prepared for the task. Any fundamental changes must be weighed carefully against the advantages that they will bring to that training.
Having already welcomed the joint rapid reaction forces and the added responsibilities of the permanent joint headquarters, I am glad to see that there is to be a reorganisation of the training cycle for the Army. That is an excellent move, but great care will need to be taken to ensure that those units not at high readiness or in the training part of the cycle are sensibly and carefully
employed and are thoroughly well briefed about where they are going and what they are doing. There must never be a feeling that there is a two-tier Army in operation--one in training for high readiness and high-intensity conflict, in high-readiness mode, ready to go anywhere in the world--one consisting of those dealing with the more mundane jobs.
I am delighted to see that 5 Airborne brigade and 24 Airmobile brigade are to be put together to form the air manoeuvre brigade. That is an excellent move and both brigades will benefit. It will create a versatile and extremely powerful entity. I want the Minister to assure the House that the unique fighting ethos of the Parachute Regiment and all that that has meant for this country will be retained.
I must tell the Secretary of State that I am afraid that it will not be possible for the Navy to live up to the concurrency arrangements set out in the SDR. I doubt whether the new so-called flexible deployment will be able to cope with all tasks asked of the fleet. Having been Minister of State for the Armed Forces, I know what all those terms mean. The term "flexible deployment" means doing more with less kit. The proposals in the SDR will lead to greater overstretch and I hope that the Minister of Defence will watch that with great care.
On the Royal Air Force, I warmly welcome the joint Harrier force. It is a disgrace that it was not done before and I partially blame myself for its not happening earlier. The pursuit of jointery should continue to be a high priority--I am sure that it will be. We bang on about jointery here, but it has been a fact of life in the services for generations. It takes very little to keep pushing it forward. It is now deeply established and deeply ingrained, particularly in the vestiges of the joint services staff college, but it must be pushed forward in force formation. I am pleased to see the new force appear. I am certain that the new joint helicopter command arrangements are a further step in the right direction.
An important change is the creation of the post of the Chief of Defence Logistics. I hope that the Minister knows how lucky he is that, in the personage of General Sam Cowan, he has the right man for the job. I am sure that the Minister knows that there are some heroic efficiencies to be found in logistics. I hope that, in the future, the Secretary of State will consider extending the principle that he is applying to the Chief of Defence Logistics to the adjutants-general and personnel departments across the three services where, again, there are many efficiency savings to be made.
Given all the noise that the Secretary of State has made about defence diplomacy, one would think that the fellow invented the task, when it has been a major part of the defence business of this country for many years. Any Minister who has served in the Ministry of Defence, particularly in the job that I held, will know that a great deal of time and effort goes towards trying to put the right people in the right places and assessing the balance of what we need to achieve and why we need to achieve it.
Defence diplomacy is extremely important to this country, not just to promote defence sales, which is the reason that always used to be given by the Labour party, but to promote the interests of the United Kingdom and, from time to time--this may affront some of the more
tender souls on the Government Benches--to promote defence sales. The respect felt overseas for the British armed forces is a great prize for the interests of this country. Many foreign countries want their young men and women to train here with British armed forces because they want them to be trained alongside British troops and in the British environment. There are many other reasons for pursuing British interests abroad.
I want the Secretary of State also to be aware that there will shortly be difficulty between the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence because the Foreign Office is now running out of officials who did national service--there are fewer and fewer of them. The perfect understanding that has existed between the two Departments will therefore begin to be eroded. I should like the Minister to assure me that he will make sure that there are more exchanges between the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence than there have been.
Ms Dari Taylor (Stockton, South):
The Minister for the Armed Forces is not in the Chamber, but I warmly congratulate him. He will be vigorous in his role.
I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on producing a highly acclaimed strategic defence review, which has listened to the concerns and hopes for development of 7,000 people and organisations. That is a feat, but it is not the only one to be celebrated, because the review will also widen equal opportunities. I found the comments of the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) contemptuous and others will also find them so. He talked about social engineering, but we are defining talent as the prerequisite for choosing people in the armed forces. Ministers must be congratulated also on strengthening the naval and air force reserves. Those are fine and timely moves.
Unfortunately, like others, I have serious concerns about the defence review which inevitably relate to the Territorial Army. I also have hopes because, when the Secretary of State came to the Select Committee on Defence, he said:
I am confused and concerned about what the statements mean. My concern relates not to the Secretary of State but to the advisory backdrop of officials and experts who represent the TA's interests. I am sad to say that my
concern extends to some who claim to be the friends and representatives of the TA. Their comments and the feeble value that they place on the TA undermine its important role. However, I believe the Secretary of State when he says that the TA will in future develop a heavyweight role, because the various talents of the volunteer body have great scope.
I visited many TA units in the north-east and asked them whether they had had an audit of the qualities, skills and talent that they offered. They had not, so I told them that I would conduct an audit because I wanted to know what the people did. I was astounded--perhaps others will not be--by the vast range of skills. There were chartered surveyors, linguists, pathologists, telecommunications engineers, chefs, computer operators, builders, bankers, and so on. That is a wealth of talent. The House knows that we could not afford to pay for that range of talent out of the public purse. Of course, we do not pay for it out of the public purse, yet we all benefit from it. We should not reduce that force, because it has a potential that is often under-used. Reconfiguration and restructuring of the force can only acknowledge the value of the people who make up the Territorial Army.
There are many who argue that the TA is not relevant to high-intensity warfare. That is not so. Hon. Members have spoken about Bosnia, where our TA reservists served alongside our regulars, rebuilding countries, rebuilding hope, being an adaptable force and showing their value. Surely when cases such as Bosnia arise, that is not the moment to start cherry picking and deciding who is relevant and who is not. The territorials are a force where all volunteers are welcome. That should be the stance for the future. We do not have sufficient numbers of regular soldiers or volunteers. We want more of both.
I am not an expert, unlike many hon. Members, but I have read the words of Colonel Puttnam, who said:
I referred to my audit of the north-east TA units. My postbag tells me that there are many concerned people--families, men and women, youngsters and cadets--who all know that a cut of 12,000 could mean not only a cut in operations but a closure. I ask the Minister to reconsider that. There is a whisper in the corridor to the effect that he will add to the TA and thus cut less. Let us hear that in a statement--we are all waiting.
"The SDR will not downgrade the TA."
I thought those words were important. Later in the summer, after the SDR had been published, the Secretary of State came to the House and said:
"Although its numbers will be trimmed . . . it--
the TA--
"will be given a real heavyweight role"--[Official Report, 8 July 1998; Vol. 315, c. 1075.]
I read those statements again and again because I wanted to understand exactly what they meant. Like other hon. Members, I looked forward to the announcement in the House.
"Cutting those units that are the most usable and most versatile of all the volunteers, who have shown that they can adapt to different roles and learn new skills extremely quickly"--
means that we could
"end up with units . . . with little opportunity to form operational roles as formed units . . . short of a general war."
Surely we do not want that. I hope that the territorials will not be defined in such a limited way that the force of 7,000 once spoken of becomes the reality. The Secretary of State promised that the TA would have a heavyweight role. We know that it has a diversity of talent; I want that to be used.
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