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9.24 pm
Mr. Robert Walter (North Dorset): I shall make three brief, simple constituency points. I shall be totally even-handed and start with a very positive point. The largest single employer in my constituency is the British Army at Blandford, headquarters of the Royal Corps of Signals and the Royal School of Signals. In this and previous reviews, the Signals have done rather well. Building on the previous Government's investment, there is continued expansion in Signals in both manpower and equipment.
Signals, of course, is a euphemism for information technology, which is all about the modern Army. Paragraphs 81, 148 and 149 of the report on the strategic defence review deal with what is happening in my constituency. They deal with the Bowman communication system, which was mentioned earlier in the debate, and also with training in electronic warfare, command and battlefield planning, some of which will now be part of a public-private partnership.
The largest private sector employer in my constituency is also involved in the defence industries, as an aerospace contractor. That is Cobham, sometimes known as "Flight Refuelling" or "FR Aviation", which also did well in previous reviews, rebuilding the airframe for the VC10 tankers. It is now rebuilding the airframe for the Nimrod aircraft under contract to British Aerospace, and the fuel systems that go in the Airbus in the commercial sector and will go in the Eurofighter.
However, there is some disappointment at Cobham that its aircraft, the Firefly, was not chosen as the new trainer aircraft for the RAF. The Grob from Germany was chosen--a decision which, I believe, was largely due to the high level of sterling when the deal was concluded. That is a cause for some regret.
My final point, which is the one of greatest concern to my constituents, and which will not surprise the Government, relates to the demise of the Territorial Army. The current consultative exercise, which was mentioned, and the consultative document "TA Restructuring" is all secret. None of us has seen that document. We can only surmise from what is written in the strategic defence review and what we have read in the Sunday Telegraph, but I understand that the 4th Battalion of the Devonshire
and Dorset Regiment, which is very much part of the local scene, is to be merged into something called the "South-West Battalion".
Mr. Soames:
No. It is not possible.
Mr. Walter:
Someone says that it is not possible. One wonders whether the "South-West Battalion" will be administered by the south-west regional development agency; it may well form the "guard of honour" when the south-west regional assembly is opened. However, I view the matter with concern. The five companies of the 4th Battalion Devonshire and Dorset Regiment and the affiliated combined cadet forces--12 are affiliated to that regiment, and there are six companies of the Army cadet force in 58 detachments throughout the two counties--mean that there is a very strong local presence, and a very strong local link with the Army.
I heard what the Minister for the Armed Forces said about integrating the TA with the Regular Army. The 4th Battalion of the Devons and Dorsets operates alongside the 1st Battalion, which is the regular battalion of the regiment. If we break that local link, the territorials will no longer operate alongside the regulars; they will be a separate body, with a totally meaningless local identity.
Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk):
With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The second day of the debate on the strategic defence review has been extremely good. More than 25 hon. Members have spoken, and it is hardly surprising that 18 of them spoke about the Territorial Army. That sends a strong message to the Minister, whom I welcome to his new job as Minister for the Armed Forces. I pass on my best wishes to his predecessor, who did an extremely good job.
I welcome the Minister's commitment that, when the final decision is made on the future of the TA, it will be announced on the Floor of the House in the form of a statement, so that all hon. Members may comment on it. He will have got the message from all hon. Members about the importance that they attach to the TA, and I am sure that he will pass that message on to the Commander-in-Chief, Land Command, General Sir Michael Walker, and to the Director of Reserve Forces and Cadets, Brigadier Richard Holmes, who will no doubt take note of it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) spoke at length about the defence industry. I need not remind hon. Members of the crucial importance of the
defence industry to our British defence effort. We must remember that the Ministry of Defence is the largest single customer of the UK defence industry. Some 400,000 of our constituents are employed in the defence industry, and their products are worth £5 billion per annum in defence exports. That means that the MOD and the Government have a powerful influence on the survival of that industry.
I shall make three points about the defence industry and the role of the Government. First, if we are eventually to follow the United States model, that will mean fewer and larger companies, with the possible consequence of job losses and factory closures. The Government must bear in mind their influence on the British defence industry.
Secondly, the SDR makes several references to greater co-operation and harmonisation in the European defence industry, but it has little to say about the close links between the UK and US defence industries. Those of us who have been involved in defence know that people engaged in the British defence industry are only too aware of the challenges and the dangers of co-operation with our European or American colleagues. Once again, the Government may have an important role in deciding the future of the British defence industry.
My third point relates not only to Ministers who are present, although the new Minister of State, having come from the Foreign Office, knows the issue only too well. There is at times muddle, inconsistency and an element of hypocrisy in the Government's so-called ethical foreign policy, especially in relation to arms exports. There is no doubt that the majority of the British defence industry has attempted to follow over many years a code of conduct, but, at present, many people in the industry are telling many hon. Members that there appears to be muddle and delay in giving export licences: sometimes, when eventually an export licence is awarded, it is too late and someone else has secured the contract. That means loss of money and loss of jobs here in Britain.
Given the reduction in the defence budget of £2.1 billion by the year 2001 and the economic recession that we may be teetering into--I suspect that there will be further Treasury raids on the defence budget, which is now basically the Government's contingency reserve--Ministers will have to explain to the defence industry how they intend managing within the 10-year long-term costing the major equipments planned. I think that the Select Committee on Defence touched on this, and many hon. Members have touched on individual aspects of the matter. We are talking of carriers, large aircraft, sealift, Tomahawk missiles, landing ships and submarines, the vast and expensive area of IT command and control.
Many hon. Members believe that, given the budget outlined by the Government over the next decade, it will be impossible to purchase all those items of equipment. We need to have some understanding of what the long-term costings will be over the next decade. I know that Ministers will say that it has never been Government policy, either under Conservatives or under previous Labour Governments, to publish the long-term costings. I think that that must change. The Government must now publish their LTCs.
Perhaps the Minister would be prepared to comment on our understanding that there is a £1 billion overspend in the air equipment budget alone, and that there are likely to be large overspends for the Army and the Navy,
and say how the Government square that with the sort of commitments that they have entered into. I challenge the Government to make known their long-term costings, either here in the Chamber or perhaps in evidence to the Select Committee.
My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury and the Minister concentrated, like many other hon. Members, on what the Government refer to as a "policy for people", which has been built on work undertaken by the previous Government. That was a combination of the Bett report of 1995 and "The Armed Forces of the Future--A Personnel Strategy" of 1997. In their strategic defence review, the Government have rightly emphasised a "policy for people" and have linked the issues of recruitment and retention by emphasising education and training opportunities for service personnel, improving conditions of service and making additional welfare provision at an estimated cost of £30 million per annum.
I hope that all hon. Members would recognise that that was money well spent. However, my colleagues and I have emphasised that the strategic defence review is asking our service men and women to do more with less. There will be further overstretch, particularly in configuring armed forces for the expeditionary force role. I suspect that the £30 million and all the things that the Government are putting in to deal with overstretch will possibly meet past overstretch but will not be able to cope with future overstretch. The Government will have to do more, and probably will have to find more money to meet this need.
In the words of the House of Commons research paper on the strategic defence review on page 59,
The strategic defence review has been careful to state that its proposals for people are modest. But if the Government fail to deliver their modest proposals, that may lead to considerable disillusionment, and exacerbate retention problems even further.
The Opposition welcome the strategic defence review's endorsement of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body's view that there is a need for a new pay system reflecting civil society. However, in view of the Chancellor's statement on 14 July on the comprehensive spending review, when he said that the chairmen of the public
review bodies will have to take into account departmental spending limits, the Government's inflation target of 2.5 per cent. and the need to achieve Government targets for output and efficiency, I suspect, to use the words of the Chief of the Defence Staff, that that will be "very challenging for Ministers", and that the pay of the armed forces will once again affect retention and recruitment.
The British armed forces are facing up to cultural and institutional changes, political and legal challenges concerning authority, the chain of command, equal opportunities, racial and sexual equality, ethics and tradition, and rightly so. The armed forces are not a mirror of society, but they must reflect many aspects of society.
The armed forces do not have a right to be different, but, given the specific job that they have to do, they have a need to be different. Others in the public service--the fire brigades, the police, the ambulance service and many voluntary organisations--at one stage or another may have to risk their lives. Only those in our armed forces have a totally open-ended commitment, literally on an order, not just to risk their lives but to take other people's lives for the protection of Britain and of society. That makes them unique.
The Opposition fully stand by the attitude of the previous Government and this Government, which is that we should ensure that, there are equal opportunities for everybody within the armed forces, and that racism and bullying will not be tolerated. As much as anything else, that is a command responsibility by all ranks in responsible positions. People who break those rules and regulations will receive no sympathy from us.
However, at times the Secretary of State has seemed to send a complex message. The case of Major Eric Joyce is still unresolved. He is a serving officer who wrote a pamphlet some 18 months ago criticising the British Army, saying that it had many things wrong with it, that it was class-ridden and full of public schoolboys. That has not stopped the Secretary of State having a good relationship with the Chief of the Defence Staff, or with the Prime Minister or with his Under-Secretary--I understand that Dulwich is a public school. There is something hypocritical there.
The Secretary of State has failed to answer the questions that I, and other hon. Members, have put about how it is possible for a serving officer to continue to serve in the British Army having made such statements, and, more recently, having participated in the selection for the Scottish Parliament as a Labour party candidate. Had he stood for any other political party, I suspect that that officer would now be out. Had he written an article criticising Eurofighter, I suspect that he would have been asked to resign. I call that double standards.
"There is also the danger that the Government has raised expectations that quantifiable improvements will be made to Service life."
The MOD's own strategic defence review liaison team was apparently surprised a year ago by the extent of discontent in the armed forces. Morale was described as between "good and adequate", and although personnel were
"keen to get on with their work",
the liaison team found
"a more deep seated pessimism about the long term future of the defence of the United Kingdom".
In particular, it found considerable scepticism--[Interruption.] In particular, it found considerable scepticism--I want Ministers to listen to this instead of gobbling--about the then continuing Labour review--this is from the liaison team's own study--and
"cynicism about the message delivered from on high"
by Ministers.
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