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The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson): Given the valid points that my hon. Friend is making, may I draw his attention to the fact that the idea of the European defence policy was in the Maastricht treaty, which the previous Administration signed? In addition, one of the key architects of a European security and defence identity inside NATO was my predecessor, Michael Portillo.
Mr. Anderson: Even before that, the NATO summit in Brussels in 1991 floated the idea of a European defence identity.
Political structures are also evolving in the new Europe. Key decisions need to be taken following the Amsterdam summit, and now at Vienna, on the common foreign and security policy. We are discussing not only a Mr. CFSP--or, dare I say it, a Miss or Ms CFSP--but the planning structures that will follow. I offer my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary the hope that the planning structure will not consist only of people seconded from the planning departments of the Chancelleries of Europe, and that we are more imaginative in choosing the individuals concerned. Europe has an opportunity to transmit its values on human rights to a wider world, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will be as imaginative as he was in his recent speech on non-governmental organisations and the greater interchange between the Foreign Office and key NGOs such as Amnesty International and Oxfam.
We should insist on--or ensure as best we can--a strong human rights dimension in the planning structures of the common foreign and security policy. Europe can do that, and we should transmit it to every part of European policy, through the Lome arrangements and through every form of external contact with the wider world. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give a commitment to work towards a strong mission statement on human rights within the CFSP.
On NATO, I thoroughly commend to hon. Members the excellent think piece, "NATO in the 21st century", by Senator Bill Roth. It is highly relevant as NATO approaches its 50th birthday.The organisation is 50, but still highly adaptable, and a most successful organisation. NATO is quite different from other military alliances, having effectively won a victory without firing a shot in anger. It is a unique instrument of political and military
co-operation. NATO has shown that it can be used to build a political consensus and create military options to implement political goals. I am thinking of "Partnership for Peace" structures and others, which help to carry along the political process as we try to evolve the new Europe.
As we approach the Washington summit in April next year, when three former members of the Warsaw treaty organisation will join--the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were members of that organisation only 10 years ago, which shows how perspectives change even in a decade--NATO is committed to an open-door policy. However, all the smoke signals from NATO Governments suggest that there is no consensus about the admission of new members at that summit. Surely that will send a wrong signal. It could halt the momentum and lead to great disillusion and demotivation among prospective members, some of which are manifestly qualified for membership--for example, certainly Slovenia, which was the victim of broader considerations, and probably Romania.
I accept that the new countries must be providers as well as consumers of security in the frieze. However, we must look long and bold. As with the European Union, we must take risks by investing in democracy and the changes that have come about in other countries, in particular in the civilian control of the military, as NATO helps within their internal structures and with inter-operability with and military deployments for the "Partnership for Peace" and other imaginative structures. I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to give the House some sign on where we stand on enlargement as we approach the Washington summit.
NATO at 50 years old is adapting and it has done an excellent job. In the 21st century, it should be an enduring political and military alliance among sovereign states. Yes, we have to build the wider circle and to reduce--and, hopefully, ultimately eliminate--the prejudice against NATO within Russia by building on the Founding Act and working with Ukraine and the wider area. Clearly, that is a major policy area and NATO is a major instrument for us.
Finally, I tried to check how many debates of this nature we have had in the 19 months since May last year. As I said, during that time we have faced major changes and challenges in our governmental structures, for example, Hong Kong, the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, the Group of Eight, the Asia-Europe meeting and so forth. We have had only two general debates on foreign affairs in that time, excluding debates on Bills, Adjournment debates and Wednesday morning debates initiated by Back Benchers. That is not enough. Clearly, right hon. and hon. Members can raise foreign affairs matters in Parliament in other ways, for example, at the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, on which the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) serves with great distinction, and through parliamentary questions. However, if the Government are serious about debating NATO issues with Parliament, whether they are the future of Europe or the future of NATO, we have to have more opportunities for parliamentary debate.
Mr. Bowen Wells (Hertford and Stortford):
I agree entirely. Will the hon. Gentleman add to his list the fact
Mr. Anderson:
The hon. Gentleman has a firm personal commitment on that subject and I welcome his remarks. There is always a danger, because of the enormous burden on the Foreign Office, that Ministers there, as elsewhere, will go native and perhaps will not recognise the role that Parliament can play. Just as the President of the United States of America had on his desk, "The buck stops here", I hope that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who has probably appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee more often than many of his predecessors; and I pay tribute to his work--
Mr. Robin Cook:
Twice as frequently.
Mr. Anderson:
Nevertheless, I hope that my right hon. Friend will have on his desk, "Remember Parliament and its contribution to these key debates."
Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife):
First, I must apologise for my early departure from this debate as I have a long-standing constituency engagement in the early evening in St. Andrews. I have written to both Front-Bench spokesmen to apologise for my absence.
I shall particularly miss the speech of the Secretary of State for Defence. I shall read with some anxiety what he has said at this end of the week on the defence policy of the Scottish National party. He began the week by making an effective attack on that policy and it is noticeable that, once again, the SNP has declined the opportunity to come to the House to say precisely how it will fashion a defence policy. Waiting for the SNP to tell the House its policies on defence is a little like waiting for Godot, but with neither the literary nor the textual significance.
This debate is on defence and foreign affairs, although so far, for obvious reasons, hon. Members have concentrated on the latter. I do not propose to devote more than a small part of my speech to defence, because that subject and the problems affecting individual services were extensively covered in recent debates before Prorogation. Indeed, increasingly, the traditional division between defence and foreign affairs is less clear-cut than it once was. One has only to remind oneself of what Kofi Annan said when he came back from Baghdad in February and pointed out that diplomacy could be effective but diplomacy supported by the credible threat of military force was likely to be more effective. One cannot have the credible threat of military force unless one has sound defence and adequate capabilities.
However, I must raise two defence matters, and the first concerns the Territorial Army. I do not propose to rehearse again all the arguments, but it is worth pointing out once again to the Secretary of State and the House that, in a defence review that was generally well received, the one issue that attracted undiminished controversy and still provokes grave disappointment was the Government's proposal for the TA.
I shall illustrate the case for reconsideration even at this stage by referring to the consequences in two instances, one north and the other south of the border. As a result of the proposals as far as they affect the Black Watch,
whose proposed TA strength is to be reduced to 85, plus 34 in the battalion band, for which the regiment is no doubt properly grateful, there will be no TA Black Watch representation in Fife, which is one of the counties within which it frequently recruits, and, more significantly, a county that is the most productive area for recruiting. The Black Watch cannot understand why there should be such a reduction, which will remove its presence entirely from an area in which recruitment has been so successful.
The second instance arises in Liverpool, where 55 Signals Squadron is to be closed. It is fully recruited and operational and is said by those who know it to be extremely well motivated. What makes that decision difficult to understand is that the Signals' role in the TA is not to be reduced under the Government's proposals. In fact, it is to be enhanced, which will mean that existing TA centres elsewhere will have to be re-roled and infantry will have to be re-badged, while the Liverpool squadron is to be closed. Those in Liverpool who have the interests of that squadron close to their hearts find that difficult to understand, and there is deep disappointment.
Even at this stage, the Secretary of State would be well advised to reconsider these proposals, because he must be aware that, in spite of his best efforts, they have certainly not attracted the kind of welcome for which he would have hoped.
Some explanations for those reductions in the TA may be found in the fine balance of the financial basis on which the strategic defence review is founded. In particular, there are those who argue that the reduction in the TA has more to do with the sale of drill halls in areas of prime development opportunity than with other factors. All I can say on that matter, as I have said before in the House, is that it is a pretty fragile basis for financial stability to rest one's proposals on the property market, especially at a time such as this.
The other financial element, which has still not been explained fully to the satisfaction of those with an interest in these matters, is the 3 per cent. efficiency saving, which the strategic defence review imposed on all three armed services. It was described to the Defence Committee by the Chief of Defence Staff as "challenging", which, in the lexicon of Whitehall, almost certainly means "extremely difficult to achieve". I have met no one outside the Ministry of Defence who believes that it can be done. If the saving is not achieved, there will inevitably be an effect on defence capability.
We shall look to the Government in financial matters to display a rather more careful stewardship than their predecessors in relation to, for example, the Ministry of Defence computer system, which this week, we learn, was scrapped before it had ever been put into use. The conduct of that transaction was described by the Comptroller and Auditor-General as showing a lack of recognition in the Ministry of Defence of the complexity of the system required, and insufficient Ministry of Defence involvement with the contractor. If smart procurement is to work and have an effect on the financial circumstances of the Ministry of Defence, it must deal with precisely that kind of problem.
If the financial basis of the SDR is undermined, as some believe it may be, what will be the prospects for the two aircraft carriers, which are absolutely essential to the expeditionary strategy that is the centrepiece of the SDR? Those are questions of significance and importance in the
defence debate, and I do not believe that we have yet received sufficient information on which we can make a rational and informed judgment about the likelihood of the Government's objectives being achieved.
I shall deal with a number of foreign affairs issues, and start with arms exports. There can be no greater test of a Government who rightly claim a foreign policy with an ethical dimension than the way in which they deal with the export of arms. A foreign policy with an ethical dimension requires that ethical considerations are not the sole responsibility of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. A foreign policy with an ethical dimension towards the arms trade will be severely undermined unless it commands the adherence of the Ministry of Defence and of the Department of Trade and Industry--Departments whose priorities will frequently diverge from those of the FCO and which often have a preoccupation with arms exports for political or economic reasons.
I believe that we could easily create a Select Committee of the House of Commons whose task would be to monitor policy on arms exports and scrutinise individual applications for export licences, as happens in Sweden, one of the world's significant arms-exporting countries. It is barely two and a half years since the publication of the Scott report. It is beyond question that, if the export of arms-related equipment to Iraq had been the subject of scrutiny by a Select Committee, the change in policy deliberately concealed from Parliament would have been exposed.
A Government pursuing a foreign policy with an ethical dimension have nothing to fear from parliamentary scrutiny of their arms export policy. If we can have parliamentary scrutiny of Government communications headquarters, Cheltenham, and of the intelligence services, surely we can have scrutiny of defence and the export of defence and defence-related equipment, without prejudice to the national interest. Parliamentary scrutiny should embrace concerns over human rights violations, internal instability, regional or international conflicts and unnecessarily high military expenditure.
I assert that no Government who have breached the norms of civilised behaviour should be entitled to receive arms exports of any kind from the United Kingdom. No dictatorship that systematically violates human rights, and uses torture and repression as instruments of government, should ever have been, or should ever be, a customer of the United Kingdom in the matter of the export of arms.
I shall discuss Iraq, about which there was a full debate on Wednesday; I have read the Official Report. Since 1991, Saddam Hussein has entered into agreement after agreement to meet the obligations to divest himself of weapons of mass destruction. He has systematically broken all those undertakings, sometimes within a few weeks or days of entering into them. He has consistently flouted the authority of the United Nations and, in his most recent acts of defiance, he has undermined the credibility of the office of the Secretary-General.
Why is it that, nearly eight years after the end of the Gulf war, the task of verification is still not complete? It is because of the systematic, deliberate and provocative defiance by Saddam Hussein. It is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that the purpose of that prevarication is to retain the means of production and delivery of weapons of mass destruction--not only to be a hero in the streets of
Arab capitals, but to have at his malign and unpredictable disposal the means of threatening his neighbours with the most terrible consequences if they resist his ambition.
It is in those circumstances that we ask, "Are we justified in using military force if Saddam Hussein declines to fulfil his obligations?" I believe that we are--and not out of some intemperate enthusiasm for the use of military force; nor should we use military force to demonstrate our boldness, out of some sense of frustration, in an emotional spasm or because of some sense of revenge. Military force itself is not a policy however. My concern is that the impression has grown up that military force, or the threat of it, is somehow a solution. It can only be a means; it can never be an end in itself. Military force, if it is used now, should be used against the background of clear objectives. I shall state those objectives, because, although there was some discussion about what they might have been in February, there has not been significant public discussion of objectives since then.
The first objective should be to reduce the current capacity to manufacture weapons of mass destruction; the second should be to suppress and inhibit any future capacity to do so; the third should be to inflict serious damage on the military infrastructure that sustains a regime that continues to defy the United Nations. Those are the legitimate objectives of the use of military force.
An important feature of the recent crisis has been not express, but tacit support in many Arab capitals, born out of exasperation. We should remember, however, that that exasperation comes with considerable sympathy for the plight of the Iraqi people. We will be able to retain that support only if we make it clear, first, that there must be full compliance with all Security Council resolutions--including those relating to the return of people illegally and illegitimately taken from Kuwait--and that full compliance will result in the removal of sanctions.
Secondly, we must make it clear that there is no determination to go beyond the United Nations resolutions and to link removal of sanctions with the removal of Saddam Hussein. The Security Council resolutions do not provide for that, but the position of the United States on that matter has, from time to time, suggested that it believes that the proper course was to go beyond the terms of the resolutions. Thirdly, we should go out of our way to facilitate humanitarian assistance and, fourthly, we should behave in an even-handed way throughout the middle east.
All of us desperately hope that the agreement struck between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Arafat in the United States will stick, but there is one continuing part of Israeli Government policy that has the capacity to derail that agreement: Israeli Government policy on settlements. I hope that, when the Foreign Secretary had lunch with Mr. Netanyahu, he took the opportunity to remind him of that. If he did, he would have done no more than maintain the position consistently adopted from the Dispatch Box not only by this Government but by their predecessors. The settlement issue lies at the heart of the anxiety of the Palestinians. They believe that their determination to seek a homeland for themselves is systematically undermined by the policy of settlements.
I have some reservations about the adoption of a policy that we should actively seek the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. I have some concern about the legal basis for the overt support of exiled Iraqi groups trying to bring down the present regime by violent means. In this connection, the legislation that we passed in the summer needs to be examined with care. It is necessary to show some fastidiousness about those with whom we associate, as the freedom fighters of today can easily become as repressive as the regimes that they replace.
10.53 am
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