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6.55 pm
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex): I start by joining colleagues from both sides of the House in paying tribute to Michael and Nichola Colvin. Michael Colvin chaired the Select Committee on Defence when I was Minister of State for the Armed Forces. His courtesy and consideration, as well as his firmness and profound knowledge, had a deep impact on me. We all mourn the loss in the most tragic circumstances of someone who brought great expertise to his subject. I shall not say anything further; the tribute paid by the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), who is the current Chairman of the Select Committee, said it all.
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East): Many tributes have been paid to Michael and Nichola for their work in Parliament. I inherited most of Michael's former constituents, and I want to place on record that the kindness that Michael and Nichola showed me and continued to show other new candidates was exceptional. It can truly be said of them that they were
- lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.
I congratulate the Secretary of State on his prompt flight back from Portugal. It is astonishing that he was not here for the beginning of the debate, which is one of the most important defence debates of the year. His absence was a gratuitous insult not only to the House but to the armed forces. However, it is good of him to spare us a little of his time this evening.
I pay a warm tribute to the armed forces, especially service families, and to the civilian staff of the Ministry of Defence who work alongside service men and women and without whom the show could not go on. We owe them all a great debt.
Having read the extremely inadequate and deplorably produced White Paper, which makes no effort to make defence or its problems interesting, exciting or relevant, and consists of a turgid series of essays, the Secretary of State's first task is to get more money. As he knows, there are unacceptable shortfalls in many of the top-level budgets. It is disastrous that the right hon. Gentleman should have to cancel exercises, and that the fuel allocations for ships are not substantial enough. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) said, on top of real cuts in the defence budget, 3 per cent.
efficiency savings are not sustainable or realistic after the substantial savings that have been made year after year, including during the time when my party was in power.
I am delighted that recruiting is improving, but significant problems remain. They will prove difficult to overcome. Retention remains a serious and unresolved issue. I hope that the Government now understand that what seemed easy in opposition is a relentlessly difficult problem. Related problems include the critical issues of morale, families, married quarters and pay, especially for those on active service, and the perennial problem of busy, overstretched armed forces and the difficulties consequent on that.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) that the Select Committee report is damning. I hope that the Ministry of Defence will pay careful attention to it. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Sir A. Hamilton) rightly pointed out, the Government's problem is that the strategic defence review was claimed to be an exercise in matching resources to commitments. However, as we warned at the time, resources have been cut and commitments have increased. That was calculated against an unpublished Foreign Office baseline, which, like the so-called ethical foreign policy, becomes less credible by the day.
I hope that the House realises--and that Ministers will come to realise--the ghastly damage that the Treasury has wrought on British defence interests in the past few years, including when we were in power. It has behaved towards the armed forces as though it were determined to undermine them--and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater rightly said, it is not far off doing so. The Secretary of State must fight the battle for them and see off the Treasury.
I want to say a word or two about kit. There are major problems in the procurement budget and the report of the hon. Member for Walsall, South laid out a saga of the most serious problems that have occurred over the years. I make no attempt to explain them--the contracts are immensely complicated and very difficult--but I warmly congratulate him on the way in which he handled some buffoon called Stourton on the "Today" programme the other day. He giggled like a schoolgirl as he tried to persuade the hon. Gentleman that the SA80 and the Tornado were the most difficult problems in the procurement budget when many others are far more serious.
I am not an expert and I do not understand some of the technical and complex difficulties, but the House and the public should be aware that most of our equipment is excellent: soldiers have never had better or more suitable clothing; the Challenger 2 main battle tank is the best of its type in the world; the Warrior is the most superb battle taxi and the vehicle of choice for all infantry on the battlefield; the Apache helicopter is the most formidable piece of equipment; and the AS90 gun is a fantastic and remarkable piece of kit, as is the light gun. It would be ridiculous for the public to run away with the assumption that the forces' kit is in a parlous state, although there are some serious deficiencies.
The SA80 rifle represents an unhappy state of affairs, but that is being rectified. I do not wish to brag, but I am an extremely good shot with a rifle and I have, on many occasions, pumped large numbers of rounds straight into
the bull with an SA80. It has problems, but they are being fixed and it is a good piece of kit. It is bad news for the House to be under the impression that our soldiers' equipment is wholly inefficient. It is not, but there are glaring omissions and they have to be sorted out.
I understand from the Secretary of State's remarks that he intends to make changes in the way that training is carried out. I make no complaint about them--I do not know what they are--but I want to say a word or two about training and discipline, which are very important. It is true, not an idle boast, that the British Army is, man for man, the best fighting force in the world. In the Falklands, in the Gulf and, most recently, in Bosnia and Kosovo, its enemies and allies have been truly amazed at the fitness, determination, courage and professionalism of British soldiers. Why are they so good? The answer is simple and, I suspect, not well understood outside the armed forces. In no other army in the world can a soldier depend on the men around him in the way that one can in the British Army.
From Waterloo to Alamein and from Goose Green to the Euphrates and Kosovo, British soldiers have proved time and again that they can face tremendous odds and triumph. If one asks a solider what is the key to that confidence, he will immediately answer, "Training and discipline." It is therefore a matter of the first importance that the system that produces young men and women of that calibre must not be altered in such a way that it produces but pale imitations of what is required. Ministers must not drag the Army into being a mirror image of the society that it serves, for the services have a totally different and separate ethos--one of discipline and service. Ministers must realise that, however disagreeable it may be to contemplate, the essence of military training is to prepare soldiers to fight in a bloody, frightening and exhausting war.
Young men and women may need to be called on to use all their reserves of physical and mental stamina. They therefore require intense physical training, drill and strict discipline. That sometimes leads to people wanting to leave the forces. That has always happened and always will, but among those who remain will be those who will be able to cope with the exceptional demands of modern combat. The danger that faces the Army in making changes to training is that if it gets it wrong, those who come through the system will not be up to the task.
On the question of Europe, I want the Government to know that the proposals and the way that they are being handled represent very bad news indeed. Let us start at the beginning. None of us disagrees with sensible, useful, straightforward co-operation on defence matters with our European partners. We all favour that, and Europe should do more--the previous Administration were clear about that--but our activities have to remain very real. Therefore I must ask for assurances, as I have not yet had them from Ministers, that the proposals will not lead to the undermining of the cohesion, unity and credibility of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. We regard the proposals as they stand as dangerous.
I wholly agree that we have hidden behind United States military power for too long. It would welcome Europe doing more, but our efforts must be for real and not what has become standard, windy European rhetoric. I do not believe that our Government want a European
army, although clearly Mr. Prodi does, and they need to amend title V of the European Union treaty explicitly to rule out the involvement of the European Commission and the European Court of Justice and thus retain full control of our armed forces, enabling us to make the arrangements that we want with the countries with which we want to make them. It is clear that we need to press ahead with those arrangements in a sensible framework, but it is extremely important that we acknowledge and understand the concerns being expressed by our friends and allies in the United States. One cannot but be conscious of the deep unease of some knowledgeable and experienced Senators and Members of the House of Representatives and it is essential that the Government persuade them of the case.
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