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8.43 pm
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot): This has been an extremely interesting debate, and like everyone else I should like to start by paying my tribute to Michael Colvin. As many hon. Members have said, he was an outstanding and unfailingly courteous man. Unfortunately, I could not attend last week's debate because I was dining with a senior RAF officer, but I read Michael Colvin's contribution and it was, as ever, extremely well informed. He had immense knowledge and a deep love of the subject, as well as a deep love of his country and the countryside.
I had the great pleasure of staying a night with Michael Colvin and Mrs. C--as he always used to refer to his wife--at Tangley house, which they adored. It was not only a lovely house but a lovely home, where two wonderful people lived. It is a great loss for the country, the constituency and the House.
As several hon. Members have suggested, the White Paper is rather short, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) said, it is not very well put together at that. By contrast, the Select Committee report is extremely informative. It is packed full of information that is notably absent from the White Paper and which is normally set out by the MOD when it produces the defence estimates. It is a shame that that was not forthcoming in the White Paper.
The deficiencies in the White Paper are more than amply made up for by the report of the Select Committee, under the leadership of the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George). The report is a damning indictment of the Government's handling of our defences. Above all else, it is clear that there has been a relentless decline in the Treasury's commitment to funding the services to the extent necessary to match the Government's aspirations of playing their part on the world stage. There is no doubt about the commitment of our troops, but there is doubt about the Treasury's commitment to sustain the required investment in order to ensure that we are able to deploy our troops when the Government wish to do so. It is apparent that that is what the Prime Minister, who wishes to project power, wants.
It is a matter of great concern when the Select Committee concludes that the finances of the Ministry of Defence are inadequate and continually declining. By contrast, the United States defence budget is increasing, although levels among our continental partners are mostly on the decline, too.
It is important that we are able to raise investment so that there is the necessary training, because we cannot predict our obligations. The one thing that we know in matching resources to commitments is that we do not know what our commitments might be. If we want to ensure that we are ready to meet unexpected commitments, we must will the means by which our assets can be made available and our resources suitably deployed.
I shall make one brief comment on Europe. I do not think that there is a great deal of disagreement across the Floor of the House about the need for European countries to get together to ensure at least some co-operation, so that if European countries, including ourselves, wish to become involved in some situation, but the United States does not, we have the means to do so.
There is nothing revolutionary in such a suggestion. Indeed, in her famous Bruges speech in 1988, my right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Thatcher, with whom I had the privilege of working, said:
I want to raise several other issues, and I shall be brief on each. It would be inappropriate not to mention the question of morale. Representing a military constituency, I am aware of the strains on families as a result of our troops continuing commitments. The Government ought to reflect on the issue. It is no good just saying that the recruitment figures are good news. They are welcome, but the Minister should be much more worried about the serious problem of retention. It is one thing to recruit new people, who have cost nothing at the point of arrival in the services, but a haemorrhage of people in whom a substantial amount of public money has been invested, who have undergone the training and are voting with their feet by leaving, is wholly different.
The fact that the Royal Air Force is short of 95 fast-jet pilots is indicative of the problems facing only one service. That the Army is about 5,000 troops below strength, with no likelihood of that deficiency being made up until 2005, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) explained, is also a serious matter.
The Government should reflect on the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) about the ethos of the armed services. I shall not rehearse all the arguments that I have made previously on the question of homosexuals in the armed forces and related issues. The hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) said that she thought that the services should reflect society. The job of the services is not to reflect society, but to defend this country, and they have been singularly successful in so doing. The armed forces are one of the few institutions in this country that command universal respect. There is a good old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't mend it."
There is grave danger attendant on undermining the ethos of the services. Service men and women are special people--they are the only people who write their contracts in blood, the only people who put their lives at
risk day in, day out, doing their job for their country. It is appropriate that we should understand the values, ethos and traditions that form part of the services. All those members of the Defence Committee who have visited various military installations throughout the country know well the important role those values play in the services way of life.
I attended a boxing match in the Maida gymnasium in Aldershot last Thursday. Watching two regiments slugging it out was a remarkable experience. Theirs was a truly gutsy performance, and they displayed tremendous sportsmanship. Those qualities, which we have seen deployed on the streets of Kosovo, were demonstrated in that gymnasium.
I am concerned about the issue of rapid deployability. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) raised the question of heavy lift. The Government have a problem with the joint rapid reaction force, in particular the need for that force to be able to react rapidly. I am not sure that they have addressed the issue, other than by the commissioning of ships. It is absolutely essential that we achieve the heavy lift requirement needed to make good our commitment to deploy such forces rapidly.
If the Apache attack helicopter is to be a key part of that rapidly deployable force, and if, as the Defence Committee pointed out in a previous report, a regiment of 16 Apache attack helicopters brings with it no fewer than 220 support vehicles, I am not sure whether we have the rapid reaction force we ought to have. The Government must address that matter with greater speed. Two C17s alone are not the answer to the problem.
The hon. Member for Crawley spoke about DERA, whose headquarters are in my constituency. It is not fair to DERA to leave it in a state of limbo. I and my party are opposed to the proposed public-private partnership. I am extremely concerned that DERA's research budget is being cut each year with no alternative being put in its place. The hon. Lady is right to say that DERA's job must be to provide independent expertise to the MOD, to ensure that the MOD is not ripped off by its suppliers.
However, it is also extremely important that DERA retains the confidence of the United States of America, with which it collaborates. As DERA's chief executive, Sir John Chisholm, has made clear to me, unless we put investment in research, we shall have nothing to offer the United States. DERA is in a state of limbo and we have to do something to resolve it. My preferred solution would be to scrap the proposed PPP and to restore investment in research to previous levels.
I have three final points. The first concerns Meteor--the beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile. As I pointed out to my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter), it is a local matter for me, as BAe Systems has its headquarters in Farnborough. I have seen what happened in the past when we have been at the mercy of the United States--for example, when a missile is supplied by the US on an air frame or platform made by us. We must make sure that we are not in the same position again, where the US Congress can veto defence sales from this country.
It is to NATO that we owe the peace that has been maintained for over 40 years.
She went on to say that it was important that European nations commit themselves to strong defence. At the time, of course, we still faced the Soviet threat. She continued:
We should develop the WEU, not as an alternative to NATO, but as a means of strengthening Europe's contribution to the common defence of the west.
That point has been echoed by several of my hon. Friends. To go further, allowing the European Union to drive a wedge between ourselves and the United States would be damaging and must be resisted. Therefore, I do not support Mr. Prodi's desire for a European army. There is a world of difference between the comments of my right hon. and noble Friend and what Mr. Prodi is saying.
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