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Mr. Cohen: May I return the hon. Gentleman to his argument about political correctness? His party took a politically correct line in saying that people who had been in prison or had a criminal record should not be allowed to join the forces. That was the position taken by Opposition Front Benchers just a few months ago.
Some people with criminal records might prove ideal to serve in the armed forces. They are probably very fit, and in any event they deserve a second chance. Has the hon. Gentleman's party changed its politically correct stance?
Mr. Key: I am glad to report that the hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. He and I met at a briefing at 8.15 this morning, and we should have had a word about the matter then, but I assure him that that is not the line of the official Opposition. I am the first to say that people who have served their time and paid their debt to society make very fine soldiers, sailors and airmen, and always have. I am reminded of the recruiting sergeant whose first duty on Monday mornings was to attend the magistrates court to do little deals behind the scenes to assist the magistrates--recruiting straight from the cells, or rather straight from the court. I am sure that that did a great deal of good all round.
Let me say something about the importance of the Royal Military Police and the Ministry of Defence police. When I was in Kosovo last autumn, I was hugely impressed by the fantastic response of the Royal Military Police to the seemingly hopeless prospects of a country without civilian police, without effective law, without courts and with growing disorder. The RMP rose to the occasion, even running the only prison outside Pristina in which civilians could be locked up, often for their own good.
Back home in the United Kingdom, the RMP will now have to adjust their ways and accept an increased burden following the passage of the Armed Forces Discipline Bill. They will have to be more sensitive in handling potentially disruptive personal and sexual situations, and they will be constrained as a result of new human rights legislation; but I know that, again, they will rise to the occasion.
The Ministry of Defence police continue to face an uncertain future. Downsizing of the force has been delayed, not least to allow 60 officers to train for service in Kosovo, where they will complement the work of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. We wish them well.
I hope that Ministers will make swift progress in agreeing with the Home Office an extension of the MOD police's jurisdiction, so that they can exercise their constabulary powers beyond the immediate vicinity of MOD property. That would improve their efficiency considerably, and would also give MOD police officers protection if they encountered an incident in which they should properly intervene. MOD police personnel have been professional and very patient in the face of the introduction of other police units to carry out less demanding guard functions. They deserve a period of stability.
Today we heard of the theft of guns from the Royal Artillery at Larkhill in Wiltshire. I know that the MOD police have risen to the occasion: they are working closely with the Wiltshire county constabulary, with a joint control room and the use of a police helicopter. I am sure
that, when the incident has been fully evaluated and the crime has been solved, there will be lessons to be learned. One of those lessons will be how important it is for the MOD police and, indeed, the Royal Military Police to interact constructively with Home Office constabulary--which they largely and increasingly successfully do.We all want to see better retention and much more recruitment. We all want to have the best-trained forces in the world, and we know that we have the most highly motivated forces in the world. So what threats does our nation face that might send our forces into action?
The first problem is that most of our forces are trained for high-intensity warfare, but find themselves in peace-enforcement or peacekeeping roles. They are very good at that, but it would be a grave mistake not to train to the standards required for high-intensity warfare. Our forces can operate at a peacekeeping level so long as their training for high-intensity operations is maintained; if it is not, we are all in trouble. The defence budget is having an impact on training, and I hope that Ministers will monitor it closely.
It is important for the inquiry into improvements at the Otterburn ranges to turn out the right way. There will be a serious negative impact if the Army is not allowed to train on those ranges in the way that is necessary.
Most other NATO forces are not nearly as well equipped or well trained as our forces. That makes any joint action more difficult, and also underlines the absolute imperative of maintaining the highest standards of training and reducing overstretch so that training does not go by default. Given the level of overstretch, however, the role of the Territorial Army and the reserves in other forces continues to become more and more important. A new call-out order was made only last week under section 54 of the Reserve Forces Act 1996 so that members of the reserve forces can continue to support operations in the former Yugoslavia and the Gulf area. Only volunteers will be called out. However, we know that during the Kosovo conflict last year Ministers got within a few days of compulsory mobilisation of the TA to sustain peace support operations in the Balkans.
Compulsory mobilisation would have been legal under section 54 of the 1996 Act. Of course, the Secretary of State would also need to be satisfied that such a mobilisation could be justified in policy and political terms. As the Chief of the General Staff said in his advice to the Secretary of State last December, there was potential for such a mobilisation to be linked to regular Army undermanning, and therefore to be subject to adverse comment. It could also resurrect the debate about whether the TA reductions should have been delayed until the Army was fully manned. Then there was the question of the risk of employer appeal, which was assessed to be about 20 per cent. of the total number mobilised. The risk of individual appeal was put at no more than 15 per cent.
Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the advice to the Secretary of State concerned funding. The additional cost to the defence budget of the mobilisation of the preferred units of specialist engineers and a composite logistics squadron would have been £3.5 million, for which no provision existed at the time. That was, however, one of the three elements in the package of proposals aimed at alleviating the effect of overstretch on the armed forces, which was being discussed with the Treasury at the time. But this is the killer issue: any decision to mobilise would
have to depend on agreement by the Treasury to meet the additional costs involved. That was the advice of the Chief of the General Staff. For the very first time, and under a Labour Government, the Ministry of Defence has not the financial headroom to call out 20 specialist engineers for a year and a logistics squadron of 100 for six months, without the prior permission of the Treasury. That really is a first for Labour.Incidentally, would Defence Ministers have a word with the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers about support for the reserve forces among chief constables? While some chief constables--in Hampshire, for example--are very supportive of the reserves, others are alleged to be totally unsupportive. I am told that that applies in Essex. Some chief constables have difficulty in persuading their police authorities to be supportive--for example, in the west midlands and Northumbria--and are therefore unable to be outwardly supportive themselves. The Government expect private sector employers to support a relevant and usable reserve; it is unfortunate, to say the least, that there is inconsistency in that respect in the public sector.
Compulsory mobilisation, even of small units, is a lengthy process. Had Ministers decided on compulsory mobilisation of the TA so that the forces were deployed in the Balkans next month, a ministerial decision and announcement would have been needed by early January at the latest, according to the Chief of the General Staff. Given those substantial time lags, how do the Ministry of Defence and British military units assess their future activities? It is the Government's duty to assess as accurately as possible--even to predict--things that might go wrong in the world which would affect Britain's national interests. To achieve that, the Government must listen to what is happening.
The less said about the defence intelligence services and Government communications headquarters the better--only because they are fantastically successful organisations, and are best left to get on with their work quietly. I wish instead to comment on two aspects of predictions by the Government, particularly the Ministry of Defence, on future activity.
Defence policy is supposed to be led by foreign policy. The MOD rightly points out that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office failed to predict the Falklands war, the Gulf war and the Balkans conflict. At our embassies all over the world a great deal of very professional work is being achieved, but things seem to be a little slower at the Whitehall end.
In December 1999, the FCO invited all its embassies around the world to use their local knowledge to predict likely civil wars, insurrection and disturbances. The FCO in London expected nine positive responses. Our embassies sent to London a list of 53 trouble spots.
Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood has also identified 50 to 60 potential operations that might be needed over the next two years. The key operations remain Bosnia, Kosovo, northern Iraq, southern Iraq, East Timor and the Caribbean drug problem. However, the number of potential operations identified has severe implications for overstretch and equipment in the forces and in terms of the defence budget.
We keep coming back to the vital point: the Government cannot continue cutting the defence budget without adjusting the commitments of our forces. There is a credibility problem; there is a credibility problem with Ministers themselves.
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