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Mr. Cohen: I strongly support the campaign for a memorial to the women involved, in all sorts of ways, in the second world war. Is not there a case for putting that memorial on the empty plinth in Trafalgar square?
Laura Moffatt: I thank my hon. Friend for that suggestion, which I was too bashful to make myself.
That is exactly where the memorial should go, and I know that Madam Speaker supports the campaign. I hope that our wishes come true.In conclusion, two and half years is not a long time for the Government to examine the armed forces. I have been bowled over by the efficiency and pleasantness of our service personnel--and by how tough they can be when the chips are down. It is a lesson for us all. Having learned what went on in the 18 years before this Government came to power, I know that, if I were a serving member of the armed forces, I would prefer to serve under a Labour Government.
3.50 pm
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater): The hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) was frank enough to say, "I come new to it." I think the House will agree that she presented her case in an attractive and enthusiastic way. She said--the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has recently left the Chamber--that she was speaking for those on the Labour Benches. Sadly, those Benches were almost deserted. I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Sir A. Hamilton), "It's a pretty depressing debate, isn't it?"
The hon. Lady has paid tribute to our armed forces, including all those personnel whom she has met during her work on the Select Committee on Defence. I am delighted that she is finding that work enjoyable and interesting, even without the presence of the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell). As a good and loyal member of the Labour party--no doubt she was provided with a party brief--she had to do her duty and attack the Opposition and then say how wonderful everything is going now. All the armed forces personnel whom she has met, and whom she admires for their training, professionalism and skills, were trained when the Conservative party was in power. Her time, and the assessment of her legacy and her party's and Government's legacy, are yet to come.
It is easy to make political jibes across the Chamber. I have a slight personal interest in the matter because people have been kind enough to pay some tribute to what we Conservatives tried to do during our time in office. When I was Secretary of State for Defence, I was never in any doubt that all those sitting on the Benches behind me gave a high priority to the cause of defence. I knew that they would be anxious to ensure that defence was properly supported. I made sure that it was, in the face of quite sustained criticism from Labour Members.
The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) got himself in quite a muddle. I could not work out whether he was in favour of more or fewer cuts. He referred to the overall reductions that had been made by the Conservative Government. In his rather tortuous arguments, he eventually remembered that we saw the end of the cold war, that Germany had been unified, that the Warsaw pact had collapsed, and that as a result there were certain differences in strategic defence then from when we came into power. I remember the changes that we made. I remember also that I was attacked strongly by Labour Members for not going a lot further.
The enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Crawley is infectious, and she tried to encourage the House to believe that things are going rather well. I sat in my place for a couple of hours waiting to contribute to the debate
because I fear that the hon. Lady's view is incorrect. I am seriously worried about the state of our armed forces. She chided me implicitly. She said that she had come completely new to these matters and perhaps suggested that it would be condescending if anybody said, "I served in the armed forces and somehow that gives me superiority in the debate." I accept that that would be wrong. Everybody has his or her contribution to make.As a nurse, the hon. Lady brings relevant experience to the debate in terms of the defence medical services, but it is not a bad thing if one or two Members have some experience of the services. I know the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, and we have taken part in certain recreational activities together. I have affection for him. However, on reading "Dod", it is clear to me that no Defence Minister has served in the armed forces. Nor can I find in "Dod" any one of them who took any interest in defence after entering the House. Their interests are listed and they are perfectly respectable, but not one of them has previously been involved in defence. It is interesting also to see the pecking order in the Cabinet and the position of the Secretary of State for Defence. Does not the message go out to our armed forces that the Government do not approach defence with the priority and importance that were previously attached to it?
None of these things is an overriding argument. However, every Minister, as did the hon. Member for Crawley, pays a warm tribute to our armed forces. They say that they are wonderful and refer to their professionalism. They add that they are admired throughout the world. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan told us of the countries and places he has visited. He told a story about the Black Watch in Red square. The excellence of our armed forces does not come about by accident. It is the result of an effective recruitment policy, an effective training policy and the tradition of military conduct and training that has been handed down over generations, on which our armed forces are built. These elements account for their standing, and without a doubt they are a critically important and precious national asset.
However, I believe that that asset is at risk. It is bound to be at risk. If we have forces that do not have adequate time for training, being put in situations where their families will rebel, causing them to choose between their service or their families, and if they are not being given adequate time for recreation, it is not necessary to be a long-serving member of the armed forces to recognise that the pressures will lead to personnel leaving the services. So often, we lose the best and the most skilled.
The Army marches, but not necessarily on generals or privates. The key to the Army is the core of trained lieutenants, captains, young majors, sergeant majors, sergeants and corporals. They are the people with the long service. The average service in the Army is about five or six years. Of course, not everyone serves for that time. Many squaddies or privates serve a three-year tour, while others will serve for 15 or 20 years, or more. They are the key to the Army, and they must be retained.
It is often asked, "How are we doing on retention and wastage?" The question is asked on the basis of those who are leaving and those who are joining. Unless we have regard to the quality of those who have left, the answer does not mean a thing.
There is a turnover of squaddies or private soldiers. They are young men who join, get some experience and move on to another career or activity. Over the years they have always made a huge contribution to our armed services. That is fine. However, if at one end we are taking in entirely untrained and inexperienced people while at the other we are losing all those with experience and skills, we are heading only one way.
I can reassure the Minister that he will not find that happening today or next week. The process will continue for a while but eventually we shall find the edifice beginning to crumble. In three or four years' time, right hon. and hon. Members will ask--I shall not, because I shall not be here--"How did we get into this mess?" It is not enough to make enthusiastic noises. In addition, the Minister will have to make some tough decisions. I agree very much with what the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife said about resources.
In his enthusiastically vague contribution, the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan said that he was not in favour of any more cuts. But the Government whom he thought he was supporting by making that remark are imposing cuts at present. The 3 per cent. year-on-year efficiency saving has been imposed by the Treasury, and I was one of the first to suffer from its use of that blunt instrument. When the Government have considered every saving that the Treasury can identify and all its arguments on where savings can be made, they come to the end of the line. When they and no one else can think of any other savings to make, they say that there will be a 3 per cent. efficiency saving. Nobody knows where it will come from. Much of it is made by pretty creative accounting of so-called gains and savings and one has to be quite a psephologist to understand how such calculations are made.
If the savings are not genuine or if they cannot be found, they represent cuts. If they are made when increasing commitments are taken on, we will head in a very dangerous direction. The Minister and his colleagues are all new to this subject and they are having to face these problems for the first time. However, the sad experience of defence is that it is incredibly difficult to drop a commitment and quite easy to take on new ones.
One only has to consider how long we have been in Cyprus. Whenever our forces are sent anywhere, we think that it will be just for a short time. When troops were dispatched to Northern Ireland, Lord Callaghan did not think that he was making a 30-year arrangement. However, such arrangements have a habit of enduring and new problems arise.
People sometimes say that we need not worry because the world is stable and new problems will not arise, When I introduced the measures in "Options for Change"-- a bad title, but a well-organised plan--I was interviewed by a BBC reporter. At that time the Berlin wall was coming down, the Warsaw pact was collapsing and peace reigned in the world. We made the changes that we did, but I was challenged for not going further. The BBC reporter asked me why we were keeping such a substantial number of armed forces and why we were spending more than £20 billion. He said, "What is the threat that you think we are now supposed to be guarding against, when all the threats that used to exist now seem to have been resolved?" I replied that the threat was the unexpected, and a week later Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait--the unexpected had happened.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) pointed out, no intelligence prepared us for the invasion. We had no more warning of it than we did over the Falklands. When the unexpected happens, the Ministry of Defence has to perform and our forces have to be ready, trained and available to meet whatever challenge we decide it necessary in the national interest to confront.
I have described the background and my experience. They explain why I am acutely worried about the current position. I intervened when the Minister for the Armed Forces spoke to ask him when we would reach full manning levels for the Army. It is now 2000, and the plan for manning has already slipped, but I was told that we shall reach full manning levels in 2005.
I served under Baroness Thatcher. She had a very good reply when ideas were put to her. Someone would argue that years one and two of a project would be pretty difficult, that year three might also be a charge on the Exchequer, but that matters would be highly satisfactory in years four and five and the Exchequer would then be rewarded for its investment. She used to say that years four and five never come. When I heard that we should be all right in five years, I knew for certain that the Army will not have full manning levels next year, the year after, the year after or--God help us--the year after that. If the Government think that there will be no trouble and that perfect peace will rule in the world for the next five years, that shows just how serious the position is.
Things are even worse than that, however. The Government have reduced commitments a bit and things are muddling along even though I have the acute fear that we are losing trained and skilled people. The trouble is that, in three or four years, the position will be different; it is not static. Our armed forces will be less capable and stuck in a vicious circle. If the Government cannot take the necessary steps so that the armed forces can resolve the manning issue quickly, the problem could deteriorate seriously. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury pointed out, the Select Committee warned us about that:
- The problems of undermanning and overstretch have not been solved and the position in the past year has almost certainly deteriorated.
The hon. Member for Crawley said that she thought things were going quite well. When I was a Minister, I tried to establish tour intervals of 24 months. When they reached intervals of 17 and 18 months, I became worried. I checked with the Library on the current figures for tour intervals and I could not believe them: they are unsustainable. If people have to go on unaccompanied tours at such short intervals, only one thing can result--a serious deterioration in the capability of the armed forces.
As I have some experience of these matters, I hope that the Minister will convey the tenor of my remarks to his colleagues. The Government face more of a problem than the Minister for the Armed Forces seemed to appreciate in his speech. The tradition of loyalty and service of the armed forces acts, in certain circumstances, to their own disadvantage. If one asks them to undertake a new responsibility, their training means that they stand to attention, salute and say, "If you tell me to do it, sir, that is what will be done." They do not stand up, have a really good argument and then say, "For once, we shall say no." That is a problem. They will always undertake new responsibilities and the price that they pay to carry them out may not always be apparent to Ministers and may not always be set out as clearly as it should be. The Ministry of Defence and the armed services do not want to appear unwilling to undertake their responsibilities, but that can sometimes lead a serious deterioration in their capabilities.
Furthermore, I could not believe the number of reservists--Territorial Army--currently on active service in Bosnia or the Balkans. Of course, reservists are useful--occasionally, in an emergency. However, they are reserves and the fact that we are employing them permanently offers the clearest illustration of how serious the shortfall is.
I realise that it is easy enough to set out the problems, but much harder to resolve them. However, Ministers will get the blame, if my fears come to pass; the Treasury will not say, "It was really all our fault." Ministers will be blamed and that precious national asset of which they are currently the trustees will have been destroyed, thus endangering the security of our country.
We were challenged when we disputed the idea that, with 3 per cent. expenditure savings, we can continue to reduce the defence budget, while maintaining our commitments without enough trained and properly equipped forces. The loss of trained and skilled personnel poses a serious threat, especially so soon after the review, which itself was not the great achievement claimed by the Government.
The Ministry of Defence, the Treasury and the Prime Minister should hold fundamental and urgent discussions. If other contributions are wanted, I should be willing to play my part. This should not be a party political battle. We are talking about our armed forces, who have served our country over the years, whichever party was in government. They need to be properly protected and to have their future capacity assured.
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