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5.27 pm
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Wealden): I do not propose to dwell on the problems that have afflicted the armed services over the past few years. All of us who have read the Select Committee's report know that it
makes pretty grim reading, and since its publication we have heard further examples of overstretch: the cancellation of exercises, with its impact on training; shortage of pilots; the poor quality of some of the equipment; and, last but by no means least, the cuts in the Territorial Army.The presence of the armed forces is not as visible as it used to be. If we want to encourage the voluntary spirit--which we do, because we do not choose to have conscription--the worst thing that we can do is to attack the TA. Those part-time voluntary soldiers can be committed to service abroad. We know examples of that. The current policy is very short-sighted. We know where some of the problem lies. I did service in the Ministry of Defence, as a junior Minister under Lord Carrington, and in the Army, and I have seen how the TA can be kicked around or shunted aside for a time until something serious happens, while the Regular Army gets on with the job. Still, that is old politics and we cannot help it.
Morale is affected not only by overstretch, equipment and training, but by the perception that we have of the role of the armed services and the unity of purpose that they share with our allies. It is very important to have the right framework in which to operate with a will. That applies equally to the civilian population, who after all need to be convinced that the money spent on the armed forces is spent in the right context. That depends, even more than before the second world war, on an alliance between countries that share similar objectives.
I want to say a few words about the defence structure that has been formulated by NATO and its impact on the armed forces as we adjust to the post-cold war world. I remain very much involved with NATO, as a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and I have had various appointments there, so I am an Atlanticist, but that does not make me anti-European. I want both Government and Opposition Members to understand that.
The European contribution is in need of repair. We know that. The European members of NATO, as we were reminded some months ago, spend 60 per cent. of what the United States of America spends, but--and this is a shocking fact--their capacity to project military force is about 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. of Washington's. It is obvious we are not getting value for money, and I wonder what impact those facts will have on personnel and on the NATO structure, which so far has proved itself to be the most successful military alliance in modern history.
For some years, American politicians have asked me when we have met, "What are you guys doing to help the alliance?" They have rightly urged European members of the alliance to do more. I shall not go through the statistics of various countries, but like us they have cut back on defence. They have cut even more savagely and I do not believe that they get good value for money as a result. Their forces have become less and less effective in meeting modern conditions.
The Balkan crisis obliged us to direct more of our attention to conflict prevention and crisis management. The British are especially good at that. I remember being involved in peacekeeping and peacemaking, and it was amazing how well disciplined and trained the blokes I worked with were. Our ability in those areas attracts the
admiration and respect of those who have worked with the British troops in such places as Bosnia, Herzegovina and elsewhere.The limited effect that Europe has had on the world scene has been mainly confined to creating peacekeeping and peacemaking initiatives on the continent of Europe. Out of that comes the view that we should be able to be more creative in the work we do and to play a greater part should some more serious problem arise, inside or outside Europe. We should also work more harmoniously and creatively with our American allies.
The Cologne summit that took place recently has generated the concern that the EU is embarking on a path that could lead to the violation of the three Ds for the European security and defence initiative adumbrated by Secretary of State Allbright--no duplication, no discrimination and no decoupling. We can take some comfort that a breach in the cohesiveness of the alliance is not contemplated by the Secretary General of NATO, Lord Robertson, who is a former Secretary of State for Defence. He has frequently cited the three Is in contrast to some of the pessimistic views that have been expressed about the future of the ESDI. The three Is are the indivisibility of transatlantic security, the improvement of European capabilities and the inclusiveness of all European allies in the process. I have no doubt that that is his intention and I know many people in Europe, such as Members of the European Parliament and others involved in defence, who believe that that is the intention. However, if we are to achieve the respect of the public and, above all, the armed services, we must ask how the cohesiveness that has stood us in such stead since NATO was formed will be maintained.
The EU consists only of European countries and has a common foreign and security policy. That is all laid down in the various agreements since its formation and is bound to reflect the different perspectives on regional, transatlantic and global matters that are central to solidarity. Within Europe are countries which are members of NATO but not of the EU, and members of the EU which are not members of NATO. That is one of the weakness of the ESDI and it could founder on that rock. The EU should not forget that there is more to a European security and defence initiative than just including its own member states.
General Klaus Naumann, the former chairman of NATO's permanent military committee, whom I met on a number of occasions, has frequently asserted that efforts to create a European security defence identify have been troubled by too many institutions and too little substance, too many meetings and study papers and too few concrete steps forward in terms of capabilities. The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) and others have also pointed that out in this debate. As members of the European Union we must ask ourselves whether we are going to concentrate our efforts only on dealing with the structures, or whether we will grasp the nettle and improve our capability.
Using the well-proven structures of NATO seems to be the best path to follow, rather than trying to create any rival institution. Members of the European Parliament whom I have met, and representatives who serve at an administrative level, have told me that that is not their intention. Our Government says so too. However, the temptation to divert our interests away from the Atlantic community and to concentrate as European nations on
what we think are the problems at our back door may look to a continental European like the best way to preserve stability and defend the rights of Europeans. However, that does not seem to be so to those across the Atlantic.Above all, we need to be assured that that alliance, which has been so successful, will continue to attract the support and loyalty of our armed forces. When we praise them, we must not neglect the fact that one reason why they have given their service so unstintingly and with courage and initiative, from the generals to the lowest private, is because they not only know that their cause is a good one--both in the cold war and afterwards--but they have had the right structure, which has enabled them to fulfil their capabilities. That is the message that we have to learn.
5.37 pm
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury): It is an honour to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith), with his years of experience, which extend back to the end of the second world war and his time as a Minister. I will not repeat his arguments, but hon. Members on both sides of the House should listen with respect to his lessons about the substance and structure of the European defence initiative and the extent to which the emphasis is on the wrong one of the two. I firmly agree with him.
I welcome one part of the Minister's speech. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) I felt that the speech was good in parts and I congratulate the Government on the families taskforce. I called unsuccessfully for such an operation on many occasions when I was a Government Back Bencher. It is thoroughly worth while and costs extremely little. If other Departments think about armed forces families when they are deliberating on health, education or whatever, it will have a value to those families that will be much appreciated.
None the less, I am profoundly at odds with the Government over the direction of defence policy; my colleagues have alluded to some of the reasons. Whenever the Opposition--whoever happens to be in opposition--criticise the armed forces, the Government of the day promptly say, "You are knocking our armed forces." What I am about to say is not an exercise in knocking our armed forces; far from it. I was proud to be a territorial for 13 years, my father was a regular soldier, and my grandfather served as a regular in the first world war and a territorial in the second. I believe, however, that our armed forces are not in a position to defend this country from some of the threats that it may face. In rightly expressing pride in the qualities of our individual service men, we easily forget that in the lifetime of many people in this country, the British Army was convincingly defeated. Churchill was right in this Chamber in 1940. He was speaking for many people who, like himself, were first world war veterans, when he said that it was a pretty poor day when this country was cheering over a successful evacuation. That is what Dunkirk was, of course--an evacuation in which we had even abandoned most of our heavy weapons.
The challenges today are, in some respects, quite different from what faced us then. In other respects, there are parallels. In 1914, as little as six weeks before the war began, we did not expect to be fighting a war in Europe.
Most right hon. and hon. Members will know of the famous leader in The Times, which started with the words:
- This empire faces the most severe threat for generations
Some right hon. and hon. Members will have read the recently published book on Stalingrad. It reminds us that to the total amazement of the Russians, Axis forces numbering 4 million soldiers crossed their border with only a few weeks warning from their intelligence, which their politicians, including Stalin, continued to disbelieve even after the first deployments had taken place.
It may be said that this was all a long time ago. However, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) reminded us that just a few days before Saddam Hussein chose to invade the Gulf, there was no thought of a Gulf war in anyone's mind. Yet within months, armed forces numbering three quarters of a million had to be put together in a hurry. Fortunately, America produced two thirds of the manpower. Next time, America is much less likely to be willing to do that. However, it has retained a structure in which it can expand enormously.
There is an old adage that history never reveals the "what ifs"--what would have happened if things had turned out differently. None the less, it was interesting to ask, in the Select Committee on Defence, what we would have done if we had had to mount a land operation in Kosovo. There is a danger that history may just reveal that "what if" if the situation in Montenegro, south-west Serbia or even in Kosovo takes an unexpected and unpleasant direction. I opposed sending troops there, but with many thousands of British and allied troops tied up in Kosovo, we may still discover the "what if".
We were told that we would need to put together 55,000 British soldiers in a hurry. We were told that within four weeks, if I remember rightly--other sources suggest that it was as little as two weeks--we would have to decide whether to deploy. A quarter of those troops would have been reservists, including large numbers of infantry and sappers--the two groups that took the largest cuts in the Territorial Army.
The "what if" question on Kosovo concerns me, but it is not what concerns me most. In an earlier intervention, I quoted the first of the 23 conclusions of the American report that was published in September, commissioned by the Pentagon, with the agreement of both Houses of Congress as well as the President. It was that Americans were likely to face severe threats on American soil within their planning horizon. That was alluding to the spreading of weapons of mass destruction--nuclear, chemical and biological--not only to rogue states but to terrorist organisations.
Let us suppose for a moment that we face a direct threat from a rogue state or terrorist organisation. On other occasions, my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) has talked about ballistic missile defence, but I want to concentrate on the conventional aspects.
In this example, let us suppose that Iran happens to be the country mounting the threat. In the Iran-Iraq war, it showed that it could raise enormous armies--not terribly
well equipped or trained, but huge and willing to take extremely heavy casualties. Large areas of the country are covered in what might be called a reinforced concrete jungle. Whole cities are made of such structures.Let us further suppose in this example that Britain faces a nuclear threat. It is known that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and that it is hand in glove with North Korea. Indeed, it is alleged that the Iranians paid for the North Korean missile development programme. Let us suppose finally that a weapon has been detonated from an Iranian source.
Would it be possible to break into such a country, given the sheer scale of the forces that the allies would have to put together? Do we really think that America would provide 90 per cent. of the air sorties, as happened in the Balkans? We must bear in mind that America's gross domestic product and population are smaller than Europe's. Most importantly, can we expect it to provide two thirds of the manpower required, as happened in the Gulf?
America would say that, proportionately, its professional force is broadly similar to Britain's--its population is four or five times the size of ours, and its regular armed forces are about five times the size of ours. However, America has an enormous reserve structure. Behind its 10 regular army divisions, it can call out 13 national guard divisions.
Britain had pitifully tiny manpower reserves at the last election, and infantry numbers have been more than halved since then. We cannot call out a single infantry battalion from the Territorial Army. The 15 so-called TA infantry battalions, which are all that remain of the 33 that existed before, are not really battalions at all, as everyone serving in the infantry knows. They are little groupings of companies that are not even real companies because they do not have sufficient manpower, and there is no proper headquarters structure at all. The result is that Britain can no longer put a large army together.
It has already been said that the Government appear to have lost sight of the fact that defence of the country and its vital interests is their prime role. Instead, the Government's strategic defence review in effect rules out that role. The Government are committed to a programme of overseas operations that range from peacekeeping to expeditionary forces in wars that, by implication, are wars of choice.
Britain might have to take part in an expeditionary force that must fight for the very life of the country. The task might be to stamp out a nuclear threat from a third-world country that had already started to deploy and use nuclear weapons. That is what the Americans think might be required. If such a country were to direct its attention solely to Europe, it is possible that a future American Government with an isolationist bent might not want to mount an invasion.
The solution does not lie in trying to develop structures in Europe that would be an alternative to NATO. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wealden argued so convincingly, the solution lies in increasing defence spending in western European countries so that we can have credible armed forces again.
It is true that a very good professional core remains, but years of cuts in the money made available to that core will progressively undermine it. If the cuts continue to be
targeted mainly on collective training--and the Minister was good enough to recognise that that was a problem--the professional standard will not remain very good for long but will drop quite fast. However, even that professional core is of little value in fighting a real war if there is no means to expand and sustain it.There are implications for equipment as well as personnel. I recognise that this is a debate on personnel, but I cannot pass over making one quick point about equipment. In the Kosovo operation we were up against a small enemy. That was Serbia, with a population of a few million, against NATO as a whole. Yet unbelievably, we ran out of weapons of certain categories, such was the paucity of our ammunition stocks--and it is Government policy still further to reduce them in some areas.
Precisely the same points that can be made about manpower can be made about equipment. A war cannot be fought without an industrial ability to sustain an equipment effort. In the same way, a war cannot be fought without the ability to sustain the manpower side of the effort. The closure of the royal ordnance factory at Bishopton and the loss of the ability to produce propellants for ammunition was the tip of the iceberg. If we focus our procurement effort on a value-for-money programme that is based, for example, on the number of tanks, guns and aeroplanes that we have in the shop window, and we fail to spend money on keeping surge capability within our industries--unnecessary in peace time but critical in war--we will ultimately reduce our armed forces to a toy. If they do not have the ammunition to sustain their efforts, they will not be able to sustain a war.
I shall spend three or four minutes dealing with specific points of detail on reserve forces. I hesitate to talk about the Royal Auxiliary Air Force in the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), who knows so much more about it than I do and who will be speaking next. However, although I welcome the experiment that the Government are carrying out with fast-jet fighter pilots, I suggest that they are wasting their time unless they introduce formed units that are commanded by volunteer reserve commanders, otherwise the cultural struggle between those who are professionals and those whom the professionals perceive as having left to go to comfortable civilian jobs and return for sport flying at the weekend, will continue to create tensions.
The reason why the US air national guard is such a success and has a turnover so much smaller than that of the US reserve air force is that it has formed units. They are given tasks and are sent abroad as formed units--to play their role in the Balkans and the Gulf, for example.
I alluded earlier to the wrong shape of our infantry battalions. None of them is a real battalion and none could be used as one in the short term, because of their present structure. There is a different problem with the more specialist units. I referred to them when intervening on the Minister and he kindly said that he would come back to me. I shall stay with the Royal Corps of Signals as an example.
In the old days, signals units were in signals brigades. The commanding officer of a signals unit is all too often a regular officer. I do not mean that offensively, but volunteer reserve soldiers are usually best commanded by volunteer reserve commanders. In days past, the
commanding officer had his confidential report, on which his career depended, written by a Royal Signals brigade commander. The professionalism of a specialised signals unit in carrying out tasks of considerable complexity was being assessed by a signals brigadier.No doubt I will receive a letter--carefully researched, as Ministers' letters always are--assuring me that such structures are still in place. However, there has been a critical change that is deeply resented by Territorial Army officers within the Royal Signals. It is that those units have been grouped into regional brigades commanded by generalist brigadiers--I do not mean that offensively--who have no specialist knowledge of what troops equipped with Ptarmigan, for example, are up to. These brigadiers write the first part of the confidential reports. There has also been a reduction in the number of permanent staff and in the number of man training days. The combined effect of all that must be that specialist standards in such units will fall.
My final point is to pick up briefly on an issue raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Sir A. Hamilton). He argued that there should be a separate vote for reserve forces, and that it should come under another Department. I do not think that that is practical. However, we need to introduce the same type of senior officer structure in our reserve forces as they have in countries with reserve forces such as Australia, America, Canada and Switzerland. The absence of reserve generals to give direct advice on reserve matters to Ministers creates the problem in this country. It has led to the disproportionate cuts to which my right hon. and hon. Friends have referred.
I end my remarks where I began them. We lose sight of the purpose of our armed forces when we convert them into an organisation designed for peacekeeping and expeditionary wars of choice. The prime purpose of defence is to defend this country and its vital interests.
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