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RAF (Kosovo)
4. Mr. David Kidney (Stafford): What assessment he has made of the RAF's performance during the Kosovo campaign. [117882]
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): The Royal Air Force made a highly effective and widely respected contribution to the Kosovo campaign, helping NATO to achieve its objectives.
Lessons are of course being learned, and they will be highlighted in a report that we intend to publish next month.
Mr. Kidney: Is my hon. Friend aware that this year's annual presentation by the RAF to Members of both Houses of Parliament was exceptionally successful? One of the reasons was the vivid report of the air campaign over Kosovo, informed by video footage. Some of the audience may have been fascinated by the accuracy of the targeting of RAF weapons, but my heart was in my mouth listening to the cool and professional voices of the pilots and navigators describing the ground-to-air missiles coming towards them and the life-saving evasive action that they had to take. Bearing that in mind, will my hon. Friend assure the House that, when the review has considered the needs of the brave members of the RAF for improved protection of their lives when they carry out dangerous operations on our behalf, any such needs will be met?
Mr. Spellar: Yes, I join my hon. Friend in congratulating the RAF presentation team. I forbear drawing any comparison between that and the equally good presentation from the Royal Navy. The House has been given a very good indication of the enormous quality of the young men and women who serve us.
On the substance of the presentation and the work undertaken in flight, I was equally impressed. We are considering how to upgrade defensive mechanisms. That is why we are upgrading the Tornados from GR1 to GR4. Of course, the front line and the sharp end are important, but so is the logistics tail that supports those young men and women, not least at the base and depot in Stafford.
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex): What steps are being taken to overcome the obvious shortcomings of what was in any event a formidably fought campaign by the Royal Air Force, including the inability to conduct precision bombing in bad weather? Is the Minister satisfied with secure communications between aircraft?
Mr. Spellar: We are certainly examining how to extend global positioning capabilities for bombing. Of course, laser designation has problems in cloud and we are considering ways in which that could be improved. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to communications, but he should also draw attention to communications between our Air Force and other allied air forces and the ways in which we could enhance it. Those are all expensive items. We have to get the balance right. That is what the report on lessons learned will address, and we look forward to discussing it after its publication next month.
Mr. Tom Cox (Tooting): What action is the Ministry of Defence taking on the location and destruction of unexploded bombs in Kosovo, especially cluster bombs?
Mr. Spellar: Allied forces have made a considerable effort to remove unexploded ordnance, including cluster
bombs. We had the very unfortunate experience of two members of the Gurkha Regiment dying in that effort. The first priority was to try to ensure that schools could open in Kosovo. We are also working with other agencies to undertake that effort on a more sustained basis, as we do in many areas throughout the world.
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green): The Minister talks about capability, but does not much of what he said hinge on the capability of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency? That brings us to what the Government plan to do about DERA. Is not the reality that we have learned today that, if the Government are about to spend £100 million on what they call their heartland vote, that is worth a statement, but if they are about to dispose of a massively important asset such as DERA, that is worthy of no statement whatever?
The Minister must answer two questions about DERA. First, is not the reality that, in accordance with his earlier answers, the Ministry of Defence will now lose much of the impartial advice that it would have received through the overlap with private industry in assessing the RAF's capability? Secondly, in their attempt to provide a golden blocking share to ensure that DERA will not face problems with its future prospects, the Government are likely to run head on into the EU, which has already expressed the opinion that such golden shares are not acceptable.
Mr. Spellar: I knew that the hon. Gentleman could not fail to get the EU in somewhere. This is a less than appropriate question on which to raise his point, but I accept that if the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) had turned up to muster, the hon. Gentleman could have come in at a more appropriate point.
The announcement is about a consultative document which will, therefore, be available for full public consultation. A statement will be made after that consultation when full and proper decisions have been taken. The hon. Gentleman is right, however, to draw attention to the imperative need for the Ministry of Defence to receive impartial advice from a proper, appropriate Government agency. That is why parts of the agency will be retained within full public control to provide that advice, while other elements will be able to take advantage of commercial expertise and a necessary injection of private capital.
Mr. Duncan Smith: The Minister says that we should contrive some other method to ask questions, but do not the Government have a responsibility to bring an important measure such as their proposals for DERA to the House for discussion and questioning? He mentioned consultation and perhaps he can now tell us--there is no word on it in the consultation document--what the US Government have said about the issue, given their unique relationship with us over DERA. Have not the US Government made it clear that nothing should proceed, especially in the case of Boscombe Down, that risks jeopardising that relationship, until they have had another chance to discuss that arrangement? In failing to mention
the US Government, do not the Government show more and more that they know the price of everything and the value of nothing?
Mr. Spellar: The old jokes are the best.
We value our strategic relationship with the US through NATO and the technical relationship through DERA with the US and with several other laboratories around the world. Of course, the US is far and away the most significant of those, and that is why Ministers and officials have been in extensive discussion with the Administration in the US regarding the proposals on DERA. We wish to value, maintain and enhance those relationships between our Government laboratories and Government scientific facilities in the US. That is why we have evolved the proposals so that they take account of concerns that were rightly and properly expressed to us. Now those proposals will go out for public consultation. That is the right approach, and when we come to make decisions, we will have a full statement on what the Government propose. We have now made the initial proposals and we look forward to receiving representations from all areas, including from the Opposition.
RAF Museum, Hendon
6. Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon): If he will make a statement about the future development plans for the RAF museum, Hendon. [117884]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr. Lewis Moonie): The RAF museum trustees' plans for development at Hendon are dependent on an imminent stage 2 bid for heritage lottery funds. The Ministry of Defence has provided funds in support of that bid and we have given a commitment to provide further funds should the bid be successful.
Mr. Dismore: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that assurance of support. However, the scheme is also dependent on the plans for the former RAF East camp site, which are presently with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. Will he use his best endeavours to ensure that DETR gets on with making a decision on that planning issue, because without it the full scheme cannot go ahead?
Dr. Moonie: My Department is committed to the success of the RAF museum and to its development plans. The question of the related East camp planning inquiry is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. While I cannot comment on a planning inquiry, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will have noted my hon. Friend's remarks.
Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Wealden): Has the Minister any plans to donate funds to enable more Tornados to be stored at the RAF museum? I know that there is a shortage of pilots, and that might help.
Dr. Moonie: That was a very helpful question. I have not received any inquiries about the possibility of putting more Tornados there, but I am sure that any such inquiry would be given serious consideration.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
7. Miss Julie Kirkbride (Bromsgrove): What recent reports he has received concerning the development of weapons of mass destruction by (a) Iraq and (b) Yugoslavia; and if he will make a statement. [117885]
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon): Since inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission were expelled from Iraq in December 1998, we have continued to monitor the situation there. We remain concerned that the development of weapons of mass destruction programmes is taking place. We therefore strongly support the early deployment of the United Nation's monitoring verification and inspection commission in Iraq.
The Government receive declarations and reports about a number of other countries, including the former republic of Yugoslavia, concerning weapons of mass destruction, and continue to monitor developments.
Miss Kirkbride: I am sure that the House will agree that what the Minister has just described is extremely worrying for the prospects of nuclear proliferation. What is the Department's view of the anti-ballistic missile system being developed by the United States? If the Department considers that to be a good idea, why is he not working with the United States to provide that defence umbrella for the United Kingdom?
Mr. Hoon: We are in regular dialogue with the United States about that but, unless and until the United States decides to employ the system, there is little that I can say to the hon. Lady to resolve her concerns. There is not much point in trying to anticipate the United States' decision on that matter.
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green): Is not the Secretary of State avoiding the question? He must have a view, one way or the other. For example, we discovered recently that Yugoslavia has 48 kg of enriched uranium. We also know, from an institute in the United States, that Iraq needs only enriched uranium to make a nuclear device. The two countries have started talking to each other about just that. Is not it time for the Government to get off the fence and take a view, for or against the proposal? What are the Government saying to the US Government?
Mr. Hoon: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman carefully on this question, and he has an interesting approach to international negotiations. He appears to agree to requests before they are made. He rolls over before he is asked to do so: in those circumstances, it is difficult to see how he could defend Britain's best interests. In my experience, even performing poodles in circuses usually require an order before they do anything.
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