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3.10 pm
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater): I certainly join the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) in his plea for joined-up government and for Britain to continue to play a role in helping to ensure a more peaceful world. In the hon. Gentleman's ambitions in that respect, I see the role of the Ministry of Defence and our armed forces not as traditionally bellicose and war-mongering but as crucial to the world in its capacity to do good. The events of recent years mean that I do not have to explain that comment--it will be readily understood.
My intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) shortly after that of the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Ms Squire) revealed to hon. Members, although they may already have known, that I had a deep involvement in defence at a particularly critical and difficult time of change. I learned from that period about the delicate balance that one has to strike between commitments and resources. That balance has been mentioned in the exchanges between Front-Bench Members.
I was involved in an extraordinary period of change following the cold war--a situation that had been static everywhere except on the periphery. We had maintained as many as 300,000 troops in Germany, although that figure had fallen to 100,000 by the time that I became Secretary of State. The line of the iron curtain, running across the centre of Germany, was seen as the front line of defence of the western world. We had to handle the move to a sensible, sustainable--almost peacetime--footing, and I believe that we achieved that.
Unfortunately, having achieved change and moved from position A to position B, we came to a standstill, but it was sensible to maintain the existing structure, resources and scale of operation. I shall be honest and say that I viewed with concern, but a certain amount of understanding, the move into "Front Line First", the review of the support services and the various examinations that followed. Difficult decisions had to be made during those years of the Conservative Government, but I think that in general they got them about right.
Throughout my time as Secretary of State, and subsequently, the Labour party's policy was to have a review. That was a way to avoid making any commitments or embarrassing statements. One did not have to be the world's greatest psephologist to see that there was the possibility of a change of Government in 1997, and I was concerned about whether the Labour Government would prove to be a Government who were prepared to give defence the priority that my party and I had, over the years, believed necessary.
There have been suspicions and allegations--the latter are frequently made on the hustings--that the Labour party is not interested in defence. Holding this debate today does not help to dispel that impression among the general public. A debate on defence in the world, an issue that the House should discuss and which should be of great concern to us, is held on the one day of the year when most hon. Members are likely to be away and unable to attend. Such timetabling of parliamentary business happens, and other debates have been held on unfortunate days, but it contributes to a general impression of the present Ministry of Defence team.
I make my remarks in no sense of personal animosity or offence to the Ministers concerned. They are not the most senior Ministers in government. The Secretary of State had been a Parliamentary Secretary in the Lord Chancellor's Department and within four months of becoming Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office he was moved to his present post. Not a single Defence Secretary in the Conservative Government had not already had several years of Cabinet experience before he moved to that position.
Defence is always under pressure. One can always cut defence expenditure because one will not pay the penalty for that action within the next one or two months, but the need for wisdom and an understanding of the importance of maintaining sufficient defence expenditure becomes abundantly clear when problems start to arise and resources are needed.
There are competing forces in government. My hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green referred to the strategies and ambitions of the Prime Minister, who wants our defence contribution to be a ticket to a bigger chair at the table of European discussions. The Foreign Office has its own ambitions and ideas, with the Treasury, God help us, always trying to find out how it can economise. The Secretary of State for Defence is in a lonely position, and it is tough facing those ambitions. He has to have seniority and clout if he is to begin to defend his Department against big hitters around the Cabinet table, some of whom will want to push him in directions that may not make sense in defence and military terms. On the other hand, the Treasury is anxious to deny him the resources to achieve the aims that he considers necessary.
I am not, therefore, surprised that there is a general opinion, which comes not only from a party-political viewpoint, that defence is not being given the necessary priority. Although I make that observation as a party politician, I hope that the House will recognise that I speak with deep concern for defence and our armed forces. I have huge respect and affection for them and the role that they have played so consistently over the years. Our armed forces, too, observe the respect and attention awarded to them by the Government and note Ministers' concern about their welfare.
The ministerial team are sincere and they are trying hard to handle the portfolio, but they are very new to the subject. It seemed logical to have a review that would be foreign policy driven. That sounds wonderful, but it depends on a strong belief that the Foreign Office is capable of divining the future so that we can adequately meet all our needs. I found one of those quotes that one finds at the bottom of the page in one's diary. It is by Disraeli, although I was not aware that he had said it. He said:
- What we anticipate seldom occurs. What we least expected generally happens.
When that happens, the Ministry of Defence cannot say to the Foreign Office, "We are terribly sorry but this event is not on your list of predictions, and we are meeting the foreign policy-driven requirements of the strategic defence review, so I am afraid that we are not available for that engagement." The Ministry of Defence has to make provision, and our armed forces have to discharge, with great distinction, whatever duty is required of them. Foreign policy does not provide sufficient drive for the defence strategy of our country.
I agree that we need flexibility and mobility. The Secretary of State referred to them as though they were discovered only during the strategic defence review. I refer him to the White Papers issued by the Conservative Government, including "Britain's Army for the 90s" and "Options for Change". The MOD has a great capacity for regurgitating worthy slogans, and mobility and flexibility are concepts that have been well embedded for some time. We moved away, rightly, from the rigid structures of the cold war and from the emplacements of the front lines of the iron curtain to a more flexible, mobile defence structure. However, flexibility is needed both in military capability and in concept and imagination.
The Secretary of State commented on how much NATO has changed and how different it now is from 50 years ago, 20 years ago, and 10 years ago--which is when I sat in on NATO meetings. I remember that in those NATO meetings, we sat next to the United States, because seating was arranged in alphabetical order. Then, at a meeting of Partnership for Peace, I found myself separated from Dick Cheney, then US Defence Secretary, and General Colin Powell, then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, by the representatives of Ukraine, who were seated on my left, and on my right sat the representatives of Uzbekistan. At that moment, I realised the speed and the extent of the change that had occurred in the world and the conceptual framework within which we had worked for 50 years, when none of those people would have got through the door without being arrested.
Some things change, but some things stay the same. I shall not talk, as I have before, about overstretch, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford
Green referred. We have present a Minister responsible for resources, even though the Secretary of State bravely said that defence is not merely about resources--that is true, but resources are an extremely important element. There is currently a serious problem of overstretch and I am profoundly worried that we have not yet seen the full impact: I wonder what impact serious retention difficulties will have on the capacity of our armed forces to respond to new problems.Certain factors are critical to the success of our defence posture. The first, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green referred, is NATO, which has lain at the heart and been the strength of our defensive alliance. The United Kingdom has a vital role to play, but the key element in NATO is the United States of America. I am not against European co-operation; I am not against Europe taking on a greater burden where it can, nor against Europe conducting operations in which the United States does not want to be involved. However, that must be done in such a way that it does not undermine American confidence or give the Americans the feeling that we are walking away from them.
Allow me to illustrate with an example from an area in which I take a strong interest. As the House knows, I have the privilege to be Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. In the new types of engagements in which we have become involved, arising from a mobile and rapidly changing world--for example, in Mozambique, Kosovo or East Timor--good intelligence is a priority. Intelligence input can result in our armed forces being deployed in territories previously unencountered. The ability to gather accurate, good intelligence is absolutely essential, whether it takes the form of images or some other medium.
The House will know that the intelligence relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States is extremely important to both. Hon. Members might be aware that, only the other day, a considerable part of US intelligence capability collapsed; operations were sustained during that difficult period by GCHQ, which shows the closeness of that relationship and the extensiveness of the interdependence. I understand that, for a similar reason, there have been one or two collapses in London today, which only goes to show the new challenges posed by the new world. It is vital that we maintain that intelligence relationship and have access to American ideas, capabilities, research and development in matters such as information warfare.
I do not know the full extent of events in London today, but it is obvious that that which, during the war, would have been achieved by a bomb can now be achieved through information warfare of some sort. Nowadays, it is as easy--and probably more effective--to attack a power station by disabling its computers as it is by using traditional military means. We need to work together with those who are capable of developing the responses and defences that are needed in such situations. The SDR spoke of asymmetric warfare. New developments outside the traditional forms of defence and warfare will, no doubt, increasingly challenge the major developed countries of the western world. We need close co-operation with our allies and partners, of whom America is one.
I care about defence issues and this country's defence capabilities because I remember Dean Acheson's famous remark:
- Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role.
During the Gulf war, everybody played their part: the United States provided leadership, but it was the United Kingdom becoming involved as the crucial first partner that provided the nexus around which others could build. Now, as other events unfold throughout the world, we see the role that Britain can play, not in an imperial sense, but in the sense of our acting as the good citizen and partner in the world, to which the hon. Member for Dumbarton referred.
That is why I care that we should maintain our defences. It is no good our coming to the Chamber and paying tributes to our wonderful armed forces if we are not prepared to give them the resources, the training, the equipment and the experience they need to carry out their many roles. If we provide them with what they need, our armed forces will continue to bring credit to this country and this country will continue to make its contribution to the world.
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