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Mr. Hoon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who puts the case very well.
Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife): May I welcome the statement and suggest to the Defence Secretary that he might take the opportunity, politely but firmly, to remind the cold war warriors--military and political--however distinguished, that Europe's defence needs today are rather different from our requirements in the days of the cold war and the Berlin wall? Is it not realistic in the light of recent experience, in particular the terms in which the presidential election was conducted in the United States, to assume that we cannot expect the United States to be willing in all circumstances to come to the assistance of Europe in conflicts such as Kosovo and Bosnia and that Europe must have the capacity to deal with such matters?
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that there will be total transparency between NATO and the European Union in any European operation, but may I seek a further assurance? Will he use his every endeavour to ensure that the United Kingdom and all others who have pledged forces on paper during the past two or three days meet those commitments in reality?
Mr. Hoon: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. His implied criticism of the Conservative Opposition would have further force if it were not for the fact that, in government, they set in train the process of improving European defence capability, not simply in an EU context, but in the context of NATO and the EU through amendments to the Maastricht treaty to which they signed up. Former Conservative Ministers, now sitting on the Opposition Benches, agreed to that in the context of the Maastricht treaty.
What is important about the work in which we are engaged is the review mechanism. We need to ensure that those who offered forces offer forces of the right kind and the right quality that are capable of rapid deployment. That is a significant step forward in the operation of multinational organisations. In the past, we have not had an effective checking mechanism that has worked as we would have liked, but we are going to get that out of this process.
Mr. John Major (Huntingdon): Is the Secretary of State aware that on many strategic issues since the last election I have either supported the Government or remained silent, conscious of their mandate? I have always favoured European co-operation on defence, as did the last Government, but only and exclusively as the European arm of the NATO alliance. The present proposals are not the same as that; they are totally different and wholly mistaken. Can the Secretary of State not understand some of the dangers? Can he not understand that what is proposed has no military logic? It adds not one iota of additional capacity. It offers no secure chain of command and, in my judgment, it will undermine NATO. The danger is that it may weaken the United States' traditional commitment to Europe. The Americans may well say to themselves, "Why should we ever contribute troops in future to a European regional conflict when Europe boasts an army of 60,000 men?"
Equally dangerously, the Secretary of State might reflect that, over time, what is proposed may even begin to erode our security arrangements with the United States which the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary will know about, which have worked immeasurably to the advantage of the United Kingdom.
The fact is that this is a political proposal, and an unwise one. Those of us in the previous Government would not have made it. The Secretary of State and the Government know that. The right hon. Gentleman has tried to hide behind a grotesque distortion of our policy, which is not what I would have expected from him.
The proposal comes from the Prime Minister. Where is he? He should have been here. The Prime Minister has blundered into a misconceived political proposal that should never have been made. It is profoundly not in our national interest, and should be dropped without delay--even if to do so might embarrass the Prime Minister.
Mr. Hoon: I am sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman speak in those terms. When I first arrived in the House, I watched him--week in, week out, and month in, month out--struggle with the sort of people who now sit on the Tory Front Bench. They consistently opposed the right hon. Gentleman's policy on Europe.
We are talking about the Conservative party's obsessions with Europe. The right hon. Gentleman struggled manfully, week in and week out, with the very people who now speak for his party on Europe. I am sorry that he should argue that the policy on European defence for which he signed up involved only a European arm of NATO, as that is not what the Maastricht treaty says. He considered that treaty carefully, and I recall with some admiration how he took the House through its details.
Article J4 of the Maastricht treaty makes no reference to NATO and its European arm. It talks about the common foreign and security policy of the European
Union, and about the eventual framing of a common defence policy that might, in time, lead to common defence. The right hon. Member for Huntingdon signed up to that treaty, which contains no reference to NATO.The right hon. Gentleman made a second point about the headline goal, the purpose of which is to achieve extra military capability. The House has debated on a number of occasions the deficiencies of the Kosovo campaign. The key deficiency was that we were not able to get European forces into that theatre sufficiently quickly. The headline goal is all about improving that deficiency, and thereby improving European military capability.
Thirdly, as I said in my statement, the United States Administration, at every level, have consistently supported the proposals, and have said so. I am sorry that the former Prime Minister should wish to avoid the fact that every senior figure in the US supports what we are doing.
Mr. Kevin McNamara (Hull, North): I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. The Government are taking a constructive and wise course that represents the only way for European countries to co-operate properly to overcome some of the problems encountered in the Balkans and the occasional reluctance of the United States Government to intervene.
I have two questions for my right hon. Friend. First, the new structure will absorb many of the institutions and defence structures of the Western European Union. What will happen to the WEU's remaining obligations under the Brussels treaty?
Secondly, the new structure lacks provision for adequate international parliamentary scrutiny. The European Parliament cannot perform that scrutiny as not all the countries supplying troops will be EU members. However, national Parliaments will not be able to scrutinise matters properly either. How does my right hon. Friend propose to replace the Parliamentary Assembly of the WEU?
Mr. Speaker: Order. I appeal to hon. Members to be brief. I made that request at Prime Minister's questions, and this statement is no different.
Mr. Hoon: I thank my hon. Friend for his carefully thought out observations, but I disagree with him in one particular. National Parliaments will still have a significant role in assessing their Governments' contributions to any European-type operations. As I made clear, it will be for a British Prime Minister to decide whether British forces should be committed to a particular operation, even if that operation were to be led by the European Union. Quite rightly, therefore, the matter will still be one for debate in Parliament.
As for the Parliamentary Assembly and parliamentary scrutiny at the European level, those matters are for the parliamentarians themselves. The Government have made it quite clear that we would welcome suggestions on how such European scrutiny could be continued.
Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater): The Secretary of State has chosen an unusual way to try to lower the temperature on this issue. The extremely party political way in which he introduced the proposals has not been at all helpful.
Competing structures will be set up--whatever the apparent safeguards--and that is precisely why we did not agree in the past; my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) is right. The matter is even more grave at a time of serious overstretch in our forces--competing structures would be extremely damaging.The Secretary of State cites the present American Administration. Has he noticed that one gentleman-- Mr. Cheney--who knows as much about defence and the value of NATO as anybody and who may well be the next Vice-President, has expressed his serious concern about the proposal as a threat to NATO?
Mr. Hoon: The right hon. Gentleman uses the word "overstretch". I am disappointed to hear the word in this context, because I assume that he would not use it in the context of a commitment of forces to NATO or indeed to the United Nations--[Interruption.] I am being barracked from Conservative Front-Bench Members, who are shouting "over and above". The reality is that we have one set of forces whom we use once. As I made clear, it will thus always be the case that the British Prime Minister of the day will take a decision in the light of prevailing circumstances--that must include the demands on our armed forces at the time--as to whether we will participate in a particular operation. That is no different from the situation that would arise in relation to a NATO operation or if we were asked for support for a UN-led operation. The word "overstretch" has no relevance in this issue, because we do not have standing forces, waiting for a so-called Petersberg operation. Instead, we have a commitment that we can make them available, if we are able to do so at the time.
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