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7.54 pm
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex): I endorse much of what the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) said, especially about reaching a more sensible accommodation with Russia. Many of us spoke about that at the end of the Kosovo conflict. It is crucial to our country.
The Foreign Secretary's speech today was an atrocious response to the Loyal Address. It was one of the worst speeches by a Foreign Secretary that I have heard in 16 years in the House. He did not mention China's signing of a World Trade Organisation agreement with the United States; there was not a word about India--although the Foreign Secretary cannot have happy memories of that country--and nothing about the Gulf. He paid a chippy and insincere tribute to the Foreign Office, which I remember him caricaturing as being full of old Etonians dressed in pinstripe suits. He made a caricature of one of the finest diplomatic services in the world. From the Conservative Benches, I pay a genuine and warm tribute to the work of the diplomatic service in the past year. Wherever I go, I find people of extraordinarily high quality who do a remarkable job for our country.
Foreign policy requires clarity and confidence at home among the public and the media. The Government have neither. The so-called ethical foreign policy is a sham. Lord Carrington brilliantly describes it in The Daily Telegraph today as
I want to speak briefly on defence matters, but not on strategy, about which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon
(Sir P. Emery) spoke. I shall speak about simpler matters. As a former Minister for the Armed Forces, who misses his previous job every day, I pay a warm tribute to service families, wherever they are. I know that the Secretary of State will want to do that, too. He will understand that undermanning and overstretch--which is much worse than when we were in power--in all three services impose significant strain on services wives and their children. By simply keeping the home fires burning, they give their menfolk in the field an important morale boost.
Despite the recent glossy "brochette" that has been distributed to the forces, not enough is being done for service families, given the parlous position of many of them. Families who return from overseas experience difficulties in getting the help that they need. There are housing difficulties, which are largely caused by lack of money; medical lists are often full, and service families experience problems in getting their children into the schools that they choose. The Secretary of State must deal with those issues as a matter of urgency.
When I was Minister for the Armed Forces, I failed to do something that I would like the Secretary of State to try to achieve. He should make it the convention that a service man who leaves the armed forces, returns to the town where he was born--should he go back there to live--and has been on the housing list before will automatically, with his family, go to the top of that list. That, surely, is the least consideration that we can give to our soldiers, sailors and airmen. The right hon. Gentleman should not employ consultants to tell him what to do, but should sit down and have a good, hard think about that and come up with some bold and original activity.
The strategic defence review promised a great deal but, as the right hon. Gentleman knows because he is trying to find a solution, it is already out of date. It was always going to be so; none of us in the House has ever yet seen the entirely fictional foreign policy baseline that was meant to be the guide of the SDR. Anyone who has worked in the Ministry of Defence knows perfectly well that the SDR was run by the MOD with the Treasury sitting on both its shoulders. As the Treasury works for the Russians, the result was entirely predictable. The problems that he has had to deal with are exactly the same as I had to deal with--recruiting, retention and commitments. The result of the SDR is that all three services are grossly overcommitted, seriously undermanned and very seriously underfunded.
The folly of the scaling down of the Territorial Army is brutally exposed every day but, on money, the Secretary of State must stand firm. He has the confidence of the armed forces because they believe that he has the ear of the Prime Minister and they will expect him to fight most vigorously for the extra resources that they need. It is now widely known that the financial situation at the MOD is desperate. Those of us who saw Admiral Blackham's memorandum, which was leaked to The Daily Telegraph at the weekend, know that that is the case. Further financial resources must be found. I say this to the Prime Minister: the services delivered for him; he must deliver for them.
On a personnel matter, I want to discuss ethos and political correctness in the armed forces. It has always been accepted--I hope that the Defence Secretary will understand this--that when someone joins the Army he chooses to abdicate certain liberties. The circumstances of military life are not, and cannot be, the same as those of
civilian life. A high standard of personal conduct, respect for the law, teamwork, cohesion, trust, a highly developed sense of duty and obligation and real integrity are required. The problem is that those qualities are not immediately recognised outside the armed forces. It is encouraging, however, that the comradeship, team spirit, loyalty, patriotism and the emotional, intellectual and moral qualities that lead people to put their lives on the line are still hugely admired when people bother to think about them for a moment.
What sets the Army apart from all other institutions are the generally exceptional qualities of its leadership, but there will be real difficulties in maintaining that for the future. Potential officers will come from a British way of life that is in general intelligent, but rather unbiddable; acquisitive to the verge of selfishness; unfit; agnostic theologically and probably militarily; short-term; and inclined to immobility. Those officers will have to be converted into fit, resilient and inspirational young leaders who will accept discipline, danger, discomfort and separation and can lead in peace--and, most importantly, in adversity--with high professionalism, panache, a sense of fun and real understanding of the people they command.
Mr. Tony Worthington (Clydebank and Milngavie):
Everybody agrees with the tribute paid to the defence forces by the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames). I should however like to correct something that he said--he probably missed this point during one of his lunch hours: the Treasury no longer works for the Russians and it has changed since his day.
I particularly want to commend the Government for the proposal to take steps to ratify the establishment of an International Criminal Court, which is an important move forward. It will fill a yawning gap in international provision that has been present since the setting up of the United Nations itself. We have to bring law, order and justice to the regulation of such important international affairs as genocide. The perceived need for an international court grows and grows. Not only trade, but knowledge of the atrocities committed in places such as Rwanda, East Timor and Kosovo has been globalised. The demand for action from an International Criminal Court is present because we know what is going on, wherever in the world it is taking place, and we learn about such crimes through means that were not available in the past. We can no longer rely on ad hoc provisions such as those for Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia. We need to
establish an International Criminal Court with respected powers and procedures, and it needs to demonstrate quickly that it is a big hitter so that people such as Karadzic, Mladic and Milosevic know that they are not safe. We need such a court not only to deal with present atrocities, but to send a clear message for the future that we have to move on this issue.
I particularly welcome the fact that the election of the new British Government gave a strong boost to those who have worked so long for the establishment of an International Criminal Court, but there are flaws in the proposal and I hope that the Minister--either today or in writing--can give us the assurance that it will be improved. First, and most importantly, it is crucial that the prosecutor be genuinely independent. Unless he can act on his own initiative and not be subject to the control of the Security Council or anyone else, we will not be able to have full faith in the court. No one must be above the law.
I shall give a current example. All legislation passed by the House has to be tested against the European convention on human rights. We in Scotland have been bitten by the ECHR because a judgment has been made that the practice of appointing a large number of temporary sheriffs, which grew up under the previous Administration and continued under this one, infringes the ECHR. It was not possible to show that the judges were separate, or distant, from the Government. That judgment has to be taken seriously, but we are considering the establishment of an International Criminal Court, and the decision whether or not to take an initiative may be subject to global politics and the make-up of the Security Council. We must consider that issue.
We must also consider the provision, which was inserted by a group of nations at a late stage during the proceedings on the ICC, that a nation could be immune from action by the ICC for seven years. That just gives the go-ahead to those who commit genocide. Justice has to be rapid and it has to be done when memories are fresh. If there is a seven-year immunity, it will be a wrecking clause in respect of the carrying out of such justice.
I would like an assurance from the Government that they are working hard on the proposals for the ICC with those important nations that have not yet signed and ratified the treaty. We must have China, India and Israel on board, but above all we must have the United States.
Much has been said today about the United States. I am one of those who want the United States to be fully on board: we must not give way to the isolationist tendencies in the US that would seek to take it out of international relations. I am thinking of the republican right wing--the moral majority, as it would call itself, although I do not agree--which seeks to undermine the deal that was done in Cologne, and the deal that was done with the International Monetary Fund in Washington with regard to debt. It approved only half that deal last week. I am also thinking of those who say, "The United States can pay its dues to the United Nations, as long as the family-planning activities of the United Nations Family Planning Association are scrapped". We must involve the United States--or, at any rate, those elements that recognise their international duties, and do not want the US to fall into the hands of the republican right wing.
I welcome the steps that have been taken to inject an ethical dimension into foreign policy, but I do not mean "ethical dimension" simply in the sense in which we have referred to it tonight. I am also talking about trade policy, and the World Trade Organisation. I welcome the statement made in this morning's Guardian by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development that it was necessary to
"Cant, hypocrisy and double standards".
The high-flown socialist sentiment has not translated into credible or practical foreign policy. If the Secretary of State for Defence could spare a minute from his lighthearted conversation on the Front Bench, he would hear me warn him that he is in grave danger of undermining the competence and authority of NATO. If he has read the violently anti-American speeches that President Chirac and Mr. Jospin made recently, he will realise that we are in dangerous waters. The Government use defence as a European bargaining chip. One of our greatest national assets is being used as a pawn in a European game. I warn the Secretary of State for Defence that he must ensure that it is not squandered on some squalid French deal.
"make the next trade round a development round".
She said that we needed
"an agreement to discuss a broad based round, then we can organise to support real gains for the poor."
That is what makes reality of an ethical foreign policy--when what people eat, and their ability to sell their goods, are looked after by powerful countries that can ensure that the terms of trade are fair.
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