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9.9 pm
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green): The debate has been lively. As it has not taken the usual form of a debate on the Gracious Speech, because it was split, with defence at the back end and foreign affairs at the front, I hope that the House will forgive me if I refer only to those Members who have spoken on defence; otherwise, we shall be here all night.
Many hon. Members made powerful comments and statements. Not least, the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), early in his speech, made a powerful reference to overstretch. I hope to discuss that subject shortly. He said that we were at the delicate point of trying to figure out whether things are doable within the budgets that have been set. I agree that there are considerable doubts about that.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), in a contribution that was short by most standards but no less powerful for that, spoke about the European defence initiative--a subject that I shall discuss later. He made some very clear points about what Strobe Talbott said, to try to place some of the issues, and the way in which they are observed from the United States, in context.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) spoke about the operations of the defence initiative within NATO, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), who spoke movingly about political correctness and the fact that, if allowed to travel too deeply into the psyche of the military, it will destroy their capability. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) also spoke about the defence initiative, and pointed out that it is heading outside NATO.
There were other speakers, too. I must mention the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Ms Squire), who referred to my comments in the United States. It is always good to have publicity. None the less, she did not agree with me, and I promise not to agree with her. On that basis, we can probably move on.
All in all, we have had a very good debate, as evidenced by many comments on foreign affairs, but those on defence went to the heart of some of the major problems that I wish to mention, such as overstretch, and the issues regarding the Government's policy on NATO and the European defence initiative.
I do not want to remember for long the experience of listening to the Foreign Secretary today. His speech was not especially good. He missed an opportunity to speak, in line with the Gracious Speech, about what the Government were going to do. Instead, he spent a huge chunk of his speech trying to guess what the Opposition might be doing. He sounded like a man whose greatest fear was the Opposition's return to power.
The Foreign Secretary made the accusation that, during the Kosovo saga, the Opposition had not supported early deployment into the surrounding region. [Interruption.] In the emergency debate on 11 February, the Opposition's position was made absolutely clear. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) said:
The new Secretary of State for Defence is now in his place for the first time. This is the first opportunity that either of us has had to debate defence. Defence is probably the most important subject of all--the most important requirement for any Government is the defence of the realm--and we have had no big defence debates in the past six or seven months. We lost two days of defence debates at the end of the last parliamentary Session. Apparently, we had time to discuss vellum, but not time to discuss the defence of the realm. I condemn the Government for that.
We also had no defence estimates, which are usually produced during the year. There has been no White Paper. We are still trying to figure out where the Government
are going. Perhaps we do not have a White Paper because the Government have not figured out where they are going, either. Yet, since the last Queen's Speech, our forces have been in new operations in the Gulf, in Kosovo and in East Timor, to mention but three locations. I hope that all hon. Members would agree that we owe our service men, not just in those operations but around the globe, a huge debt of gratitude for the dedication and professionalism with which they carry out their duties. I say that, not just as a politician, but as someone who, previously, in active service positions, had to do politicians' bidding. I know that service men cherish the support that they receive from politicians. I am sure that the House will join me in giving that support.
I do not want to dwell on what has happened in the past, but the House must consider carefully the strategic defence review, the underlying assumptions that were made when it was introduced and how and on what basis it is constructed. It goes without saying that two of my predecessors made the areas on which we agree--particularly the emphasis on power projection--quite clear. I do not intend to go into detail on that now, because that would simply be to repeat what my predecessors said.
The Secretary of State for Defence appeared to confirm in a recent GMTV interview that the assumptions made by his predecessor about the forecast level of commitments have not been borne out. Therefore, the whole basis on which the defence review was carried out when the Government took office has now collapsed. The problems associated with overstretch have created a crisis. The Government inherited a position that was, in itself, unsustainable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex said in his excellent speech, but they have turned a difficult position into a crisis. Changing the proportion of men on active service from 28 to 47 per cent. will create nothing less than that. Even their current efforts--laudable, it must be said--to reduce overstretch will not make it possible for our forces to sustain operations for a lengthy period.
The problem is not just about commitments. The Government have met some success with their recruiting initiatives, but retention remains singularly the biggest problem. The armed forces are losing far too many experienced people. Simply replacing them with inexperienced recruits will not help the problem; it will remain just as bad. Each month, we have a net loss of 100 men from the Army, which is the equivalent of two battalions a year. The armed forces face an internal crisis with their most experienced and best men and women leaving; their replacements will not make up the skills gap.
Part of the problem lies with the basis on which the strategic defence review was conceived. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex pointed out, the Government did not enter the review with an open mind. They entered the review process with the Treasury sitting on their shoulder and looking for a significant saving in the defence budget. At the last election, the Conservative Government made it absolutely clear that, if we were re-elected, we would ensure a period of stability and calm for the armed forces. There were no cuts laid down in our
figures and we would have seen the armed forces through the changes that had already been made.
The Government came in and initiated the strategic defence review. In essence, they have allowed for savings each year of £685 million from 2001-02. That has put huge pressures on the Army alone. As we have discovered, 18,000 men have been axed from the Territorial Army and many more will find their jobs in jeopardy. However, it is increasingly evident from the figures that the £685 million saving is frankly an optimistic assumption. In reality, in the coming years, even deeper cuts are likely to be imposed on the defence budget.
The Treasury will take--it has already got its hands on it--a real cut of nearly £1 billion in 2001. It will get its £1 billion regardless of what the Ministry of Defence does and any savings that it makes.
Mr. Soames:
Does my hon. Friend agree that the position is, in fact, worse than that? It is a saving not just of £600 million, but of £600 million plus 3 per cent. efficiency savings per annum, and those savings are not takeable.
Mr. Duncan Smith:
That is exactly the point that I am making. The Treasury has already got its hands on nearly £1 billion of savings a year. The Government put forward the figure of £600 million as the net saving, but, to achieve that net figure, savings have to be made through efficiency and on the procurement process, and the forces will have to make significant asset sales.
I shall deal first with asset sales, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex refers. The Public Accounts Committee has already warned the Department that it is selling off its assets far too slowly to meet its targets. The Chairman of that Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis) said:
"The Opposition support the Government in their attempts to find a peaceful solution to this protracted problem. We know that what the Secretary of State announced makes good military sense. It leaves many difficult issues for him and for us."--[Official Report, 11 February 1999; Vol. 325, c. 566.]
I hope that that puts the record straight, so that ludicrous comments are not made about what people are supposed to have said when clear statements were made at the Dispatch Box at the time.
"The financial contribution underpins operational planning. It must be realised or operational ability will be impaired".
In its inquiry into the strategic defence review, the Defence Committee said that
"we remain to be convinced of the realism"
of the projected levels of receipts from asset sales. The Government have published no figures on that. We have no idea how those sales are meant to proceed or whether they are achieving their targets, but we have a serious sense that there is something wrong with the estimates that were made.
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