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Ms Squire: I have the statistics that I believe that the hon. Gentleman quoted in his speech to the UN congressional committee. They reveal that the proportion of the United Kingdom's gross domestic product spent on defence was 5.2 per cent. in 1985 and had been reduced
to 2.8 per cent. in 1997, which represents a cut of nearly 50 per cent. under his Government. Would he like to explain that to the House?
Mr. Duncan Smith: I know that it is easier for Labour Members to discuss what went on before the election because what they are doing now is so bad. The hon. Lady may really think that that cut was too great, but why are this Government cutting the figure even further? The figure that I quoted will be reduced dramatically by her Government's actions under the strategic defence review. That all adds up, but maybe she failed her maths.
I know that the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife was, in part, referring to the smart procurement programme. That programme concerns the way the Government will make significant savings that will allow them to make the net budget saving of some £600 million. Notwithstanding the optimism about that programme expressed by the Minister for the Armed Forces early in the summer, we later saw the premature move of a senior general who said that the planned defence savings from the smart procurement initiative would not be made on time.
We were promised that smart procurement would generate up to £2 billion in savings, whereas Lieutenant-General Sir Edmund Burton, a Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, was reported as saying that achieving the savings had proved to be a slow process. He is believed to have told civil servants that the big savings envisaged on the timings that were given were simply not possible. What was the Government's response? He found himself moving to another job rather sooner than he had anticipated. The sign of a Government in difficulty is that they try to deal with the messenger but do not deal with the message. The Government will be put under pressure by the costs that they must face up to because they will not make the necessary savings.
We may be facing a cut to the MOD's annual budget that is much greater than anticipated. Those savings are vital. As I said, the Treasury will be happy whatever happens because it has the money. The real point is how that cut, if it is worse even than the Government's official figure, will affect service families.
We know, for example, that far too many service families are living in sub-standard accommodation. I understand that some 30,000 MOD homes are now classed as sub-standard. There was to be an extensive refurbishment programme, but we now learn that the likelihood of its going ahead is about zero. The programme is about to be scrapped, and it appears that the reason may be money. Whether or not that is the case, the refurbishment programme for those homes was left in place by the previous Government; it has already begun to slip, and there is a question about whether it will go ahead at all.
The Sunday papers contained quotes from internal briefing papers produced by Vice-Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham. He said that the ambitious plans in the SDR and its supporting essays were in danger of coming to grief for want of resources, and concluded that, unless more resources were forthcoming, any pretence that we are putting people at the heart of our policy and that we have turned over a new leaf must be abandoned. The real issue is how the policy effects families.
In less than 18 months after the review set the financial position in stone, how can the MOD be having huge difficulty finding the money to sort out accommodation? That is a critical element of a policy for people.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar):
What about your policy of sales?
Mr. Duncan Smith:
Our policy had at its heart the refurbishment of the homes that this Government are going to curtail.
I discovered that, in Hohne, the German Government have refurbished a block of flats to house refugees. Our service men are now living in the next-door block in accommodation that is below the standard of that provided for the refugees. I have mentioned the problem of retention. When service men and women find the quality of their family life falling and falling, they can hardly be encouraged to remain in the armed forces.
There are other programmes, too. We are still waiting to discover when the Government will buy the short-term strategic heavy lift package that was originally anticipated. That seems to have been shelved.
Probably the single most desperate decision in the strategic defence review was to slash the Territorial Army by some 18,000 men. It goes without saying that those in the TA are bewildered. During a Remembrance day service the other day, they told me that they had never been in more need, that their signalmen are serving in Bosnia and Kosovo, and that some signal regiments could not meet at weekends because their equipment is being used by the Regulars in Kosovo and Bosnia. Some of the TA are needed in Kosovo and Bosnia, and are welcome out there with the Regulars. Yet, the Government seem to be making up policy on the TA as they go along. First, they cut the numbers. Then, before the ink has dried on the paper, they say that they might have to change the entire strategy behind the TA and perhaps deploy it as units due to problems of overstretch.
Then, with the armed forces under pressure and our service men and women spending less and less time with their families, what does our Foreign Secretary do? He signs a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations that says, "Don't worry because, ultimately, we can produce any level of armed forces that you require." It is a wonderful document. It says all sorts of things about units on 10 days' notice, naval logistic support, amphibious platforms and aircraft carriers--it goes on.
In a note at the bottom, the memorandum even says that only 10 days' notice is required for three strategic air transport heavy lift aircraft, yet we have not even bought them. That is the absurdity of what the Government are about. It is no wonder that the armed forces ask, "What is this all about?" It is no good the Government saying that such a document is a wish list because they have given an undertaking to the United Nations.
We have the ridiculous spectacle of the Government playing political games. They are saving money and putting pressure on our armed forces, yet, for political reasons, they take decisions that cost money. For example, the refit of HMS Spartan was condemned by the Defence Committee as not representing value for money, but the work went ahead--only two or three years before it will be taken out of service. In whose constituency did it
happen to be refitted? The Chancellor of the Exchequer just happened to get the project. Then, there was the transfer of the Army headquarters from York.
Ms Squire:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like to correct the hon. Gentleman. The fact is--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Lady must know by now that that is not a point of order.
Mr. Duncan Smith:
Through a boundary change, the Government managed to please both the Chancellor and a Labour Back Bencher and I am sure that that suits them very well.
Ms Squire:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Duncan Smith:
No, I am not giving way.
The hon. Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley), now the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, received an assurance about the transfer of Army headquarters all the way to Edinburgh. He was told by the Prime Minister that it was all about cost effectiveness and military expediency. However, a document written for the Government by Colonel Curran Snagge reveals that operational efficiency and cost effectiveness were not behind the move. In fact, we know that it was about helping the Government to fight the Scottish National party up in Scotland before the last election. For that, the Government used our service men and women and transferred them up to Scotland.
The biggest political nightmare that the Government have created is in Europe. I come to that subject at the end of my speech because it shows the nature of the Government: they care nothing about the armed forces, other than as a tool to further their own political ambitions. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe said, at the 1997 Amsterdam summit the Prime Minister said that Europe's defence should remain a matter for NATO, not the EU. That was apparently the Government's view until October 1998, when the Prime Minister made it clear that he was prepared to drop those long-standing objections.
At St. Malo and Cologne, the Government joined their European partners in moves to establish European military structures outside the NATO framework. There can be no doubt that there is a strong trend in Europe to create an independent EU defence capability as part of the drive towards a European superstate. Mr. Chirac said:
The evidence is clear. All the processes that were bound in at Cologne have given a voice to those who would have NATO divided and broken. The Government have said
one thing and done another: they started out saying that they loved the pound and believed in a defence policy based on NATO; yet, within two years, they have reversed both of those key policies. It is ridiculous for the Government to pretend that their current policy will strengthen NATO, when in fact it will weaken it. The worst part is that they have succeeded in giving power to those in Europe who would break NATO and those in America who would see their country isolated. That is the result of Government policy.
"European Union cannot fully exist until it possesses autonomous capacity for action in the area of defence".
At the time of St. Malo, even though the Government told the Americans not to worry because European defence would not go outside NATO, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said:
"the development of the European security and defence identity, another pillar of the process of European unification."
That is the reality. We hear the Government's soft words, but others believe that there is a different agenda.
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