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22 Jan 2003 : Column 386—continued
Mr. Joyce: Can I take it from what my hon. Friend just said that if there were a new UN resolution, she would agree with subsequent military action?
Glenda Jackson: As I have always argued, if the evidence is presented to the United Nations that Saddam Hussein indeed has weapons of mass destruction, it would certainly be for the Security Council to place a second mandate on the table and to begin to define the parameters of any military action against Iraq. Let no one be in any doubt: if the United Kingdom and the United States, without a second mandate from the UN, engage in a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, the people who will die will not be military forces. They will be men, women, children, the elderly and the ill—all civilians. The engagement of ground forces, as the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) pointed out in his thoughtful contribution, will essentially be for the taking of Baghdad. By that time, I repeat that in my interpretation Saddam Hussein will be long gone; he will be in another country, and, as I have had occasion to say previously in this House, he will act as a focus for undermining any kind of Government that either a combination of the United States and the United Kingdom or the wider United Nations attempt to impose.
I also find totally unacceptable—and this has its own dangers at home—the Government's attempts to link Saddam Hussein with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The most recent example of that was in the statement by the Foreign Secretary yesterday on the most recent Security Council meeting. I freely admit that I paraphrase, but he said that the most overwhelming danger facing the United Kingdom was from international terrorism and rogue states. He went on to say that the most dangerous international terrorist was Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and the most aggressive rogue state was Iraq and Saddam Hussein, despite the fact that he and the Prime Minister have said on the Floor of the House that there is no evidence linking Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. How could there be? They are miles apart philosophically. Their avowed aims are entirely different. One wishes to maintain a secular dictatorship, while Osama bin Laden wishes to see a fundamentalist religious Islam take over the world.
Mr. Hendrick: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Glenda Jackson: I beg my hon. Friend's pardon. He also cannot recognise men from women.
Mr. Hendrick: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does she not also remember the Foreign Secretary referring to Hezbollah and Hamas as international terrorists that may be supported by the regime in Baghdad?
Glenda Jackson: There is no question but that Saddam Hussein supports Hamas. He supports it by funding the families of suicide bombers, which no one would support or endorse, but that is not the point that I am attempting to make. What the Government have attempted to do is to convince the British people—for whom my admiration goes up in leaps and bounds, as the Government have significantly failed to convince them—that the need for a war in Iraq has nothing really to do with whether Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction but that it must be a central and essential part of the Government's fight against international terrorism and the defeat of international terrorism.
We saw yesterday a mass lobby of people protesting outside the House that there should be no war against Iraq without evidence and a mandate from the United Nations. That protest, which included every age group and, I would argue, every economic group, was a simple request to the Government to think again. The Government have not convinced the people of this country of the rightness or justness of a war against Iraq. I am deeply ashamed that my Government—a Labour Government—should consider for a second a pre-emptive strike against another nation state that is offering no real, immediate and present danger to this country or, I would argue, to our allies. My admiration for the British people goes up by leaps and bounds because of the way in which they have not been convinced by arguments from the British Government that essentially attempt to delude and, in some instances, to deceive.
I spoke earlier of what I regard as the British Government's dangerous policy on this issue. Their insistence that there is a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda has caused concerned about terrorists being in this country. The risk has certainly been inflated by the press, and that is having a knock-on effect on race relations. The most immediate alleged terrorist attack in this country, which was prosecuted with desperate success, was carried out using a kitchen knife. The argument that terrorists are holed up in this country—the example has been given of the minute amounts of ricin that were discovered in Wood Green—bears absolutely no relation to reality. One can get a recipe to create ricin and other weapons off the internet—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order.
5.51 pm
Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater): I want to consider not only the issue of Iraq, but that of procurement.
I joined the Territorial Army in 1979, and what has changed since then? The boots fell to bits, the uniform did not fit—the trousers were especially renowned for falling to bits—and anyone who could get the helmet to stay on was doing better than most. The radios were old and did not work. The one good thing that we had was a rifle, but that had had all its teething problems 20 years earlier.
Where have we now got to on procurement? We can get an army to the front line and get it ready to do its job, but if we do not equip it and do not provide information and back-up, such as the material that people are developing at home, it will not achieve anything. I have an enormous amount of sympathy for the troops who go overseas and who say that their kit is not up to the job. I certainly remember buying kit; we always used to. That was a normal part of being a soldier. We bought an early version of Gortex and sleeping bags that did not leak. On occasions, we bought our own helmets because they would fit and would not give us headaches after we had worn them for 12 or 13 hours.
We had a debate last July on defence procurement. Where have we got to all these months later when we are deploying British troops overseas? The Defence Procurement Agency has an annual budget of £6 billion; it is the single biggest purchaser of manufactured goods in the United Kingdom. At any one time, it is has 4,300 staff managing about 13,000 contracts. They purchase everything from field radios to submarines, and they are responsible for getting what the military needs to the front line and in good order and ready to go.
There are always delays in supplying the equipment, and we have faced that problem for years and, I suspect, for generations. For example, if one's radio switches itself off after a burst of fire or after an explosion, one is in real trouble, but we are not yet ready to supply the new radios to our forces. The Hercules transport aircraft is late and we all know that the Apache attack helicopters are in garages. The Merlin HC3 support helicopter still faces problems. In the past year, the agency has delivered equipment worth £3.5 billion, but it has slipped on the delivery of 40 per cent. of that. We cannot continue to have such problems because, if we do, we may encounter other problems of which we are not yet aware.
The total budget in Europe for defence procurement is £95 billion and Lord Robertson, the Secretary-General of NATO, has said that
- "the public is not getting value for money."
- "There are two million troops in uniform in Europe, half a million more than the Americans, but only a fraction"
The US Arms Export Control Act says at the outset:
- "In furtherance to world peace and the security and foreign policy of the United States, the President is authorised to control the import and export of defense articles and defense services and to provide foreign policy guidance to the persons of the United States"
However, BAE Systems has taken on a contract for the biggest armaments factory in the world. It is in Tennessee, and it may well move the manufacture of the explosive and bullet capacity of our shells and ammunition there. If such production is not in line with American foreign policy, the President can stop any country, friend or foe, getting hold of those goods. I accept that some countries do not have a great record on exporting arms, but what if we were to do another Suez and the Americans were unhappy with our involvement in that part of the world? They could stop us getting ammunition—the propellant and the rest of it—because BAE Systems has been given millions by the American military to upgrade the plant in Tennessee. That is not right. British troops should be supplied with British equipment. If we break the security of supply, we will have to depend on people who may not always be friendly to us and our aspirations, now or in the future. We would have a major problem if an American President decided to cut off our supply on a whim.
Procurement also starts at home. I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Defence is in the Chamber because I received a letter from him on 15 January. The Ministry lost 20 anti-tank missiles in the Bristol channel. Perhaps that is carelessness or just something that happens, but the letter says that the final report is classified. Why is the report on equipment that has been accidentally lost classified? Perhaps the Under-Secretary can give us a clue. I signed the Official Secrets Act when I joined the military and, as far as I am aware,
I am still bound by it. Why is it not possible for me to find out what happened to anti-tank missiles that are slopping around in a puddle of water?The BAE Systems contract for the carriers is vital. We should not allow the French to have it for the simple reason that we will not get anything from them to build in return. BAE Systems is a British contractor. It is owned by the British and, I hope, will continue to be so. We cannot give away contracts of that size and complexity when we have no guarantee of getting anything in return. Surely the art of trade is being able to trade; it is not about giving things away.
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