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2.22 pm
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr. Adam Ingram) rose—
Mr. Paul Keetch (Hereford): Round 2.
Mr. Ingram: I can assure hon. Members that it will be longer than the first.
At a time when we have the achievements of our armed forces very much in our minds, it is right that the House should focus on the people who have served our country so well. That is why I welcome today's debate.
I intend to use today's debate to focus on how we support our forces in carrying out their difficult tasks. I intend to deal with equipment, personal kit and welfare support, all of which play a crucial role in helping the personnel in the field do their job. I also want to mention the programme of work that we have in hand to ensure that the armed forces are properly manned both today and in the future.
The skill, courage and professionalism of those men and women is not in doubt, and I know that the whole House will join me in paying tribute to their sterling work in Iraq and elsewhere. In recent years, we have asked a lot of them: in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and, of course, in Iraq. On every occasion, they have performed magnificently and to their usual high standards.
Most recently, in Iraq, we have again seen the commitment and fortitude of our armed forces in difficult circumstances, but progress has not been without cost. Thirty-seven UK personnel have died and more than 100 US personnel have lost their lives. I pay tribute to them and their sacrifice: giving up their lives so that we might live more safely in future, and giving up their lives for a better world. I also place on record my admiration of and gratitude to the families of those serving in the Gulf and elsewhere. Their support, in operations and at other times, is vital to our troops. Anything that undermines that support undermines the morale of our armed forces and endangers lives.
Although the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie) will say more on this subject in his winding-up speech, I should note that one or two very high-profile errors were made in the way that we console and provide for the families of those who died. That was wrong and I will not try to excuse it. I hope, however, that isolated mistakes will not detract from the efforts made for all the
bereaved, and the support that individuals have provided—and are continuing to provide—to the families who have suffered such tragic losses. I can assure the House that we make huge efforts to get this right, because when it goes wrong it affects us all.
Mr. Bob Blizzard (Waveney): As the nature of this debate suggests, our defence capability is only as good as the quality of our armed forces. Does the Minister agree that it is important not only to support our armed forces, and deal with the families, as he has described, but to recognise properly those who have fought in campaigns, risking—and in some cases giving—their lives? I therefore wholeheartedly welcome yesterday's announcement that the people—men and women—who fought in the Suez campaign in the early 1950s will now get the proper recognition that they have long deserved in the form of a medal. That long-standing injustice has been righted, and I congratulate the Government on listening to the campaign that I and other Members carried forward with the veterans—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman has made his point. I say again to the House that we should start this debate as we mean to go on, with short interventions when Members give way, and perhaps short answers, too.
Mr. Ingram: As usual, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will do my best.
The short answer is that I recognise the considerable work that my hon. Friend has been done on this issue, and I welcome his congratulation of the Government for our initiative in that regard. I also pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who had the direct responsibility for taking the issue forward. It was undoubtedly the right decision and has been welcomed not only in the community who have received those medals but more widely.
While the attention of the wider world has understandably been on Iraq, we must also remember the many thousands of our people doing equally good work elsewhere. In particular, we should continue to recognise the efforts of our armed forces here at home. In Northern Ireland, some 14,000 military personnel continue to act in support of the police. Over the years, the work of our armed forces has contributed to the more peaceful environment that now prevails. We should never forget that contribution, or the sacrifices made.
In addition, for the last 10 months, our armed forces have been asked to undertake a role for which they do not routinely prepare. I refer, of course, to the long-running dispute in the fire service, which I hope will soon be resolved. I would not deny that the need to stand up troops for firefighting duties was beginning to place progressive strain on our people and their ability to train and prepare for other tasks. The House will be aware of the reduced availability of our armed forces for firefighting announced over recent weeks by my right hon. Friends the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence.
None the less, it is Iraq that has been to the forefront of defence matters in recent months.
Angus Robertson (Moray): I want to pick up on the right hon. Gentleman's previous comment and the point
that he was about to raise: the fire service and Iraq. I am sure that he would also want to single out the work of the defence fire service at home and in Iraq, where they served with distinction in Basra, as they did in Kuwait. Has he reflected on the comment of one of the 30 DFS staff who returned from the Gulf recently, saying:
- "I am happy to do that kind of work under the MOD, but wouldn't be too sure if I had to do the same for a private company"?
Mr. Ingram: We have, of course, made no such decision. I should have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would recognise that we should always try to assess the best use of our resources, both financial and personnel. By making the right kind of judgments in the right kind of areas, we can release resources that meet our needs elsewhere. That is proper governance. Simply saying that everything is okay—that nothing needs to be fixed, examined or analysed—is living in a false world.
There is no doubt that the defence fire service makes a major contribution through its firefighting duties and made a superb contribution in Iraq, as it does in every conflict in which it finds itself. I have met members of the DFS and I know how strongly they feel about that. I have met the trade unionists on this issue and, as we move forward to a conclusion, all these factors will be taken into account when the decision is taken. The hon. Gentleman can sit in judgment on whether it was right or wrong when all the facts are known. However, I pay tribute to the members of the DFS for the role that they have played.
It would be wrong to discuss Iraq without touching on equipment and related matters. Without the right resources, our troops could not have performed as well as they did. Operations in Iraq, the first large-scale war-fighting conflict of the new millennium, have been a real test of our equipment and support systems. I would like to put into context the formidable effort that went into making that deployment a success. It was by far the largest deployment of UK armed forces since the 1991 Gulf conflict. We succeeded in deploying the same volume of personnel and matériel in just half the time taken in the earlier conflict, which is testament not only to our improved processes and equipment but to the commitment and hard work of men and women, military and civilian, throughout the logistics chain. They often work away from the limelight, but without them there would have been no victory, and I express my gratitude to them.
However, I cannot stand here today and deny that there were areas where our performance could be improved, or claim that everything went exactly to plan. Military conflict always leads to lessons being learned, and the best plans and predictions rarely survive the outbreak of hostilities. It is important that we capture and learn the lessons of this deployment and, more importantly, put in place solutions to avoid the recurrence of weaknesses. Hon. Members will know that we are in the early stages of a comprehensive and wide-ranging exercise to do just that. I do not intend to pre-empt any of its conclusions in this debate, but let me be clear about one thing: we will be rigorous in analysing
our performance and learning where we can do better. The Select Committee on Defence has commenced an inquiry into the same issues and I look forward, as I always do, to its detailed report and recommendations. It is important to note that in this area perhaps more than any other there is no room for politics to get in the way of progress. That is why we are taking this task seriously, and why we will welcome the Committee's independent analysis and conclusions.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): Will the inquiry pay particular attention to the reason why desert boots and mosquito nets apparently arrived much later than they should have done? Will it also look at how the logistics line can be improved, especially if there is to be a commitment in the swamps of the Congo?
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