| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
3.4 pm
Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk): I begin by noting that some Members on the Government Benches may be slightly distracted by events beyond the Chamber. I am glad to see both Ministers in their places, and I hope that we shall still see them there at the end of the debate. Thinking about Cabinet reshuffles, I am reminded that in 1942 Mr. Winston Churchill, as he then was, had to have a major reshuffle because of a series of unfortunate events—the fall of Singapore, the escape of two German warships and disasters in north Africa. The then Secretary of State for War, David Margesson, was working in the War Office when his permanent secretary came to tell him the bad news that he had been sacked. Margesson said, "Right, who is to succeed me?", and P. J. Grigg, his permanent secretary, said, "Actually, it's me." That does not happen nowadays, of course: we know only too well that the person who knows when a Minister is on the move is not his permanent secretary, but his driver.
Much of what the Minister said can be warmly welcomed on all sides. We all congratulate our armed forces on their outstanding role in recent military operations in Iraq and their continuing role there. That applies not only to the military but to the Ministry of Defence civilians in support. As the Minister said, the deployment took place against the background of the usual training commitments, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and stand-by duty for the firemen's dispute. Our armed forces appear to be one of the few public sector groups upon whom the Prime Minister relies to deliver every time, despite very many constraints. The irony is that although they frequently protest about shortages in budgets, equipment and weapons, they deliver, which leads the Treasury to believe that they were crying wolf about those shortages. I hope that we are never in a position whereby they fail to deliver and the Treasury is thus proved wrong.
That ability to deliver and to move seamlessly from war fighting to humanitarian aid—that great flexibility and can-do mentality—is due mainly to the professionalism, culture and experience of the men and women of our regular armed forces and their volunteer reservists. They are not perfect, because they are a mirror of society. There are disciplinary problems, as in the rest of British society. However, as we all know, few armed forces can move so seamlessly from war fighting to humanitarian aid. As Ministers understand, that professionalism cannot be created overnight and, once lost, takes decades, rather than years, to recreate. We can all agree that one of the priceless assets of the Ministry of Defence is the men and women of our armed forces. Over the past decade, the MOD has argued for capability-led armed forces. People sometimes seem to believe that that refers merely to weapons systems. As we rightly move into developing network-capable armed forces, we must realise that that does not only involve a step change in technology and systems: the people still play a crucial role, and without them network capability will not happen.
Operation Telic was a success and showed the strength of the United Kingdom armed forces, but as the Minister said—I welcome his honesty—it also highlighted weaknesses. Some of those were due to the nature of the operation, but others, I have to say, were due to resource constraints and, at times, failures in departmental and Government policy. One of the jobs of the Opposition—and, indeed, all hon. Members—is to raise those points, but not in a carping way. Given that the Ministry of Defence is undertaking a review in the summer, hon. Members should raise the points so that errors are corrected.
Before I deal with those matters, I want to comment briefly on intelligence and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Although the Ministry of Defence is not the lead player in the intelligence game, it has an important role. The Minister was drawn by an interviewer on "Today" in relation to what became a notorious time factor with regard to the Iraqis' ability to launch weapons of mass destruction. I suspect that that caused the Government some embarrassment. I do not blame the Minister; the problems lay beyond his responsibility. The crucial point is that intelligence and the way in which it was handled is at the core of the Government's current embarrassment over Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. It is no good the Government trying to
believe that that is something that specific journalists or disaffected members of the intelligence community have made up.Most of us understand the problems of gathering, interpreting and using intelligence. However, the Government—perhaps for good reasons—stretched the intelligence to persuade the public and Members of Parliament about the nature of the threat. Once that is done and it has been decided—as the Leader of the House did—to talk about rogue elements in intelligence, the intelligence community is undermined. I say no more, but it is crucial for the Government to move away from that position. I place on record our appreciation of the work of the men and women in the defence intelligence community. In comparison with their colleagues in the other two intelligence organisations, they are not often mentioned.
When the Minister winds up, I ask him to say a little more about the outstanding cases involving disciplinary action and any matters that might be regarded as war crimes. I do not ask him for specific, detailed information, but hon. Members would like to know the number of outstanding cases and when he expects them to be resolved. Will he also comment on the impact of any future decisions by the International Criminal Court? Despite the full backing of the British Government and the views of British Government lawyers, several middle and senior ranking officers feel vulnerable.
Conservative Members believe that the welfare package is crucial to maintaining the morale of our armed forces and their families. However, we must also consider the impact of the constraints of the defence budget, the way in which people are organised and their tours of operation carried out on morale and decisions to stay in the armed forces. Too often, we misuse the word "overstretch". The 1998 strategic defence review described it as
- "trying to do too much with too little manpower."
We can bandy about figures about the number of men and women, and the amount of trained manpower that is available. However, most objective observers and our people in the armed forces are only too conscious that the nature of operations, the problems of recruiting and retention and cutbacks mean that overstretch continues to exist and is likely, perhaps even despite the Government's best efforts, to get worse. The previous and the current Chiefs of the Defence Staff flagged that up.
The recently retired former Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, spoke about further international commitments before the recent commitment to the Congo. He said:
- "If you asked us to go into a large-scale operation in 2004, we couldn't do it without serious pain. We must allow ourselves time to draw breath. If it was to be something of the scale that we have done this time, it would have to be something that the government is convinced is pretty important because I would tell them it would take a while to recuperate."
Our military will do as it is told. The armed forces will argue strongly but if Ministers tell them to do something, they will get on with it. I suspect that there will be a continuing problem, given that our foreign and security policy is one of expeditionary force intervention for war fighting or humanitarian aid. What would happen if a major unforeseen crisis occurred in the next six months? It would cause the Government considerable problems.
Let us consider recruitment and retention. All Ministry of Defence surveys on the attitudes of serving members of the armed forces highlight continuing operations, the frequency of tours of duties and the narrowing gap between such tours as the greatest cause of dissatisfaction. Again, the Government have tried to deal with that, but the nature and circumstances of operations, the problems of having sufficient troops to deploy and the fact that many operations are concurrent mean that the difficulties will get worse. Ministers have to try to square the circle. Do they hope that they can increase the amount of available manpower for direct operations and the sort of service that was required to deal with the fireman's strike? Will they have to advise the Prime Minister that it may not be possible to undertake operations in future and that there may have to be a series of priorities?
Patrick Mercer: In an earlier intervention, my hon. Friend quoted a Ministry of Defence spokesperson in the East Anglian Daily Times. The spokesperson said:
- "There may well be units to be disbanded, but it's not been finalised."
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |