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Mr. Hoon: The whole point of what I have been setting out to the House is to emphasise that our armed forces are better trained, better organised and better equipped than they have ever been in our history. I expect that, under this Government, that process will continue.
We need to use the resources we have to provide the best support to our armed forces. That is why the Ministry of Defence undertakes what amounts to a capabilities stocktake every year against our future plans. We examine the systems that we have, those that we have chosen to purchase and those that we may need in the future. The strategic environment changes rapidly, and we must make sure that our planning evolves with those changes. Like all Departments, the Ministry of Defence has only so much money to spend, and it must spend it effectively.
All Departments must also deal with fluctuating financial pressures and live within their budgets: the Ministry of Defence is no exception. Sometimes we have to pay a price for our success. For example, recruitment has been more successful this year than we had anticipated. That is good news, but it also affects the demands on the budget. We also have to manage significant exchange rate fluctuations, and this year there is the added complication of managing the impact of operating full resource accounting and budgeting for the first time. That may require some adjustments. The details are still being worked through, but they will not affect our overall strategic direction.
Patrick Mercer: If recruitment has been so successful this year, albeit that the Army in particular remains far behind its overall recruitment targets, why has it been capped for the next financial year?
Mr. Hoon: I know that the hon. Gentleman thinks carefully about these issues, but I have emphasised that we must not determine them simply by reference to numbers. I know that he listened carefully to what I said. The issue for the Army today is not the number of infantry battalions that we can deploy but the number of supporting, enabling forces that can allow infantry battalions to deploy when we need them. That is the emphasis that I would like to hear from him.
I have already praised the efforts of the Ministry of Defence's headquarters staff, both military personnel and civil servants.
Mr. Blunt: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Hoon: I have given way a great deal today, including to the hon. Gentleman. I need to reach a conclusion.
Headquarters staff must not rest on their laurels. The cranes and scaffolding around the Ministry of Defence's main building in Whitehall remind us that the modernisation drive will go right to the heart of our defence machine. Through the adoption of new working practices and a modern open-plan working environment, we will slim the number of people in our London head office by more than 15 per cent. Whether in the headquarters, in the civilian staffs or in the services themselves, it is people who will ultimately make the difference. Across the Ministry of Defence, therefore, we need people who have the skills and ability to deal with the range and complexity of modern operations. That will mean different manning requirements and different skill sets to meet the
changing environment. We will need to rebalance our force structures to ensure that the burden generated by the expected future operational tempo does not fall on certain individuals disproportionately, as it does too often today.
Mr. David Drew (Stroud): One thing that my right hon. Friend has not mentioned is the engagement of British forces under blue helmets for the United Nations. A group of us went to the Democratic Republic of the Congo last week, and we were able to meet the small contingent—only six members of the British Army—who were there as part of the organisational development of the country. With such small numbers, and given that the Government of the Congo are now asking for more troops, even though the UN has undertaken a huge exercise there, what pressures does that put on our Army officers? Clearly, they are irreplaceable, yet for all sorts of reasons we must move those people around. Would he care to comment on that?
Mr. Hoon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is right to draw attention to the considerable number of deployments in which British forces engage around the world at the request of the United Nations, NATO or, as we saw in the DRC, as part of an autonomous EU operation, which was very successful. Clearly, that creates pressures for our armed forces, but I know that he, like most Members, would want the United Kingdom to play its part in the world by supporting resolutions of the United Nations. Generally, the Ministry of Defence's most effective way of supporting them is to make forces available to ensure that those resolutions are carried through. That work will continue, but it imposes inevitable strains on Britain's armed forces that the Ministry of Defence and I must manage.
Our response to the future strategic environment will be based around flexible and ever more effective armed forces that are structured and equipped to deploy globally and at short notice. The range of tasks that they will need to perform will be broad—from peacekeeping, humanitarian and confidence-building operations through to counter-terrorism and high-intensity combat against a diverse set of potential opponents. They will also need to be able to operate in rapidly assembled but effective coalitions. Flexibility is absolutely the key word—flexibility of people, policy, structures and equipment. That means taking some difficult decisions, but that cannot be avoided if we are to maintain the United Kingdom's reputation for having some of the most outstanding armed forces anywhere in the world.
1.49 pm
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex): This debate comes at a crucial time, shortly before the Government's long-promised defence White Paper. The Secretary of State's speech was a softening-up exercise—an exercise in reducing our expectations or increasing our dread at what is likely to come. I hope that things will not be quite as bad as he suggests.
The Secretary of State's "get ready for cuts" speech even denied that we are short of infantry in the British Army. Can he justify the present level of infantry given that the average interval between tours is nine months
when it is meant to be 24 months? I believe that the Royal Scots regiment has just been in Northern Ireland, and it has just had an infantry tour gap of six months.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr. Adam Ingram) indicated dissent.
Mr. Jenkin: If that is completely wrong, perhaps the Minister will tell us the length of the tour gap when he winds up the debate. When one meets the commanding officers of infantry regiments, they make it clear that they are not getting the tour intervals that were promised in the strategic defence review.
This debate also takes place against the background of British servicemen and women serving around the world. Six months ago, British forces were committed to high-intensity combat operations in Iraq. In the past five years alone, they have been in combat in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan as well as Iraq. In Iraq, the security situation remains fragile. Our armed forces continue to do a brilliant job, coping with many extra tasks as a result of the Government's failure to plan effectively for the post-conflict phase. As well as providing security and military and police training, they are carrying out infrastructure and rebuilding tasks that maintain vital services to local people including water, electricity, basic health care and food. I join the Secretary of State in paying tribute to the armed forces and, in particular, to those who died in the conflict and since and to those who have sustained injury.
Iraq remains an extremely high-threat environment because of organised crime and terrorist groups operating from within and outside Iraq and because of remnants of the Ba'athist regime. Despite that, progress is being made and we harbour no doubts that it is in the national interest and in the interest of global security as a whole that the allies continue to work to bring forward mature and representative administration in Iraq that is capable of preventing a return to dictatorship and the terrorism of Saddam Hussein.
Questions remain, however. How long will British forces remain, and in what numbers? When will the Government succeed in persuading more nations such as Japan—which made an announcement yesterday—to join the peacekeeping and reconstruction effort that is so obviously in their interests as much as in ours? How much has it cost so far and how much more will we need to spend before the task is done?
Politicians of all parties owe it to our armed forces not to let them down as they face these challenges. This debate is about ensuring that the Government have a sound and sustainable defence policy. Therefore, it is the right time—five years on from the strategic defence review—to look at the fundamental elements of the United Kingdom's defence policy. It is time to assess how the Government measure up to the challenge and, indeed, how they measure up to the challenge that they set themselves in the strategic defence review. Do they have a credible long-term defence policy? Finally, what are the implications of changes in Government policy with regard to European Union defence? In reality, do they want to have a sovereign British defence and security policy at all in the long term?
There is little disagreement between us and the Government about the overall mission for defence policy. I can agree with much of what the Secretary of
State has said today. The mission must be to protect the United Kingdom and overseas territories from military threats and terrorism, to safeguard the national interests of the UK wherever they are threatened and to contribute to global peace and security.We are confronted by three main threats: terrorism, both internal and external; the threat of ballistic missile proliferation; and the possibility, which we can never remove, of an attack by a foreign power on the UK, the UK's dependent territories or our allies. We also face the challenges of organised crime, and our armed forces have a role in dealing with civil crises. Rogue states, weapons proliferation and international terrorism are the new threats in the post-cold war world.
On 31 May 2003, President Bush announced the establishment of the proliferation security initiative, which is also known as the Madrid initiative. It would result in the creation of international agreements allowing the United States and its allies, including the UK, to intercept ships and aircraft suspected of transporting illicit weapons, missile technology and suspect cargo. The most immediate target for the initiative is obviously North Korea, and we fully support the UK's participation in it.
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