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3.2 pm
Mr. John Smith (Vale of Glamorgan): I welcome the opportunity to make a small contribution to this important debate. It is more or less five years since the publication of the strategic defence review, and today gives us a chance to assess the effectiveness of what was a very important document and a very successful strategy. I say that because, at the end of the day, the best test of Government policy is in its delivery. In the five years since the production of that radical new approach to defence in this country, British forces have done an absolutely outstanding job overseas in completely different theatres. Confronted with completely different security environments, they have in every case successfully achieved their military objectives. We need not argue about this too much—our forces are doing a splendid job throughout the world. But let us make no mistake: there are problems and issues that need to be addressed.
The SDR has been such a success that it is used as a model by other nations, in Europe and elsewhere, for reforming their military. I know that that is so because I have the privilege of being a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and of the defence sub-committee, which examines the future military capability of NATO's existing and forthcoming members. We travel to those countries, and they tell us repeatedly that the policy document that they choose to use to confront the new world security environment is
the British SDR. Combined with our military advisers in those countries, we are assisting almost all the aspirant members with their military action plans to qualify them militarily for NATO membership. What better tribute could any Government be paid than for their policy to be adopted by others?I had the privilege of attending the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Edinburgh, at which the former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Wesley Clark, held up the British document and said, "This is the way forward not just for new NATO members, but for our European allies." That is why I must question the complete disapproval of the European security and defence policy on the part of the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin). The truth is that the ESDP will enhance, not undermine, the NATO alliance. He talked about duplicating military capability but that is nonsense, because such capability does not exist in most European allied countries, only one of which has any war-fighting capability. The Americans' biggest concern about the future success of NATO is its members' ability to pull their weight and deliver that military capability.
Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman is confused. I favour additional European capability, but the ESDP has produced not one extra bullet or lick of paint. In fact, it has probably used up defence resources that would otherwise have been spent on armed forces capability on extra headquarters and structures. The point is that the duplication of NATO planning and assets does not enhance capability; indeed, nothing could be clearer. Can he point to anything that the ESDP has created, in terms of capability?
Mr. Smith: I can point to one thing: all NATO members, including Canada and the United States, and all NATO parliamentarians, unanimously supported the ESDP, because it gives us a better chance of forcing our European allies to deliver a capability that they do not currently possess. The tragedy is that Her Majesty's Opposition—the Conservative party, which once could have been called the party of defence—are so preoccupied with Europe that they are prepared to sacrifice that capability to get on the Euro-bashing bandwagon. That is dangerous militarily.
Mr. Jenkin: When the Prime Minister came back from launching the ESDP at St. Malo four years ago, the excuse given for it was that it was the only way to encourage European nations to contribute to additional defence capability. During those four years, defence spending in the European Union has continued to decline. Only France and Britain have marginally increased their defence spending, France rather more so than Britain; all the other EU countries have continued to reduce their defence spending, so the hon. Gentleman's policy is not working.
Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman does not understand the arguments. There are two issues, one of which is defence expenditure. I agree entirely that it is a mistake for our European allies to cut their defence expenditure, given the increasingly dangerous environment that we find ourselves in. But the second and more important issue is how their existing expenditure is spent, and the
point that the hon. Gentleman misses is that it is not spent on NATO-compatible capabilities. We want the money that they already have to be spent properly, although I agree that it should not be cut further.Although it offers no guarantees, the ESDP gives us an opportunity to persuade our European allies to develop a capability that they do not currently possess, and which will enhance NATO. The biggest threat to NATO is the gap that is appearing between north America and Europe in military technology and capability. The biggest supporters of the ESDP are the American military. They were the first to recognise it, and if the hon. Gentleman has not visited the Pentagon recently, I suggest that he do so to confirm that fact.
I also pay tribute to this Government's successful defence policy in the light of the appalling mess that they inherited in 1997. We had witnessed the biggest real-terms cut in defence expenditure that this country had experienced in its entire history, including the 1930s. We saw nearly one third of the defence budget cut in real terms over a 10-year period.
Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk): The hon. Gentleman customarily speaks with great sincerity on this subject, but when I was a special adviser in the Ministry of Defence from 1988 to 1990, when we were moving on from the cold war into the new era, I do not recall him or any of his hon. Friends, then in opposition, asking us either to increase or even keep defence expenditure at its then current levels. If anything, they were asking for a greater peace dividend.
Mr. Smith: I certainly would have called for increases, but the hon. Gentleman should be aware that I was not a Member of Parliament at that time. If I had been, I can assure him—I am almost certain—that I would have asked for an increase. In a sense, it was not the scale of the cuts that was so damaging, but the way in which the cuts were carried out. The reality is that, by the mid and later 1990s, we were left with dangerous capability gaps. There was virtually no heavy lift capacity whatever for the expeditionary force, virtually no medical support for the British services, because it had been decimated in that period, and virtually no second line of logistics for the entire British forces. The gaps in military capability were dangerous, and the strategic defence review has managed successfully, in a relatively short time, to fill many of those gaps—although I would be the first to say that there is still a long way to go.
Llew Smith: Would my hon. Friend have agreed to one cut—the £15 billion that has been, and is still being, wasted on Trident? If he is in favour of nuclear weapons, in what circumstances would he agree to their use? If they are used, what benefits would they bring to the people?
Mr. Smith: I have to tell my hon. Friend that, as he knows, I have never been a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I have always supported a minimum deterrent, which is why I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for North Essex advocate, as the top priority for Conservative defence policy in the UK, renewal of the whole Trident and nuclear programme—at what price tag, I do not know. It should not be our top priority, because all the major nuclear powers are
reducing their arsenals dramatically. George W. Bush has reduced the number of operational nuclear warheads in the US from 18,000 to 6,000. As an ex-serviceman and strong supporter of defence, I support that strategy of minimising—and, I hope, one day, eradicating—nuclear weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.Our security environment changes daily. It has changed dramatically since the strategic defence review, and the changes—not least the events of 11 September—have highlighted weaknesses in that review. I believe that 11 September represents the single largest and most menacing change in the security environment, and the most difficult one to address. We now need even more agility, mobility and flexibility, we need further reach throughout the world, and we need to confront many more scenarios than we could have imagined previously.
Just yesterday, we saw the great achievement of the Chinese—I do not want to sound churlish about it—in putting a space man into orbit 14 times around the earth. What does that mean in security terms? It tells the rest of the world immediately that the Chinese have now developed, without any shadow of doubt, a global capability, when we have assumed for the past 50 years that they had only a regional capability. The purpose of a defence strategy is not to address the actual threats, but the potential threats throughout the world, and to develop our limited resources in the best way possible to meet those threats. The strategic defence review has achieved an enormous amount in that respect, but it has not achieved enough.
I pay tribute to the Government for the biggest single increase in defence expenditure announced in the last 20 years, and I hope for further increases in the years to come. That is not because I am a warmonger, or because I want to encourage conflict anywhere in the world, but because I believe that an increased defence budget can be a force for good throughout the world. Investment in the right sort of military equipment will reduce the loss of life in the world.
We saw that clearly in Iraq. The doom-and-gloom mongers talked about hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians dying as a result of the conflict, but that did not happen. One of the most important reasons why it did not happen in 2003 when it did happen in 1991 was the technical sophistication of the equipment used by the allies when they went into Iraq.
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