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Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh) (Lab): Like some hon. Members in the Chamber this afternoon, including the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed), I was opposed to the war in Iraq. I was one of the 219 Members of the House of Commons who last March concluded that the case for war against Iraq had not been established, especially given the absence of specific UN authorisation. However, that is not to say that I do not recognise the arguments of those who, like the Government and the official Opposition, supported the military action.

I understand and respect the position of people who take a pacifist approach to international politics. I also understand and respect those who adopt an isolationist position, but I have never been a pacifist and I am not an isolationist. I agree with the Ministry of Defence White Paper published in July 1998 that Britain and our armed forces should aim to be a force for good in the world.

When the conclusions of the strategic defence review were published in that White Paper, it cannot have been possible to predict that the active deployments of our forces in subsequent years would have been so many and so diverse, including the operations in East Timor, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Iraq, and the work that we asked them to do in Northern Ireland. The Government published a new chapter to the defence review following the atrocities of 11 September 2001.

If there was ever any question in my mind that our armed forces personnel were overstretched, that question was answered just two weeks ago. I had the opportunity to meet members of the Royal Scots Regiment who were on parade in my constituency, and I spoke with the soldiers who have been at the sharp end of operations, and with the NCOs and officers. They marched through Musselburgh with many people lining the pavements to watch them—a very impressive sight.

One of the advantages of such an event is that it gives not just members of the public, but councillors and Members of Parliament—I am the local Member of Parliament—the chance to talk directly to the men and get an insight into some of the difficulties and challenges they face. They were very positive about the supply of equipment and materials. They did not complain about the lack of supplies, as has been instanced in the past. They mentioned only that they would like more sets of night goggles. The thing that struck me was that some of the soldiers had missed four Christmases in a row. These young people, many with young families, were facing the possibility of a fifth Christmas away from home. The Royal Scots had been in Northern Ireland in 2000 and 2001, in Bosnia in 2002 and in Iraq in 2003. They were marching through Musselburgh, having just returned from Iraq. It is unacceptable and unreasonable to ask our people to join the services on the basis that they will have so little time, particularly at Christmas, with their families and loved ones.

The working arrangement in the MOD is, I understand, that after six months of operations there should be 24 months back home to recover, train and get back up to speed before another operation, usually overseas. The Royal Scots will be on call from November to go back to Iraq, but that announcement was before the recent speculation that we might be deploying additional troops to Iraq. What I am saying
 
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is not unique to the Royal Scots; it applies to other regiments as well. That is the demand that we are placing on our personnel.

The Minister of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Rachel Squire), who is a member of the Defence Committee, rightly drew attention to the fact that numbers in the armed services are rising, which has to be good news—but I would suggest that it is probably not good enough. If we are to continue to ask our service personnel to intervene on the scale envisaged by the Government, we must substantially increase the military budget and expand the size of the armed forces, particularly the British Army, if we are to become involved in the sort of international action in which we have been involved recently.

Other Members want to speak and time is running out so, in conclusion, I wish to return to the issue of Iraq. The House is aware that the occupation authorities are due to hand sovereignty to a caretaker Government in Iraq by the end of next month. No one would suggest that that interim Government would have day-to-day command over coalition forces. However, I note that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said yesterday that it would be for that Government to decide whether foreign forces should remain on their soil. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday that the people of Iraq say, first, that they are delighted that Saddam Hussein has been overthrown and, secondly, that they want the coalition forces to leave Iraq as soon as possible.

As I have said in the past, it is my view that the British Government should adopt a policy of replacing the coalition forces occupying Iraq with a force authorised by the United Nations.

4.53 pm

Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport) (Con): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me a chance to follow the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang), who always speaks with careful thought and sincerity.

I count myself as fortunate, having served in the Air Force and in the Territorial Army, and then having served on the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Act 2001, the House of Commons Defence Committee and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, all of which gave me the opportunity to study the armed forces at first hand.

I believe that we have the best armed forces in the world—and I say that not simply because I represent a services constituency and know so many people in the armed forces. I know from people from other NATO countries that our British forces are held in high regard. Those forces will be the very first to demand the most rigorous inquiry into the allegations made of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. They will have been as shocked as we are that these events appear to have happened and that they happened on the Government's watch, with no one seemingly knowing they were going on.

I will start at the top, which is always a good place to start. I think our leading commanders benefit enormously from the Royal College of Defence Studies,
 
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which takes people in at the level of captain, colonel or group captain, and takes a number of civilians and a large number of foreign students. At the highest level, it gives our senior commanders—before their appointment to the top levels—the opportunity to broaden themselves and means that our top officers are civilised and thoughtful. We are very well led at the top and our senior commanders are indeed of the very highest quality. Similarly, at the staff college at Shrivenham, more junior ranks at the level of major and equivalent learn about joint operations and about the realities of war. They learn, as all junior ranks do, how crucial it is that they should understand and endure fear before they reach the front line.

In saying that our forces are the best in the world, if I had to base my claim on one simple fact, it would be that our non-commissioned officers have a level of leadership and an ability to take the initiative that often do not exist in the armed forces of other services. If one goes on a small patrol in Northern Ireland or Bosnia and Herzegovina that is led by a lance corporal or a corporal, one realises the extent of the demands that are made of junior ranks at that level. Our junior ranks are fully capable of taking that responsibility, and I single out that aspect as the most important of all those that make our armed forces the best in the world.

On the recruitment and training of junior ranks, the Select Committee on Defence is currently studying recruitment and training under the title "Duty of care". I was impressed recently when I read a reappraisal of initial training produced by the director of operational capability. The document talked about creating a climate in which there was a more congenial and balanced training environment. Over 20 years ago, such words would not have been used. It was certainly the view then that the object of recruitment and training the junior ranks was to break a man's spirit and rebuild it in the spirit of the unit. Now, that does not work at all. People are trained on the basis of having been encouraged in their earlier education to think for themselves. Officers in the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force—we have recently had the opportunity to meet personnel from all three services to discuss this matter—all say that the quality and standard of recruits nowadays make things much more challenging, as they have been taught to think for themselves. It is no longer possible simply to order a man to do things; one needs to explain what is to be done.

The service ethos is also different. Discipline and order remain important, and people are now trained to achieve similar military standards to those that have always existed, but that is happening in a changing world in which standards in civilian life are not the same as those of the military. The process is therefore much more demanding for service personnel, who need to be trained to use force and violence and to understand that they will need to kill if that is required, yet, at the same time, the world in which they are operating is a changing and rather softer and quieter one. The demands on trainers are therefore greater than ever before.

I turn now to some individual personnel issues. Reference has been made to the Defence Medical Services, which are dangerously under strength. We have only about a third of the required strength in
 
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several of our key faculties—anaesthetics, general surgery, orthopaedic surgery and general medicine. We have been extremely fortunate in recent wars and warlike events, as casualties have not been as great as might have been feared. I believe that we are seriously overstretched, and when I challenged the Minister to explain the effect of cancelling the Royal College of Defence Medicine at Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham, he gave me a most unsatisfactory answer. The fact is that, having planned to focus defence training in Birmingham at a new site at Selly Oak hospital, there appears not to be a plan B to provide proper education and accommodation facilities for the personnel who will serve there.

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