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Q10. [314806] Mr. Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con): Health funding is skewed towards younger, urban, Labour-voting areas, rather than towards older, rural areas such as my constituency. That is why Hull receives more than £1,800 per head whereas East Riding receives just £1,200 per head. The Prime Minister knows that age, not deprivation, is the key driver of health need, so why does he put the electoral interests of the Labour party ahead of the needs of the sick?
The Prime Minister: I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that the evidence is that in his region there are 12 new hospitals and 37,000 more NHS staff. We have doubled expenditure on the national health service so that everyone in our country will benefit and we are giving personal guarantees to every citizen of this country that they will receive cancer treatment within two weeks, that they will be in a position to get an operation within 18 weeks, that they will get regular check-ups and, at the same time, that they will be able to see a doctor at weekends or in the evening. The party that has resisted giving rights to every citizen is the Conservative party.
Q11. [314807] Mr. Brian Jenkins (Tamworth) (Lab): My right hon. Friend is only too aware that we have, regrettably, too many war widows, to whom this country owes a great deal. Will he promise, in any Administration that he runs, to stop any suggestion to make those people relatively worse off, via the tax system, because they are not married?
The Prime Minister:
There should be no discrimination against widows and no discrimination against those who have been abandoned by their partners. That is why we have a system of individual taxation and special allowances for widows. I would hesitate to say that the
proposal for a married couple's or married man's allowance would be fair to widows or to people who had been abandoned by their partners.
Q13. [314809] Mr. Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con): Last year, Lord Mandelson launched a £1 billion strategic investment fund. It was designed to help industries across the country. I know that the Prime Minister struggled when asked about £50,000 earlier, but let me try him with this number: why is it that 90 per cent. of that fund does not help industry across the country but has been given to Labour constituencies?
The Prime Minister: The purpose of all our measures in the recession is to help industry and business out of recession. Some 300,000 businesses have been helped in all constituencies across the country. The difference between us is that the Conservatives opposed all our measures and we took the action to get us out of recession. We are taking action to keep us out of recession, while the Conservatives do not have a clue what they would do in 2010.
Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab): Does the Prime Minister welcome the proposals announced last week for licensing and planning concerning houses in multiple occupation? Will he urge local authorities with a high concentration of HMOs, such as Southampton, to make early use of the powers that they will gain?
The Prime Minister: I know my hon. Friend has taken this issue up on many occasions and that it is an important issue when dealing with cities such as Southampton, where there are houses in multiple occupation. I can assure him that we will be urging councils such as those in his area to take up these proposals with speed.
Strategic Defence Review (Green Paper)
12.32 pm
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): Today I am publishing a defence Green Paper that paves the way for a strategic defence review, set in the context of the national security strategy, early in the next Parliament. At the present time, Afghanistan is the main effort for the Ministry of Defence. Where choices have to be made, Afghanistan will continue to be given priority. Our forces there are fighting hard, protecting our national security by preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists.
Two hundred and fifty three British service personnel have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. Many more have suffered life-changing injuries. Their bravery in the face of a ruthless enemy has been a stark reminder to us that all conflict is difficult and dangerous. We certainly cannot assume that the conflicts of tomorrow will replicate those of today, but we must anticipate a wide range of threats and plan for the requirements necessary to counter them.
We have come a long way since the last major defence review in 1998, which gave us the platform to modernise our armed forces. Looking forward, we will need to make decisions about the role that we want the United Kingdom to play in the world and about the capabilities that our armed forces need to support that role. We will need to balance those considerations against financial implications in what will inevitably be a resource-constrained environment. The Green Paper does not attempt to answer those fundamental questions. Instead, it is intended to set out our emerging thinking on the future security environment and on other key issues facing defence ahead of the review.
Although there is no external direct threat to the territorial integrity of the UK, there are a wide range of emerging threats for which we must be prepared. We can work to diminish the threat of international terrorism and to counter the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons; we can work to prevent emerging threats-for example, by improving our approach to cybersecurity-and to contain and resolve the threat from failing states; and we can work to ensure that the impacts of climate change and resource competition are managed peacefully, but my judgment is that conflict and instability in this new age will be an ever-present risk. In the face of those threats, no nation can hope to protect all aspects of national security by acting alone. We cannot simply defend from the goal line, and our defence posture must reflect that.
In the coming decades, our armed forces must be prepared, if called upon to do so, to protect our interests, often in distant places and, most likely, as part of a coalition of international forces. The Green Paper therefore reaches two key conclusions. First, that defence must accelerate the process of reform and be able to change swiftly to address new and unforeseen challenges as they emerge. We need to be more adaptable in how we structure, equip, train and generate our armed forces. We need a more agile defence organisation, and we need more responsive strategic planning. Today, I am proposing that we should legislate for regular defence reviews to ensure that the armed forces continue to adapt rapidly to changing trends and threats.
The second conclusion is that defence must improve its ability to work in partnership with our key allies and security institutions to make the most of our combined resources. Our alliances and partnerships will become increasingly important and will define how successful we will be in meeting the challenges that we face. We will strengthen our alliance with the United States if we strengthen our position in Europe. We will continue to press our European allies to contribute more to our collective defence effort, but, make no mistake, this is not about Europe taking precedence over the US, or vice versa-the two are mutually reinforcing relationships.
In the UK, we need to improve further our partnerships with key Whitehall Departments and others to ensure that the contribution of our armed forces is joined up with our diplomatic and development efforts. In addition to its conclusions on adaptability and partnership, the paper poses six key strategic questions that the review will need to address. They are as follows. Where should we set the balance between focusing on our territory and region and on engaging threats at distance? How far are future conflicts likely to share the characteristics of our engagement in Afghanistan, and what approach should we therefore take if we employ armed force to address threats at distance? What contribution should our armed forces make to ensuring security and contributing to resilience within the UK? How could we more effectively employ armed force in support of wider efforts to prevent conflict and to strengthen international stability? Do our current international defence and security relationships require rebalancing in the longer term? Should we further integrate our forces with those of our key allies and partners?
Although the defence budget has grown by over 10 per cent. in real terms since 1998-and not a penny will be cut from next year's budget-the forward defence programme faces real financial pressure. We will need to rebalance what we do in order to meet our priorities. In December, I began that process. I made a series of decisions to ensure that we found extra resources for vital equipment for Afghanistan. This included 22 new Chinook helicopters, which will provide necessary strategic lift capability for Afghanistan and for other military operations in the years ahead. However, our commitment to reducing the deficit resulting from the global financial crisis means that future resources across government will be constrained.
The report of Bernard Gray into defence acquisition set out clearly the pressures facing the defence budget. It also set out the importance of improving our procurement processes and addressing the shortfalls in our acquisition systems. The strategy for acquisition reform published alongside today's Green Paper sets out how we will tackle the challenges facing this major area of defence expenditure. The major reform that it proposes will deliver enduring change by introducing greater transparency. It will ensure that our equipment plans are efficient, strategically focused, affordable and achievable.
But it is not just in equipment acquisition that we will need to do better. We are aiming to deliver efficiency savings of more than £3 billion over the current spending review period. We have a strong programme of work to achieve this, including an independent review into the use of civilians in defence that is being led by Gerry Grimstone.
Our biggest capability is our people. We rely on the ability of people, both military and civilian, to deliver defence. We need to attract the best people-people who are highly motivated and highly skilled. Our people have already shown their capacity to adapt to new challenges. We must continue to ensure that the structures and training that support them are fit for purpose, and that includes continuing to strengthen joint approaches across the services.
There has been a great deal of interest in, and speculation about, whether any major capabilities will be confirmed in the Green Paper, but that is to misunderstand the purpose. I can say that we do not plan to revisit the conclusions of the 2006 White Paper on the nuclear deterrent. We have committed to a wide range of major capability improvements over the past few years including, most recently, signing contracts for two new aircraft carriers. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear!"] Only two.
Recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated the importance of being able to deploy and sustain significant numbers of highly trained and equipped troops in a variety of roles, including providing the aviation and air support that they need. Unless the defence review takes a very radical new direction, it is the Government's position that those capabilities are likely to remain critical elements of our force structure. However, we need to know first what roles and missions we will expect our forces to undertake in the future before we can take final decisions about the capabilities that they will need. These will be key issues for the defence review.
Let us be clear-change is needed, and there will be some tough and important decisions ahead. In my view, we must, as far possible, put aside our special interests, in politics, industry and the services, to take rational decisions that benefit defence and the security of our nation.
In preparing the Green Paper, I consulted widely with academia, across government and with the main Opposition parties, and I am grateful for the help that I received. I would like to thank in this House the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) and the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen in the other place, all of whom sat on my Defence Advisory Forum. Where the defence of the nation is concerned, we must seek as far as possible to reach consensus on the main issues.
I hope that the Green Paper that I am publishing today helps that process and leads to a mature and well-informed debate about the future structure of our armed forces.
Dr. Liam Fox (Woodspring) (Con): I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for prior sight of it, although we seem to be the last to have seen the Green Paper, since every journalist I have met this week has been telling me about its contents. The Secretary of State deserves genuine praise for his attempts to find a cross-party consensus. When the history of this dreadful Government is written, his will be one of the more honourable mentions.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) for the effort that he put into producing a
balanced and open-minded Green Paper. I know that his experience in the Ministry of Defence was very much appreciated in the process.
The Green Paper indicates that the Ministry of Defence is coming out of denial, but that the Prime Minister is not. We are used to the Prime Minister briefing against his perceived enemies in the corridors of Westminster, but not normally undermining a Secretary of State on the front page of The Times. How far away from the No. 10 briefing this week is paragraph 9 on page 9 of the Green Paper, which states:
"We cannot proceed with all the activities and programmes we currently aspire to, while simultaneously supporting our current operations and investing in the new capabilities we need. We will need to make tough decisions"?
Of course, this week we have seen the truth of the current Prime Minister's approach to defence. The former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon) has said that there was a strong feeling that the last defence review was not fully funded. The former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Walker, told us that the defence chiefs threatened to resign as a result of the savage cuts that the then Chancellor tried to apply to defence in the middle of two wars. Today the former permanent secretary, Sir Kevin Tebbit, talked about having to operate a permanent crisis budget.
The Defence Secretary introduced defence cuts in December, but the Prime Minister this week was talking about increasing the defence budget. In his statement the Secretary of State said, "There has been a great deal of interest in, and speculation about, whether any major capabilities will be confirmed in the Green Paper". We all know why. It is because No. 10 has been briefing all week that any project that has any job implications for the Prime Minister's constituency will be spared in any defence review. That is taking a core strategy way too far.
There are some things on which we are clearly agreed. We know from bitter historical experience the difficulty of predicting future conflict-either its nature or its location. We cannot base our future security on the assumption that future wars will be like the current ones. That is why we must maintain generic capability and be able to adapt to any changing threats.
There is no doubt that in Afghanistan we have been too slow to give the Army, in particular, the agility and flexibility that it needs to maximise its effectiveness. But we must also remember that we are a maritime nation dependent on the sea lanes for 92 per cent. of our trade. A time when the threat of disruption is increasing is no time for Britain to become sea blind.
We agree that France and the United States are likely to be our main strategic partners. For us there are two tests: do they invest in defence, and do they fight? Sadly, too few European allies pass both these tests.
The Secretary of State talked about a 10 per cent. increase in the defence budget in real terms. He also talks in the Green Paper about the higher level of defence inflation. Can he tell us how much of the increase in the defence budget has gone into pay, allowances and pensions, and what proportion of the increase has been available for equipment and other programmes over the period that he outlined? Can he confirm that the Department's budget for next year will be £36.89 billion,
as previously set out? He says that not a penny will be cut, notably from next year's budget. What cuts do the Govt envisage after that?
Unlike the Opposition and the House of Commons, the Government have access to all the costs of the contracts and all the penalty clauses for the major programmes. Why will the Government not give honest answers about the implications of the cost overruns in the years ahead? We know that there has been serial mismanagement at the MOD, with the equipment programme being somewhere between £6 billion and £35 billion above what can currently be afforded. How will it be reconciled?
After 12 years of indecision, we finally get a Green Paper weeks before a general election, and, despite all its good words and all the good intentions of the Secretary of State, the future defence budget of the United Kingdom will have to be determined against the backdrop of Government debt of £799 billion, which is the equivalent of having borrowed £1.1 million every day since the birth of Christ. That our nation's security should be compromised in this way by Labour's historic economic incompetence is truly a national tragedy.
Mr. Ainsworth: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments- despite his motives in making them. Can I just point out one thing to him? He claimed that I made defence cuts in December, yet in the same response he said that we were a little late in providing the wherewithal for the Army in Afghanistan. We did not make defence cuts in December; we prioritised, over three years, £900 million of the core defence budget for equipment that was needed for the Afghan conflict. We are doing that, but he criticises us for not doing it, and then he claims that those measures were cuts when, in fact, they were reprioritisations. They were reprioritisations within a budget that never fell. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is prepared to admit or accept that. The budget never fell; I moved money within the budget. It was right to do so, and I make no apology for that, but one thing that I say in the Green Paper-and I think I say it with the genuine support of many people who know about these matters-is that our planning structures will have to be more adaptable. We cannot have planning assumptions that effectively prevent us from moving money within the budget when there are pressing needs; we have to have a structure that supports the adaptability of our armed forces. That must be the overwhelming priority.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the problems with the equipment programme, but I remind him that it was this Government who commissioned the Gray report. We did so to get to the bottom of problems that do exist but, when judged against international comparators, are no worse than hardly any and, indeed, better than many. But, those problems need to be addressed, and there are inefficiencies. We commissioned the Gray report, and I hope that, when the hon. Gentleman has the time to study it properly, he will see that there is a real way-albeit an uncomfortable one for future Ministers-of ensuring that we have a defence procurement methodology that prevents the overruns that we have had. Transparency will be the main tool for doing that, but regular defence reviews, enshrined in legislation, will help as well.
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