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Defence in the World

I fully understand the circumstances that delayed my hon. Friend today; had they been different, I would simply have told him that I answered that question—in part—when he was not here. In doing so, I pointed out that we have tried to de-escalate the number of warheads to less than 200, for example, so we have been playing our part. Yes, I am disappointed that we did not get an agreement on the non-proliferation treaty. The United Kingdom played a reasonably important part in those discussions—in fact, in some conference sessions we acted as European Union representative—and we tried to secure agreement on certain elements. I am sorry that we did not do so, but that does not mean that there are no other ways of making progress. I can assure my hon. Friend that in considering the various costs, the associated politics and the military aspects of a possible replacement for the Trident system, we will do nothing that is at odds with our obligations to the international community. I want to turn briefly to an issue that has already been raised: the nature of our relationship with Europe and the United States. We continue to believe that a strong Euro-Atlantic partnership, with NATO at its heart, underpins our security policy. NATO is an enduring alliance and it has been hugely successful in adapting to a changing strategic environment. On the other hand, we do not believe that our commitment to NATO is any way incompatible with developing a European security and defence policy and related activity. We try, wherever possible, to ensure that the two institutions act in concert and in partnership—not in competition—and that they do not duplicate resources in, for instance, Darfur or Sudan. After assuming the EU presidency on 1 July, we will continue to try to develop the ESDP, and to lead the EU in a fashion that dovetails with our belief in NATO as a successful military alliance. In a sense, the current strategic environment, the complex nature of the necessary security response—as opposed to simply a defence response—to many of the problems that we face nowadays, and the obligation to accompany defence with political initiatives and financial, diplomatic and humanitarian assistance, plays into the character of the European Union. It allows us to accompany NATO alliance capabilities with a degree of civil-military partnership through the EU. That, in turn, enables us to grow both institutions effectively in terms of cohesion, activity and capability, and to make them complementary rather than competitive. Those three words—cohesion, activity and capability—will mark anything that I do as pro tem president of Europe’s Defence Ministers. We need to increase our capability, but it has to be usable capability. There is no good in having shop-window forces or great numbers on paper if none of them can be used, if they are not fit for purpose, or if they are not the flexible, deployable, expeditionary-type outreach forces that are necessary in the world today. Secondly, we need to ensure cohesion. We need to bring together the necessary political, diplomatic, financial, humanitarian and military responses, to use what we need when it is needed, and to make the right judgments on the right occasions.