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Defence in the World

Like many colleagues in the House today, I thought long and hard before deciding to contribute to the debate. With the rising toll of deaths in the terrible tragedy this morning, it was difficult to decide whether to speak. I understand that constituents of mine are involved. Perhaps we should all think about our constituents today. Unlike some Members, I did not see this afternoon as an opportunity to destroy the morale of our armed forces but to work with Ministers in explaining to them some of the concerns and problems that I experienced personally when I visited our troops during the most recent Gulf war and subsequently in the last few weeks before the general election. In the light of the tone of the debate, or most of it, I do not want to attack the Government over what has gone wrong or what has gone right. I want to highlight some of the problems that troops in the field made me aware of. It may not be a politically correct term, but I was a boy soldier. I joined the armed forces at 16, and after one year was promoted to guardsman, at which level I stayed for the rest of my military career. I am proud to be the voice of the lower ranks in the House. Just before the general election, I was with the brilliant Scots Guards in al-Amarah in Iraq. I served with the Grenadier Guards, and the Scots Guards is nearly as good a regiment. In my time, the Guards formed a very self-contained unit, with its own medics, paras and signallers. It was very proud of its ability to deploy fully and integrally by itself. I was enormously proud to see the Royal Gibraltar Regiment serving with the Scots Guards in al-Amarah. The people from Gibraltar can be very proud of their work, but I had to ask the colonel in charge why the Scots Guards had to deploy with other detachments. He told me that the regiment was no longer able to deploy on its own and that it now had to work with other units. There is a severe shortage of guardsmen and especially of experienced NCOs. The Secretary of State must address that problem, to which I shall return later. As I walked around the camp, I noticed the fantastic Warrior armoured vehicles, of which the Scots Guards are very proud. As we know, they have saved an awful lot of lives, but it was disturbing to learn that every vehicle had to be taken out of operation on the regiment’s return to Germany at the end of the tour of duty. That was because the new Bowman radio system, for which we waited for what seemed like a decade, does not fit into the Warrior’s turret. That is why all the vehicles had to be adapted, and could not be used while the adaptation was carried out. I cannot believe that that was not foreseen. The Bowman equipment is only a little box. Earlier, the Secretary of State used the phrase ““not rocket science””;. It is not rocket science to realise that a little box needs a little hole, but this little hole was too little. That was demoralising for the very brave troops trying to do their job in the field. As for accommodation, it was hard to remember that we are in the 21st century. Our troops were deployed with troops from all over the world and accommodated in very nice tents whose air conditioning does not always work. When that happens, troops open both ends of the tent and let the wind blow through. In the middle of a desert, the British Army has to live in tents: just 400 yards up the road, the American armed forces have deployable pods with air conditioning, showers and other facilities.