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Defence in the United Kingdom

I shall draw that question to the attention of my Committee. It is an interesting idea and it would not be right for me to rule it out or in. I shall leave that to the Committee in its wisdom, which is—I think—great. We have not yet found the right formula for these debates on defence in the UK. Defence always used to be debated in relation to what we did overseas, because of the expeditionary strategy that this country always used to follow. However, it is good to remember our history. Trafalgar was an overseas event, despite the fact that the name now sounds English to our ears. I wish to draw attention to the outstanding celebrations this year of the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar and, unusually perhaps, to pay particular tribute to my great-great-great-great-grandfather, a captain at Trafalgar who sadly had his head blown off on the day. His memorial is next to Nelson’s in St. Paul’s cathedral. The role of defence in the UK was drawn starkly to our attention on 7 July, when we discovered that the threat is as much at home as it is abroad. The Defence Committee suggested in an earlier report that the Government had relied too much on the expeditionary strategy. It said:"““the MOD is giving insufficient priority to the role which the Armed Forces may in the future be called upon to fulfil in respect of the defence of the homeland.””" The Government soundly rejected that. Their reply said:"““current Defence policy rightly emphasises the role of the Armed Forces in supporting wider foreign and security policy objectives. But . . . the Armed Forces contribute specific capabilities to standing home commitments and are held ready to support the civil authorities if requested to do so.””" I am glad that the Government said that, because we must not forget the experience of the United States in the dreadful tragedy of New Orleans, when it was discovered that too many of their troops had been called overseas to Iraq and were no longer able perform the home support role with their previous facility. Every decision that we take on overseas engagement has consequences. Next year, 8,000 troops will be in Iraq and we do not yet know how many will be in Afghanistan. There will also be troops in the Balkans, Northern Ireland—not that that is abroad, of course—Germany, Cyprus, the Falklands and Brunei. The Minister said that he will never tire of paying tribute to the commitment, dedication and bravery of our forces, and neither will I. We will always say that. At the end of the cold war, we decided that it was right to reduce our spending on defence and cut troop numbers. That was a mistake, although I did not think so at the time. It was a mistake that we all made, but we have discovered since the 1990s that the world did not become safer or more secure after the cold war; it needed more troops, not fewer. Nevertheless, ever since then we have seen a rundown in the number of our troops. We need to reverse that mistake. Pressures abroad have consequences at home—in overstretch and in breaches of the harmony guidelines—and the Committee will certainly have to keep a very close eye on that. Recruitment is therefore a difficult, important issue. I have the impression that the Ministry of Defence is not sure why recruitment is so difficult. I have the impression, too, from something that the Secretary of State said, that he is not entirely sure what we can do about it. I have one suggestion. The Chief of the Defence Staff suggested on Sunday morning that reputational issues and matters such as Deepcut have consequences for armed forces recruitment, and I think that he must be right about that. The Committee published a valuable report earlier this year on the duty of care. We will begin to recruit at the necessary level only if we in the House and in the country show an absolute determination to treat our troops outstandingly well, both in their service and in their training. A good demonstration of that, if I may make a suggestion to the Minister who will be replying to the debate, would be made by implementing by the Committee’s strong recommendation for an independent tribunal to look into complaints against the armed forces. The independence of that tribunal is essential. It would require a very deep change in mindset in the MOD, but it would be good for the MOD, good for our armed forces and very good indeed for the country.