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Defence in the World

I begin by associating myself with everything that the Secretary of State said about the bravery of our troops, and the commitment of the civilian staff and others who maintain their efforts worldwide. We are all aware of the courage and professionalism of our armed forces as they face the trauma of combat in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, but we should not forget the role played by service families. They too show great courage and commitment, and they bear much of the problem associated with separation or injury. Sometimes, we in this country should remember the maxim that an injured serviceman is an injured family. Our society should be more aware of the sacrifices that our armed forces make, and the problems that they face. Those of us in this country who enjoy the protection provided by our armed forces have a duty to support them. The news that emerged overnight shows that some people in our society are prepared to kidnap and kill forces personnel. Whatever their background, that is vile and repugnant. The mediaeval savagery that we have seen in recent times in the middle east has no place in this country, and I am sure that the whole House will want to congratulate our security services on stopping what appears to have been a disgusting and dastardly plot. We welcome this debate, and hope that a wide range of issues will be discussed—for example, how we have arrived at our current positions and force sizes, the threats that we face in Afghanistan and Iraq, the threats posed by Iran and the potential threat posed by Russia, the need to maintain our alliances, and the need to deal with changing global realities. First, how did we get to the position in which we find ourselves today? Over the Christmas holiday, I spent some time looking at the defence reviews held since the second world war—just the sort of sad thing that our jobs sometimes require us to do. They included the reviews conducted by Sandys, Healey, Mason, and Nott, as well as ““Options for Change””, ““Frontline First”” and this Government’s strategic defence review. I was struck by the fact that most of them lacked a foreign-policy baseline. With two exceptions—““Options for Change”” and the SDR—the stamp of the Treasury was clearly evident. In ““Options for Change””, there was a genuine attempt to look at the new strategic reality following the end of the cold war. Moreover, I would commend the SDR undertaken by the current Government’s SDR perhaps above all the others: it was an extremely good review and came to very sensible conclusions about the sort of threats that the UK was likely to face. I returned from Washington this morning—and I apologise in advance for any lapses of concentration this afternoon—and it was interesting to hear there the growing view that all western powers were too keen to seek a peace a dividend at the end of the cold war. They did so too quickly, and did not pause to think about the possible threats that could arise from the fragmentation of the Soviet Union. In medicine, we used to say that the most useful instrument would be a retrospectoscope, and we would do well to take something of a reality check so that we can work out why this country and the US face some of our current problems—and I remind the House that the US Government have just announced a substantial increase of 95,000 in their armed forces, precisely to deal with some of those problems. The SDR was reasonable in its expectation that the UK should be able to carry out one medium-sized and one small operation simultaneously, plus an occasional additional small operation, but the defence planning assumptions that flowed from that have been exceeded in each of the past four years. We cannot maintain that approach for any length of time: it leads inevitably to overstretch, and to problems such as restrictions on leave and training and increased separation from families. The one sure way to create retention problems is by making servicemen and women unhappy, and the way to do that is by making their families unhappy. I am afraid that that is what is happening at the moment. Service families already face problems with education, housing and health care, so it does not take much to make a life in the services seem much less attractive than what is available outside. As has been noted in the House before, we need to examine those difficulties, taking account of the demographic and labour market statistics, because the trend of the last couple of years—with substantially more people leaving the armed forces than joining them—cannot be allowed to continue. Even if we are able to replace the personnel who leave, the problem of skills dilution will remain, and that cannot be in our armed forces’ long-term interests. It is important to understand where we are in respect of our armed forces but, when we review expenditure, we must understand the realities of the increased tempo of their activities, and the effect that that has on them. The Secretary of State spoke about Afghanistan and Iraq, and I shall turn to those subjects now. His announcement of the roulement in Afghanistan contains a shift in the pattern of our troops’ deployment, with the focus moving from Kabul to Helmand. Only 100 extra British troops are going to Afghanistan, but there will be 600 more in Helmand, because the number in Kabul is to be reduced. We support our troops, and therefore we support the mission. Although people who say that they support our troops in the abstract but do not support the mission may find that their approach goes down well in the House of Commons, it certainly does not go down well with our troops or their commanders. However, serious questions need to be raised in this House about why the British armed forces must shoulder yet more of the burden in the south of Afghanistan. It cannot be acceptable that British taxpayers are funding a greater proportion of the cost of those operations, or that the British military should have to shoulder more of the burden in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan. Where are our NATO allies? They spend substantially less on defence than this country. We spend 2.5 per cent. of gross domestic product on defence: we can argue about whether that is too much or too little, but it is substantially more than many of our NATO allies. For example, Germany spends only 1.4 per cent. of GDP, while Spain spends 1.2 per cent., and the Netherlands around 1.4 per cent. That is simply not acceptable in the long term. I know that the Secretary of State is forced by convention to be diplomatic about such matters, but I certainly am not. It is absolutely outrageous that, when we have the concept of shared security, we do not have properly shared risk. It is not acceptable for countries to reduce their defence expenditure and still expect us to give them the umbrella of NATO protection. It is not acceptable for them to operate according to caveats that mean that they serve in the safest parts of Afghanistan only or according to rules of engagement that are so restrictive that they can barely cross a road without phoning their national capitals. It cannot be in the long-term interests of NATO for that pattern to be repeated. If we want shared security, we have shared risk and shared burden-carrying.