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Defence in the World

The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) referred to the speech made by the Prime Minister on 12 January on HMS Albion. I read that speech closely and repeatedly, because it filled me with dismay and concern. I would not be concerned were it merely the speech of a Prime Minister beginning his valedictory tour, but it presumably also reflects some of the thinking in the Ministry of the Defence and among the current ministerial team. The problem was that he painted a canvas divorced from the need to match our resources, capacity, service personnel strength, equipment and logistical capability with our foreign policy goals. Regrettably, he failed to recognise the political reality that in future the United Kingdom’s main bailiwick—the sphere in which our writ will run in terms of maximising our influence in military and foreign policy terms—must increasingly be the Euro-Atlantic region, the Mediterranean, the so-called ““stans””, and the vital energy-producing areas of the Caucasus and nearby Asia. Of course, if there is genocide in the world I want the UK to use its good offices in every way possible to minimise and prevent it. However, in the troubled area of Africa, for instance, we must be realistic in recognising that the regional powers are now Nigeria and South Africa. People might not like it, but we must, to a large extent, defer to them as regards maximising our influence on despotic regimes and our ability to intervene. The Prime Minister did not reflect that reality in his speech. He tried to draw a distinction by saying that some countries do peacekeeping and some countries do war fighting—a peculiar phrase. I do not see it in those black and white terms. Clearly, we have an obligation—we are a significant power in the world, and long may that be so—but we need to decide how and where we can have the maximum impact on the world and match that to our military resources. At the moment we are over-committed—demonstrably so. If something happened in our political backyard—perhaps in Kosovo or in Transnistria—where a major problem required intervention, the UK would find it very difficult to act on it, yet our constituencies would feel the greatest impact in terms of refugees and so on. I say to the Prime Minister, to the current ministerial team and to those who will succeed them in a few weeks’ time that we need to cut our cloth appropriately and bear in mind the fact that we must temper our ambitions in respect of military intervention so that it relates to our foreign policy priorities. My next point concerns recruitment. I was dismayed to discover in a parliamentary reply from the Minister that we are not actively recruiting in our overseas territories. That is surprising, as they have a large reservoir of keen young men and women who should be invited to join our armed forces. It is also bad in principle, because ultimately their Parliament is here and we should be doing something about it. My question related particularly to Bermuda, where anyone who wishes to join the UK armed forces has to get permission to get out of being conscripted in Bermuda. That conscription, which is being tolerated by this Labour Government, is discriminatory on grounds of gender because it relates exclusively to young men. Women are not conscripted—although I am not arguing that they should be. There should not be conscription in a peacetime situation presided over and acquiesced in by Her Majesty’s Government, who bear the ultimate responsibility for it. As we speak, some young men and women are appealing to the Bermuda supreme court to have their conscription overruled. I am asking the British Government to use their power to have a stay of implementation of that conscription in respect of those young men and women until the supreme court has exhausted that issue. That does not seem to me unreasonable. The British Government, who protest about their espousal of equal opportunities on gender in this country, should not be acquiescing in conscription elsewhere. They are acquiescing in it because the deputy governor is an ex-officio member of the defence board of Bermuda and a full-time Foreign and Commonwealth Office diplomat, and the governor is the commander in chief appointed by the UK Government via the Foreign Office. It is wholly unsatisfactory. In any event, we need to think more about the Bermuda Regiment. Its twin, the Royal Gibraltar Regiment—comprising all volunteers, with pay and rations comparable to the rest of UK forces and very much integrated within them—is highly regarded, but the Bermuda Regiment is not. The Minister of State, in his place on the Bench there, had to confirm in a parliamentary reply to me earlier this week that if the conscripts want to go to the lavatory after 11 o’clock at night, they have to be escorted by their non-commissioned officers. That is demeaning and it is indicative of the parlous state of that regiment, over which the British Government are presiding. Colonel Baxter, our military attaché in Washington DC, was dispatched down there just over 12 months ago to investigate the Bermuda Regiment and he found it under-equipped and in a parlous state. In his report, which is on the governor’s website, he said:"““Junior officers and NCOs are generally weak as commanders, displaying a lack of military leadership skills.””" He also drew attention to the fact that in the equivalent of the state opening of Parliament there—the local overseas territory legislature—the regiment turned up seven minutes late,"““largely thanks to poor time appreciation and a lack of urgency, both completely within its control. This fundamental professional error was avoidable and should not have occurred””." He also noted that it was"““apparent to the Royal Party””." [Interruption.] Some Opposition Members might find this amusing, but the point is that these people have no access to this Parliament. We have heard talk about constituency interests, but apparently no Member is taking a constituency interest in these people—other than the hon. Member for Thurrock, it would seem! I am going to dispense my duty. Unlike the military units of the United States, France, the Netherlands and Spain, which do send representatives to the legislature, the overseas territory people do not. That is why I say that this Labour Government are really quite hypocritical when it comes to equal opportunities policies here in the UK. Where there is disproportionate and indefensible abuse by NCOs—we know about overbearing attitudes and what happened at Deep Cut—it needs to be looked into. The Minister will, I know, always shrug it off. He is a jobbing Minister, who always shrugs things off and dismisses anyone who raises a legitimate point. Well, I am saying that he and other Ministers, particularly those in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, need to address themselves to what is a hidden, unspoken scandal in respect of the Bermuda Regiment, where we are conscripting people highly selectively by a ballot that is demonstrably unfair to those who win or lose that raffle. I hope that the Minister will take account of what I said when he replies and refer it to his colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.