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Defence in the World

I never thought that I would have the opportunity to regard the Liberal Democrats as more trusting and naive than me. I am happy to do so on this occasion. I will be delighted if the hon. Gentleman is proved right and I am proved wrong. We have heard from several Members, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), the catalogue of woes and cuts, and the concerns expressed, with unprecedented frequency, by senior serving and recently retired heads of the armed services. I could cite General Lord Guthrie, and we all know about General Dannatt and his predecessor as Chief of the General Staff, General Jackson. And let us not forget General Shirreff’s plea for adequate standards of service housing, training and health care. Of them all, however, I am particularly interested, with my Navy responsibilities, in the contribution of Sir Alan West, the former First Sea Lord, who said both in and out of office that for the tasks that the fleet is being asked to undertake we need 30 frigates and destroyers, and we are doing the work of 30 frigates and destroyers with only 25 now and possibly even fewer in the future. The Royal Navy had emerged triumphant from the strategic defence review, but now it is looking distinctly on the ropes. The reckless reductions have been based on the strategic falsehood that numbers no longer matter in an era of more capable ships. In reality, the cuts have been accepted for the promise of the aircraft carriers, and yet no order has been placed for those aircraft carriers, and a threat is hanging over ships seven and eight in the Type 45 destroyer fleet. Will the Minister answer three questions when he sums up? When will he order the carriers? Are ships seven and eight in the Type 45 programme under threat or are they not? Will he guarantee that the Government’s commitment to the deterrent will not trigger even more intolerable cuts in front-line forces and in the infrastructure of Britain’s armed services? Turning to some of the contributions in the debate, the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) denied that there could be any danger of a Russian military threat. I hope that he is right. Twenty years ago, he would not have denied that. We must consider what the threats will be, not now but in the period between 2025 and 2055 when the next generation of the nuclear deterrent will come into service and go through its service life. The onus is on people such as him and his right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) to rebut the argument that what matters is not the threats that we face now in relation to the next generation of the strategic nuclear deterrent, but the dangers that will confront this country that far ahead. If I had stood up and said, at the height of the second cold war 15 or 20 years ago, that the main threat facing this country would be from fanatical religious extremists and suicide terrorists, everybody would have thought that I had taken leave of my senses. We do not know what threats will arise over the next 10 or 15 years, let alone over the next 25, 35 or 40 years. When the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Havard) asks what he should say to his young godson about how he voted on having a strategic nuclear deterrent for that period, my answer to him is that you will be able to say proudly to your godson, if you vote for it, that you—