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Defence in the UK

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. There has been a series of very unfortunate events which, because of their rarity, achieve a magnitude out of all proportion to the everyday run of military training. I pay tribute to the backbone—the spine—of the British armed forces: the non-commissioned officers, who, on operations and in training, do all that is necessary to produce those very fine and remarkable young men. We really are very lucky, and they are the envy of all other armed forces. It is not well understood in this House that the people of our armed forces live under a very different code of rules and conduct from the rest of us. Practically no one in the press, and very few people in this House or in the wider world, has any real understanding as to the circumstances in which they operate. That is not good for the armed forces and not good for the country. An amazingly high standard of personal conduct is required of our armed forces, sometimes under the most grievously difficult circumstances: respect for the law, teamwork, cohesion, trust and loyalty, together with a highly developed sense of duty, obligation and integrity. Those are qualities almost alien to most members of the press who would write about our armed forces. If he has not already done so, I suggest that the Minister reads ““The Values and Standards of the British Army: A Guide to Soldiers?. It is a remarkable document that deserves to be more widely read; indeed, it should be read in every school in the land. What happened to the Navy in the Shatt al-Arab was an unforgivable disaster. As Brigadier Allan Mallinson said in a brilliant article in The Daily Telegraph, it was an entirely avoidable tactical military cock-up. The Navy was operating in highly sensitive waters in seemingly the most complacent manner, with unclear rules of engagement and wholly inadequate military intelligence. There will be, and need to be, the most serious consequences, and I have every confidence in General Sir Robert Fulton, who will get to the bottom of this atrocious failure. As I have often said in the House, for the soldiers, sailors and airmen of today and tomorrow, as for their formidable forebears, warfare will and does continue to represent the ultimate physical and moral challenge. These young men and women will encounter extreme danger in rapidly changing circumstances amid conditions of chaos and uncertainty. Their skills and leadership qualities, and their weapons and equipment, are being tested every day of the week in our name. These operations are sustainable only by very highly trained and committed young men motivated by service ethos, by pride in their traditions and institutions, by comradeship and an astonishing level of team spirit, and by the emotional, intellectual and moral qualities that lead people to put their lives on the line—and of course by loyalty and patriotism and by an enduring belief in essentially British values and an unshakable determination to defend them. It has always worried me that Ministers do not really understand what is being asked of our soldiers. I should like to remind the Minister of what Lord Wavell said in one of the most famous military lectures of all time—his lecture on generalship. His words were remarkable, and all of us in this House, when we think of these young men and women, need to hold them up in our minds. He said that,"““in the last resort, the end of all military training, the settling of all policy, the ordering of all weaponry and all that goes into the makings of the armed forces is that the deciding factor in battle will always be this: That sooner or later, private so-and-so will, of his own free will and in the face of great danger, uncertainty and chaos have to advance to his front in the face of the enemy.?" If it all goes wrong after the training, intensive preparations, provision of equipment and expenditure, the system has failed. That system has, so far, never failed, but it is now not failing only by the skin of its teeth. The armed forces have never let us down, but the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State are letting them down by failing to resource them adequately for the demanding tasks that they are under constant obligation to undertake. They must stop taking the armed forces for granted.