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Armed Forces Personnel

It is a pleasure to participate in this important debate, and an honour to follow the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie), who made a powerful speech about the importance of dealing with combat stress and the pressures being placed on bands. I served in Cyprus, and I appreciate the importance of the strategic role that it plays. I am saddened that we are now having to man the forts there with regimental bands, important though the service that they provide is. It is also sad that we have had only two Back-Bench speeches from Labour Members, compared with about six from the Opposition. I hope that that is a reflection more of the fact that changes will soon be taking place on the Government Benches than of the importance that Labour Members place on military matters. I am pleased to be able to participate in the debate, not least because my own regiment—the 4th Battalion the Rifles—is now based in Basra, in Iraq. On behalf of the House, I should like to wish Colonel Sanders and the battalion a safe tour of duty and a safe return to the United Kingdom. The Minister of State began by saying, rather defensively, that Britain could cope with its commitment. That sums up the difference between the Conservative and Labour approaches to the armed forces. We feel that there is an element of overstretch in our armed forces, that they are over-committed and that we are asking too much of a force whose size is ever-diminishing. The Government continue to state that we have the right sized Army, Navy and Air Force for today, and that we are managing our commitments well. I would like to illustrate why we are struggling to cope by brutally examining how the size, the funding and the commitments have changed over the past 10 years. The Navy has shrunk by about 9,000 personnel. The frigate and destroyer fleet has been reduced from 35 to 25, and the number of our submarines has been reduced from 12 to eight. Another six ships are about to be mothballed, and a cloud is hanging over one of our major naval bases. Indeed, reference has been made to our naval force being smaller than that of Belgium. I do not understand the Government’s wanting to close naval bases. Circumstances and threats change; what would happen if there were a requirement to increase our naval power? Where would we put the ships that were required, if we had got rid of a naval base such as Portsmouth? It would be difficult to rebuild such an important strategic location. There is also a question mark over the aircraft carriers. We have been given no indication of when we will see the two replacements. We have heard many announcements about how great the T45 is. It is indeed an amazing ship, but the fact is that there are fewer T45s than T22s, or the T42s that they are intended to replace. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), only one ship can be in any one place at any one time. We have seen a reduction in Army personnel since 1997. There were 101,300 then; now there are only 99,400. It would be possible to fit every member of the British Army into Wembley stadium, should anyone wish to do so. That is a sad reflection of the size of our armed forces in view of the weight that we continue to punch and the respect that we continue to command across the world. We are now down to 36 battalions, we have seen regiments disappear and the time between tours of operational duties has been reduced, giving soldiers less of that critical time to be spent with their families before being redeployed. We now have a smaller Army than Italy, Germany or France, although as we all know we do far more than any one of them or, indeed, all three put together. I am afraid that the position in the RAF is no different. We have seen the closure of a number of bases, including those at Lyneham and Coltishall, and a reduction in fast jet training hours. There are now huge capability gaps: our ability to deal with circumstances and threats is being reduced because we no longer have the aeroplanes in the skies. The Sea Harriers used to be based on our aircraft carriers. They are quite distinctive, because their radar capacity allows the sea fleet to see further over the horizon than the new T45, or indeed the carriers themselves. Taking the Sea Harriers out of service puts our surface ships under threat as never before. The Jaguars are also being removed from service. We do not have the Typhoons, and the F-35—the joint strike fighter aircraft—has not even been built yet, although it is supposed to be replacing the Sea Harriers. We are struggling with other aircraft too, including Nimrods. That capability gap is becoming bigger and bigger, yet we see no evidence of any attempt to expedite the replacement process. As if that were not bad enough, manning has been reduced by around 9,000. I saw the impact of that when I visited the Falkland islands recently on HMS Chatham, another ship that is, sadly, destined to be mothballed. I spoke to various RAF and naval personnel, and it was clear that they were being asked to do more. The frequency of their operations was greater than ever before. They used to be posted back to the United Kingdom to perform various light duties that allowed them to spend time with their families, perhaps looking after a naval base or helping to run an air base. Those duties have now been outsourced, and as a result many more demands are placed on all soldiers, sailors and airmen in operational environments. I intervened on the Minister of State earlier to make a point about recruitment and retention. It is clear that more personnel are leaving the armed forces than joining them. There is a haemorrhaging of strength, to the tune of about 1,500 a year. That is unsustainable, particularly given the number of commitments in which we are involved. The Minister has been forced to reduce the target size of the three main armed forces, which allows him to announce that we are meeting percentage targets of around 97, 96 and 95 per cent. for the respective forces. Moving the goalposts so that he can tell the House that the targets are being met is a rather unsubtle and disruptive way of trying to prove that he is meeting requirements. In reality, we are losing experienced personnel. The people who are leaving the armed forces are the corporals and the sergeants, those with valuable experience, and we need to do more to try and retain them. I acknowledge the importance of initiatives that have been mentioned today, some of them connected with remuneration, but I still believe that we could do much more. I think that Members on both sides of the House agree that the present circumstances are different from those of 10, 15 and 50 years ago. The armed forces face stiffer competition in recruitment and retention because of the jobs that are now available in the private sector. Money is also an issue. Our armed forces are both smaller and busier. The Prime Minister said aboard HMS Albion on 17 January that the defence budget has remained fairly constant if the funds that have been put forward for Iraq and Afghanistan are included. That amounts to a shocking admission that we are having to pay for those huge operations out of existing defence budgets. That is wrong; it did not happen in the Falklands, and it should not happen in Afghanistan and Iraq. The consequence is that in order to pay for these two large operational commitments other budgets are continuously salami-sliced. I hope that the new Prime Minister will take account of the many voices expressing continued concern about various aspects of our armed forces. General Sir Mike Jackson, in his Dimbleby lecture, attacked the pay and conditions and the medical support for our troops. General Rose has also commented that our armed forces are inadequately equipped, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. The most damning indictment has come from Admiral Sir Alan West, former head of the Navy. He has condemned what is happening to our armed forces and he said:"““I suppose we should retire to our island and hope no one gets to us””." General Dannatt has also subtly raised significant concerns about the size of our armed forces. He said that we were only just able to cope in Iraq. I think that he was then sat on by various Ministers and others in the armed forces to make sure that he was not too vocal in expressing his views. However, he did let the cat out of the bag by saying that there were concerns and explaining the impact of our commitments in Iraq on all the other activities that we are undertaking. This debate is timely, as all the European Union Foreign Ministers are meeting at the European summit. As if our armed forces did not have enough to do under their current UK and NATO commitments, there is also a push to introduce ever more responsibilities under the EU umbrella. I would be grateful if the Minister explained what the situation is in relation to the constitution and committing our military personnel to what I term double-hatting by providing troops to the 60,000-strong force created by the EU to serve as a rapid reaction corps. I disagree with that proposal. It stems from an agreement that came out of the St. Malo summit in 1998, which was supposed to focus on Africa but which ended up committing the EU in this way:"““The Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises.””" That was a deliberate attempt to create something outside the NATO umbrella: the document goes on to say that the force would be a"““national or multinational European means outside the NATO framework””." That led on to the Berlin-plus agreement, giving the EU access to NATO assets. In addition to claiming those assets, it asks generals and commanders and their units to double-hat by being in two places at once, which simply cannot be done. There is also the danger of the duplication of roles. In Sudan at present, there is an EU mission with military personnel, and just down the road there is a NATO mission doing exactly the same job of reporting back and working with the Sudanese. That is an unnecessary duplication. The Minister squirms but I assure him that that is the case and it must be looked into. The European Defence Agency—as it is termed—was part of the original EU constitution, and I hope that the Minister will consider that, especially as we did not have an opportunity to vote. An example of the split in interest between what NATO and the European Union are doing is in Afghanistan, where the French are pushing for one system of electronically marking vehicles so that they can be tracked by satellites, but all the other NATO countries want to use another—the blue force tracker system. That is confusing to our personnel, an overlap and a complete waste of money. The ambassador in Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, has said that we will be in that country for decades. I am pleased that the Minister is back in his place, because he mentioned the Hip helicopters that were offered to the UK, and the misreporting by the press. I have looked at what was actually reported and it is clear that there was a genuine offer of helicopters for £20 million. It was turned down by the Government. That could have been the right decision, but I tried to ask the Minister earlier—he would not take interventions on the subject—what the cost of replacing those helicopters with Chinooks or other craft would be. If the Soviet-designed models could be used as transport helicopters more cheaply than bringing in operational helicopters, it should have been considered. Had the deal been accepted, it would have freed up Chinooks for combat operations, rather than using them as a taxi service, which is why they are needed in Afghanistan. Both my hon. Friend the shadow spokesman and the Minister mentioned the medical facilities in Afghanistan. I pay tribute to the medical support that our armed forces receive, but it must be improved. I question why there is a logistical chain stretching from Afghanistan back to the UK, which is duplicated by the German chain, the Italian chain, the Dutch chain and the American chain. Many of the casevacs go through Dubai in any case, where there are excellent medical facilities. If we are operating in Afghanistan under a NATO umbrella, why do we not share the assets and the logistical chains? The problem occurs not only with casevacs, but with avgas and other logistical issues. There is huge duplication and it causes a phenomenal waste of money. I would be grateful if the Minister would look into that. My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) commented on the embarrassing fiasco a couple of months ago in the Shatt al-Arab waterway. This is my first opportunity to comment on the report, because many hon. Members were prevented from contributing when the Secretary of State made his statement. The case of the 17 service personnel arrested by the Iranians has been described as not being our finest hour. In fact, it was a deep embarrassment. We became the laughing stock of NATO and the middle east, and I am saddened that the reports have been shrouded in secrecy despite the many schoolboy errors being made very public. Nobody has been sacked, reprimanded or even blamed, and that is astonishing. It raises more questions than it answers. It was not our finest moment, but we should be able to draw a line under it by determining the facts and somebody falling on their sword. That is not going to happen, and we will somehow tuck it away and move on as if nothing had happened. That is wrong. I am rightly proud of serving in our armed forces and I am glad that we are able to debate these issues today. I pay tribute to the work that they do while we sit in the comfort of this Chamber. Again and again, Britain steps up to the plate while other countries shy away. On both sides of the House, we can be proud of the role that we play in the world. However, I do not think that we can keep up the pace of our commitments without dire consequences for our combat effectiveness. I hope that the new Prime Minister will take note. I fear that this will be the last debate in which we will see some of the faces on the Government Front Bench today. If there is to be a reshuffle in the next couple of weeks, I wish Ministers all the best. This country will be moving into a new chapter with a new Prime Minister, and we will see whether there is a new approach to prioritising the needs of our armed forces.