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Defence Procurement

May I first warmly welcome the Minister for the Armed Forces, who is no longer in his place but who opened the debate tonight? He performed gallantly when dropped, as The Sun so charmingly put it this morning, deep into ““the Brown stuff”” last week, when the Prime Minister made an announcement in Basra about force levels and the number of those returning to this country, without first having told the Secretary of State that he was going to make it. I wish to place it on record that the Prime Minister's actions in that regard and many others in the past week were absolutely contemptible and unforgivable, and that he took advantage of his position by being among our troops. My speech will be brief. I want to ask a number of questions in no particular order. First, I am told that the Fleet Air Arm would prefer to have the Super Hornet maritime strike attack aircraft, which it could buy off the shelf, instead of the joint strike fighter. I would be glad if the Minister could let me know the position on that matter. Has that been or is that being considered, given the escalating costs of the JSF? Secondly, I am anxious to know what the Army is doing about recruiting. How does the recruiting stand? Many regiments are having to go on operations with composite squadrons and companies; that, of course, is of great concern. The lack of manpower is leading to serious overstretch at a time when we are fighting in two different theatres. Thirdly, will the Minister see what he can do to try to improve on the Ministry of Defence's dismal performance in respect of telling the story of the astonishing achievements and activities of British troops on operations? The continual bleating about nobody knowing what the Army is doing on operations is entirely the fault of the structures to promote such stories. There is no reason on earth why well informed, well told stories that give away nothing, but enable people here to get some comprehension of the astonishing challenges and remarkable achievements of our troops, should not be told. It is incumbent on Ministers to review the situation and see what they can do to drive it forward. At the Ministry of Defence, in both military and civilian bureaucracies, there is a sort of leaden resolve to say no to everything. I urge the Minister to improve on that. Fourthly, I should like to make the general point that now is no time to reorganise the head office of the Ministry of Defence, although I understand that that is to take place under the Cabinet Office changes. Doing such a thing is madness when we are operating at war in two theatres—one very, very demanding and the other just very demanding. It is folly to take our eye off the ball because of such a major change at the very top of the Ministry of Defence. Next, I want to raise a question that I know my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), who knows so much about such matters, will also raise. It is about the treatment of the Defence Export Services Organisation, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox). As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot wrote in an admirable letter to The Daily Telegraph, it is extraordinary that"““just 10 days before scrapping it, the Government placed an advertisement in a Sunday newspaper for a new head of the DESO, under the job description: 'This is a vital role supporting defence objectives and contributing to wider national interests.' ””" Scrapping DESO is an act of bovine stupidity, engineered by some communist woman at the Treasury, I understand, who decided that it would be in the interests of the United Kingdom to do away with one of the most effective organisations in this country for promoting British commercial interests. When I was a Minister in the Ministry of Defence, I worked alongside two DESO chief executives and I have only the highest admiration and regard for everyone in that organisation, which has done so much to raise this country's defence export sales. Our defence products are admired all over the world and are a very important part of our commercial life. Next, the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) was right to say that the real increase in defence spending is about 1.5 per cent. year on year. It is futile for the Government to keep asking Conservative Members, ““What would you do?”” We are not in government: we will have to deal with such questions when we are in government, but military funding cannot remain at the current low level when we are fighting two wars. We are doing that on a peacetime budget, but Ministers must understand that the result is that there has been a split in the armed forces. I have never known such bitterness and inter-service rivalry as exists now in our armed forces. The three services are having to fight for the very poor assets that are available, and I believe that the chiefs must be feeling the strain very seriously. All that is happening at a time when we can least afford it. I shall end with two brief points. The first is that we cannot fight the wars that we are fighting unless the money available to meet the here-and-now requirements of our forces is increased. For instance, we urgently need more helicopters. There is no argument about that, and I was delighted by the Prime Minister's announcement yesterday that, not before time, an order was to be placed for 140 Mastiff patrol vehicles. In that regard, I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) on doing so much to bring home to colleagues in the House how serious is the problem of the lack of protection available to our soldiers. Some of the hazards that they face are very grave. The vehicles referred to yesterday by the Prime Minister should have been ordered at least 18 months ago and, although I am pleased that the order has been made, we cannot afford to put our entire future capability at risk. That means that we must pay for the wars that we fight in a realistic way. Finally, may I make a suggestion to the Minister? It is probably somewhat outside today's discussion, but in my view it is essential that the next Chief of the Defence Staff is not chosen from among a group of nominees put forward by each service in a manner that, as it were, resembles Buggins's turn. I believe that the next CDS should be chosen from the entire pool of four-star officers in all three services, as that would broaden the talent pool in a way that is very important in today's armed forces.