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Defence Policy

May I start by agreeing with what my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Mr. Joyce) said in his conclusion? The onus is on us all, especially people in this debate, to keep reinforcing, not only to the general public but to some of our colleagues, the debt of honour that we owe our servicemen and women. For the past six years, I have had the privilege of serving on the Defence Committee and have met servicemen and women all over the world, including in this country, who are doing a tremendous job. I think that the average person no longer recognises what such people do. I have no problem with the idea that we should do the utmost for those people, not only when they serve in Her Majesty’s armed forces but after they leave. The thing that saddens me is the way in which the matter is being used on a party political basis. That was demonstrated tonight in the contribution from the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox)—I am sorry that he is no longer in his place. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) said, it is wrong to take one example and then say that because one person has complained, everything is bad. I take exception to some of the things that hon. Gentleman said about Selly Oak, because I have visited it. I shall return to that matter in a minute. We are also reaching a point where the media is focusing in on this matter. It should criticise Government when they get things wrong. People in this House know that I criticise the Government when I think that they have got things wrong on the armed forces. One example from last week that stuck with me—this was raised earlier—was the fitting tribute at the national memorial arboretum, which I believe was well attended. The right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) was invited to that event, but he chose to go to California to visit Arnold Schwarzenegger. I am sure that had one of our Ministers or any Labour politician done that, they would have been rightly pilloried. Such is the debate and tempo that we are in at the moment. The line has clearly come from the Conservative party that it is the only one that understands defence and that Labour does not, and that it is the only one that can deliver for the armed forces. I must give 10 out of 10 to my former Select Committee Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South, who rightly reminded us of the Conservatives’ record in office on the armed forces. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Woodspring is not present, because he referred to the case of a Private Cooper and implied, wrongly, that that young man had acquired clostridium difficile from dirty hospital wards at Selly Oak. I must put on the record what happened. Had the hon. Gentleman taken the trouble to read last week’s edition of The Mail on Sunday, he would have got the true story, but that would not fit his facts. He tried to imply—““nudge, nudge, wink, wink””—that everything is bad. In fact, the surgeon who operated on Private Cooper said:"““He underwent major bowel surgery at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital””—" which is part of the Selly Oak complex—"““in Birmingham on October 5. During the procedure he had just one dose of antibiotics, in line with best practice for bowel surgery to prevent infection.""He is being treated for a presumed diagnosis of C. difficile. He has been cared for in a single room since his stay in the hospital and every precaution for preventing infection has been taken.""It is entirely possible that Jamie had been harbouring the C. difficile organism in his bowel, as many patients do.””" If the hon. Gentleman had explained that, it would have put a different complexion on the slight that he was trying to put on the good staff—people I have met on two occasions now—at Selly Oak.