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Defence Procurement

I welcome this opportunity for a regular debate on defence procurement, but like others I begin by paying tribute to the service personnel who have lost their lives in Afghanistan. We have had a grim couple of weeks there, but that shows how important the fight is, and the battles must go on. I pay tribute to the Special Air Service members, and to Intelligence Officer Sarah Bryant, Corporal Sean Robert Reeve, Lance Corporal Richard Larkin and Paul Stout. Our thoughts are with their friends and families. We owe gratitude to them, and to everybody who continues to undertake the very dangerous work that is vital to our national interest. The security of the nation is the Government's first responsibility, but it is clear that the nature of the task of securing our nation has changed, as new challenges and threats have emerged. In the 1998 strategic defence review, we rightly identified our priorities and how we would respond to the threats of that time, but events have changed a great deal, and rapidly, since then. We find ourselves in more wars of choice than we had anticipated, and we are more greatly involved—at a more sustained level—in operations in hostile areas than the assumptions of the 1998 review envisaged. We are involved in two sustained high-tempo operations, and we have additional commitments in the Balkans. Given our limited defence budget, our reliance on reserves to meet key immediate needs, and significant delays to some of the most important procurement projects—a subject already mentioned—we are obliged to ask serious questions about defence. We need to ask about the future needs and challenges of our armed forces, how we can most effectively meet them in the next 20 years and beyond, and how we prepare for unforeseen threats that might arise during that period. Great plans for the future are of little comfort to the men and women who are on the front line today, but preparations that build on our current capabilities are absolutely vital. The hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth), speaking from the Conservative Front Bench, rightly stressed the need to strike a balance between our immediate needs in Afghanistan in particular and the reality, which we must keep in mind, that we cannot assume that, just because there is no immediate threat, we will not in the medium or long term find ourselves once again involved in state-on-state warfare. Just as 25 years ago we were configured for the military needs of the cold war, and now we face mainly insurgency tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan, the future security environment might be founded on some very different considerations: climate change, migration, technological developments, population growth and resource scarcity, which the Government have already recognised. As I look at that uncertain future and consider the threats that we might face, ringing in my ears are the words of the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), who also speaks from the Conservative Front Bench. He will always paint a grisly picture of the threats that we could face from Russia, China—