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Defence Policy

I beg to move"That this House has considered the matter of defence policy." It is a great privilege for me to be able to open today's debate on defence policy, and I am very much looking forward to the contributions of all right hon. and hon. Members. There is a depth of experience in this Chamber on which I would like to be able to draw in the weeks and months ahead. We all know that our country and its armed forces face real and obvious dangers. I hope that we can all work together to help to overcome them and to show our support for and pride in the men and women who serve our country so well. May I also begin by paying tribute to my immediate predecessor? My right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Des Browne) was a distinguished Secretary of State. In my first week as Defence Secretary, I attended a meeting of NATO Defence Ministers in Budapest. I can pass on to my right hon. Friend that, as I was being introduced to colleagues from different member states, every one of my counterparts spoke of him with genuine warmth and respect, and rightly so. Those comments are a testament to his integrity, dignity and intellect, and I should like to pay my own personal tribute to the leadership that he gave to the MOD over recent years. At the outset of my first defence debate, I would like to remember the men and women who have been killed or injured serving their country. My thoughts and prayers are with their families, friends and colleagues. The individual sacrifices of this generation stand comparison with those of any other in our nation's history. We must never allow their service and sacrifice to be forgotten, because we owe them so much. I welcome this debate on defence policy. The primary purpose of our defence policy is to protect and enhance the security of our people. That is why we currently have 8,000 troops serving in Afghanistan and more than 4,000 troops in southern Iraq. It is also why we are investing more than £6 billion this year in new capabilities to serve the needs of our armed forces now and in the future. The nature of conflict has changed throughout the 20th century. Thankfully, large-scale inter-state warfare is today less likely than it has been for some considerable time. Although we must always have the capability to defend ourselves, if necessary by ourselves, today our security will more often than not be aligned with that of our allies. Over the past few years, Her Majesty's Government have set out the modern nature of the global context in which we now operate. In the strategic defence review of 1998 and its new chapter in 2002, and more recently in the national security strategy, we have sought to identify the nature of the modern threats we now face: terrorism, failing states, weapons proliferation and energy insecurity. The UK's defence policies contribute towards three overarching strategic objectives: to achieve success on operations; to be ready to respond to tasks that might arise; and to build for the future. I would like to say a few words about each of these objectives.