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Defence Policy

May I begin by associating the Opposition with the tributes paid by the Secretary of State to all the men and women in the armed forces, their families and all the civilian bodies who make sacrifices at all times for our security? As this is the first time that we have faced each other at the Dispatch Box, I also welcome him to his new position. I worked with him—or against him, depending on one's interpretation—when he was at the Department of Health, and he always brings great intellectual effort to his portfolio. He arrives at the Ministry of Defence at a difficult time, but he will find that defence policy is much more bipartisan than health policy. The objections that the Opposition raise to policies are about implementation and detail, rather than broad strategic interests. I also wish to pay tribute to the Secretary of State's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Des Browne). He was open with information and always willing to share it with the Opposition. He gave us great access to all parts of the MOD and other bodies, and I regard him as a personal friend as well as a colleague. He is a man of great integrity and I hope that, should he so wish, he will return to the Front Bench. The Secretary of State spoke about the budget and the need to match resources and commitments. He takes over the Ministry at a time of severe pressures on the core budget, and we are all aware of reports and studies by the Defence Committee and others about unfunded liabilities. We still have the problem that we are using the defence planning assumptions of 1998, planning for a tempo that does not take fully into account what has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some will argue that the urgent operational requirements have been over-used. They were useful for getting what we wanted when we wanted it, but at the cost of stability and predictability in long-term procurement. The right hon. Gentleman also inherits problems such as the deal between the Treasury and the MOD that all UOR costs above £900 million a year would be refunded 50 per cent. by the MOD, which has resulted in a £400 million cut in its core budget capabilities this year, and the cut of £1.4 billion in the future rotorcraft capability budget in 2004, which has led to a chronic under-availability of helicopters. As the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) said, there is also a shortage of equipment for training before deployment, which is one of the biggest complaints we now get from soldiers in theatre. To be fair, I have to say that when I ask soldiers on the front line whether they have problems with personal kit, the answer has changed substantially—as the Secretary of State said—even in the past couple of years. We welcome that, but the chronic under-availability of airlift capacity needs to be urgently addressed. The Secretary of State mentioned the role of NATO. We need to examine in some detail that role, the contribution of NATO members, which he mentioned, and the relative roles of the EU and NATO. The role of NATO was easily defined, politically and militarily, in the cold war. Its purpose was to stop the spread of communism in Europe and, if necessary, to stop the Soviet Union physically. It has become less clear in recent years exactly what the political and military roles of NATO are. There are those who talk about a greater need for out-of-area operational capability and those who still talk about the primary role of defence of the European continent. We must make it very clear that it is not a choice between those roles. We need both those capabilities, especially in a globalised economy where our interests can be threatened in many more places and by many more actors than they would have been in the past. Politicians cannot simply have the upside of globalisation without dealing with the downside, which is the unavoidable importation of strategic risk. We in the House need a clear, bipartisan view that speaks for this country in the international field about the need for NATO to be able to respond to all the types of threats that this country can face. We have a problem, however, with the level of commitment of some NATO members. Only six out of 26 make the 2 per cent. of GDP contribution to the defence budget that they are supposed to make. That is woefully inadequate and deprives NATO, as a whole, of a huge amount of resources. There are too many caveats, too many restrictions and too little political will even to use the resources that are available. Not only is that a weakness for NATO, but it adds a disproportionate burden on those countries—such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and the Netherlands—that are willing to do the fighting. The Secretary of State pointed out that we were doing too much of the funding; we are also doing too much of the dying compared to other countries that should be carrying a bigger share of the collective responsibility they are supposed to have as members of the alliance. The message must be clear: ““Do not join NATO if you simply want to be a peacekeeper or if you want to get defence on the cheap.”” Membership implies financial responsibility—it is not possible to get an insurance policy without paying the premiums—and military responsibility, as well as a willingness to respond to the article 5 responsibilities and commitments if required. It would be nice if it was possible to make the choice to be simply a peacekeeper, but a peacekeeper can work only if there is a peace to be kept. Sometimes, peace has to be fought for and, sometimes, it has to be died for. That is a message that we should send at all times to our allies.