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Defence Policy

I am delighted to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), who has made the most remarkable speech that I have heard in a defence debate for a long time. I would only add that I, too, believe passionately that we should reconnect with our constituents to point out to them that even in these straitened times we need to recognise that our future prosperity, our standard of living and our quality of life all depend on recognising what our freedom stands for. If we are to continue to trade globally with the rest of the world, to import and export goods and services, and to do more than 90 per cent. of it by sea and only a tiny minority by air, we must, as a matter of necessity, still be able to project force around the globe. We have reached a crossroads, as my right hon. Friend pointed out. We will either be a global force to be reckoned with, or we will not. If we are not, we will fall back on a group of countries that currently call themselves members of NATO, or perhaps on another relationship within the European Union. We cannot have it both ways: either we address the issue of the proportion of our national spending that goes on defence, and increase it—I would like to double it, as I have been saying for many years, to the distress of my party and the disbelief of the Labour party—or we will have to sit back and decline gently over the coming generations. I believe passionately, however, that we do not really have a choice, because our people demand that their standard of living does not decline. Nor are they willing to see their ideas of what Britain is all about written off. Therefore, as my right hon. Friend so vividly explained, we must give them a vision and a far clearer explanation of what we are doing about defence in the world. We also have to explain that the goods and services that they buy in the shops depend, ultimately, on the freedom to trade globally, on keeping the sea lanes open, and on keeping the security of our shores under constant surveillance, using technology that they are not used to and cannot really understand. How many of our constituents are distressed by what they perceive as the decline of what used to be called Customs and Excise, now Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs? They say, ““There aren't any Customs cutters floating around our shores any more.”” That is history; we now do things differently, and I have to accept that. People are increasingly concerned about the way in which our defence policy, as applied to our personnel, does not provide the services that our constituents expect. The remarkable reaction right across the United Kingdom to Help for Heroes has made us all sit up and wonder why that extraordinary organisation, which I am proud to say originates from my constituency, has caught the imagination of the British people. It is because the British people have suddenly woken up, and say, ““Well, we may not understand what the armed forces are doing, and we don't like seeing on our television screens what they're doing, and what is being done to them in Afghanistan, Iraq or many other parts of the world””—there are, in fact, some 4,000 different units of the British military all around the world—““but we recognise that when they come home, they should expect and receive better.”” That is why I am particularly anxious about how we treat returning service personnel, medically and mentally. I salute the progress that the Ministry of Defence has made in addressing those issues. The Defence Committee produced a report earlier this year on how we look after our service personnel and their families, medically. However, we need to go further. We have, of course, visited Headley Court and Combat Stress to see what they do, but there is something else that we need to do: we need to encourage Ministers to provide all the necessary resources, for example to the King's Centre for Military Health Research, of King's college, London. It does incredibly good work, which it has been publishing since 2006. However, it still has a long way to go. There is a remarkable project, which I hope Ministers will continue to support, called the trauma risk management, or TRiM, project for post-conflict trauma, depression and stress training. The system operates as a proactive peer group and mentoring and support system that helps people to identify when those in the services are at risk, and the symptoms that they should recognise. The allocated budget for all stress management training within all the armed forces stands at about £1 million a year, which is not nearly enough. It is easy for me to say that we must spend more, but this is a very important matter, and in view of the anxiety about it, expressed only today in the national press, I hope that Ministers will consider what should be done. Another issue that we should take as part and parcel of the question of trying to ensure that the public understand more about what it means to serve in Her Majesty's forces is how we treat them with regard to their right to vote. For many years we have been saying that Her Majesty's forces do not have as high a level of voter registration as we think they should, and this month the Electoral Commission has described the way in which our forces are under-registered. It points out that only about two thirds of Her Majesty's forces are registered to vote, and it is running campaigns, which I welcome. I hope that Ministers will be encouraged to work ever more closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure that in the annual campaign that is beginning this month, through unit registration officers and Ministry of Defence publicity, no effort is spared to ensure that our service voters have the service that they deserve. It is also important to recognise that registering as an overseas voter is not always the answer. Rather the answer for all service personnel is to register as service voters because they need register only every three years instead of every year.