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Defence Policy

It is only three weeks since our last defence debate, during which the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), said that there was no equivocation about the Government's commitment to Devonport. I make no apology for beginning with some local issues, although I want to take up some of the points made by the two previous speakers, with whom I have the honour of serving on the Defence Committee. I suspect that in the coming weeks redundancies at Devonport Royal Dockyard will be announced. The redundancies have been spoken of for about three years. Given that the 24/7 media tend to accentuate every story by repeating it almost every quarter of an hour, sometimes for several days, the fact that the redundancies have been expected for such a long time has tended to make it sound as if they are happening over and again. Nevertheless, when they come they will, of course, be a source of deep regret and play into the ongoing concerns of my constituents. Earlier this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck) and I discussed the death by a thousand cuts of Devonport naval base and dockyard with the regional Minister. [Interruption.] I see my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces sitting, as always, with great patience as he hears that such stories are ongoing. We know that Bulwark, Albion and Westminster will keep our workers in the dockyard busy for several years and that there was a huge £150 million investment to enable the important Astute submarine maintenance work in Devonport to continue. There are, of course, peaks in the sort of work that is undertaken at our dockyard, and they are associated with the intense work on the submarines. Obviously, those peaks occur alongside the troughs in between. Filling those troughs is very important to the people who earn their living through this work. In recent weeks, Babcock Marine decided that it would no longer continue with work on some prestigious luxury boats that had been part of the in-fill work that kept the expert skills of the people who work on the submarines honed. Yesterday, following my question at Prime Minister's Question Time, I was pleased to hear the announcement about the £700-million vehicles programme, part of which will be for further purchases of the Jackal vehicle—a great success story that we have talked about in previous debates. The programme will not automatically come to Devonport, but I cannot imagine that anywhere else is as well positioned to compete for it. When we met my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces a few months ago, he assured us that he would press to obtain the clarity to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred when he said that he hoped soon to make some important procurement announcements. There is often confusion between the roles of Devonport dockyard and the naval base. Of course, the prospects of both are closely tied together. Last week, I was pleased to be able to attend, as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, the staff course at Shrivenham defence academy, where for three days we discussed maritime policy and doctrine alongside officers who are on a year-long course preparatory to taking on their first command posts. That helped me to get a deeper and broader picture of the range of tasks and the flexibility of the role of the Royal Navy, and the centrality of amphibious warfare, for which we hope to become the centre of excellence in Devonport. The right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), who chairs the Defence Committee, referred to a crisis of understanding. One of the things that I gained a deeper understanding of was exactly what people mean when they refer to sea blindness and maritime blindness. That operates on several levels, one of which relates to the general public. When our deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq are shown on television, they appear broadly to be land deployments to which the Navy is not at all central, so it ends up being sidelined. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that puts at risk its interests in relation to all the tensions involved in the defence budget. In Defence questions on Monday, I requested information about the number of Royal Navy personnel who are currently deployed in Afghanistan. The answer will probably come as quite a surprise. In the battle of arguments between land, air and sea forces for different procurement programmes, the Royal Navy is put in a peculiar position whereby the centrality of its role in our joint expeditionary force capabilities becomes lost. My experience last week suggests that all the platforms together, including the carriers and the amphibious vessels, are there to project, support and protect our armed forces—there could be nothing more central to what we need to do to meet the risks of today and tomorrow. Various hon. Members referred to the future carrier, which will enhance that amphibious capability to project, support and protect as a central plank of the expeditionary force that we need to deal with uncertain future threats. Some have argued that we need a White Paper to bring all this together. In addition to the fact that that would delay things, which would be dangerous, I understand that the basic assumptions underpinning the last White Paper—the strategic defence review—have been reviewed and found to hold true. There is a case to clarify and update what the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire referred to as a crisis of understanding. I hope that some means of drawing on recent important studies can be found. I want to mention two further issues. First, I acknowledge the work in the report of the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), on national recognition, and the Government response, which, among other things, confirms that we will have the first British armed forces and veterans day on 27 June next year. Work is ongoing to ensure that the day is in tune with national sentiment and to ensure that the scale and nature of the event do not unduly burden the armed forces, which is an important consideration. Secondly, I particularly welcome the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham, who this morning welcomed two remarkable veterans—two of the 50 veterans who have had life-size portraits painted by local artist Peter Blackler, telling the story from the first world war to the most recent deployments. I hope that a role can be found for that sort of project. I welcome the fact that prints of the two portraits are to be hung in the Ministry of Defence. Such projects, especially when they involve young people, are an important part of how we help our communities that are less familiar with the armed services than those represented by most of us here today to understand the role of yesterday's and today's armed forces, and the needs of veterans of more recent deployments. I conclude with an issue arising from the Government's response to the recent report of the Defence Committee on recruitment and retention. I was particularly disappointed by the Government's response to our recommendation that they should, as soon as possible, carefully consider dealing with the differing retirement ages in the armed services, which has a particular effect on the senior ranks. Because people must have two years' remaining service in order be able to apply for some positions, those who have an earlier retirement date—mostly Marines, some of whom have the most important experience from recent deployment—cannot apply for posts that are open to all services. That cannot be right. It is not sensible to deny individuals that opportunity, and it is not sensible for the MOD not to have the benefit of those senior officers' experience.