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Defence Policy

It is an honour to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway). I am only sorry that his voice was failing him, because he was making a powerful argument. I look forward to the next opportunity to hear what he has to say in greater detail. I am pleased to take part in the debate. Through the Minister of State, I want to give a warm welcome on behalf of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru to his new colleagues in the Ministry of Defence team. I also want to put on the record a genuine and warm tribute to the Secretary of State's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Des Browne). Those who understand Scottish politics know that it is a pretty competitive field between my party and his, not least because we won his seat last year in the Scottish Parliament elections. However, I always had a straight and helpful information flow in my relationship with him, which is important bearing in mind that I represent the largest group of service personnel in Scotland, with both RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth in the Moray constituency, and that there is a strong Army tradition with the Highlanders and other regiments such as the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. For that reason, it is not a surprise that the largest constituency veterans day event in 2008 was in Moray. It is important to reflect on what the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), said about support for the troops. We should put it on the record, as the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) did, that support for our troops cuts across parties and our opinions on the operations on which they are sent. There are those of us who have passionately opposed the likes of the Iraq mission who will not avoid—nor would we ever seek to avoid—giving our unwavering support to our troops and the work that they do. The four substantial issues that I want to raise are Iraq, Afghanistan, matters relating to veterans' affairs and Trident. I had the good fortune last week to visit the Iraq mission in Basra and spent a lot of valuable time with the British armed forces there. I was briefed about their work. Having seen what I think is universally acknowledged to be a successful transitional operation involving UK military officers advising Iraqi opposite numbers in the 14th division, I am glad to be able to put it on the record that our armed forces are doing tremendous work. The more who know about it, the better. I am pleased to report back to those hon. Members who have not had the opportunity to go to Iraq and see the work of our armed forces that it is extremely effective. However, I left with one very big concern relating to civilian reconstruction. Many people are working extremely hard in the provincial reconstruction teams, not least the local team leader Keith MacKiggan, who, with officers from the Royal Navy and colleagues from the Netherlands and elsewhere, is helping the municipal authorities—which, sadly, are extremely corrupt and ineffective—to re-establish key services such as water and electricity supply, sewerage, and rubbish disposal. It concerned me that one of the most senior officers briefing us, who had served around the world, described the living conditions in large parts of Basra city, notably al-Hayyaniyah, as the worst that he had experienced anywhere at any time. It concerns me—notwithstanding my wish to see UK armed forces withdrawn from Iraq as quickly as possible—that part of the UK legacy will unfortunately be a continuation of that intolerable situation. I would welcome anything that the ministerial team can do to encourage their colleagues in the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office to ensure that those problems are overcome. One of the great advantages of such visits—in this case it was organised very ably by Captain Helen Falconer—was that we had the opportunity to speak to service personnel of all ranks from throughout the United Kingdom. As one would expect, as there are so many service personnel from Moray, I met a lot of them in Basra. The one message that I received consistently was that they are concerned about the time that it takes them to travel home on leave and that that time is effectively deducted from their overall leave period. Young men from Buckie and Orkney, serving with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and the Highlanders, explained that they were given 14 days' leave from intense service on the front, and that it took them three days to travel home and three to travel back, effectively halving their leave time. I do not consider that acceptable, and I hope that the Ministry of Defence will re-examine its rules pertaining to the calculation of travel time for our serving personnel. Let me now turn to the subject of Afghanistan, not least because of the biggest single loss of life among the UK armed forces there. I pay tribute to the 14 personnel who died aboard Nimrod XV230, which was based at RAF Kinloss, and to their families. I was pleased to receive the Secretary of State's assurances, in reply to an intervention from me at the beginning of the debate, about the serviceability of the Nimrod fleet as well as the maintaining of the safety focus, which is extremely important. I shall return to that later—I hope that the Minister of State shares my concern about some ongoing serviceability issues—but I first want to say something about the broader aspects of the Afghanistan mission. We need to look closely at our current position, as other countries are doing. I understand that the United States national intelligence estimate on Afghanistan, prepared by the United States' 16 intelligence agencies, is set to highlight what they describe as harsh conclusions to the current strategy. It seems to me that we have limited breathing space for a major rethink over the winter months, when fighting subsides and a new United States President reviews his options. It is our brave troops who are literally on the front lines as the situation deteriorates. The Taliban have regrouped, the heroin trade is flourishing, and we are backing a Government with significant corruption problems. Meanwhile, too many ordinary Afghans are seeing precious little reconstruction and development, It should be obvious to anyone with even a cursory understanding of Afghan history that this is a recipe for disaster. We need a major rethink now. Sadly, the United Kingdom misspent most of the opportunity that it had to make progress in Afghanistan by becoming embroiled in Iraq. The SNP and Plaid Cymru believe that the time has come to look at all the options before it is too late. My time is running down, but there are two wider points that I want to make that are important. Defence policy, from our perspective, is sadly still decided in this place, but many of the attendant support mechanisms and the charity sector dealing with military matters are devolved or self-standing. That is visible by those of us who have decided to wear Scottish poppies; some may not be aware that they are doing so. I am pleased that colleagues from England are supporting Poppyscotland here today. I am pleased also that one of the first acts of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), who is responsible for veterans in the UK Defence Ministry, was to travel to Edinburgh last week to meet Stewart Maxwell, the SNP Minister in the Scottish Government with responsibility for such matters. I am pleased that the UK Minister was able to learn about the tremendous progress that has been made in the past 18 months. For the first time in Scotland since devolution we have a Scottish Government who have set out a programme for assisting veterans across Scotland. There has been a whole series of improvements to the situation inherited from the Labour and Liberal Democrat Administration in Scotland who, sadly, did not have such a focused policy. My last point is about Trident. The Secretary of State was absolutely right to say that one of the universal principles that guide the policy perspectives of anyone in a democracy is that of standards of democracy and consent. I found it slightly jarring to contrast those comments with one of his first visits in post to Faslane, an excellent facility that will be a tremendous base for conventional naval forces in Scotland. The Secretary of State chose to travel to Faslane and to criticise those of us who do not want Scotland to be home to a system of weapons of mass destruction. It is not just the SNP that believes that; the Scottish Churches, the Scottish TUC, the majority of voters and the majority of Labour voters in Scotland believe it. I hope that the Secretary of State, who is not present now, takes the opportunity to reflect on the fact that when he talks about democratic consent he should apply that to public opinion in Scotland. We are debating defence matters in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday. It is important for all those servicemen and women who may be watching or reading what we discuss today that they understand that our support for them is not dependent on our support of Government policy or on the constitutional arrangements within the UK. The most important message to all our servicemen and women, and to all the charities that support them and their families, is that we salute them all.