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Defence in the UK

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I do not think it takes very much for the Russians to interpret anything they choose as some sort of provocation, but one certainly does not want to give them any additional grounds for doing so, if one can help it. One can only hope that by the time we next have this debate, most of our involvement in Iraq will be over. I echo the points made in yesterday's debate about the fact that we should be getting on with the process of setting up an inquiry into exactly what we achieved there, what went well, what went wrong, why we got involved in the first place and what lessons we might draw from that for future engagements, particularly if we maintain, as the outcome of the strategic defence review, as I hope we will, a commitment to an interventionist policy and to expeditionary warfare. I hope that lessons will also be learned for operations in Afghanistan, where there are still many challenges ahead, most notably the real problem of overspill into Pakistan, which is, itself, very unstable at the moment. We will have an ongoing task preparing the British public for what will be a protracted conflict. The economic crisis poses a new threat to our national defence. We have been aware for some time that there is a black hole in the Ministry of Defence finances. A year or so ago, it was estimated at £2 billion, and it is in no danger of shrinking—indeed, there is every likelihood that it will get bigger and bigger. Estimates of true defence inflation vary; some say that it is at least 3 per cent., whereas other figures that are cited are higher. It is clear that the defence industry is not going to remain untouched by the current economic difficulties, and this will bring uncertain consequences for the skills bases, contracts and projects involved. In these uncertain times, the defence industry is partly immune from the wider malaise, but we must be careful to ensure that the economic difficulties do not impede further our activities overseas or the delivery of vital resources to the front line. The recent Defence Committee report highlighted that, even now, there are problems with equipment. Our track record on procurement is like a broken record: delayed, over budget and below requirement. The Government have yet to face up to the reality of how on earth they will be able to afford all the programmes that are still in place in principle on the budget that is available at the moment and what they will do to get industry on board, to try to make the delivery of existing projects more efficient. As part of the present crisis, we should look at current procurements, but problems from the past are also catching up with us. We have heard that Nimrod is to be grounded, which is an admission that the fleet is not fit to fly. It seems to have taken Ministers a long time to arrive at that conclusion, whereas aircrew, coroners and others have been saying for some time that the aircraft are not airworthy. It does not surprise me, in the light of the current economic storm, that Trident and the proposal to renew it has been mentioned. We heard from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) that some distinguished retired military figures have been debating it. We heard from the Minister that people have been debating it on the ConservativeHome website. There is renewed interest in the subject in the light of the economic crisis.