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Defence in the UK

The Minister has not been able to reassure me that commanders have a choice, because we know perfectly well that they do not. I have praised the Government in the past for their procurement of many protected vehicles, but there are still so few Mastiffs and there will be so few Ridgbacks when they come into service that, in reality, as I have just said, there is no meaningful choice. It is time that Ministers came clean and admitted that the decision that there would, in effect, be no choice was made at the top. Providing a choice of suitable vehicles would undoubtedly interfere with the long-term strategy for future conventional warfare. I am not convinced that a defence review is necessary. I believe that it would merely kick the whole subject into the long grass once again. We know what the problems are today. Incoming Governments—all Governments—are there to make decisions, and to justify them in the light of circumstances and the money that is available at the time. As we all know, however, the United Kingdom has committed its forces to counter-insurgency warfare of the most difficult and treacherous kind, and that should at present be its first priority. Surely, therefore, the UK has a moral obligation to provide the very best and most appropriate equipment to protect the lives of our fighting men and women. If it cannot or is unwilling to do so, it should withdraw from those engagements and never again commit the lives of our armed services to similar situations. The United Kingdom used to be the very best at counter-insurgency operations. We used to excel, but to be successful in the future, as we undoubtedly were in the past, requires us to rededicate ourselves and provide the means to reinforce our will to win. We must make a decision soon about the type of future war to which we will commit our troops. In other words, we must decide in which direction we wish the Army and other services to go. Having made that decision, we must ensure that sufficient funding and equipment are available at the outset of any campaign. Finally, we must make the vital decision to remain an independent United Kingdom force, rather than become merely part of a European Union force, with all that that implies militarily and in relation to procurement. If we do not make those right decisions, the back of the British Army will be broken; and that is not a situation that I, for one, would find tolerable.