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Defence in the UK

It is a particular pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), not just because he and I both have the privilege of representing very fine cathedral cities, but because he has unrivalled expertise and practical knowledge of our reserve forces. It was also a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), because over many years the Staffordshire Regiment was part of the backbone of the infantry, just as in its day, once upon a time, the Wiltshire Regiment was too—it is now part of the Rifles. I shall concentrate more on the civilian side of defence in the UK. We face a paradox. When I was a child growing up in Salisbury in the 1950s, a substantial proportion—perhaps 20 per cent.—of the people on the streets, particularly at weekends, would have been in uniform. In a garrison town, surrounded by garrison towns on Salisbury plain, I recognised the importance of the military and may even have taken it for granted. Now, Her Majesty's forces have as much popularity, status and respect as at any time since the 1950s, when of course they were regarded as the saviours of our country, which indeed they were. Now, they again enjoy great status. Perhaps the Royal Navy, as the senior service, does not enjoy as much status as the other forces, simply because people in the Navy are more restricted to their home bases. However, if one visits Estonia, as I did earlier in March, one finds that the Royal Navy is held in the highest regard there. Its visits, such as the visit of HMS Illustrious to Tallinn later this year, are anticipated enormously by the whole population, not least because the Royal Navy helped the Estonians in their independence war in 1919. The Royal Navy should have more status. People do not recognise the purple role that it plays now, or how prominent it is in running our operation in Afghanistan. It may have fewer ships than it did but, my goodness, it is proving its expertise, not just at sea but in military theatres generally. I want to mention rehabilitation for Her Majesty's forces at places such as Headley court near Leatherhead. The need for a special swimming pool there led to the remarkable establishment of Help for Heroes by my constituents, Bryn and Emma Parry. It has caught the imagination of the nation. It started with a swimming pool and it has grown and grown. The attention that we are at last beginning to give to stress disorders and mental disorders among serving and former members of Her Majesty's forces has led to new support for Combat Stress, for example. The Army Benevolent Fund has never been busier, along with the Army Families Federation and its sister organisations for the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Of course, the respect shown in local communities as coffins are borne from RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire—my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) will know a great deal about that—is reflected throughout the country in the welcome home parades for soldiers returning from active service held in many of our towns and cities. Only last week—indeed, the process finished this week—we reformed legislation governing the way in which Her Majesty's coroners carry out their duties with regard to military inquests. We can at last say that we are doing the decent thing by military families. On 27 June, we will celebrate armed forces day. Flags will fly throughout the country for the whole of that week, and we will show our appreciation. Yet when the pollsters and focus groups report their figures, that support is not translated into political priorities, so political parties do not respond by giving defence a higher spending priority. For example, the Ipsos MORI poll of October 2008—the latest one that I have been able to find—found that over four fifths, or 81 per cent., of British adults say that they are favourable towards UK armed forces. That is the highest figure that MORI has recorded since that tracking study began in 2003. Only a tiny minority—3 per cent.—are unfavourable. Some 52 per cent. support the UK armed forces' presence in Afghanistan, while just over a third—35 per cent.—oppose it. Some 43 per cent. support the UK armed forces' presence in Iraq, and 45 per cent. do not. Levels of support for both those operations are higher than they were last year. It is interesting that a distinct divide appears to have emerged between civil society and the military. There is much greater casualty sensitivity in the west than there was. There has been a growing polarisation of religious belief across the world. There is growing concern for universal human rights across the world, and prosperity has emerged as the overriding socio-political value when considering defence, rather than territorial gain, or Russian tanks rolling across the north European plain. Although the public's attitude to war is less positive than it was, public support for the armed forces has generally remained consistently high. As Peter Riddell commented in the Royal United Services Institute Journal in February last year,""Insofar as there is a gulf"" between the military and the public,""it is of ignorance, not sympathy or support."" So it is an extraordinary paradox that defence of the realm is way down the list when it comes to why people vote for a particular party. I hope that that is not a reflection of the fact that most of the time in the House of Commons, defence is regarded as a bipartisan issue. It certainly is on the Defence Committee. That is an extraordinary situation. The present position, which we all recognise, of overstretch and underfunding, as regards both people and procurement, means that we have to take a long view of how we got to where we are, and where our nation and our military are going in future. Our history and heritage teach us, and economic necessity demands, that we sustain and pay for our armed services to be trained and equipped for high-intensity warfare with global reach, complemented by a strong diplomatic service—a comprehensive approach, as we are learning to call it. Both should be underpinned by increasingly sophisticated security services and intelligence networks. The British have taken their language, ideas, trade and armies around the globe for many hundreds of years, but gone are the days of empire. The legacy is there, but we are not stopping and withdrawing to our island. The reason is straightforward: British forces are needed to protect UK global interests in trade and shipping. More than 90 per cent. of our imports come in by sea, and those trade routes and vessels must be secure against foreign state intervention, as well as terrorism and piracy. That is why our forces must have global reach, and that is why they need aircraft carriers. They must have power projection by land, sea and air, and that must include amphibious capability and unmanned maritime systems, increasing use of unmanned combat air systems and space-based remote sensors.