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Defence in the UK

I do indeed. I also remember during the cold war years—like many middle-aged men who were involved in those arguments at the time, I am prone to looking back to that time too often—the argument was always to ask why Britain was spending a greater proportion on defence than most of our NATO partners when our European colleagues and partners in NATO were spending much less. In fact, we were spending more than just about all of them except for the Americans. As somebody once pointed out, that was the wrong comparison. Those other countries were on our side. We should have been looking at what was being spent by our potential adversaries rather than what was being spent by our allies. We have to spend as much as the country can afford to fulfil as many military commitments as we need to undertake. We must not be guided by what other countries do, especially if they are on our side rather than our potential adversaries. I now come to the question of the nuclear deterrent. It was pleasant to hear the traditional voice of Labour unilateralism coming in an intervention from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle), who spoke of the letter in The Times from three retired generals, and from the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Ms Clark), who was concerned that other countries would follow the UK's example if we do not get rid of our nuclear weapons, presumably by acquiring nuclear weapons of their own, and claimed that such projects are historically far more expensive than when planned. I have to correct the hon. Lady on both points. Both Trident and Polaris are famous, if not unique in MOD terms, for having come in on time and on budget and, in at least one case, under budget. As for other countries, they will not make a decision to acquire nuclear weapons because Britain, an existing nuclear power, continues to maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent as long as other countries still have nuclear weapons themselves. Whether countries acquire nuclear weapons or not is a matter of their hard-headed interpretations of their own strategic interests. Throughout the cold war and subsequently, whenever people on that side of the argument were challenged to name a particular nuclear or near-nuclear country that would follow suit if we unilaterally gave up our nuclear deterrent, they have never been able to give an example. As for the letter from the three generals, I would like to think of one of the three, Sir Hugh Beach, as a friend of mine. He is a very gallant and courteous man, who won a military cross fighting the Nazis in world war two. I think very highly of him, but he has always been against Britain's having an independent nuclear deterrent. I was pleased that, when the Royal United Services Institute invited him to write a long article for its journal, I was encouraged to write the rejoinder for the opposite side of the case. I invite anoraks on this subject to get hold of the February 2009 edition and immerse themselves in those two articles. As well as being one of the most decent Members of this House, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) is certainly one of the most respected on the subject of reserves, but I want to concentrate on another aspect of his excellent speech. He went to the heart of the matter when he pointed out that virtually all the wars and conflicts in which we have been engaged in recent history took us completely by surprise. He gave a long and extremely impressive list, but I should like to add one more example. In the 1920s, this country's armed forces were so unclear about where the next war was likely to come from that each of them prepared its own hypothetical contingency plans against entirely different potential enemies—the Royal Navy against Japan, the Army against Russia, and the Royal Air Force against France. At least one of them got it right, but I leave it to hon. Members to decide which. I turn now to the contribution made by the Minister for the Armed Forces. I was surprised at his feeble attempt to suggest that the Conservative policy on the maintenance of Trident was unclear. The Conservative party is only major party in this House that has supported the maintenance of the strategic nuclear deterrent ever since Britain acquired one. I take the Minister back to that happy day of 14 March 2007, when this House voted by 409 votes to 161 to proceed with the steps necessary to renew Trident and keep the nuclear deterrent for a new generation. On that day, 87 Labour MPs joined the Liberal Democrats in opposing the motion. If the Conservative party had done what the Liberal Democrats did and found an excuse to vote against the Government, the Government would have been defeated. So it really ill behoves the Government to say that the Conservative party, which saved their correct policy to go on with the nuclear deterrent, is in any way uncertain about the matter. If the Minister had any doubts in that regard before today, the excellent speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), the shadow Secretary of State, means that he can have no more in the future.