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Future of the Territorial Army

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that; I know about the incredibly good work he does on behalf of the Territorial Army. The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds) made an important contribution about the TA's role in his constituency. I would genuinely like to congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Chloe Smith), who I know is new to the House, on her speech. She made a trenchant criticism of the Government—and in that, she is following in the footsteps of her predecessor, who was both an honourable and a genuine friend of mine. The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) made a number of criticisms. Through an intervention, I was able to make clear to him that his view of our role in Afghanistan differs not only from that of the Government, but from that of his own Front-Bench team. It is important to underline that despite the difficulties in Afghanistan, there is a clear and vast majority of MPs across the parties in support of what we are doing. That point should be made clear. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie), who leads for the Liberal Democrats, started very well, decrying the fact that the official Opposition had engaged in a cheap stunt by altering their motion overnight to refer to the role of the Leader of the Opposition. Despite that, however, and despite the fact that £20 million is on the table from the Treasury to reverse the initial decision, the hon. Gentleman says that he is nevertheless going to vote with the Conservative Opposition this evening. I have to say that that is an even more confusing Liberal Democrat policy formulation process than is usually the case. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife also asked the Government to trust him and the House to be more involved in the decision-making process. Let me be clear that we face difficult challenges, and that I would like to do that. If we are going to do it, however, he and his party will have to face up to reductions in spending as well as increases, as that is the only realism that will allow us to move forward. In that regard, I have to say that I am not holding my breath. The hon. Gentleman also asked me what would be sacrificed because of the changes announced in the last 24 hours, and what impact they would make on the Ministry of Defence. Let me be clear again that there will be no impact on the Ministry of Defence, as we have been able to manage the change through £20 million of additional funding from the Treasury—no ifs, no buts: this is additional money. The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) started by saying that he welcomed the Government's decision, which he felt was the right one. He then talked about regular Army recruitment, which clearly costs more in training, saying that we should provide that money. I agree, but his argument is, of course, fatally undermined by the fact that he proposes not one penny extra in defence expenditure on top of what the Government are proposing. The immediate slashing of public spending to deal with the public deficit would make the job of any Government in managing our defence expenditure that much more difficult. I know that in private the hon. Gentleman shares that view, but he is hamstrung by the views of his Front-Bench colleagues. He is also holed below the water by the fact that people judge politicians not by what they say, but by what they do. Under this Government, defence expenditure has increased by 11 per cent. in real terms. In the last five years of the Conservative Government there were half a billion pounds' worth of cuts in defence each year. That is the reality, and I think it should be proclaimed loud and long. Neither I nor the Government will take lectures from the Conservative party on the TA. I say that very clearly and very precisely, because it was the last Conservative Government who cut Territorial Army liability numbers by a third in four years, from 90,000 to just over 60,000, at the same time as cutting the TA training budget. As I said earlier, the fact is that if we started slashing expenditure now to tackle the deficit, as the hon. Gentleman and his Front-Bench colleagues would have us do, none of this could be achieved without cuts significantly worse than those that were considered, and it is dishonest to suggest otherwise. Some criticisms have been made of the decision-making process. It has been said that we have performed a U-turn. Again, I will not take lectures on U-turns. A few weeks ago the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), told The Times that he would engage in £30 billion-worth of defence cuts to the A400M aircraft programme, which involves two aircraft carriers. The following day, he was forced to retract that statement.