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Defence

No, I do not have those figures, but I look forward to being enlightened about them when the hon. Lady speaks. New Labour's deluded belief that we can all live beyond our means indefinitely has produced an economic train crash whose effects will be felt for a generation. The enduring legacy of new Labour's brand of socialism has been to saddle us with "cradle to grave" debt. When they leave office, they will not only have failed in their duty to support our armed forces properly in conflict, but the economic calamity they leave in their wake will make the task of rebuilding our security in a dangerous world all the more difficult. Put simply, Mr. Speaker, it can't go on like this. Our armed forces cannot take another five years of Labour. The damage this Government have done to our armed forces will take years to put right, and will limit our ability to react to the unexpected for years to come. It should come as no surprise that the Government's decade of neglect simply reflects the way in which their leadership view defence. We have had individual Defence Secretaries, including the current one, who have been both competent and committed to the armed forces, but we have had four Defence Secretaries in four years, one of whom was part-time, even though we were heavily engaged in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Besides using the armed forces as props in a photo shoot, the Prime Minister himself has never shown much interest in the armed forces. The former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Guthrie, described the Prime Minister as""the most unsympathetic Chancellor of the Exchequer, as far as defence was concerned"." We now know that in 2004 the service chiefs came close to resigning en masse. The Prime Minister's instinctive lack of interest in the armed forces has been compounded by incompetent procurement and failure fully to fund the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Inevitably, that has resulted in a weakening of the military covenant, with many in the armed forces feeling undervalued. Perhaps we should have known that when, back in 2000, Lord Mandelson described the Brigade of Guards as""a lot of chinless wonders marching round Horseguards Parade doing incomprehensible things with flags"." Since 2001, 63 members of the Household Division have given their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. That senior members of the Government should even think like Lord Mandelson is chilling, and I doubt that any member of the Government Front Bench could defend those views today. Our armed forces are, in the words of the Leader of the Opposition, "the best of British". That is why the words of the Chief of the General Staff in his recent memorandum echo so resonantly:""my greatest concern…is the deteriorating experience of soldiers and their families in the period between tours which, the team reports, is disaffecting attitudes, damaging morale and risks undermining our ability to sustain the campaign over the next years. We need our soldiers to be ready, mentally and physically, to endure repeated tours in Afghanistan in a harsh environment, with the real prospect of significant casualties each time. To maintain the necessary morale and cohesion they must see tangible signs between tours that they and their families are valued."" That is it: our armed forces need to be valued. Labour has had 13 years, and in that time has failed to understand the value, the essence and the importance of the military covenant. It is a dangerous world, and this Government are tired. The Ministry of Defence and our armed forces need a new vision and a new life, which only a new Government will have the energy to provide.