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Defence

May I start by paying tribute to the great sacrifice that has been made by our troops when they have been deployed in recent years—in fact, in the 23 years that I have been in Parliament? I saw the courage, motivation, commitment and professionalism of those troops during my period as a Defence Minister, and I have continued to see those qualities displayed as the current chairman of the European Security and Defence Assembly. I have been to some of the war zones recently, including Afghanistan, and seen what has happened there. I am extremely grateful that I managed to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is said that there is always a great queue to make a maiden speech and that one has to wait one's turn, but I rather fear that in this Parliament, there is going to be something of a queue to make a last, valedictory speech. I do not know whether this will be my last speech, but it may well be—I am very much in the hands of both the Prime Minister and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and your judgment on who should be called. That being so, I should like to say that it was a privilege to make my maiden speech and to contribute to the House since, and to catch your eye today, Madam Deputy Speaker, in such an important debate. I should like briefly to say something on the European Security and Defence Assembly before I address what has been said by the Front-Bench speakers so far. When we discussed the Lisbon treaty in the House, we disagreed about many things, but we all agreed that European security and defence policy was an intergovernmental matter and that it should stay that way, and that the European Parliament had no locus whatever over it. We also agreed that it was important that defence policy was subject to scrutiny at international level. That should be the case for European security and defence policy. I hope that Front Benchers acknowledge the importance of continuing European-level scrutiny, and support a reformed European Security and Defence Assembly as the most appropriate body for that. I hope everyone agrees that it would be absolutely wrong for defence to become a responsibility of the European Parliament. On the main debate, it pains me a little when party politics becomes involved in crucial issues for the nation. When I was a young man—this is my memory of recent political history—a minimal amount of party politics was involved in issues central to the defence of the nation. One damaging feature of more recent political history is that there is an increasing desire on the part of political parties—I am not blaming any one party for this—to make short-term capital out of issues that I believe, as I have always believed, are fundamental to the security of the nation. I disagree with the Conservative motion because I do not think it was proposed in the context of what is right for the nation and for Conservative thinking about its future. When I look at the motion, I see an Opposition motion, pinpointing one or two faults that may or may not have been the responsibility of the Labour Government. I am not saying that everything in the motion is wrong, but my main argument with it is that it is a party-political motion that tries to nitpick faults, but does not deal with the real issues that affect the security of this nation. The motion does not deal with the threat, and in a debate on defence it is pointless to discuss anything else without a vision of the threat. Defence policy, by its very nature is best-guesswork to some extent. We cannot foresee the future. Winston Churchill said in 1922 that he could not envisage a situation in which Britain would be at war with Japan. I am sure that he said that with the best intentions, but he was very wrong, because he was not taking a long view. The lesson for us all is that it is very difficult to predict exactly the shape or the nature of the world ahead. I would have hoped that the motion today would have considered the threat. We may all agree about what we see immediately before us. We know that there is a threat in Afghanistan from failed states and terrorist organisations that would destroy democracy, given the chance, throughout the rest of the world, using areas such as Afghanistan, parts of Africa and, indeed, other areas in Asia, to develop bases, interfere in the education of the people and begin terrorist activities. We also recognise that there are problems in the middle east. We do not know exactly how they will play out, but they are a major threat. One of my arguments with the Liberal Democrats is that they are so party political in appeasing and appealing to people who think that war will not exist in the world because people will be good, that they fail to consider the issue of security for the nation. They cannot answer the question about future arguments between states. At the moment, defence may be about protecting oneself from terrorism, but there are no guarantees—remember Winston Churchill—that in the future there will not be conflicts between states, sometimes with different terrorist organisations being part of those interstate conflicts. In my view—and I have held this view for a long time—it would be extreme folly for Britain to give away its nuclear deterrent against that possible political situation in the future. There is no purpose in having second-level deterrents: we have to have top-level deterrents if we are to protect the interests of the nation. That is the issue to which the Liberal Democrats and some other parties have to face up. I would be interested to know the Conservative Front Benchers' position on this issue. I know the views of some Conservative Members, but what is the position of Front Benchers on the nuclear deterrent?