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Defence

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson). His speech illustrates one of the problems that the Government have had over the years: they have had too many Defence Ministers. He might recall that when he was a Minister and I was his shadow, he took me to Slovenia on a sensitive and difficult mission to convince an emerging democracy of the importance of the Opposition being joined at the hip with the Government on defence policy. That important mission symbolised something very important, which the hon. Gentleman has talked about. Our discussions this afternoon should not detract from the position that everyone in this House, from whatever political party, supports Her Majesty's forces up to the hilt, and that whatever the politicians ask them to do, we back them as they do it, even though we might disagree with it politically. That does not, however, mean that the Opposition can renege on their duty to hold the Government to account—through the Select Committee, through challenging them in debates such as these, or in any other way—on the ways in which they have or have not fulfilled their support for the armed forces. I hope that this debate will not become too party political, but it is an inevitable part of the strength of our military position that we hold the Government to account for the decisions that they take, without in any way departing from the vital principle that we in the House support Her Majesty's forces, even if we argue about the ways and means. Similarly, we never have a vote in the Select on Defence Committee; I cannot remember there ever being such a vote. I agree completely with the motion. It makes some very constructive points, particularly about the next strategic defence review. I remember criticising the Government in 1998 for not saying that they would have a review in four or five years. I remember arguing that we should adopt the American or Australian system of having a regular review every four or five years. It is nonsense to say, "Oh, well, we've had some updates since then," as the Government's amendment seems to suggest. A rolling programme of defence reviews every four years would have avoided some of the difficulties that we have had—for example, in moving from Iraq to Afghanistan, and in the flexible approach needed in assessing risk these days. I think, too, that the motion is entirely justified in pointing out the muddle, post-Iraq war, in post-conflict resolution. It is perfectly obvious that we did not work it out then, and that there was no joined-up government—it may have had something to do with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), who was then Secretary of State for International Development, and her particular view of the Iraq war—but NATO and the allies made a big mistake in not settling down properly to study what was going to happen after the war. If we are to have a new system of defence reviews on a regular basis—I hope we do—we have to be prepared to stand back even further and perhaps give a new role to voices such as that of the Defence Academy of the UK at Shrivenham, which does a great deal of thinking about these issues; I salute the academy for that. The motion is also quite correct in pointing out what nonsense the cut in the helicopter budget of £1.4 billion in 2004 was. It was indeed folly; there is no ducking that. The deficiencies in the procurement of the A400M and the air-to-air refuelling capability have been a major blight on military planning ever since. The cuts in the frigate and destroyer fleets of the Royal Navy were a great mistake, as was slippage on the carriers. The provision of aircraft for the aircraft carriers is also looking difficult, in view of where the joint strike fighter is in terms of planning and production. The motion is also correct to point out the deficiencies in the military covenant, particularly housing. It is true in my constituency, as it is true, I am sure, in those of many other hon. Members who have military garrisons or quarters in their constituencies; they will be familiar with the sort of problems that arise. Only last month I visited some married quarters in Netheravon in my constituency, where I found some tired old 1950s housing. To be perfectly honest, it should be bulldozed and started again. It has been patched and repatched, but there are still holes in the roof, leaking walls, rising damp and so forth. In this day and age, this is not the sort of accommodation that we should expect our forces or their families to be placed in. Because Project Allenby is happening close to my constituency, and in it, I know that the Ministry of Defence is engaged in the biggest single building programme it has ever carried out. It includes many upgrades of existing houses as well as the construction of new married quarters and single person service accommodation. It was astonishing when the Ministry of Defence recently cut £14 million from the housing budget, hitting the upgrading of married quarters for 4,000 families—and at the stroke of a pen up the road there in the Ministry of Defence! That is having a huge impact on the lives of 4,000 service personnel. That was another great mistake—whatever one may say, looking back in history, about what happened with Addington homes and so forth, which seemed such a good idea at the time. We should beware of failing to take the issue of military housing seriously. The Government amendment has plenty in it with which I can agree, but it is rather over the top in talking about "31 new ships", as it is probably true that those were all ordered by the Conservative Government; certainly most of them were. The amendment also refers to improved medical services. Of course that is true. What happened at Selly Oak is controversial but very good; what is happening in Headley Court is very good; support for combat stress is very good. It is also true to say, however, that the military depend to a substantial extent on the national health service. The demise of the old military hospitals was the right decision to take, and NHS consultants are now heavily involved both on the front line, on secondment from their NHS hospitals as in the case of the Salisbury district hospital, and through the specialties they can provide, such as plastics, burns units, rehabilitation facilities and so forth in NHS hospitals, which are widely used by the services—and quite right, too. Something has, however, gone wrong with welfare services. My constituency has seen cuts in the Army welfare services, which I greatly regret, because they put a bigger burden on local authority services. My local authority currently spends about half a million pounds a year on looking after servicemen and their families. Where would our military welfare be if it were not for Help for Heroes, an organisation that has really caught the imagination of the British public? We know that the British public have the greatest admiration for all our armed forces in all three services, but is it not astonishing that they are putting their hands in their pockets—to the tune of about £8 million a year—to support Help for Heroes, which in turn supports organisations such as Headley Court, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, and the Selly Oak patient welfare fund? Where, indeed, would Help for Heroes be without my constituents Bryn and Emma Parry, who founded it? We are all deeply grateful to them. Where in all this, I have to ask, is the Royal British Legion? It seems to have lost the plot. You and I know, Madam Deputy Speaker, and everyone else in the House knows, that the Royal British Legion provides services for current servicemen and servicewomen and their families as well as for veterans, but that is not the public image. At the weekend I talked to some 30-year-olds who clearly thought that the RBL was all about poppy day and parading around the town once a year. I enlightened them, of course, but nevertheless that is the image, and that is why Help for Heroes and a number of other charities have become so popular.