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Defence

The hon. Gentleman will know that we are going to have a defence review, and I will talk about that in a moment. Above all, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring said, the Government failed, in the years of plenty, to fund their own SDR fully, creating a spending bow-wave of tsunami proportions. It is all very well the Secretary of State saying that the war has been funded by the reserve. That is not what he told this House on 15 December. He said:""My decision to fund these enhancements"" the enhancements in Afghanistan—""from the core defence programme reflects our determination to ensure that the Ministry of Defence is supporting the current campaign".—[Official Report, 15 December 2009; Vol. 502, c. 802.]" It is not true to say that the Government are funding this campaign out of the reserves. They are resorting to the core programme, which was never intended to be the case. On any analysis, this country faces lean years. The cupboard is bare and our capacity to meet the unexpected almost non-existent. Military capabilities that we have regarded as essential are being wilfully surrendered. With a public sector borrowing requirement—or national overdraft—of £178,000 million, five times the current defence budget and 20 times the overdraft inherited by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, restoring the health of the public finances will be, and must be, our first priority. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North said that it was difficult to predict the threat that we face, and he is right. Admiral Lord Boyce said in December 2008:""The Government's hand-to-mouth, barely adequate servicing of today's wars pays no attention to the need to future-proof responsibility for tomorrow's conflicts—which are as unpredictable as all have been for the past 30 years."" The hon. Gentleman challenged me to set out our vision, so let me do so. The world is becoming a more unstable place, with known knowns—to use the language of Donald Rumsfeld—in Iran and North Korea; known unknowns in Russia and China, and possibly in the Falkland Islands, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) pointed out; and unknown unknowns in terms of energy security, population growth, climate change and, of course, the inexorable rise of violent Islamic fundamentalism. There is also, as has been mentioned, the threat of cyber warfare. Against this international backdrop of unprecedented threats, what do the Government do? They bequeath their successor a broken society, a bankrupt economy, overstretched armed forces and a gaping black hole in the defence equipment programme. In the last dying days of this decaying Government, the Minister with responsibility for defence equipment and support is haring around the country signing up orders for major items of equipment just weeks ahead of a defence review which is intended by both sides to undertake a root-and-branch review of policy and force structures. Let me say to my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex that we need that review to establish the strategic concept of which he speaks. Through all this gloom there stands out one shining light, a beacon of success that rightly commands the universal respect of the people across the land and beyond our shores. It is called Her Majesty's armed forces. It is sustained in large part by Britain's world-class defence industry, which has to be maintained in order to secure operational sovereignty. For the benefit of the Porton Down constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), as well as my own constituents at QinetiQ, can say that I add them to that hall of fame. If the United Kingdom wishes to retain the power to exercise influence in this uncertain world, we sacrifice those assets at our peril. For the UK to surrender its role in the world would have disastrous consequences—military, political and economic. Recovery of that role would take at least a generation, if it could ever be done. That implies exercising choice, and that is something that we shall have to decide once we have the findings of our SDR. The current catastrophic state of affairs is the poisoned chalice about to be handed by this Government to the next. The Prime Minister stands condemned as the man who since 1997 has squandered a rich inheritance from the Conservative Party, and a man who has systematically starved the armed forces of the resources they require to do the job. No last-ditch attempt by him to pose as the soldier's friend will undo the damage that he has wilfully inflicted on this country. He has to go. And for the sake of the country, of our beleaguered armed forces and of their families, he should go now.