---

Defence in the World

Indeed. The hon. Gentleman is another whose assiduity on the Defence Committee brings great enlightenment both to us and the defence world, and also great enjoyment. Some projects have, like FRES, been a disaster. After the Secretary of State spoke this afternoon, I was still not sure whether the FRES project is dead. The Minister for defence equipment and support told us unequivocally that it was dead. The chief of defence materiel told us a fortnight before that it was not dead; it was alive and kicking. It was alive, then it was dead and now, after the Secretary of State's comments this afternoon, it is alive again. My word for the FRES project was not "disaster"; that was the Minister's word. My word, or rather the Select Committee's word, was "fiasco", and a fiasco it was. A great deal of improvement must take place in procurement, but it is an opportunity that we must make the most of. During this Parliament, the Committee has done its best to hold the Ministry of Defence to account. We have done so across the full range of the MOD's responsibilities. In doing so, we have been ably and energetically supported by a team of Clerks who have given us great dedication and impartial help. We have also received specialist advice from military and other advisers. On behalf of the Committee, I give them all our grateful thanks. I thank all members of the Committee. They have worked in a deeply constructive way to achieve the truth, and to praise or condemn without fear or favour. In my view, the Defence Committee has been the House of Commons working at its very best, and I give them my thanks for what they have achieved. What has the Committee achieved during this Parliament? We have produced a number of reports and I shall run through a few of them. We did a report on the future carrier, several reports on Afghanistan, and three on the nuclear deterrent in time for the debate in the House on replacing the submarines. The report on educating service children was considered one of the best reports that the Defence Committee has produced, even though it was not on an overtly military matter. We have mentioned FRES already. We have also done several reports on Iraq. We did an interesting report—a quick report—on the UK-US arms trade treaty, which has not yet borne fruit, although we hope that, at some stage, the United States might actually ratify that treaty. A report on medical care for the armed forces pinpointed many of the important issues that the armed forces face, and we wanted to stress how well we felt that the armed forces were treated in medical matters. The report on the future of NATO has already been mentioned. The issue of Russia and whether it is a threat to this country was considered in a report in July last year. We did a report on helicopter capability last year. We also produced one on readiness and recuperation earlier this year. Perhaps the culmination of our work on reports was the report on defence equipment, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and came out this month. I am quite certain that we have made mistakes. We can sometimes mistake the enthusiasm and professional optimism of military officers for the whole truth, but sometimes we also rely rather too heavily on the Ministry of Defence, which is the only Department we can get some information from, although it is also the very Department that we are meant to be scrutinising. In reaction to that, we have to go to the defence industry to get a more balanced view. Then we run the risk of falling into its pocket. I want to end where I began—with our armed forces. The armed forces remain perhaps the only institution of this country that retains the respect and the admiration of this country. That is based on a degree of sympathy, because the country feels—rightly or wrongly, although I suspect more wrongly than rightly—that they are not being well treated. That is a shame, because it would be so much better if the country's admiration of our armed forces were based not on sympathy, but on an understanding of what they do, and why and how they do it. I believe that it will be one of the main tasks of the strategic defence review, under whatever Government and whoever takes it through, to increase that understanding and, in so doing, to reinvigorate the link between the armed forces of this country and the people they so bravely serve.