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Strategic Defence and Security Review

I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about our armed forces. Anyone who does my job or that of Defence Secretary knows that we have in our armed forces the bravest of the brave, some of the most professional and dedicated people, and everyone in this House looks up to them and is proud of them. I welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman is here at all, because of course today is the day of the TUC rally that he promised to attend. I am very glad that he got his priorities right, and I am sure that all the trade unionists who voted for him will fully understand. The right hon. Gentleman complained that I had not got him the statement early enough, but I got the document to him two hours ago, which I do not remember his predecessor being very quick to do, but there we are. I might be being unfair. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman should have started his statement with one word—““sorry””: sorry for the £38 billion of overspend in the MOD; sorry for the fact that the previous Government left more civil servants than we had sailors or airmen; sorry for the £2.3 billion that they spent on refurbishing the Ministry of Defence; and sorry for the completely unsustainable promises that they made. The right hon. Gentleman asked a series of questions, and I shall try to answer every single one. He compared this review with the 1998 review, but one crucial difference is that the 1998 review did not include the funding to go with the promises that were made. Yes, we have made tough decisions in this review, but the funding is there to meet the promises that have been made. The right hon. Gentleman said that the review was all about short-term considerations, but I have to say that we have made some long-term decisions: to invest £650 million in cyber at a time when one is making cuts is a long-term decision; to sort out the future of the carriers is a long-term decision; and scrapping many tanks and heavy artillery involves difficult but long-term decisions. On his idea that we should take longer over it, I have to tell him that these decisions do not get any easier by just putting them off. We have had a proper process—a national security process. I note that during his leadership election, he said:"““I think there is a strong case for carrying out our own Strategic Defence Review so that we can give appropriate scrutiny to the Government's plan””." I have not seen that review; perhaps it will emerge eventually. On the right hon. Gentleman's question about no decision doing damage to what we are doing in Afghanistan, I made it clear in my statement, and I make it clear again to him now, that that has been absolutely uppermost in my mind. The reason I kept talking about helicopters in the last Parliament is that every time I went to Afghanistan, that is what the troops on the ground were worried about. Now, talking to our troops on the ground—I did a video conference call with the commander of our forces in Helmand only a few days ago—one finds that that is not their concern; they now have the helicopters they need. Let me answer specifically the point about the Chinook order. There was no order for Chinook helicopters—it was this Government who have had to fund that. The number of Chinooks is going from 46 to 60, and we will also be refurbishing the Puma helicopters to add to capacity. The right hon. Gentleman asked about the Home Office budget; he will have to wait until tomorrow for that. However, I would stress again that this decision—this document—was brought about by the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the International Development Secretary and the Business Secretary sitting round as a National Security Council making the right decisions. On his question about being able to produce 30,000 forces in theatre, that was in my statement. Let me address very directly the issue of the capability gap, because this has been the most difficult decision for the Government to take. There is no gap in our flexible posture. With our air-to-air refuelling and our fast jet capability, we have the ability to deploy force around the world, but I accept that there is going to be a gap in carrier strike. The alternative would be to keep the Harriers but not to keep the Tornados. I think that that would be the wrong decision. The Harriers, in any event, would have to be in Afghanistan, not on an aircraft carrier. The Harrier, while a brilliant aircraft, is not as capable as the Tornado. There are fewer Harriers than Tornados, so there would be a question as to whether they could sustain the action in Afghanistan. The premise underlying the question is not right. The current carriers are not equivalent to the future carriers that we are building. I have to say to hon. Gentlemen who may think, ““Well, why not try to keep all of them—the Tornados, Harriers and Typhoons—and develop the joint strike fighter?””, that that would be prohibitively expensive. As I say, it is the sort of decision that was taken in the last Parliament just to push these things off into the future. We have to make the tough decisions now to line up our forces for the future. The right hon. Gentleman's last question was on Trident. I have been saving that up for the end because I was so excited by his questions. We held a value-for-money review on Trident because we really wanted to find out what money we could save, and we are saving money, including £700 in this Parliament—that is money available to invest in other things, and it does nothing to risk our Trident replacement. I believe that Trident is vital to our nation's security and, having looked at all the evidence, that a proper full replacement of Trident is the right option for the future. These are responsible decisions, well made. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman, who is now running away from the Trident replacement that he supported, that that would be a profound mistake for this country.