Armed Forces

Baroness Wilcox Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Astor of Hever for bringing this debate to us today. I, too, add my welcome to my noble friend Lady Garden to the Front Bench; I have been working with her on the Front Bench in the past two years, but this is her coming home to a subject that she knows so well and a life that she has been part of for some years.

It is thanks to the contribution of the Armed Forces that I am able to stand here today and speak, a free-born English woman, a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and, I am delighted to say, a member of the All-Party Defence Studies Group that is so ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, where she managed to bring the leaders of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force to us so that we, in our ignorance, can learn and understand better what is needed. I fully echo her words today, certainly on those things which are needed for the families.

I come from the seafaring city of Plymouth in Devon. My family has fought, fished or traded for over 400 years. We face seaward, so it is with the Royal Navy that I am mainly familiar. I grew up during the Second World War in a frightening, fighting city of sailors, marines and commandoes; a city where the women ran everything ashore while their men were away at sea. This debate has provoked keen memories for me, including of standing as a little girl on the cliffs at Mount Batten, of the marine bands on Plymouth Hoe and of waiting to see our mighty ships, some of which were battered and scarred, arrive home. I watched with my mother in the crowded dockyards as thousands of men, some of whom were badly injured, came down the gang-planks with anxious eyes searching for loved ones. What homecomings those were. Union Street teamed with sailors on shore leave who were scooped up by Black Marias at midnight to be taken back to the safety of their ships.

I remember my grandmother’s sitting room. It was a very special room and we did not go in it very often. But when we did, that was where the pictures of the men of the family who had died in action were honoured. My grandmother talked with pride of the men our family had given while fighting for their country. As children, she told us the tales of their brave actions and showed us the maps. Geography meant something to us and we never forgot it.

Between 1939 and 1945, the enemy bombing raids searched out Plymouth docks and they devastated our city. Little of it was left, but our port was safe, the seas were ours and the war was won. The skies had become a battleground for new aircraft, and submarines, soon to be nuclear, gave us new access to our sea. It was our nation’s leaders, our Armed Forces, our use of strategy and, above all, our inventiveness and technology that brought us through. They were very different days from those of Drake and Nelson, and these are different days from Cunningham and Leach.

Britain is a maritime trading nation. I have spent 10 years on the board of the Port of London Authority and I know that more than 90% of our exports and imports come via the sea. In World War II, we would have starved if the Navy had not been able to protect at least some of our merchant fleet. Much of our prosperity depends on the free movement of goods and resources across the oceans. Deployed globally, the Royal Navy is constantly driving forward our interests worldwide. It has the capacity to inflict violence on the enemy through recently used effects, such as naval gunfire support. But, probably just as influential, and certainly more enduring, is the constant development of wider regional relationships in every port of call—from the Caribbean to the Far East and from South America to the Baltic Sea.

However, much of what the Royal Navy does goes unseen and unheard as it works thousands of miles from home in distant waters. This lack of day-to-day visibility has inexorably led to a certain amount of “sea blindness” within the general public as they become increasingly divorced from any association with our maritime activities. I thank the Minister very much for the new Armed Forces day, which I believe will start next year on 29 June. I will encourage every parent and grandparent to take their children along so that they can learn and understand what our forces are doing everywhere.

This naval blindness is unfortunate because not only is the naval contribution to our collective well-being a world-wide effort, there are increasing demands on our sailors much closer to home, whether it is the 11th-hour failure of private security companies for the Olympics or threats of strike action by fuel tanker drivers or prison officers. As we have already heard from my noble friend Lord Palmer and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, the Armed Forces stand ready to step in and are becoming increasingly the nation’s insurance policy.

These emerging demands place even more strain on our sailors. While they are used to being away for long periods, they quite rightly expect a level of stability when they are back at home. Ships are generally deployed overseas for six months in every 18 months. However, preparations and training for the next operation start as soon as a unit returns.

As our country moves out of recession, our national prosperity and freedoms are increasingly vulnerable to events across the globe. The Royal Navy is uniquely able to respond in a variety of ways in line with the Government’s intent. With 40 Commando fighting in Afghanistan, as I speak, and many other naval personnel also on the front line, from airborne surveillance to bomb disposal, the contribution of the Royal Navy to United Kingdom interests is undeniable. To maintain this contribution, a wide range of capabilities will be required for the foreseeable future, from the soft effect of a warship visiting a far-flung port to develop partnerships to the higher-end war-fighting skills that are likely to be needed to ensure the freedom of movement for shipping should global events take a turn for the worse.

I welcome this debate as a means of highlighting the ongoing resolve of our Armed Forces to meet our existing and emerging commitments, at home and abroad, and to be prepared for whatever contingent activities may be required in areas such as the Arabian Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean. I am truly grateful for the freedom to speak here today, in this time of remembrance, to remember those men and women of our Armed Forces who died so that we may continue to live in safety in these green and pleasant lands, and I commend our Government for trying to do all that they can to shape and equip our Armed Forces for the future safety of us all.