Devolution and the Union

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I apologise to the House for not having been here at the start of proceedings. I hope Members will understand that I was having lunch with our former colleague, my great friend Mr Geoff Hoon, a former Defence Secretary who now does sterling work promoting British defence exports around the world on behalf of Westland Helicopters and who is currently based in my constituency.

I salute my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and the others responsible for bringing this debate before the House. It is of enormous importance because, first and foremost, we tamper with constitutional matters at our peril. We should be very, very nervous about upsetting constitutional arrangements. There is no doubt that the devolution process, which was started in 1997 by the previous Labour Government, was designed to be a sop to nationalist sentiment, but far from being a sop it actually fuelled it. I took part in the Scotland referendum, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore). I went up to Scotland and as an Anglo-Scot—my Douglas family are on the borders of Scotland—I found it a very depressing experience. I believe it has opened Pandora’s box.

Reference has been made to the vow. [Interruption.] I will make some progress before I let the Scottish nationalists intervene. The so-called vow issued by the leaders of the three main political parties was, I recall, dismissed at the time by the Scottish nationalists as just a gimmick. Now they have grasped it as though it were the holy grail. It is as though the vow, which was made out of nowhere, is now the very thing on which they hang. I made it clear at the time, as, indeed, did many people I spoke to on the doorsteps in Scotland, that the leaders could only make those promises subject to the will of Parliament. They cannot just make policies—certainly not policies of such constitutional importance—on the hoof. It had to be a decision of this House and the other place. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that it is not being taken for granted by anybody other than the Scottish nationalists.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am completely undecided on the correct course to take when a vow that could well have influenced, to some extent, the result of a referendum was given without the authority of Parliament. Does not the whole process show the danger of panic reactions by all three party leaders in the aftermath of a single rogue opinion poll?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I think that one of the factors that influenced the campaign in the end was my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister speaking directly to the Scottish people about his passion for retaining the Union and his belief in the importance of Scotland.

Unlike my namesake, the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), I do not sense that there is any enormous appetite in England for a change in our constitutional arrangements. In particular, I do not believe there is the appetite mentioned by the Local Government Association for devolution of further powers to the English regions. Aldershot certainly does not have that appetite, but it may exist in Knowsley.

Defence Reform Bill

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

In support of what my hon. Friend has just said, which is the single most important observation anyone can ever make about defence planning, namely the unpredictability of future crises, may I remind him—that is not to say that he needs reminding—that only a few years ago the constant predictions were that it would be all about boots on the ground for the next 30 or 40 years? Let us therefore not make the mistake of doing something too rigid when we need maximum flexibility.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Naturally, I agree with my hon. Friend.

Maritime Surveillance

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Thursday 7th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Good. I am so pleased.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

He did stop us going into the euro.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Yes, he did. I have been searching for something positive to say about the hon. Gentleman’s right hon. Friend, and I am happy to say that he was right about that.

I got the House of Commons Library to do some research for me last week. I pay tribute to the Library, which does a fantastic job for us. The Library found that this year, the overseas aid budget will increase by £2.65 billion. The Government are struggling to spend the money as it is. We have done our bit and shown an example to the rest of the world. It does not make sense for us to increase overseas aid when we lack such important capability.

Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister will go back to our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—I know that they are close friends—and say that this is what we should do. When I put to him the issue of ring-fencing overseas aid and not defence, the Prime Minister said, “I gave a commitment in 2009, as I did on the third runway.” I respect the Prime Minister for that principled view, but the world has changed. We have had the Arab spring and turmoil around the world. Our armed forces are one of this kingdom’s greatest assets, and our defence industry is one of the economy’s. There is a need, a requirement and an obligation, and we have a number of options to deliver that capability. I believe we should provide it now and that, quite legitimately, we should divert funds from overseas aid to provide a maritime patrol aircraft, which would contribute to stability around the world and greater prosperity among the countries we are trying to help.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire and his colleagues on the Defence Committee on their report and on bringing the matter before the House. They have done a great service to Parliament and the country.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) on initiating the debate, and the Backbench Business Committee on choosing it as today’s topic. I was particularly pleased that my right hon. Friend started the debate by emphasising the unpredictability of future conflicts, a point re-emphasised in the strongest possible terms by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray). Having listened to the Secretary of State for Defence today, I believe that what he is trying to do is create a balanced budget without sacrificing the aim of having the balanced forces that we need. That is a necessary approach, and we should resist the temptation to say that we ought to sacrifice particular capabilities forever, simply because we cannot conceive at this moment of going to war, or entering some lesser conflict, unless we are in coalition with allies.

I was impressed by some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who pointed out the gaps in capability resulting from the cancellation of the Nimrod MRA4. In a later intervention she referred to the problems relating to the loss of fixed-wing aircraft carrier aircraft capability. If we acknowledge the certainty that we will be unable to predict the vast majority of cases in which we shall need to send our armed forces to war, and couple that with a restricted budget, which means that we will often have to choose either what is commonly and derogatorily called salami-slicing, or abandoning certain capabilities permanently, I believe that the salami-slicing approach, unpleasant though it is, is broadly the correct one—because we do not know when, where, against whom or how we will have to go to war. We cannot predict which of the vast range of military capabilities that we currently have we will need to use. Therefore, in straitened economic circumstances when we cannot afford to spend as much on defence as we would like to, and as indeed we feel in our hearts we ought to, we must nevertheless preserve what are called “nucleus” forces, which give us the potential when the need arises to expand on the capabilities that we have retained, even though at any given time those capabilities have seemed to be inadequate.

In that connection, if Ministers are working within an economic envelope—that is not the best terminology to use, but it has been used today so I shall continue with it—in times of peace, we can all understand that, but, whenever we end up in a serious armed conflict, those economic considerations are always relegated to second place, and Ministers simply have to put aside considerations of affordability in favour of the absolute necessity of taking the measures which that conflict situation requires them to take.

It is now just over 30 years since my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), a gentleman called Councillor Tony Kerpel, a former chief of staff to a former chairman of the Conservative party, and I set up a coalition. It was not quite the sort of coalition that we have today, which, as hon. Members may know, is so close to my heart; it was the Coalition for Peace Through Security, and its purpose was to fight for the changeover from Polaris to the first generation of Trident and for the deployment of cruise missiles in Britain so that eventually we would be able to negotiate a deal, which we did in 1987, to get rid of intermediate nuclear forces on both sides of the iron curtain in Europe.

I am therefore very happy to reassure the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), in his absence, that I do not feel at all proprietorial about the arguments in favour of the nuclear deterrent. I am absolutely delighted when people such as the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who I know had not intended to speak today, rise to their feet and defend it with such vigour.

I was pleased, but I shall look very closely at Hansard tomorrow to see exactly what the shadow Secretary of State said when I asked him to clarify and confirm his party’s commitment to the renewal of Trident, and in particular to the successor generation of submarines. I invite my hon. Friend the Minister, given that the Secretary of State did not refer to it, to clarify our own position on that very subject.

[Mr Gerald Howarth]

Prompted by my hon. Friend, I am delighted to say, as he will know, that in the SDSR and in our Trident value-for-money review the Government committed to renewing the independent nuclear deterrent: submarine-based, continuously at sea, patrolling. That programme is being taken forward. Initial gate was in May last year, and I assure him that all the work is continuing and in progress. If I may, I also take this opportunity to salute my hon. Friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), and Tony Kerpel on the then coalition, because I supported it at the time and am delighted to be in government supporting it now.

Submarines and Frigates (Plymouth)

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Howarth]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely important point, which I endorse and emphasise for the record. It builds on something that the hon. Member for North Durham said about the Treasury. If we are to have the Future Force 2020 that we seek, it will depend on uplift in financial resources from the middle of the decade. One of the last things that the outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff, now Lord Stirrup, said to me was that if we want that uplift in 2015, we must start planning for it now. It is important that we as parliamentarians understand the importance of long- term planning. I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me for latching on to the point that she made about base-porting for the Type 26, but it feeds into a wider argument about defence planning, and she is right to make it.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

In referring to the new frigates as cheap and cheerful, to use the Minister’s phrase—

[Mr Howarth]

It was your phrase.

[Dr Lewis]

My phrase was “cheap as chips”, actually. It upset the First Sea Lord of the day, although not too much. Will the Minister confirm that the reason why it is important and practicable to make the new frigates in that way is that modern methods of naval design enable the production of a ship that is modular? Therefore, we can produce a considerable number of hulls initially and then upgrade them with bolt-on modules as resources allow, rather than producing something expensive from the outset.

[Mr Howarth]

My hon. Friend, as ever, has latched on to an extremely important point. A big selling-point in my discussions with other nations about working in co-operation on the programme is that modular building design not only gives extraordinary flexibility, but is something in which we in the United Kingdom have a world lead. We did it with the Type 45s and we are doing it with carriers; we can do it with global combat ships as well.

My discussions with the Royal Navy, from the First Sea Lord down, have proved extremely encouraging. The Navy has understood the force of the argument and is working enthusiastically to that end. All of us in the House have an interest in ensuring the success of the programme. Personally, I am staking a lot on it myself. If I were to leave office having done only one thing—securing a new fleet of frigates for the Royal Navy—I should feel extremely proud.

On submarines, we have made it clear that the Clyde naval base will become the base port for all Royal Navy submarines. The Vanguard class submarines are already based there, and as the Astute class enters service, it too will be based at and operated from the Clyde. The Department has announced that it will move in-service Trafalgar class submarines from Devonport to Faslane, although we are still assessing how best to implement that decision. None the less, Devonport’s highly skilled work force will continue to be called on to deliver the highest standards of engineering in the vital area of submarine maintenance.

It is important to recognise that decisions about changing the base-porting of naval assets are not simple or straightforward. Although factors such as sustainability and work loads are of importance locally and to the nation as a whole, I am sure we all appreciate that any changes have a major impact on the welfare of the service personnel affected, particularly those with young families. Any decisions to change the arrangements are made only after extensive deliberation and consultation. At this point, I would like to put on the record—I am sure on everybody’s behalf—what an immense debt of gratitude the nation owes to the families of our servicemen and women in all three services. Without their support, the men and women on the front line would never be able to do their job.

As part of the process, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View said, full consideration must be given to the impact on naval service personnel and their families, reflecting the need to give them sufficient notice to plan their futures, in line with the naval service individual harmony guidelines. The guidelines exist to ensure that naval personnel retain the ability to enjoy leisure at their place of duty and that they do not spend excessive time away from their homes and families.

I am pleased to be able to confirm, therefore, that we have made a decision that I hope will reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View. We have decided to make no changes to base-porting arrangements for surface ships, including Type 23 frigates. The frigates at Devonport and Portsmouth will remain where they are for the foreseeable future. That will provide a period of stability for naval personnel and their families at our naval bases, for the naval bases at Devonport and Portsmouth and for our industrial partners, which I know my hon. Friend and other Members were seeking. It is our view that any review of those arrangements should be linked directly to the wider studies informing future strategic defence and security reviews, which we have committed to undertaking during each Parliament, so we do not anticipate any changes until 2020 at the earliest. I recognise that that decision will be of interest to many Members. The Minister with responsibility for defence equipment, support and technology, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire, will write to those Members shortly to provide the detail that I am sure they seek.

To answer a couple of points made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, HMS Protector will be based at Portsmouth because, as I understand it, that reflects the base-porting arrangements in place for HMS Endurance. However, we expect to decide on the longer-term delivery of that capability, including base-porting arrangements and the future of HMS Endurance, next year. I hope that that puts the matter in context. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport referred to the university of Plymouth study. I say to all local Members that Ministers will be pleased to receive the results of that study.

In summary, I assure my hon. Friend and the whole House that we remain determined to make the fullest use of all three naval bases, including Devonport, and to capitalise on the excellent skills and experience that they have to offer. Difficult decisions have been taken, but everyone involved can now look forward to a period of stability, confident in the knowledge that they will continue to be central to our island nation’s influence, prosperity and security.