Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leigh]

I entirely agree with that.

Again, we should look to history. Had Spain declared war on us in 1940, we probably would have lost Gibraltar and the second world war. It did not declare war because it was deterred by the existence of the Royal Navy—Franco knew that it would immediately take the Canary Islands. Of course, Spain is now a friend and a member of the European Union, and there is no likelihood that the Spanish will ever declare war on us or seek to take Gibraltar by force.

Incidentally, following directly on from that, Spain now has two carriers with Harriers, as does Italy; the USA has 11 carriers; and India, Thailand and Brazil each have one carrier with Harriers. With this review, we have unilaterally destroyed our carrier capability for 10 years. That is unilateral disarmament, and I am extremely concerned about it.

I am also concerned about the decision on Nimrod. There has been a lot of talk about the cost, but very little about how we will maintain that capability, although the Secretary of State referred to that today. I was under the impression that we needed Nimrod as an early-warning surveillance system, particularly to protect our nuclear submarines, and particularly as they are returning to base. Some assurances were given to us today. I know that the Secretary of State cannot go into any great details because such matters are sensitive, but the House is entitled to ask why Nimrod was developed for all those years. Why is it suddenly considered necessary to cancel it just because of its cost?

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I accept the sensitivities regarding what we use Nimrod for, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we take any capability out, we must either bin it altogether and not task it, or replace it?

[Mr Leigh]

Exactly. I know that parliamentary questions have been asked, but the House must tease out more information on maintaining early-warning capability. I know that this is not an exact historical comparison, but if someone had said in 1938, “Oh, this radar programme that we are deploying on the south coast is terribly expensive. We’ve wasted enormous sums of money on it and there are all sorts of pressures on our budget, so we should get rid of it,” we simply would have lost the second world war. I know that that is not an exact comparison, but we should always be aware of the lessons of history. In defence, whether we are talking about Northern Ireland or piracy, we simply cannot rely on the same situation existing in eight or nine years as exists now.

I am also extremely worried about the decision on Trident. The decision not to push through the main gate on Trident before the next general election is very dangerous indeed, because I believe that it was taken for fundamental political, not military, reasons, and because of the possible result of the next general election. What happens if the Labour and Conservative parties are level pegging, and there is a bargaining situation, as we had this year? I am confident that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would not be prepared to enter into a coalition with the Liberals if the price was getting rid of Trident, but can we be so confident about the Labour party? The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), whom we all greatly admire for his time in office, made a significant intervention when he said, “Well, now that Trident’s been put on the backburner, perhaps we should reconsider; perhaps there are cheaper options. It will be five years in advance.” So the political decision to delay Trident is worrying and dangerous.

I do not say that as someone who is fanatically in favour of Trident. I managed to blot my copy book with the Conservative parliamentary party as soon as I arrived in the House—I have succeeded in doing it again and again ever since—when I and my hon. Friend the then Member for Wells tabled an early-day motion questioning whether there were not cheaper alternatives to a ballistic missile system, and suggesting that we could consider cruise missiles off nuclear-powered submarines. My right hon. Friend the then Prime Minister was none too pleased with both of us. So I have always been sceptical about maintaining ballistic missile systems in a post-cold war age, and more and more people like that will be coming out of the woodwork the longer we delay main gate.

Some have said, “If a future Labour Government wanted to cancel Trident, they would cancel it anyway, whether it had been through main gate or not”, but why have we not cancelled the carriers? It is because the admirals were determined to force them through main gate before the election, knowing that after it, there would be enormous political and financial pressure to cancel them. If, therefore, Trident has not gone through main gate before the next general election, it will be thrown immediately into the political mix and it will be much easier to cancel it. I have noticed that the president of the Liberal Democrats, who has been quoted in the Evening Standard, has been crowing that they have achieved a major political victory in delaying Trident. So as much as I love my coalition partners, we should be aware of what could happen in the future.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) has done a wonderful job as Chair of the Defence Committee—he is shaping up to be a superb Chair—in questioning the decision on the future shape of the carrier fleet. I am not a Francosceptic; I am a huge Francophile. Both my parents were brought up in France, I went to a French school, and I speak French, so I am all in favour of every kind of co-operation with the French—

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[Mr Dai Havard (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

The word “strategic” is in the title of the document, but we have heard several examples of how it is not a clearly formed strategy at the moment. At the end of his thoughtful speech, the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), explained where we are now and said we needed to form a clear, strategic view of where we will be in future, and that is a job that we must all do.

The debate has been a little deficient—this is understandable because we are considering the matter from the point of view of defence—for the reason that the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) gave. The review is supposed to be about defence and security—that is what the annunciator screens say—but the security part is clearly deficient. The document on the national strategy from the National Security Council is all very well as far as it goes, but it is not clear to me where our foreign policy is in this debate; nor do I think it is clear where the home services stand in terms of the Home Office, policing and so on.

Some of the points made by the hon. Gentleman are telling. The only way to deal with the problems is not with large toys and pieces of kit, but with good old-fashioned police work and intelligence. There must be correct mixture of capability, including people as well as machinery. The cross-governmental aspect of the review was encouraging. In the Defence Committee during the last Parliament, I said that we were in effect already having a defence review, but in an ad hoc and unguided way that was not very helpful or useful. It should have been put into a proper structure much earlier. That is the missed opportunity because the review does not cover the whole of the subject in the title—strategic defence, including security.

There are many parts to the review. I echo some of the points that have been made about Trident. As I said back in July, we cannot take Trident out; well, we could formally, descriptively and all of that, but in reality we cannot, so it was all nonsense. Whether that was said for political reasons to do with the coalition partners is for history to show. There is probably a lot of power in those arguments, but the reality is that it was nonsense to try to proceed in that way.

The other thing that disturbs me is that some parts of the review have not been mentioned today. The lack of clarity about a defence industrial strategy is hugely important. I know that there will be a Green Paper, apparently by the end of this year. It is now November the something-or-other, so I do not know what is meant by the end of this year. I must tell the Minister that I hope we see the Green Paper before the recess comes; otherwise we will have no opportunity to consider it. Apparently there will be a White Paper some time next year, and then something beyond that. What key capabilities are we going to focus on? What direction are we giving to industry? Where is the strategy? Where is the plan? It is not there. We have to form it, and it is to the benefit of us all that we do so.

There is also the reform group—or whatever it is called—that has been set up to transform the Ministry of Defence. We had the reform acquisition strategy before the election. I wrote all this down so that I would not get it wrong, but at that time the Ministry of Defence said, “Well, don’t worry about it, because we’re transforming ourselves. We have the PACE programme”—performance, agility, confidence and efficiency—“the defence acquisition ‘Terms of business agreement’ process, the equipment and support plan, the acquisition operating framework, and the capability delivery practitioners guide.” We were told that the MOD had lots of other things, doubtless all recommended by a legion of consultants of various sorts—not medical consultants, but business consultants—about internal process. That methodology will clearly be part of the MOD’s review.

A number of reviews have been mentioned in other respects. The points that have been made today about force generation are important. I attended part of the presentation by the Marines about how they do things. They give clear costings, and they were not shy about saying what things cost them or how much time they took. The hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) made an excellent contribution to the debate about what needs to happen with MOD processes. However, as all that unfolds and we do the work, my concern is where we are in that process. Who even is this “we”? What I have seen so far is a process that went forward over the summer, but which did not really involve the public or Parliament, as the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire said. In fact, there was a very narrow discussion among a narrow group of people, and it was therefore not as well informed as it should have been.

Scrutiny and involvement in the process are important, as is transparency. There was a review of Trident. Apparently something came out of the end of that review, but I have no real idea what process was used or what the results were. We need to understand better what is going to happen in that process if we are to end up with a better strategic review, which can serve as the overarching architecture, as the hon. Member for Mid Sussex put it. The review may well be the framework for that debate, but it is not the debate itself, nor is it the end product, and to that degree it is deficient.

I shall finish now, because I know that the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), who is carrying the entire weight of the Liberal party today, needs to speak.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

He makes the same speech every time.

[Mr Havard]

Yes, but he is the only one here to make it.

There are issues to do with particular aspects of the review. I have concerns, partly because my local economy is affected, but the decision on St Athan and the training there is worrying. It is particularly worrying because, as the Chancellor and others have said, one way or another we have to find different ways of paying. We are talking about a private finance initiative. I have to say that I am not the greatest supporter of private finance initiatives in general, but what has happened prompts the question: why, having gone through a due diligence process pretty recently, was the facility not thought to be good enough? We now have a decision that that is not going to happen, but what is going to happen? All we have now is a vague declaration that something else will happen. The big question is about the training. It is about the people, and it is important that this aspect should not be lost in the review, with all the discussions about large pieces of equipment.

I could say a few words about the carriers, which we discussed on a number of occasions in the Defence Committee during the last Parliament. At one point, there was talk about having three carriers—my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) would like to hear this, but he is not in his place—but that was on the basis of having two British carriers, with the French perhaps buying one off us and our making it for them with their Slingshot deck on it. All these discussions were going on, so this is not an entirely new argument, although it is new in some respects.

I thought a remark in yesterday’s edition of the Financial Times was prescient. It pointed out that if the Ministry of Defence gains the savings it declares it is going to get, it would be a good thing if they went back to the MOD, and did not just get lost in the coffers. If there is a dividend, the MOD should have it, not the Treasury.

[Mr Jones]

One issue raised by the treaty is whether markets, including the French defence market, would be opened up to British companies. Given my hon. Friend’s long membership of the Defence Committee and his close interest in defence matters, does he recollect whether the French have ever bought anything that does not have a main French component to it?

[Mr Havard]

I may be old, but no—that is the short answer, and it might go back longer than me. The French have a particular view about their sovereign capability, so my hon. Friend raises an interesting issue. The Defence Committee was asked to consider the trade treaty with the United States, and did some pre-work before it was agreed. The Americans have only just agreed to the treaty—it took them three years to ratify it. Included in it was important stuff related to technology transfer and the joint strike fighter. Yes, some other nations take a very parochial view: they claim to be free traders, but they often behave in a very—how can I put this? —protectionist fashion. That balance is always there. What comes out of it, I do not know. It will be interesting to find out what lies behind some of the declarations and whether it will change that form of acquisition.

I have a few small questions for the Minister. One is about helicopters and search and rescue. This may be a small aspect of defence, but it is very important, particularly in Wales, because we have to spend a lot of time calling people from Culdrose to come and rescue mostly English people off Welsh hills. In that sense, people in England have an interest in what happens in Wales as much as Welsh people do. It gives rise to a question about particular capabilities within the review. This service is under review and there are lots of individual programmes on which we need more clarity.

Some of the decisions are about timing. It is all very well saying we will have a defence review every five years. Let me tell Government Members that they will have an iteration in 2012 and another in 2014—whether they like it or not. That is because there will be political change in Afghanistan, and there is already political change going on in America. They should not try to pretend that this will work on some prescribed artificial timetable that might seem desirable today, because it will not. Events, dear boy, events—and some of those events are largely predictable because of watersheds in the political timetable set for us elsewhere as well as here. I hope that whatever the review going forward will be—in all its different component parts—it will be open. I hope that Parliament will be directly involved in the process.

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[Tom Greatrex]

I was just going on to say that there are differences in the circumstances in 1997 and now. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) has talked about some of the security aspects of the review, and I am sure that he will go into that further if he catches the Deputy Speaker’s eye.

Obviously, the economic circumstances were more benign in 1997 than they have been recently. Reviewing defence requirements in 2010 is not an unnecessary exercise, but as the Secretary of State’s own words in his correspondence with the Prime Minister exposed, perhaps brutally:

“this process is looking less and less defensible as a proper SDSR and more like a ‘super CSR’”.

The strength of the link between the defence and security review and the comprehensive spending review has been widely acknowledged as a deficiency in the strategic nature of the defence and security review. Given the explicit link to cost, it is even more important that the SDSR approach should have been thorough.

That brings me to a specific concern, which has been raised by a number of constituents. Perhaps the Minister will have time to address it at least in passing in his closing remarks. The decision to rebase our forces from Germany is in principle welcome. The presence of UK armed forces on mainland Europe was at one time necessary, but perhaps the need is no longer so pressing. The aim to return half our personnel from Germany to the UK by 2015 and the remainder by 2020, as page 32 of the review states, is laudable, and I am sure there will be very little opposition. However, the lack of detail on how that will be achieved undermines the nature of the review and its thoroughness. In response to a number of parliamentary questions, the MOD said that more detailed work will be required and that it is too early to say what the financial impact will be. It troubles me that the Government have taken such a decision in the context of a cost-influenced—if not cost-driven—review exercise without considering the cost.

One estimate is that the eventual cost could be many millions, and I believe that the Minister is on record as saying that there will be a long-term saving, but there is little detail on when that saving will be achieved or on the figures on which any projection of savings is based.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I had responsibility for this matter as a Minister and we looked at rebasing from Germany. The estimate back in 1994 when we brought most of the RAF back was something like £5 billion. Under the treaty, there is a responsibility to write to the German Government to inform them that we want to withdraw. I made some inquiries this week and found out that that has not yet happened.

[Tom Greatrex]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which I think brings to bear an important aspect of the matter that has not been addressed—I look to the Minister to do so in his closing remarks.

I am raising the issue of rebasing not to devalue the point that defence and security interests should be paramount, but to illustrate that even when it appears that costs have been prioritised, as in the review, there is insufficient detail. That leads to concerns that other matters have not been considered in sufficient detail. Specifically on rebasing, it is unfair on returning personnel and their families to announce their return to the UK without providing detail to allow them to prepare. What does the Minister say to a family who have lived and worked in Germany for the past 20 years and who now face the prospect of a return to the UK in five or 10 years? On what criteria will decisions on when to return troops be made? What assessment has been made of the suitability of using RAF bases that are no longer used as such for housing Army personnel? There are a series of unanswered questions and we need answers—if not this afternoon, soon.

The detailed work of which the Minister spoke in his parliamentary answer—it was a vague but not necessarily unhelpful or unrevealing answer—should have been carried out before, or at least parallel to, work on the strategic review. An SDSR that takes no account of the cost of rebasing troops from Germany to the UK and no account of where service personnel and their families will be housed, and that gives no detail on exactly how the draw-down of personnel from 20,000 to zero in 10 years will happen, has a gaping hole in the middle of it. I hope the Minister will respond to at least some of those points in his remarks.

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[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I thank you for imposing a time limit, Mr Deputy Speaker. That is the first cut of this Parliament that I welcome, because it means that everyone who wishes to speak will have the opportunity to do so.

Let me start by paying tribute to the soldiers of 16 Air Assault Brigade from the Colchester garrison, who are currently deployed for the third time in Helmand province along with others from Wattisham, Woodbridge and various other bases around the UK who are part of the brigade. I also pay tribute to the people back at the garrison, including the families and all the support units. It is fantastic to see the Army welfare provisions and safety nets come into play when 3,000 men and women, but predominantly male soldiers, are deployed overseas—previously in Iraq and now in Afghanistan.

Given the events of the past 48 hours in the United States of America, we should bear in mind that in two years’ time there will be another presidential election, which will be three years before 2015 and the proposed withdrawal from Afghanistan. I have a real fear that the next President of the United States will be not so much a Republican as a Tea Party headbanger Republican. That is a serious issue for the United Kingdom in relation to our joint defence activities.

I welcome the fact that the coalition Government have increased the number of helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles going to Afghanistan. I urged the previous Government to do that, because UAVs are a very important part of the efforts to identify insurgents.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

It is a bit rich to suggest that the Government have increased the number of helicopters, given that the order that had been placed for 22 new Chinooks has been reduced to 10—and I must add that the answer I got this week on that subject was wrong.

[Bob Russell]

I am delighted with whichever Government provides additional resources to 16 Air Assault Brigade. If the previous Government gave additional resources, I say well done to them, and if the coalition Government have given them, I say well done to them. What our troops need are more resources to help them. In that regard, I was delighted to spend some time with 16 Air Assault Brigade, before some of them went to Afghanistan on their third deployment, on their improvised explosive device training. That was a very worthwhile exercise.

The last aspect of domestic military policy that I want to address is the Army housing modernisation programme. This is an issue that I have been raising with the previous Government for the past 13 years. I sincerely hope that matters will be resolved during the lifetime of this coalition Government. We cannot expect to send our brave men and women to serve overseas when their families back at home live in accommodation that is not up to an acceptable standard. I praise the previous Government for Merville barracks, even though, like others, I do not approve of the private finance initiative. None the less, the barracks is of the standard that we should expect for all our military personnel, and its married quarters—an area in which we are lacking—are also of the quality that we would wish to see.

I shall conclude with the Falklands and related matters in the south Atlantic. The only air bridge between the UK and the Falklands is Ascension Island, but there is another island in the south Atlantic to which this country owes a debt of gratitude, and which has the same strategic importance in the 21st century as it did in the 19th and 20th centuries. I refer to the island of St Helena. There are plans for an airport on the island, and it would be of strategic as well as domestic and economic importance, because it would provide an alternative air bridge between the UK and the Falklands.

As we have heard today, the Argentines still cast covetous eyes on the Falkland Islands, and there is an economic case for placing all the islands of the south Atlantic in one economic and military federation. They are all British overseas territories, with British citizens, and just as successive Governments have protected the Falkland Islands, we should realise that there are other islands in the south Atlantic, too. Ascension Island is a crucial element in Britain’s interests in the area, and it comes under the jurisdiction of St Helena, so I urge the Government to give every support to an airport on St Helena, because of its strategic defence importance.

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[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am interested that the hon. Gentleman should be using 1997 as his starting point. Does he agree that some of the cost pressures on the procurement budget were down to the incompetence of previous Conservative Governments? I am thinking particularly of how Nimrod was procured and of programmes such as HMS Astute, to name but one other.

[John Glen]

Quite possibly, but we can make cheap points or look at the fundamental problems that go back more than 20 years.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) was looking at the respective contexts for the reviews—the one in 1997-98 and the one this year. The fundamental difference is the economic context. As the chief economic adviser to former Prime Minister Tony Blair said, the Government had a golden economic legacy. That was not the case this time, and that is a reality. We talk about strategic reviews, but they are within the context of the reality of the spending environment. There was no way in which the spending review could have been completed at a time scale different from that of the SDSR. That is just the reality, it seems to me.

There seems to be a legacy, going back to ’97 and beyond, in which decisions were delayed. The decision last year to slow the rate of the QE class carriers was absolutely the right thing to have done in the context of the bigger pressures to release money for Afghanistan, but that will mean that £600 million in extra spending will be required later. The top 15 equipment programmes are £8.8 billion over budget, with a 32-year cumulative delay. These are real challenges.

As a layperson, I look at the situation of Nimrod. I look at how the number of aircraft ordered was reduced from 21 to nine and the cost per aircraft was increased by 200%. When I also consider that it was eight years late, I see that there are fundamental problems in the whole system of government.

The second factor is making Afghanistan the No. 1 priority in the review. We can say with some confidence that the decisions made in the SDSR were completely necessary and absolutely right in respect of our commitments—more than 9,000 troops in the theatre of war. That costs a lot of money. The problem of all defence reviews is that they seek to address the long-term strategic issues. That, however, can never be done in isolation; it has to deal with current realities.

There will be some positive consequences. Those listening to the debate who have family members in Afghanistan can be assured that the full range of training and equipment is now available. Support for families is as it should be and the previous Government took good steps in that direction during their last year in power. The doubling of the operational allowance is also to be welcomed.

I am trying to be as quick as I can. The third issue that I would like to touch on is procurement. Procurement issues are systemic; there is no clear balance of power—or the balance is not right—between the MOD and the defence industry. The relationship is probably flawed. I hope that, as we see the defence industrial strategy emerge—after the SDSR, unhelpfully—we will have a serious examination of what is going on and what is required. I fear that sometimes the political pressures that obviously influence the MOD’s decision making have led it to prop up industry ahead of making the best decisions in defence terms.

I acknowledge the contribution made by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson); of course there needs to be an understanding of what long-term capabilities we need to invest in, but that must not always be as a substitute for making the right defence decisions for our country’s long-term interests. Often, we do not have the same person managing the procurement process. There is a change of scope and a lack of ownership. The MOD suffers and the taxpayer suffers, too. That is a critical issue that needs to be addressed.

My fourth point is about the capacity to change, which does not exist across the services in sufficient quantity. One commentator over the summer referred to the SDSR debate—or discussion, or negotiations—as a knife fight in a phone box, which is a pretty horrible analogy but one borne out by an assessment in the immediate aftermath of the SDSR announcements of which services won. I do not think that that is helpful in edifying the consequences and impact on the defence of this nation.

Let us consider some of the specifics. We have heard a lot this afternoon about the decision on the Harriers, but my concern would be about the extent of that gap in capability and how long it will take us to get the capability in place to fill that gap. Will the Tornadoes be viable for the length of time that they will potentially need to fill the gap and how much money will be required to fill some of the gaps? There is a great deal of supposition about how some of these things might work out. That might be from necessity—it is absolutely right to say that the financial pressures have been dominant in the entire decision making process—but some real concerns about capabilities that might be lacking in the near term need to be addressed.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) said, by 2020 more than a third of our energy will be delivered by water-borne means, particularly liquefied gas. We have seen the emergence of piracy on our seas. Such things might proliferate and it is difficult to determine the risk that will face our country. I am concerned that there will be a delay in the readiness of capabilities.

It is absolutely clear that there needs to be greater capacity among the services to harmonise—for example, to harmonise the frequency of deployment, particularly as the Navy and the RAF will be working more closely together. As significant reforms of allowances will need to take place, it is important that that is done with care and fairness. I was talking to a constituent just a few weeks ago who has moved with his family nine times in the past 11 years. I hope that when decisions are made about the continuation of the CEA—the continuity of education allowance—they will be made fairly so that people can have continuity in their education. That seems to me an appropriate need, not a perk.

The SDSR could never have achieved all that it set out to achieve, because of the legacy, the challenges of procurement and the real issues to do with managing a budget that was pretty restricted. It was always going to be difficult, but I think there are grounds for optimism. I commend the Secretary of State for fighting hard and doing the best he could in extremely difficult circumstances.

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[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

We have had a good debate, including 15 contributions from Back Benchers. As one of them said earlier, the debate has been well informed.

May I begin by paying tribute to the men and women of our armed forces and their families? It was a privilege to work with them as a Minister. May I also say a big thanks to the civil servants with whom I worked? They have been unfairly targeted as the problem, when in fact they are dedicated individuals without whose work we could not project the operations and power that we have in support of our armed forces. May I also put on record the thanks of Labour Members to Sir Jock Stirrup and Bill Jeffrey at the MOD? It was ironic that the Defence Secretary congratulated those two individuals when he was the one who basically announced their departure in the Sunday newspapers the week before the official announcement. Those two people were committed to the defence of this country, and I put on record my thanks to them.

The hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) raised the issue of cadets and the university training squadrons. As a Minister, I had responsibility for those, and I met some fantastic individuals who greatly benefited from those organisations. I put on record my thanks to the volunteers who work hard—unpaid—in the cadet force throughout the country. They are a large volunteer army who work to support young people. Those young people not only experience military life, but take that discipline and structure into their lives.

The hon. Gentleman referred to reserves. I am a little disappointed that there will be yet another review of reserves. The previous Government reviewed reserves, and it would have been interesting to see the implementation of that work. I am also disappointed that there are as yet no terms of reference for the next review. It will be interesting to see how reserve forces fit into the restructure of the Army.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on his call for the Government to take a more purple approach. However, in my experience—perhaps he shares it—the biggest problem on occasions for Defence Ministers is inter-service rivalry at chief level on different programmes. He also reiterated and repeated the point about a £38 billion black hole. As on many things, this Government believe that if they repeat something often enough, it will become fact, but I have now tabled a question to ask where that figure comes from. It has been a convenient cover for the spending cuts review.

If we look at last year’s National Audit Office report, we see that the figure on the procurement side could only be between £6 billion and £36 billion. The only way to get to the figure of £38 billion is to apply a cash freeze over the next 10 years. In addition, the figure of £38 billion would apply only if we had to pay for equipment tomorrow, which people know we do not. That figure has been a convenient cover for some of the things that the MOD is implementing.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) made a good contribution. I thank him for the support he gave me when he was Defence Secretary. It is interesting and strange to hear Government Members now thanking and praising him for being such a good Defence Secretary, given that last summer he was being pilloried by every national newspaper and Conservative Members. However, he has been rightly rehabilitated. He raised issues concerning Afghanistan, including the date of 2015, which was plucked out of thin air by the Prime Minister. It is important that we have a conditions-based draw-down from Afghanistan, and it is clear that if, come 2015, we need to retain that combat role for longer, that ought to be our position. It would be a huge mistake if the hard work, dedication and sacrifice put in so far in order to make progress in Afghanistan were to be jeopardised for purely political purposes. That would be wrong.

My right hon. Friend made an interesting and important point about the withdrawal of Harrier and short take-off and vertical landing capacity, which leads to another issue raised by the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson). I am glad that today the latter did not call for a third, fourth or fifth carrier, as he normally does. However, he summed up the matter quite well: they are called “aircraft carriers”. It is in the name! They should have aircraft on them.

Over the past few weeks, the Government have tried again to throw mud and confuse the issue by saying that the contract entered into for the carriers was a wicked plot by the last Labour Government, and that it was a bad deal. That continued yesterday with this nonsense from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, when he said to the Treasury Select Committee that this was an “unusual contract”. It was not an unusual contract at all; it was a complex contract. It was exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West talked about: it was about restructuring the shipbuilding industry in this country to ensure our continuing sovereign capacity. However, it is now convenient to demonise the contract for political reasons.

The contract is also supported by BAE Systems. By chance, I have a letter sent by Mr Ian King to the Prime Minister when the review was ongoing, pointing out that the contract represented a long-term restructuring of the maritime manufacturing capacity in the UK and that BAE Systems had already invested about £500 million of its own shareholder money in it. Clearly, he sent the letter because he was worried about the Government cancelling the contract for the second carrier. The final paragraph of the letter reiterates the problem with the Government’s approach to the review. Instead of having an all-encompassing review involving the industry, it tended to excluded people. He wrote:

“But I fully stand behind it and would welcome the opportunity, which we have not had, to present this to you”

to explain the reasoning. That has been the problem with the review, unlike our approach, which was about involving industry, Opposition parties, academia and others. Instead, we have had a cuts review, which has been Treasury-led and has led to some very short-term and dangerous decisions.

[Mr Davidson]

Does my hon. Friend accept that had the second carrier been cancelled, the results would have been the closure of the shipyards and a permanent loss of capacity, and Britain would no longer have had the ability to build the Type 26?

[Mr Jones]

That is an interesting intervention. I would have to refer to Mr King’s letter, which states that if the second carrier had been cancelled, the shipbuilding yards would have closed by 2012, removing all capability for future naval shipbuilding in this country. We have to stop the spin and excuse-making, and the Government have to start explaining and justifying some of their decisions.

In his usual robust way, the hon. Member for North East Hampshire, who is Chair of the Defence Committee—I was privileged to serve under him—said that the process of the review was rubbish, which is obviously a technical term. It was rushed, and the Committee made it clear that mistakes will be made, and that they will be at the cost of our security and defence.

The right hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Gainsborough and the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) referred to the deterrent and Nimrod. The revision of history, which is remarkable, is that somehow we can take capacity such as Nimrod out without an explanation of what will replace it to protect our nuclear deterrent. That worried the Secretary of State when he wrote to the Prime Minister stating that cancelling Nimrod would seriously affect the deterrent. I would like to know what will replace it, and at what cost. The parliamentary answers that I have received so far have been uninspiring.

The Trident issue is important. It is clearly a political fudge to help the coalition Government stay together, and it is interesting that the Liberal Democrats are going around trumpeting the fact that they have won the argument. The fact is that we were accused of moving the main gate on the run-up costs for the carriers, but that is exactly what the Government have done with Trident. The only difference is that when we considered the matter, there was a question mark about whether the first boat that goes out of service in 2024 could continue until the new in-service date of 2028. It would be interesting to know what has changed in terms of the engineering capability to be able to do that. It is clear that the Labour party has been, and is, committed to the nuclear deterrent. It is important that decisions are taken, not just for the country’s security, but for the skill base and confidence that that skill base needs in procuring that vital piece of equipment for our defence needs.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson) paid tribute to the armed forces in Northern Ireland, and I add my thanks to them. When I made visits as a Minister, I paid tribute to the work of 19 Light Brigade in Afghanistan. The right hon. Gentleman made serious points about the rise of terrorism, which shows the wide spectrum of the defence and security issues facing us. I also pay tribute to a member of his family whom I met on several occasions. His brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Kingsley Donaldson, makes a great contribution to the armed forces. He is proud of his brother, although when I first met him he asked me whether I knew his brother, and I said that I had met him once or twice.

The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) made an interesting point about defence industrial strategy. We have been told that it will come out in a few weeks, post the review that we have had. It will be interesting to see whether it gels together, having set the framework already.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) talked about St Athan. Again, the Government are revising and rewriting history. A savings measure in the defence review suggests that extra savings will be made by centralising training and with greater use of electronics. That is exactly is what St Athan is about, so I do not know how they will achieve that without St Athan.

The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) rightly paid tribute to the Paras in his constituency. I was pleased to visit Colchester on several occasions. On one occasion, I threw him out of a plane—unfortunately, with a parachute attached. However, he is a great supporter of the Colchester garrison, and I pay tribute to its sacrifice and its work.

The hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) was also trying to rewrite history, when he talked about strategic thinking—he was trying not to get in trouble with his Whips. It seems that year zero is now 1997 and that nothing happened before. There is a clear point to be made—a point that was also made by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin)—about strategic thinking, which is important across Government. However, I have been at the coal face on occasions, and with the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, day-to-day decision making can interfere with the process. Sometimes it is important to step back, but it is difficult to do that when having to make clear decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) apologised for unfortunately being unable to attend this part of the debate. He made important points about Yemen and congratulated the Government on establishing the new National Security Committee. A promise was made in opposition that the NSC would have Opposition Members on it, but that promise seems to have been ditched. It has also been said that the previous Government did not have something like that, but we did, with the NCIS committee—the committee of the National Criminal Intelligence Service—which met weekly under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister. Its key issue most weeks was the contributions being made in Afghanistan. That was important.

One issue that was mentioned by the hon. Member for Colchester, and which needs to be raised again, is helicopter capacity in Afghanistan. It is interesting that since the coalition Government have come into being, all the equipment problems that we had in Afghanistan seem to have ended and everyone is now happy. We were criticised heavily by both the hon. Gentleman and the Conservatives when they were in opposition about helicopter capacity. I tabled a question last week to find out why the order for 22 Chinook helicopters had been reduced to 12. I consulted my former colleagues last night, because the reply that I received in a written answer says that 22 helicopters were never ordered. That is not true. We ordered 12 helicopters, and then there was a letter of understanding with Boeing for a further 10. I am sure that that is standard practice, so as to improve price controls and ensure that the specifications are up to date, so it will be interesting to know what has changed since, and also whether the unit cost of the 12 helicopters being purchased will increase, now that the overall number has been reduced.

In his best-selling book, “Cameron on Cameron”, the Prime Minister said that we need

“a defence review based on our national security, not on Treasury guidelines”.

How hollow that sounds today. In government, we were keen to ensure the widest possible participation in the debate about the future defence needs of our country. We included academics, industry and Opposition parties, in full consultation, to try to reach a consensus on defence, thereby not only ensuring the right posture for our future defence needs, but performing the important role of supporting our armed forces. Unfortunately, that was binned in May. What we have seen since is a Treasury-led cost-cutting review. Industry has been excluded from most of the work streams. The Conservative Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire, has said that

“mistakes will be made and some of them may be serious.”

As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) said earlier, let us hope that that is not true, even though it sounds as if it will be.

The SDSR was an opportunity to step back for a moment—to learn the lessons of the past decade and put in place a sustainable posture for our armed forces and defence. Sadly, that opportunity has been missed. As the Defence Secretary himself said, in his unexplainably leaked letter, the process is looking less like a proper SDSR and more like a “super CSR”. The Conservatives in opposition offered a great deal for our armed forces at the election. They promised a larger Army, but they have cut it. They promised to look at after-hours service personnel, but one of the first things they did was to freeze pay and reduce pensions. They promised a strategic defence review, but they have given us a cuts package and a review. Even today, we have heard the Defence Secretary say that some of these Treasury-led proposals will present us with what he called “calculated risks”—I would say “dangers”—for the future of our country’s defence and security.

In conclusion, my fear is that the dangerous short-term decision making in this review will be a repeat of the 1990s, when short-term savings were the mantra rather than long-term strategy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Harvey]

I cannot say that I had any conversations with the Prime Minister, but discussions between the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister are the confidential discussions that they would be expected to have. We are not going to be drawn into that sort of discussion at the Dispatch Box. The Prime Minister made a statement with which we are comfortable, and which we are making every effort to enact.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the 2% NATO figure. Let me make it absolutely clear to him that throughout the spending period that we have outlined today, we will remain above NATO’s 2% figure without resorting to the sort of things that NATO includes in its figure, such as military pensions. The defence contribution towards cyber will certainly count towards that, but the efforts on cyber are cross-governmental. In that sense, I am including only the defence contribution. The right hon. Gentleman made some good points about force generation; those issues will be examined in depth in the coming months.

We also heard from the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), who made criticisms of the process that we had heard before, but thought that the outcome was OK. He asked what “extended readiness” meant when applied to the second carrier. Let me make it perfectly clear to him that no decision has been made to sell it. Further decisions on what we will do with it can be made several years from now, and will depend on what the security considerations are at the time.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr Donaldson), who speaks for the Democratic Unionists, rightly paid tribute to the work of the armed forces in Northern Ireland over a period of years. He also warned us of the increasing security threat. I do not want to get drawn into saying anything more about that, but let me simply say that it is fully acknowledged. He also made points about the regional footprint of our armed forces throughout the United Kingdom. For military purposes, we are very keen for the footprint of defence to be felt throughout the UK.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) said that the Navy was being left very thin—I forget the precise word that he used. We understand that we are undertaking risk now, but we hope very much that that will enable us to make our way to having a bigger and stronger Navy in the future. We are also retaining the ability to reconstitute, if that will be significant or helpful.

The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) wanted to know more about the future details. Detail will emerge in the next few months as we work through the key points. He and a couple of other Members asked about St Athan. The Metrix project for St Athan failed. Unfortunately, it did not come up with a viable business plan within the deadlines that had been laid down and the finance could not be found, although a fair stab had been made. I entirely accept that the financial markets are very different now from what they looked like when Metrix made its bid and embarked on the programme; the world is different today. However, we have to face the unfortunate reality that it failed.

The hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) rightly said that the military covenant needs formalising. That will happen in the next few months. He also spoke about mental health—a topic about which he has acquired considerable knowledge. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and several other Members raised the Nimrod issue. The Secretary of State has offered to hold further discussions with the Opposition Front-Bench team on how we intend to bridge that capability gap.

The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) spoke of the need for a national strategic assessment centre. That is an interesting idea worthy of further consideration. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) asked about the troops coming home from Germany. I simply cannot agree that that should have been worked out in every last particular before the intention to do it was ever declared, but he did make the good point that people will want to understand what is going to happen, when it will happen and in what order. We will do our best to address that in the coming months. An Opposition Front-Bench Member made the specific claim that we had not discussed that with the German Government, so let me make this perfectly clear: the Federal Government have supported the British military presence in Germany for more than 50 years—it has been a symbol of our steadfast friendship with Germany—and the Prime Minister discussed this matter with Chancellor Merkel during the course of the SDSR.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

rose—

[Nick Harvey]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, as time is running out and he left me rather short. On the issue of the troops in Germany, proper letters will be written when we come to make specific moves.

The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) asked about Yemen. The equipment he inquired about is being procured at the moment, and we are working closely with the Yemeni Government with the aim of providing that equipment by the end of the year.

The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) wanted to know whether we had had discussions with the French or the Americans about their potential use of a carrier fitted with “cats and traps”. Yes, of course we have; we have had lengthy discussions with both of them. He also asked whether the second carrier would have “cats and traps” fitted. We can decide that at any point in the future; we have left ourselves the flexibility to do that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) rightly spoke up for the brave men and women from the Colchester garrison who are going to Afghanistan. He champions their cause well, and we all wish them well in their endeavours. Other Members made constituency points on behalf of Marham and Portsmouth, and I will do my best to keep in touch with them about the developments in their areas.

The SDSR has been a difficult process, but I think people that will recognise that it is the start of the transformation of our defence, not the last word. I look forward to many further debates in the House as the details of what it will mean for every different aspect of defence is worked out in the coming months.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of the Strategic Defence and Security Review.