Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Andrew Murrison

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I would hope that this issue could be debated both in Back-Bench time and in Government time, because of its central importance, but as the Committee will see, the pressure on speaking opportunities this afternoon is heavy, so there is a time limit even though there will not be a vote at the end. I hope that that means that we will have further such debates.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I accept everything that my right hon. Friend says about the pressure on time today, but does he observe that very little of that pressure is likely to come from Opposition Members, among whom there is a desultory turnout for such an important debate?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

At the moment the Opposition Benches do look rather empty, but let us hope that things will change.

I should like to examine what is different about the United Kingdom. Our role in the world is unlike that of any other. The quality of our armed forces is, I believe, second to none, and that comes mostly from the training that they receive, from the structure of the armed forces and from the fact that they work together in regiments and in units to fight, not actually for their country, and certainly not to fight for their politicians, but to fight for each other—so we must be very careful indeed before we tamper with that structure.

We should give thanks, however, to those men and women who lay their lives on the line and are prepared to sacrifice everything they have and everything they are in defence of this country. We are incredibly well served. We need to treat those people well, and I shall return to that point later in my speech, although I shall try not to take too long, as there is such pressure on time.

The UK is different, too, because we are prepared to put our people where our rhetoric is: we are prepared to fight when force is needed. In spite of that, we are seen as a force for good, and in that respect I draw one comparison with one other country: Germany. Germany is doing really valuable work in Afghanistan, and it is led by German politicians often in defiance, almost, of the beliefs and values that, largely at our instigation, have grown up in Germany since the second world war. When one goes to Germany and asks, “Why can you not contribute more to NATO operations?” one finds that they say, “Well, you’ve always been telling us not to fight; you’ve got to make your minds up.” We are gradually getting there, and in Afghanistan we are seeing a really valuable contribution.

I want, nevertheless, to read out a quotation from May 2010:

“In my estimation…we—including society as a whole—are coming to the general understanding that, given this strong focus and corresponding dependency on exports, a country of our size needs to be aware that where called for or in an emergency, military deployment, too, is necessary if we are to protect our interests such as ensuring free trade routes or preventing regional instabilities which are also certain to negatively impact our ability to safeguard trade, jobs and income. All of this should be discussed and I think the path we are on is not so bad.”

That is not an unexceptionable thing to say, but it was said by the President of Germany in an interview in May 2010, and because of those words he was forced to resign as President. That is a real issue. Britain is one of the few countries in Europe which is really prepared to put its forces where its rhetoric is, and we should be praised for that.

We have a history of involvement with most of the world. At one stage or another we have owned most of it, and many borders over which we now see disputes are probably our fault. Nevertheless, as a result of those historical issues we have, throughout the world, relationships that we need to preserve and that those parts of the world want us to preserve. We also have a history that is born out of our prosperity, and our armed forces have a real role to play in that.

Owing to all that uniqueness, that difference between the United Kingdom and others, our alliances and our position in huge alliances, we have huge ambitions to match that history, but what we do not have any more, to match our lofty ambitions, is the resources required to back them up. There is a clear contradiction between what the Government said in the strategic defence and security review about rejecting the shrinkage of UK influence throughout the world, and the reduction of the money that we spend on the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We may well have to reduce the money that we spend on those Departments, but our ambitions should be reduced to match it. We now spend less on the Foreign Office than on the winter fuel allowance. That is a striking statistic.

I have no objection to this Government and this country being committed to hitting the target of spending 0.7% of gross domestic product on international development; I am proud, actually, of that ambition, that aim and that goal, because our role of defending our interests extends to, for example, preserving the stability of countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and our international aid effort is important in that. In that respect, however, I ask one brief question: why is the stabilisation unit being withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2014? Although I took some time to come around to any agreement with the idea, I fully understand that our combat troops should be removed from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but the stabilisation unit is precisely the reverse of combat troops. The current expectation is that 25% should be withdrawn this year, 25% next year and the rest by the end of 2014. The Government should reconsider that.

Equally, I have no objection to defence having to bear its brunt of deficit reduction. When, as in the past day or two, we hear that our debts are now £1 trillion, we have no choice, and let us remember that the greatest weapon—the greatest defence—a country can have is a strong economy. Indeed, we should not object to the fact that defence has to play its part in trying to produce that strong economy, but to pretend that while we reduce our defence resources we can be as strong in terms of our armed forces as we were before is wrong.

On the Defence Committee’s role, I return to the issue of treating the armed forces fairly, touching briefly on the little local difficulty that was produced by our report this week on the Ministry of Defence’s annual report and accounts. It is of course regrettable that for five years running the MOD’s report and accounts have been qualified, and it would be nice to have a true and fair view of what it has to spend and what its assets are, but the point that has obviously hit the headlines is the impression of unfairness created by compulsory redundancies among the armed forces but not among civilian personnel.

We have asked, therefore, for a compelling and persuasive reason why the one should be so and the other should not. If the answer is, “So many redundancies have been applied for in the civilian services of the Ministry of Defence,” perhaps that is because morale in that area is so low. If that is the answer, it is an issue that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State really needs to address. If the answer is, as the permanent secretary told us, that civilians are flexibly employable whereas the military is not, that too is something that the Secretary of State needs to address. However, I do not believe that to be the right answer. I have heard the Secretary of State ask what else we could have done. I am afraid that four reasons for the disparity have now been explained to the Defence Committee, and without knowing the real reasons we cannot help to find an answer. We have, at least, highlighted the issue.

The relationship between my right hon. Friend and me, and the Defence Committee and the Ministry, is not cosy—quite right, too; it should not be. Nor should it be a relationship of antagonism and a feeling of “They are the enemy”. We do not regard the Ministry of Defence as the enemy, and we hope that we can move to a position in which the Ministry does not regard us as the enemy.