Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Lord Campbell of Pittenweem and Lord Walney

Thursday 16th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

I apologise to the House and to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence for not being present when the debate began. I was taken aback by the speed with which the previous business was completed.

I hope that I do not sound too censorious when I say that any member of the armed forces on active service watching our debate so far might feel compelled to say, “How we got here is less important than what we’re going to do now we are here.” To use the old cliché, we are where we are. People in the armed services want to know how we will provide a review that produces a coherent and cohesive outcome and allows them to have total confidence that they will always be fully equipped, well led and subject to mature and sensible political direction.

My views on Trident are well known, and, in the time available, I will not burden the House with them again, other than to the limited extent of saying that the attitude of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, publicly expressed by him and confirmed by the Chief Secretary, implies that Trident has de facto become part of the defence review.

[John Woodcock]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will excuse me if I make a little progress first.

I listened to my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, who, with characteristic elegance, endeavoured to say that it was simply a matter of accounting. It is not a matter of accounting for the budget holder of a Department, out of whose budget the money must come, who knows that a request of the Chief Secretary for more is likely to be refused. When there are difficult decisions to make, such as the closure of bases, whether a particular capability should be maintained or whether infantry battalions should be disbanded, and one is aware of an obligation to find some £20 billion in the next period, it seems inevitable that the decisions about the conventional elements of defence are bound to be affected. To put it colloquially, four Trident submarines would be four elephants in the room.

In this country, we lack a proper review of nuclear policy. I cannot recall in the 23 years that I have been a Member a review conducted other than on the basis that we have always had four submarines since Harold Macmillan went to the Bahamas and persuaded Jack Kennedy that we should have access to Poseidon. It is argued that, therefore, we should have four submarines and the maximum number of warheads—at least potentially. I remember the days when the argument in the House was not about having a deterrent, but about whether a Labour Government in 1992 under Neil Kinnock would build the fourth submarine. That was of great significance to the constituents of the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), to whom I shall briefly give way.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock]

I am grateful. I am also grateful that the Labour party’s position has changed, for which my predecessor, now Lord Hutton, deserves some credit. I will not often agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman about Trident, but is he aware that the report, published this week, of the Defence Committee, of which I am a member, suggests that Trident has de facto been included in the review in an unhelpful way through the budgeting arrangements that have been changed in recent weeks?

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

We must agree about that.

That takes me to the points that the Chairman of the Defence Committee made with great directness. I think that I am the last member of the 1997 Defence Committee still to be in the House. As the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) explained, the consultation that was carried out for that particular defence review was peerless. He outlined the number of meetings that the Committee held and the amount of detail into which it went. Indeed, I remember several occasions on which I could argue across the table, face to face, with John Reid, now Lord Reid, about issues that directly concerned the defence review and its outcome. There was one defect, which is now acknowledged. The Government of the day never published the foreign policy baseline. That is one of my criticisms of the current review.

My hon. Friend the Minister referred to a speech by the Foreign Secretary, but the national security strategy and a foreign policy baseline have not been published. I say with respect that if the review is to have a benevolent outcome, the House should be debating the foreign policy baseline and the national security strategy now so that we could, if I may put it a little ambitiously, offer some advice and exercise some influence over members of the National Security Committee.

My concern is mirrored by the comments of my hon. Friend the Minister. He said that if the Ministry of Defence had not proceeded at the same pace as the overall efforts to restore economic stability, we would have found ourselves given a sum of money and told to find a defence policy to fit it. My fear is that that is exactly what is happening. It is implied that the defence budget must be brought under control, to put it pejoratively, in the next five years, yet from what we hear from the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, we will still be in Afghanistan in that period. Is it in the interests of morale and effectiveness to conduct such a wholesale programme during that period? Cutting programmes that are under review will incur penalties. Substantial sums of money will have to be paid out if we do not proceed with certain contracts. What account has been taken of that?

My anxiety can be summed up in my fear that we are at risk of being engaged not in a defence review, but in an expenditure review. To what should a defence review amount? Usually, it means a clear statement of foreign policy objectives, an analysis of the military requirements for achieving those objectives and a value-for-money analysis of the necessary resources. It seems to me that a series of decisions may emerge from the review that are not related to each other and that fail to provide the necessary coherence and cohesion not only for members of the armed services or politicians who have their responsibilities, but for the profile that we present to any potential adversary and—perhaps equally important —to our allies.

I have a constituency interest; I imagine that I am not alone in presenting such an interest to the House, and I do not expect my hon. Friend the Minister to respond to it today. On Saturday, I went to Royal Air Force Leuchars in my constituency. It was a battle of Britain airshow day and some 50,000 people attended. In the past, the base has had two squadrons of Typhoon with a third training squadron for Typhoon. It now has 71 Engineer Regiment (Volunteers). Many members of the regiment have been to Afghanistan and Iraq. The 58 Squadron RAF Regiment is training there to be deployed to Afghanistan next spring. The 50,000 people who visited the base on Saturday were compelled to do so because, last week, 6 Squadron was reformed as the first of three Typhoon squadrons, which, under current plans, is scheduled to be deployed to the base. The station is located in Scotland’s central belt, albeit the most attractive part—I would say that, wouldn’t I? It can provide the air defence for the whole of northern Britain.

Those of us with an interest in defence deplore the fact that its prominence in the minds of the British public is much reduced. I thoroughly supported the notion, which was effected under the previous Administration, that members of the armed forces could more regularly wear uniforms in public so that people had a clear and obvious identification with them. The argument for the continuation of RAF Leuchars is overwhelming. The command of the base is combined with the responsibilities of the Air Officer Scotland, who has important representational functions that are easily fulfilled from a base in the central area of Scotland. Were that base to be closed, there would be a substantial economic impact, as there is when any base is closed. The impact is felt on the communities that have grown up alongside the bases. However, in the case of Leuchars, I am confident that the defence case for its maintenance as a front-line air station is overwhelming. I therefore have every confidence that that view will prevail in the corridors of the Ministry of Defence.