Strategic Defence and Security Review

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

Quite the reverse. In opposition, we spent considerable time discussing with the French what we would want to do in terms of greater co-operation were we to win the general election. What we saw this week were the fruits of considerable labour on both sides for a considerable time.

It is rational and reasonable simply to want greater co-operation with our biggest military ally in continental Europe. What has been amazing in the last few days is the level of agreement, which seems to have occurred across the political spectrum, that this is not a drastic threat to UK sovereignty, but a common-sense use of both our nations’ resources.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

As the Defence Secretary for the last year of the Labour Government, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that in that year we took £900 million out of the defence budget, rather than increase the deficit by £3 billion, and that that was met with howls from the then Opposition. Without wanting to fall out with the then Chief of the Defence Staff, I have to say that I cannot remember his ever having said anything to me about defence cuts that I was not prepared to make. I say that on the record.

[Dr Fox]

The right hon. Gentleman has made his point very clearly. Obviously, I am unable to say what discussions might have taken place. However, the point is that, as the National Audit Office said, there was an added overspend of £3.3 billion in the final year alone in the projects budgets. That is very clear.

As the Prime Minister has said, the SDSR was about taking the right decisions to protect national security in the years ahead, not simply a cost-saving exercise to get to grips with the biggest budget deficit in post-war history. However, let us be absolutely clear that those are not two separate things. Proper strategic thought encompasses ends, ways and means, matching ambition and policy to commitments and resources. A strategy that does not take account of fiscal or budgetary measures is no strategy at all; it is simply wishful thinking.

As Lord Ashdown recently put it, we cannot defend a country on flights of fancy. Furthermore, history has clearly shown how fundamental a strong economy is for effective national security and defence over the long term. We were left an economically toxic legacy by the previous Government. They doubled the national debt and left us with the biggest budget deficit in the G20. We are spending £120 million every single day just to pay off the interest on Labour’s debt. The interest we will pay next year on the debt is some £46 billion, significantly more than the entire annual defence budget, and we will get nothing for that money. Without regaining economic strength, we will be unable to sustain in the long term the capabilities required, including military capabilities, to keep our citizens safe and maintain our influence on the world stage.

If we learned anything from the cold war, it is that a strong economy equals strong defence. The economic legacy of the previous Government is a national security liability. We were left with a situation in which the country’s finances were wrecked while the world is a more dangerous place than at any time in recent memory.

Every Department must make its own contribution to deficit reduction and the MOD is no exception, but because of the priority we place on security, the defence budget is making a more modest contribution to deficit reduction relative to almost all other Government Departments.

The SDSR meets twin priorities of protecting front-line capability for Afghanistan and beginning the process of transforming our armed forces to meet the challenges of the future, setting the path to a coherent and affordable defence capability in 2020 and beyond.

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[Dr Fox]

There is no doubt that we need to deal with armed forces accommodation. We will want to do so as quickly as possible and in a way that produces the best and quickest improvement, at the best deal for the taxpayer. We will learn all the lessons from the previous Government, and even from times before them.

The three further reviews that I mentioned are the six-month study of the future role and structure of reserve forces; a review of force generation and sustainability by the service chiefs and the defence reform unit; and the remodelling of the MOD itself, which is overseen by Lord Levene’s defence reform unit. Let me be very clear: I entirely agree with Lord Levene’s view about the staff in the MOD, who are among the most able people I have worked with. I am sure that former Ministers would concur. However, I wish to be equally clear that the Department must be restructured to serve the interests of the new national security posture, and smaller armed forces will require a smaller system of civilian support.

I am acutely aware that behind the bare numbers of the reductions that we plan are loyal people, with livelihoods and families, who face an uncertain future through no fault of their own. We will do everything we can to manage the process sensitively and with care and support, but manage it we must if we are to meet our vision of the future force structure. The Government are determined to reinvigorate and respect an enduring military covenant. We cannot shield the armed forces from the consequences of the economic circumstances that we face, but we will make progress wherever we can. I look forward to receiving soon the report of the independent armed forces covenant taskforce that we set up earlier this year.

The second period, from 2015 to 2020, will be about regrowing capability and achieving our overall vision. That will include the reintroduction of a carrier strike capability, with the joint strike fighter carrier variant aircraft manned by a joint Royal Navy and RAF force, and an escort fleet including the Type 45 destroyer and, soon after 2020, the Type 26 global combat ship, which used to be called the future surface combatant—the names keep changing. We will also reconfigure the RAF fast jet fleet around the JSF and the Typhoon, and consolidate the multi-role brigade structure in the Army.

One of my goals as part of the SDSR was to reduce the number of types of equipment used to provide the same capability. Achieving that by 2020 will mean less duplication and less expense overall, when we take into account the complex training and support requirements of each piece of kit. That will include reducing the number of types of equipment in the air transport and helicopter fleets, and of destroyers and frigates.

Nevertheless, my very strong belief, which the Prime Minister shares, is that the structure that we have agreed for 2020 will require year-on-year real-terms growth in the defence budget beyond 2015. It would be nice to do more sooner, but as the great hero of the Labour party, Tony Benn, once said, albeit in different circumstances,

“the jam we thought was for tomorrow, we’ve already eaten.”

How well he understood his own party.

There is a hard road ahead, but at the end of the process Britain will have the capabilities that it needs to keep our people safe and live up to its responsibilities to our allies and friends, and our national interests will be more secure.

I turn to some specific issues. The carrier strike capability that we plan will give the UK the ability to project military power over land as well as sea, from anywhere in the world, without reliance on land bases in other countries. Britain will require the strategic choice and flexibility in force projection that carrier strike offers. I also believe that that capability should be as interoperable as possible with the allies with whom we are most likely to work in future. The inherited design of the carriers would not have achieved that.

The House and the country must understand that any decisions regarding the carriers must be taken in the context of their extended service life of 50 years. The final captain of a Queen Elizabeth carrier has not even been born yet. When they go out of service, I will be 109 years old and the shadow Defence Secretary a sprightly 103. We are taking decisions now on what will be best for us as a country in the middle of the century. That is why we have taken three decisions. First, we have decided to take a capability gap in carrier strike, because we assess that the risk of not having access to basing and overflight for our fast jet force in the next decade is low. However, the same cannot be said looking further ahead.

Secondly, we have decided to install catapult and arrester gear, which will allow greater interoperability, particularly with US and French carriers and jets, and maximise the through-life utility of our carrier strike capability. Thirdly, we have decided to acquire the carrier variant of the joint strike fighter. Adding the “cats and traps” will allow us to use the carrier variant of the JSF, which has a bigger payload and a longer range than the STOVL variant planned by the previous Government. Overall, the carrier variant will be significantly cheaper, reducing the through-life cost compared with the STOVL version.

Contrary to popular belief, there will not be a new Queen Elizabeth class carrier in service without the planes to go on it, apart from in the period required by law for us to have the carrier properly crewed up and ready to accept the planes. The idea I have come across in some parts of the media—that we can get brand-new carriers and the brand-new planes to fly off them almost on the same day—simply defies the complexity of the operation involved.

When the carrier enters service towards the end of the decade, the JSF will be ready to embark on it. Yes, there will be a delay to the programme as a consequence of the decisions I have mentioned, but unlike the previous Government’s delay to the carrier programme in 2008, which added £1.6 billion to the overall cost—more than the whole Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget next year—and gave us nothing in return, our delay will give us a carrier that is best configured for the next 50 years.

[Mr Ainsworth]

I am seriously concerned about the decision that the Government have taken. They have not only scrapped the Harrier, but retreated from STOVL, going back to what is basically today’s and yesterday’s technology of “cats and traps”. They have left themselves potentially reliant on two aircraft that do fundamentally the same thing, giving up the ability to use short-take-off and vertical-landing aircraft. This is about more than the capability of the carrier. We are giving up—not temporarily, but permanently—the capability that the Harrier has given us. We will have two fleets of aircraft that fundamentally do the same thing.

[Dr Fox]

First, “cats and traps” are not yesterday’s technology. In fact, considerable expense is going into ensuring that there are more modern, more effective “cat and trap” systems. The United States is spending a great deal of research and development money on that at present. Secondly, if we are to have genuine interoperability, it makes sense to have carriers that the American navy or the French can land on and, in the case of the French, use when their carrier is in refit and they require ongoing training. It is perfectly rational to buy the plane with the longer range and bigger payload, which is in fact cheaper. In the past, it was decided, for whatever reasons, to build 65,000-tonne carriers without a “cat and trap” system, and that decision was augmented by the STOVL decision. That would have been the most expensive variant, with the shortest range and the smallest payload. We are bringing those greater capabilities into better alignment with the carrier itself.

The right hon. Member for Coventry North East mentioned the Harrier. We had to face up to the difficult choices that the previous Government put off. Regrettably, we have decided to retire HMS Ark Royal three years early and to retire the Harrier force—both in 2011. Of course, that is not unprecedented. The UK’s carrier strike capability was gapped during the late 1970s, as we transitioned from Buccaneer to Harrier itself. While Harrier was operating in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2009, our ability to generate carrier strike was at best severely curtailed.

Over the next five years, life-saving combat air support to operations in Afghanistan has to be the overriding priority. In Afghanistan, the Joint Force Harrier did wonderful work, and I pay tribute to the Harrier aircraft, the crews that have serviced them and the pilots who have flown them since they entered service. During its deployment to Afghanistan, the Joint Force Harrier flew in excess of 22,000 hours on more than 8,500 sorties, more than 2,000 of which were close air support missions. It is my understanding that every Harrier pilot from every Harrier squadron took part at some point during the Harrier’s deployment to Afghanistan.

Tough and unsentimental choices had to be made, however, and the military advice was that Tornado was the more capable aircraft to retain, due to its wider capabilities and force size, for not only Afghanistan but other significant contingent capabilities. Operations in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2009 took their toll on the Harrier force. By the time the aircraft was withdrawn from theatre, the force’s ability to recuperate and regenerate a fully operational carrier strike capability—notwithstanding the strenuous efforts to do so by Joint Force Harrier—had understandably been affected.

The decision taken by the previous Government in 2009 drastically to salami-slice the number of Harriers meant that, even if we had wanted to, we could not sustain our current fast-jet requirement in Afghanistan using Harriers alone. The decision in 2009 reduced the number of Harriers from 18 force elements at readiness to 10, but the military advice is that we require 40 force elements at readiness of Harriers to maintain our fast-jet contribution in Afghanistan on an enduring basis and without breaching harmony guidelines.

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[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames). I echo his tribute to our armed forces—not just the fallen, but all of them. I spent two years as Minister for the Armed Forces and one as Secretary of State for Defence during a period when we were not only suffering the greatest losses of modern times, but fighting at the highest level of capability that we have had to achieve recently, and showing what our armed forces were capable of. That impressed on me what amazing people they are: they are worthy of our wholehearted support.

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Sussex for many other reasons. As he said, he was very helpful when I was producing a Green Paper while I was a Minister, and his commitment to the armed forces is recognised by nearly everyone. I do not think it was entirely recognised by the sergeant-major who was responsible for his training at Sandhurst, if all the stories that he has told me are true, but everyone else recognises it—and, of course, his ancestry rivals my own. [Laughter.]

My admiration for the current Secretary of State is growing by the minute. I have to say that he has displayed huge capability in the political field, both in the House today and elsewhere. In the political arena, he is emulating some of the skills displayed by the Duke of Wellington, who used to hide his horses on reverse slopes and show his strength where he felt weakest. The Secretary of State has done the same this afternoon: he has lectured us about strategy—he has used the phrases of the lecture circuit—because he knows jolly well that what has been presented to the nation in the last few weeks is far from a strategy. What we have is an SPSR, or “seriously pretend spending review”, not a strategic security review. I think the Secretary of State knows that, but he does his very best to hide it, and he will do his very best to work within it. He has fought his corner hard in Government, and he is to be respected for that.

However, we never quite received an answer from the Secretary of State to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart). He talked a great deal about how we were joining our commitment to Afghanistan with the growing capability of the Afghan national security forces. The right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Select Committee, tried to help him by telling us again what we all know—how long we have been in Afghanistan—but the question was very simple: did the Prime Minister consult the Secretary of State before he announced the 2015 withdrawal date for our combat mission in Afghanistan?

Answer came there none, but we know what the answer is. The Prime Minister did not consult the Secretary of State. He did not consult his Defence Secretary, he did not consult his Foreign Secretary, and he did not consult his Chief of the Defence Staff. We know whom the Prime Minister consulted before he made that decision: he consulted the Deputy Prime Minister. This was a political decision, made for political reasons. We have more than 9,000 troops in theatre in Afghanistan, facing an enemy whose main tactic is to wait until we tire and then to inherit a victory, but for political reasons, and no others, the Prime Minister of this country announced an end date for our combat mission, playing into the hands of the enemy by transferring the pressure from the Taliban to the Afghan Government.

I am not saying that there is not a huge need for pressure on the Afghan Government. The single weakest point of the campaign of the international security assistance force in Afghanistan lies in the weaknesses and corruption of its Government, and if we fail to put that right, the mission will most certainly fail. But the decision to remove the pressure on the main enemy for domestic political reasons without even consulting the Defence Secretary, the Foreign Secretary or the Chief of the Defence Staff was astonishing.

[Mr Jenkin]

I have great respect for the way in which the right hon. Gentleman conducted himself as Defence Secretary in very difficult circumstances, but I really do think that he is talking complete rubbish about this. When I last visited Afghanistan, the Americans had already indicated that they were minded to withdraw, and the effect of that was to galvanise the Afghan political process. The stalemate in the Afghan political process has been the main obstacle to progress in Afghanistan. I believe that the Prime Minister made the right announcement, and I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence was properly consulted.

[Mr Ainsworth]

I have the greatest respect for the hon. Gentleman as well. I know that he follows these issues, and takes them very seriously. As I have said, there is a need for pressure on the Afghan Government—I do not doubt that—but let us not pretend that the British Government only went as far as the American Government had gone. What the American President said in autumn 2009—albeit unfortunately taking a long time to say it—was that by 2011 there would be a draw-down of the additional troops put into Afghanistan. He did not say there would be a withdrawal and an end to the combat mission. It was the British Prime Minister who said that, and as he is the leader of the nation providing the second largest troop contribution, that announcement was by no means insignificant in respect of the ISAF contingent.

The British Prime Minister named a date for the total end of the combat mission for party political reasons. We can establish that by considering the people he consulted as against those he failed to consult. If the reasons for the announcement had been to do with the operational mission, he would have consulted the Defence and Foreign Secretaries and the Chief of the Defence Staff, but as both the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and I know, the person he consulted was the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Mrs Moon]

At the beginning of today’s debate the Defence Secretary was asked whether or not he was consulted on the withdrawal of British troops, and he said by way of reply that the 2015 date was arrived at because the Afghan President had stated that he wanted to have strategic control over the defence of Afghanistan by 2014. Does it not therefore follow that if the Afghan President decides by 2014 that he is not ready to take over that strategic command and control, we will have to stay longer? Perhaps the Prime Minister should discuss and consult on that matter with the Defence Secretary.

[Mr Ainsworth]

Well, the decision has been taken, and it has been repeatedly reiterated. It is not going to be reversed, so we can ponder it as much as we like, but our armed forces and others will have to plan within the parameters that have been set for them. All I would say to my hon. Friend is that if the reason she has advanced for the 2015 decision is correct, President Karzai would have been consulted before the announcement was made, but as the Defence Secretary was not consulted, I do not believe that President Karzai was consulted either. The person who was consulted was the Deputy Prime Minister, and that is what gives us the key insight into the motivation for this announcement.

[Dr Murrison]

I think the right hon. Gentleman is getting distracted over this consultation issue. The central question is whether the Afghan national army is going to be in a fit state in five years to guarantee the country internally and externally. Does he seriously think that if it is not ready in five years, it will ever be ready?

[Mr Ainsworth]

Plans are in place, and the argument the hon. Gentleman puts is part of the cover for the 2015 decision, but I know that, privately if not publicly, he has no doubts about the real reasons that decision was taken, and he knows that what I am saying is true. Many other people know it to be true, too.

On the strategic defence review, I do not deny the problems the Government were facing, although they are doing their very best to exaggerate the difficulties we left them. They keep on mentioning the figure of £38 billion, and if they persist in doing so eventually somebody will apply their common sense and realise that it is a bit of an exaggeration. There was overheating in the defence budget, but the only way we can get even close to £38 billion is by assuming a flat cash settlement for more than 10 years and no trimming of defence aspirations. That is not what the Government did and it is not what any alternative Government would do.

However, I do not blame the Government for exaggerating the difficulties they inherited because they did have some very difficult decisions to take. They faced an extremely acute financial situation and they had to try to conduct a strategic defence review with the Army in the field. I congratulate them on their efforts to do that, although I think they could have tried harder. They could have consulted more and therefore not rushed, and they need not have been totally dominated by the financial considerations, but they did their best in very difficult circumstances.

I also congratulate the Government on their decision to invest in cyber-security. That is a genuine area of weakness that needs to be addressed, but is the investment they are making in cyber-capability being counted towards our 2% NATO target for defence spending? What else are they putting into that in order to get to the 2% figure and thereby shield themselves from the fact that there are considerable defence cuts here that could—it depends on how we count this—take us below that target figure?

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

I join others in thanking the right hon. Gentleman for the work he did as Secretary of State. We all know that he inherited a very difficult situation and he did the best he could in the circumstances. He is also my constituency neighbour of course, and we work together on other issues.

The right hon. Gentleman has alluded several times to the fact that the review was a spending review rather than a strategic defence review. Does he honestly believe that if Labour had won the last election, defence would have had a better financial settlement than has been achieved under this Government?

[Mr Ainsworth]

I have to say that the answer is, “Not necessarily.” I think we would have taken more time and consulted more broadly, however. I think we would have got industry on board and carried more people with us, but I am not sure how well we would have done. I will come on to that issue later, however, as I want to make one further point about the level of settlement that has been achieved.

I am genuinely worried about the decision the Government took on the joint strike fighter. The Prime Minister’s announcement on the strategic defence review revealed that we have not only not funded the carriers, but we have bought the wrong aircraft. The Government have, effectively, done away with our short take-off and vertical landing capability not for 10 years because of the early demise of the Harrier, but for ever. We will therefore end up with the JSF and the Typhoons. They will be two separate fleets, and small fleets too, because there will not be the money to expand either of them. We will be faced with the running costs of those two separate fleets as well, when they have fundamentally the same capability.

I know that the JSF has stealth whereas the Typhoon does not, but the Typhoon is a pretty impressive beast, and we are going to wind up paying for two separate sets of maintenance for two separate fleets of fast jets that do fundamentally the same thing, but having given up short take-off and vertical landing capability. That capability is not only required for flying off carriers; it is required for other scenarios too—day-one warfare involving failed states, for example. A Harrier can take off in a big car park, but the JSF basically needs a full-size runway in order to be able to operate. That capability would be greatly valued by the US Marine Corps if the programme had been maintained, but now that the British Government have pulled out it will not be available to us. I am not at all sure that the Government have not made a significant mistake in that regard.

Let me return to how well the Government did. The Defence Secretary fought his corner and the headline cut in the defence budget is 8%, but in reality it is 13%. That is because the Treasury has won and it has transferred the costs of the deterrent to the core budget. That is getting very little attention, but it is equivalent to another 5% cut in the defence budget. The Government put off the decision on the renewal of the deterrent and the Prime Minister told the House in a fantastic piece of salesmanship that he had actually managed to save money while doing so. Well, he managed to save money by the normal process of the initial gate assessment that is going on: by cutting the number of warheads and of tubes. That would have been done, irrespective of who the Government were, as part of the assessment phase of the deterrent, because both parties are committed to the maintenance of a minimum credible nuclear deterrent.

But again the decision to delay the deterrent was one made for political reasons—for coalition reasons—not for industrial reasons or for reasons of capability. No matter what the Prime Minister tries to say to the House, that decision, on its own, costs this country billions of pounds—it certainly costs in excess of £1 billion and I would say the figure is probably £2 billion. So for the purposes of keeping peace in the coalition for the next five years, we have thrown away between £1 billion and £2 billion on the deterrent. The Prime Minister accused us, with a degree of justification, of shirking hard decisions and pushing things to the right, but while he was saying that—while those words were falling from his mouth—he was doing exactly the same thing. That is one reason why this is not a strategic defence review but a political fix and a spending review, and most certainly with regard to Trident.

As a result of that, my party—I know that the Liberal Democrats will have to do this—may well have to consider whether or not we maintain our position on Trident. We set the position in 2006 and we held to it. We did not try, as the Liberal Democrats did, some short-term political fix to pretend that we had another way. But if no decision is to be taken for another five years and if the cost of a like-for-like replacement of Trident will fall wholly and solely on the defence budget, at the cost of other military capability, we will have to think seriously about whether there is another way. We will also have to use the time, the expertise that exists in think-tanks and some of the information that will come from the armed forces themselves, now that the pressure is on and they are paying for the deterrent in alternative capability, to see whether there is some other way of maintaining Britain’s deterrent without the huge cost that will come at the expense of the rest of our armed forces.

[Dr Fox]

If, as the previous Government said in their own study, the current Trident replacement was the most efficient and cost-effective way of defending Britain against a unique existential threat, and if the reason for having the deterrent in 2006, as set out in the previous Government’s White Paper, was that we could not predict the threats in the next 50 years, what has changed since the election?

[Mr Ainsworth]

The answer is a treaty that the right hon. Gentleman has just signed with France; technological capability going forward; another five years; and a need to analyse the cost-benefit as against the other defence benefit that will be lost. It is all very well for the Foreign Secretary to say there will be no strategic shrinkage, but the Government have embarked on a fairly substantial degeneration of the military capability in this country that underpins our strategic position in the world. It may well be that Trident remains the most effective option and that a continuous at-sea deterrent is still essential, but with another five years we will have to examine that. Other people will examine it and if we do not, we will be seen to be putting our heads in the sand and not prepared to undertake a proper analysis of the choices that we face.

I have one further point to make, and it relates to force generation. The Secretary of State will know that his personnel costs are rising every bit as much as his equipment costs. The equipment costs catch the headlines, and people talk about them and the press get excited about them, but the personnel costs are rising every bit as fast. The Commandant General of the Royal Marines addressed a meeting in the House of Commons just a week or so ago, when he was able to say that the Royal Marines could generate deployable capability more cheaply than the infantry. If he can stand on his feet while he says that, something needs to be examined in the way the Army force- generates. The Royal Marines’ training is much longer and is therefore a lot more expensive. In addition, the Royal Marines’ capability is arguably considerably higher, so if it is cheaper as well, something is wrong and this needs to be examined.

One important job that the Secretary of State needs to do, and one that I started to get into, is to deal with how the Army force-generates, although he will be hugely resisted if he does so. If he is going to keep that minimum ongoing deployable capability force of 6,000—or whatever he said is the figure he is trying to maintain—he is going to need a 90,000-strong Army, so that corner needs considerable examination. I urge him to do this job, because it is necessary if we are going to get value for money and motivate the very fine people who make up our armed forces.

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[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful for the question, but I will continue. [Interruption.] With respect, that was not the purpose of the Committee’s report. We were not trying to write a national strategy; we were simply trying to advertise the fact that the capacity for developing a coherent national strategy does not exist.

[Mr Ainsworth]

I think that the hon. Gentleman is on to something, and I know that a number of people are examining his report. Why does he think that we as a political class have shrunk to pragmatic reactions, rather than daring ones? Does he think politicians would be rewarded or punished if they dared to be strategic?

[Mr Jenkin]

The right hon. Gentleman asks an interesting question, which has been raised with me before. There are two reasons why politicians fear such a challenge. The first is that politicians who are busy running their Departments do not like people running into their offices with contrary ideas and imperatives. The other reason is that if they ask for alternatives to be developed, they say, “Whatever you do, don’t put it on to a piece of paper and don’t e-mail it to anybody, in case it leaks out.”

We are embarked on a deficit reduction programme that depends on a certain economic out-turn. I just hope that the Treasury has run through the alternative plans B, C and D, in case things do not turn out as we expect. The problem is that we have got into the habit of thinking in closed systems. Economists in particular work in mathematical equations and like tame, predictable problems. Economics is all about prediction and certainty, with the intention of being vindicated by what happens. We live in a world in which problems are not tame but wicked and unpredictable. As we face greater and greater global challenges, we must be more prepared for the unpredictability of the global security, economic and geopolitical environments. We therefore need the capacity for strategy.

I shall give a brief example. I gather that after the global banking crisis started, Her Majesty the Queen asked how nobody had seen that it would happen, given that it was so big. The answer is that one body did foresee a global banking collapse being a major security threat to the UK. It was the advanced research and assessment group, based at Shrivenham, and I am afraid that in March the right hon. Member for Coventry North East as Defence Secretary closed it down, to save £1 million. [Interruption.] It was such a small cut, he did not even realise it was being made. I have no doubt it did not cross his desk. It was shut down because it had made enemies by telling truth to power, and that is the capacity that needs to exist in Whitehall.

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[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)]

This has been an excellent debate—interesting and wide-ranging—which is no surprise, as the House contains many Members who are well informed, interested and passionate about defence and national security; while many Members’ constituents will be affected by the decisions in the strategic defence and security review.

The SDSR is underpinned by the new national security strategy, which presents a picture of Britain’s place in the world and a full assessment of the challenges we face and the opportunities available to us. It is the first-ever national security strategy that really decides priorities for action and feeds directly into decisions about resources. It was the force driver for the decisions we have made.

Let me echo the Secretary of State by reinforcing the idea of how difficult this has been, particularly in the Ministry of Defence. We have been acutely aware of the human impact of the decisions we are making—not only on jobs and livelihoods, but on the emotional attachment that people have to certain aspects of defence. Our decisions have had to be objective and unsentimental, and based on the military advice we have received. We simply have not had the luxury of self-indulgence or populism. The fiscal deficit is an issue of national security. Without regaining economic strength, we will be unable to sustain in the long term the capabilities required, including military capabilities, to keep our citizens safe and maintain our influence on the world stage. Every Department has had to make a contribution to deficit reduction, and the Ministry of Defence has been no exception.

We still have to live within our means as the deficit is addressed, which means also tackling the unfunded liability in the Defence budget. So the decisions we have had to make have been necessarily tough and finely balanced, and it means smaller armed forces as we make the transition to the future force structure set out for 2020 and beyond.

Before I turn to the specific issues raised in the debate today, let me say this: the decisions we have made are coherent and consistent and will provide us with the capabilities we require for the future. The campaign in Afghanistan has been protected; nothing has been done to compromise success there.

It was a pleasure to welcome the new shadow Defence Secretary to his Front-Bench role. I thought he made a very fair speech. He welcomed the five-yearly SDSRs for the future and he specifically acknowledged the up arrows on certain capabilities for the future, including in cyber-security. He referred, as did some other right hon. and hon. Members, to written parliamentary questions, showing that many of the details that will flow from the strategic defence and security review have yet to be worked out. I make no apology for that. It is essential that the House should understand the difference between a strategic review and a detailed plan. The SDSR has established a strategic aim-point and it is absolutely right to take more time working out, bit by bit, the details of what this will mean for each and every different aspect of defence.

We heard an excellent speech from the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames). He was quite right to say—I am grateful to him for doing so—that we have had to make cuts that we would not have wished to make. That, unfortunately, is the true scale not only of the financial backcloth to the SDSR, but of the legacy left by the last Government. He made some interesting points about reserves, calling for a fundamental reappraisal of the way in which we use them. He rightly pointed to the much wider use of reservists made in the United States. The US certainly uses them on a far greater scale, and as a consequence they are much cheaper than the regular forces there. One of the difficulties that we must tackle is that our current model for reservists makes them extraordinarily expensive. We will have to find a better and more effective way of using them in the future.

The hon. Gentleman was right to say that the SDSR was just the start of transformation. He mentioned the permanent secretary’s inaugural speech. I am sure that when she spoke of the next planning round, she was expecting it to be not the sole means by which reform would be pushed forward, but simply one among many. I also had a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the Ministry of Defence being centralised, and about problems with accountability and vested interests. I entirely agree with his view that we need a more purple approach.

The former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth), very fairly acknowledged the financial backcloth, and said that he thought the review amounted to a fair stab. However, I entirely disagree with his suggestion that the 2015 timeline for exit from Afghanistan was somehow party political, or had something to do with the dynamics of the coalition. It was an entirely sensible and rational end point to specify, in the light not of only President Obama’s stated plans but of President Karzai’s intention to achieve full transition of security powers by the next presidential election.

There are many different audiences when remarks of that kind are made. It is essential for public opinion in ISAF countries to understand, to some extent, the length of the engagement, for the armed forces to understand it, and for the people of Afghanistan to know how long those forces intend to be there. They do not want foreigners in their country for ever. If the political process that Members in all parts of the House want to see in Afghanistan, along with the military effort, is ever to gain any momentum or reach any conclusion, it is vital for President Karzai and others to understand some sort of time scale as well. It seems to me that to state, as the Prime Minister did, that by 2015 our troops would no longer be involved in a combat role on the ground was eminently sensible. It does not mean that all our troops will be out by then, or that there will not be an ongoing role for them; it simply means that the combat role will not continue beyond that point.

[Mr Ainsworth]

May I ask the Minister whether the Prime Minister consulted either him or the Defence Secretary before he made that statement? If those were the reasons, he would have done so.