Gibraltar

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I rise to speak as a member of the all-party group on Gibraltar, as someone who spent many days and weeks in Gibraltar wearing uniform and as someone who loves Gibraltar and feels totally at home in the place. I therefore want to talk about the defence of Gibraltar.

As has been mentioned, the biggest military unit in Gibraltar is the Royal Gibraltar Regiment, which has both reservist and regular soldiers. The regiment’s primary duty is the defence of the Rock. Within the Rock are 34 miles of tunnels—twice the length of the entire road system around the Rock—which were dug with picks by British sappers. I say that because the Royal Gibraltar Regiment contains the British Army’s primary expertise on fighting in tunnels. In addition, it now sends its officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers abroad with British military advisory training teams to train other nations. It is an integral part of our Army.

Morocco has already been mentioned, and since 2000 the Royal Gibraltar Regiment has been training the Moroccan army—there are quite close links—and it goes to Morocco every year as part of its overseas exercise. The chair of the all-party Gibraltar group, my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), who has briefly absented himself from the Chamber, mentioned the gallantry of soldiers from the Rock. Indeed, the last commanding officer of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment was awarded the military cross, the third highest decoration for gallantry in this country. Those people are very much part of our country.

The Royal Navy has a regular presence in Gibraltar with 22 officers and ratings. It has two 16-metre patrol launches: HMS Scimitar and its sister ship HMS Sabre. It also has three rigid inflatables—a very small manning level for somewhere as important as Gibraltar. The squadron spends almost all its time maintaining the security and integrity of British Gibraltan territorial waters, which is not easy. In December 2014, the Royal Gibraltar Police recorded 108 incursions into British Gibraltan territorial waters, and that small force is terribly overworked. In addition, its tiny vessels are far too often dwarfed by Spanish navy ships, and in my view our naval presence in Gibraltar is too small to deal with the continuing Spanish provocation. The RAF also maintains a small presence on Gibraltar with fewer than 10 personnel. No operational RAF aircraft are permanently based there, but the airfield, as has been noted, is always maintained as a forward operating base for British military aircraft, and it has a unique position at the western end of the Mediterranean.

I believe it is time that our Minister increased the military presence in Gibraltar—[Interruption.] He turned back when I said that. There are three reasons for that. First, as Members seem to have demonstrated today, despite our repeated diplomatic protests about the bullying on the frontier and naval incursions into British Gibraltan territorial waters, our NATO and European Union ally, Spain, does absolutely nothing to stop them. Of course no one wants confrontation with Spain—far from it—but that is effectively what the Spanish continue to do to Gibraltar. Fouling up the frontier and repeatedly sending Guardia Civil and Spanish naval vessels into British Gibraltan territorial waters is hardly the act of a close ally, and it is time that we gave a concrete demonstration about our irritation with the situation. Quiet diplomacy and reason have had no impact whatsoever over the years.

Secondly, vacant military facilities in Gibraltar could easily be revitalised with minor modifications, and there are good training facilities on and around the Rock—I used them myself when I was in the Army. For instance, it has a small military training area and ranges, as well as those miles of unused tunnels, which are great fun on exercise. I am sure that such a move would be very popular on the Rock. With its budget surplus, some of the additional costs might be paid by the Government of Gibraltar.

Regular troops from the UK already replace the Royal Gibraltar Regiment when it deploys on annual exercise to Morocco. Why not put a UK-based company there, maybe on rotation from a UK-based battalion? There is space and it could easily fit under command of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment, whose commander is just as qualified to command an infantry battalion as I was in my day.

I have been on HMS Scimitar, one of the two little and very old patrol vessels and, even to a landlubber like me, both Scimitar and Sabre are well past their sell-by dates. In face-offs with much larger Spanish vessels, those small Royal Navy vessels look plain daft and—as I know from my military experience—in a deterrent situation, looks matter. Although the Royal Navy does not have many ships left, one of them could quite easily be sent to Gibraltar and based there. I do not suggest that the Royal Air Force needs to, or indeed should, permanently position aircraft on the Rock, but the frequency of training visits could be increased.

In my view, deliberate breaching of sovereign waters by military vessels can be viewed as an act of war. Spain will not like us reinforcing our military presence on the Rock, but so what? They have tried to coerce Gibraltarians for far too long. In response, our laid-back, solely diplomatic responses have always been weak and remain so. I am sorry to say that the Foreign Office is far too wet on this matter. It is clear to everyone that periodic frontier problems and sea incursions are repeatedly organised by the Spanish Government on a systematic basis. That situation is iniquitous and I call upon our Government’s Foreign Office Ministers to get serious.

We should show that we will not budge in our views on Gibraltar and that we mean business. One way to do that is by putting more military power on Gibraltar. All this aggravation from Spain is totally unnecessary and undemocratic, and we do not like it. In short, Spain should get its hands off the Rock.