Bob Stewart
Main Page: Bob Stewart (Independent - Beckenham)Department Debates - View all Bob Stewart's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Fox
Ultimately, it is up to the Government to decide what the policy should be. There is a wide range of advice, military and otherwise. The House came to the conclusion that it did in 2007 on the basis that we believed that that was a cost-effective way for this country to go forward with a nuclear deterrent. We know that abroad there are a number of countries trying to develop nuclear weapons. We do not know what will happen between now and 2015—the time scale for the Trident replacement programme—and we cannot play fast and loose with Britain’s defences.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
3. What recent progress has been made on the reform of NATO.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Gerald Howarth)
In 2009, NATO agreed a series of measures to improve working practices in its headquarters in Brussels, and a new defence planning process better to help allies develop, acquire and maintain the capabilities required for the full range of NATO missions. Work to reform NATO’s resource management, rationalise its agencies and streamline its command structures is also under way, and should be agreed by the NATO summit in Lisbon in November.
Bob Stewart
Will the new structure that is in place in NATO be altered again so that we get better results from our operations out of area, particularly in Afghanistan?
Mr Howarth
My hon. and gallant Friend makes a very good point, and at the NATO Defence Ministers’ summit last month my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary made it clear that command structure reform is a key priority for the United Kingdom and for the alliance, because NATO’s structure is too big and static, and too much is simply not geared up for the missions that we are undertaking, such as in Afghanistan. The House might like to ponder on the fact that, significantly, NATO did not employ elements of its command structure in any meaningful capacity in Afghanistan; instead, it put together a bespoke operation.