Defence Reform Bill

Debate between Gerald Howarth and Mark Pawsey

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

If my hon. Friend thinks that Syria is a reliable or predictable template for the future, I urge him to be very cautious indeed, because it has special circumstances. I see no resiling by the Conservative part of this Administration from the Foreign Secretary’s statement to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 2009 that a Conservative Government would seek to help shape the world in which we found ourselves and not simply to be shaped by it, and I entirely support that. I think that we need to have the means to back it up.

I will conclude by making this point: we are where we are. I have sought to set out why I believe we are where we are and what I believe we need to do for the future. I must say to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay that the Chair of the Defence Committee, our right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire, made a good point when he observed that the new clause would require the Government to put on hold the process of enacting the provisions for enhancing the reserves, and I know that he feels strongly about maintaining the number of regulars. The numbers of regulars are reducing, in accordance with the timetable set out two or three years ago. Therefore, the imperative is not to put the reserve generation on hold, but to ramp it up as fast as we can.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

On the basis of “we are where we are”, did my hon. Friend hear the head of the Army, General Sir Peter Wall, say:

“We are well on our way to implementing this plan. To reverse course at this stage would be destabilising and damaging.”

Is not it the case that we have to do what we have to do, so let us get on with it?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I think that General Sir Peter Wall is right. I thought that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, when interviewed this morning on the “Today” programme, put the case eloquently. I do not dispute the fundamental position of my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay, but I think that to put the reserve generation on hold would present a serious risk to the whole process and the destabilisation that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) mentioned.