Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Julian Lewis and Bob Ainsworth

Thursday 16th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ainsworth]

The hon. Gentleman was not here in the last Parliament. He will know if he looks at the record that we took decisions on Trident in a timely way in 2006 and that we put work strands in place. Those work strands cannot be significantly disrupted without massive industrial consequences. We have a skill base that is pretty unique and capable of building those submarines. We lost it before and we had to rebuild it. If we lose it again, we will have to rebuild it again, but perhaps the Government do not want to do that. Perhaps they are seriously trying to get rid of our nuclear deterrent without a debate. I do not know, but all I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that the person who cast the bread on the water this morning is either a total fool for proposing the delay in the way that they are, or there is some other agenda. The other agenda must be either to get rid of or to reduce massively our deterrent. Perhaps that is a debate that we should have, but I do not understand the common sense—neither does anybody else who knows anything about it—behind the trailing, spinning and leaking that has gone on.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I seek to reassure hon. Members on both sides of the House who are firmly committed to the continuation of the nuclear deterrent, given that I was my party’s spokesman on this issue for many years, that both I and the Secretary of State for Defence came into politics primarily to ensure that this country would always have nuclear weapons as long as other countries have them? I cannot answer directly for the Secretary of State for Defence, but I would be amazed if he remained Secretary of State for Defence if a decision of the sort that was aired on the BBC were to be taken in defiance of all the pledges given to the electorate and given to Conservative MPs by our leadership when we were asked to join the coalition.

[Mr Ainsworth]

Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman that I do not believe that the current Secretary of State is the person who is responsible for casting the bread on the water and doing the spinning this morning. The problem that we have is the same problem that we have in dealing with the strategic defence review—not only are the Government not talking to industry, the armed forces and the country, but their members are not talking to each other. I asked the Secretary of State on Monday if he would repeat his unequivocal support for the Trident replacement. Not only did he do that, he absolutely leapt at the chance. However, within the hour, the Government’s position was being clarified and now we have the situation that we are in today.

To coin a phrase, we can’t go on like this. We need the Minister to have a Government position—not a Liberal Democrat position—and to give that position to the House so that we know exactly where the Government stand. Let us stop hearing all this nonsense through the BBC and from leaks, spins and so on.

UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan

Debate between Julian Lewis and Bob Ainsworth

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ainsworth]

Yes, and I congratulate the Government on that. However, I would say to the hon. Gentleman that the changes were introduced at the same time as a freeze in service pay.

I have a couple more questions to ask the Secretary of State about things that I hope the Government will do in a timely manner. I do not know whether he is going to respond to the debate, because I know he has to leave the Chamber.

Force densities are not the only thing that we will need to succeed. We need the right equipment, and I wish to ask two specific questions about that. Last December I made some changes to the defence budget, partly to address some of the pressures ahead of the strategic defence and security review and partly to prioritise equipment for Afghanistan. That included an order for 22 Chinook helicopters. Why have the new Government not gone ahead with that order? The Secretary of State, the very man who continually criticised our record on helicopters, seems now to be allowing delay in that order, and I should like to ask him why. Equally, in the summer of 2009 I made it my business to intervene to put maximum speed and effort behind the development of a light protected patrol vehicle. Why have the Government not yet placed that order?

As we have discussed, the Deputy Prime Minister has said definitively:

“By 2015 there will not be any British combat troops in Afghanistan”.

Yet in a debate that I attended earlier this week the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), the Defence Secretary’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, said that we should think of that announcement in the same terms as General Petraeus’s clarification of the US position. He said that there were a lot of conditions, and that there would still be special forces there. I absolutely agree with the Defence Secretary that we must be as clear as we can with all the sets of people involved in such an important matter as our intervention in Afghanistan, but the situation is currently not clear.

There appear to have been definitive statements from both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister that irrespective of what happens, the combat mission will end in 2015. The Secretary of State knows that that is causing angst both within and outwith our armed forces. He did his best today to finesse that argument, but too many intelligent people who follow the record carefully know that there is a problem. Unless there are conditions-based timelines rather than an arbitrary finish date, the success of the mission is not helped. He need only read this morning’s edition of The Daily Telegraph to see the confusion that can occur, with people believing that Sherard Cowper-Coles’s departure indicates that the Government no longer have comprehensive determination to pursue the mission in Afghanistan.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the shadow Secretary of State accept that the reason why both President Obama and our Prime Minister seem intent on setting deadlines is the high level of casualties being incurred? Does he accept that if they did not set a deadline and continued with the current strategy, we could end up having that high level of casualties for perhaps another 20 or 30 years? Will he consider the fact that given a choice between taking too many casualties for a very long period or, perhaps, very few casualties through precipitate withdrawal, we ought to go for an intermediate strategy that has no deadline but does not incur the same number of casualties? That is the basis of the amendment that I shall move later, which I hope the right hon. Gentleman might consider encouraging his party to support.

[Mr Ainsworth]

I know the hon. Gentleman’s views and that he has tabled an amendment to the motion. He has spoken on this issue previously, and he has given a lot of thought to it, but the reason he gave is not one of the reasons given publicly for the strategies that are being pursued. Perhaps we need a debate in this country on whether we are sufficiently steely or enduring to pursue prolonged counter-insurgency conflicts, but that is not the reason for the Government’s strategy. If it is, let the Government encourage such a debate and let us have it in the House. However, what he says is not what the Government are saying. He has added yet more complexity to the reasons for what the Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister are saying.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Julian Lewis and Bob Ainsworth

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ainsworth]

I am not certain of that. I would not go as far as my hon. Friend. I have, however, seen unfortunate headlines when, as a result of things that were being said, the press were able to suggest that the Government were propagating some kind of exit strategy. I do not believe that that is so. I believe that the Government are pursuing the same strategy that we pursued. I believe that they accept that we must stay in Afghanistan until such time as the Afghan forces themselves are able to defend their own country, and that they will not take any precipitate decision to reduce our force levels in that country before that happens. I certainly hope that that is the case.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for being so generous in giving way, but he must accept that it is not just a question of mixed messages in one part of the alliance, given that President Obama himself has suggested the possibility of a run-down of troops in Afghanistan as early as 18 months from now. If we are to come out with our strategic interests intact, we must have new thinking about how best to protect them, and sending people out on uniformed patrols day after day to be shot at and blown up may not be the most intelligent way of doing that.

[Mr Ainsworth]

I know the hon. Gentleman’s views. I have heard him describe, both privately and publicly, his position on Afghanistan and how we can pursue it. I have to tell him, however, that we are pursuing a counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan—that is agreed across the coalition—and while that is so, while there are people in theatre and while they are doing the very difficult work that we have asked them to do, we must give them support.

During Labour’s years, big changes were made to the structure of our armed forces’ capability. A great deal of modernisation took place. There were big moves away from cold war capability towards the modernised expeditionary capability that our armed forces have shown in recent years. I accept what the Secretary of State has said—that he wants to continue that move—and I also accept that the threats have changed. We need to examine the emerging threats, and consider what role we need to play in the world. I hope and believe that I made a start on that during the Green Paper process, about which the Secretary of State has used very kind words. I hope he will be as open and engaging in the methods he will use in relation to the strategic defence review as I tried to be with the Green Paper.

What the Secretary of State has effectively said to us, it seems, is that a process is under way and that he will invite everyone to participate, but the way in which we will participate is by having an opportunity to make submissions to him. I suggest to him that anyone and everyone has always had that ability. If this means we cannot continue to write to him expressing our views, I think he will miss a real opportunity. He knows that there are considerable financial pressures on both the MOD budget and the public finances overall. I do not believe that, when he is faced with all those difficulties, it is in his interests or those of a proper debate to do anything other than continue to be open and give people an opportunity to share—[Interruption.] Well, if the Secretary of State did say that, I am wasting my breath, but I am worried that what he said was, “We have a decision-making process, and if you want to make a submission, you are free to do so.”

I would have thought that it was in the Secretary of State’s interests, and those of the Government and the nation, that he share his emerging thinking with us. It seems that he has even cancelled the interim assessment or interim announcements that he was going to give. When are we going to hear what his emerging thinking is, because he has said very little about that today? We are only six weeks away from the recess and the Government have set themselves a very tight time scale. Do they genuinely want to engage the nation, the Opposition, academia, industry and everyone else who needs to be involved; or are they simply going to invite us to make written submissions?