Select Committee on Defence

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Thursday 7th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lewis]

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s concern. This is why some of us—I speak more personally in this respect—have been worried about the creation of a separate defence identity in Europe outside the NATO arena. What he says is entirely right: NATO is the forum in which our security concerns should be aired with our European friends, neighbours and allies. We should try to arrive at a unified perceptions of the situation and articulate them appropriately.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his Committee on producing an excellent and timely report? Does he agree that we have seen recently that President Putin has been able to exploit our weaknesses, that he does so ruthlessly and that he has been able to act with impunity? As chairman of the all-party Ukraine group, I am particularly conscious of his flouting of the Budapest memorandum of 1996, and he has done that with complete impunity. He respects strength, so it is absolutely right that NATO is reinforcing its position in the Baltic states. That is a demonstration of strength and resolve on the part of NATO. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is capabilities, not intentions, that count? Intentions can change overnight; capabilities cannot. Particularly today, given the complexity of modern defence technology, we cannot produce aircraft, tanks and ships overnight. Therefore, NATO’s upcoming meeting should focus on delivering the extra spending to deliver the capabilities.

I strongly applaud my right hon. Friend’s argument about dialogue. I had a meeting with the Russian ambassador here in London, and I said, “We have a common interest. Our common interest is that we are both facing Islamic fundamentalism, and that is where we need to co-operate.” Will my right hon. Friend therefore share with the House how he thinks we can not only show that we have absolute determination and resolve in resisting Putin’s advances but engage with him and his Government? Where else might we do so apart from on the mutual threat that we face from Islamic fundamentalism?

[Dr Lewis]

What a cornucopia of questions, but all of them typically sound and well directed, given my hon. Friend’s distinguished record in the field of defence and security. I believe that there is nothing new about the dilemma of how we gauge our relations with the Russians. I remember in my years as a researcher coming across a paper by the joint intelligence sub-committee—it was then a sub-committee of the chiefs of staff—called “Relations with the Russians”, which was written in 1945, and it said then exactly what we are saying today: “They respect you if you stand up to them, if you show you’re strong, but if you engage with them as well. They do not respect you if you give signs of weakness.”

I believe that there is a shared threat, but there are potential threats that Russia is beginning to show, once again, towards its most immediate neighbours, and that is why it is important that there is a NATO military presence in the most vulnerable front-line states, particularly the Baltic states and Poland. Russia must be left in no doubt that NATO membership means that article 5 applies, and article 5 means that there should be no question of Russia thinking that it can pick off any weaker or more exposed NATO member state and that the other NATO countries will not come to its aid. That is why, conversely, we must be careful not to extend NATO membership or article 5 guarantees to countries where it is simply not realistic to believe that NATO would go to war to defend them.

Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to congratulate the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) on taking his seat, and to endorse the tribute he paid to his predecessor. Huw Irranca-Davies is living proof of the fact that one can be a genuinely nice guy and still succeed in politics, and we will miss him.

Members of Select Committees are as divided as any other groups on the question of membership of the European Union, and so it should go without saying that in my remarks on this subject today I am speaking solely for myself. My concern is that the fixation of the European Union on creating a single European defence and foreign policy may make future conflict more likely rather than less. So why has NATO proved to be the most successful military alliance in history? The answer is clear: it is the deterrent effect of United States membership. Taken together with article 5 of the NATO charter, according to which an attack on any member country will be considered an attack on them all, this means that any would-be aggressor must face the prospect of war with the world’s most powerful state, the United States, right from the outset. If Germany had faced that prospect in 1914, not 1917, or in 1939, not late 1941, who knows but that those wars might not have begun, and all that suffering might have been avoided?

In order reliably to deter, collective security must combine adequate power with the virtual certainty that it will be brought into action if triggered by an act of aggression. On both grounds, NATO succeeds, and the European Union fails, as a collective security organisation. Since the US does not belong to the EU, the latter can muster only a fraction of NATO’s deterrent military power. Nor can there be any certainty that the US will respond to an attack involving EU member states outside the north Atlantic alliance. By trying to create its own foreign policy and its own military forces—which on typical European levels of defence investment will remain modest indefinitely—the EU risks reverting to the uncertainties of the pre-NATO era. The NATO guarantee is a solemn commitment to be willing to start world war three on behalf of a member country facing attack or invasion. NATO membership must not be proffered lightly nor extended to countries on behalf of which article 5 of its charter is simply not credible. Where security is concerned, it is dangerous folly to give promises and guarantees that we are in no position to fulfil, and the EU needs to be particularly careful in pursuing a foreign policy that gives promises of that sort.

In terms of deterring an external threat, the EU adds nothing to the exemplary role discharged by NATO. As for the threat of EU members attacking each other, there is certainly no risk of their going to war once again with each other as long as they remain free, democratic and constitutional. That is because constitutional democracies do not attack one another; instead, wars break out between dictatorships and other dictatorships, or between dictatorships and democracies.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Is it not absurd to suggest that peace in Europe might be destabilised by the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU? The fact is that before we became a member in 1973, Europe had managed for 28 years not to go to war with itself.

[Dr Lewis]

Indeed, and my hon. Friend anticipates a point I was just about to make. Looking at the internal threat, one sees not the slightest chance of members of the EU going to war with each other as long as they remain democratic and constitutional, but if they lose that element of popular democracy in their constitutions, all bets are off.

We heard warnings today about the rise of the far right in some EU member countries. Why is the far right—the extreme anti-immigration right —on the rise? It is on the rise because people feel that they are being disfranchised to some extent and the fate of their country is being decided instead by people whom they did not elect to power and whom they cannot remove. By trying to build a supranational state in Europe in the absence of a democratic mandate, the EU runs the risk of sowing the seeds of precisely the sort of conflict it seeks to abolish.

I know that in this Chamber today more voices have been raised in favour of remain than of leave, but I am not disheartened because I know that all those people campaigning to leave are out there, at the grassroots level, ensuring that when independence day comes on 23 June, the right decision will be taken by the majority of the British people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

The good news is that the Scottish Tories doubled their representation in the Scottish Parliament. The Tories are coming, so the SNP had better watch out—the only non-socialist party in Scotland is on the march.

Some have said that this Queen’s Speech is a bit thin. I personally take the view that it is much better that the Government limit their activities and do less but do it well, rather than trying to rush through a whole load of ill-thought-out measures. I particularly welcome the proposal to give local authorities the power to retain their business rates, and the Investigatory Powers Bill.

I also very much support what my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) said about prisons. The hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) and I served as prison officers in Dartmoor for three days, as a consequence of which I changed my view. I used to be a “lock ’em up and throw away the key” man, but then I found that we were spending £25,000 per prisoner a year on just locking up people who learn nothing. That is wrong, and this Government are absolutely right to try to bring education into our prisons.

In the short time available to me I will concentrate on four issues: the proposal to speed up the adoption process, the introduction of further measures to prevent radicalisation, defence and, inevitably, Europe. I welcome the adoption measures in principle, and understand that social services are caught between a rock and a hard place. But I have myself witnessed Surrey County Council’s behaviour in respect of two young people in my constituency. The council had made up its mind to remove the children from a couple. Each was represented by a different law firm, whose narrow interest was alleged to be the individual client and not the couple. I was threatened with contempt proceedings for having had the temerity to intervene on behalf of my constituents, and the social worker wrote that for the parents to provide good care was not “good enough”. If half the energy expended by Surrey Council on removing those children from their parents had been invested in helping them, the outcome might have been better all round. I am encouraged by my conversation with the Minister for Children and Families earlier this afternoon. I think he understands the problem.

On radicalisation, the principal threat we face is not generic terrorism. We have to be honest about this; the threat is specifically Islamic fundamentalism. That is what threatens our country. Young people brought up in Britain and taught in our schools are nevertheless being indoctrinated by Islamic fundamentalists and persuaded to engage in acts of medieval barbarity, in the name of Islam, beyond the understanding of the British people. The principal onus to root out that evil must therefore rest on the Muslim community. I will wait to see what the Government produce in the way of legislation before making a final judgment. The right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) set out some of the challenges that the Government will face in defining extremism.

Earlier this year, the Government mooted a proposal that any group that met in an out-of-school setting for more than six hours a week should have to register with Ofsted. Although it is vital that the Government take action against those people who wish to do harm to our society, regulating groups such as Sunday schools is clearly absurd. It would place a huge administrative burden on such groups, would severely damage volunteering and would be a serious infringement of personal liberty and freedom of association. Furthermore, any such extremist groups simply would not register, or, given the arbitrary nature of a six-hour figure, would divide their teaching into two three-hour groups a week. This is unworkable and a danger to our freedoms.

On the wider issue, it would be perverse in the extreme if, in order to manage extremist Muslims who are bent on our destruction and whom we have allowed to settle in the country, the Government were to impose severe restrictions on those practising the state religion of Christianity, which espouses turning the other cheek and love for thy neighbour. I believe that Christian society here is under threat. It was reported in the paper today that only 52% of people regard themselves as Christian, and we are in danger of creating a vacuum that will be filled by others.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I have never been able to document this, but I remember my father telling me—coming as we do from a Jewish background—that when Polish émigrés who settled here at the end of the second world war began, in certain enclaves, to bring some of the anti-Semitic traditions from their homeland of the past to our homeland of the present, the Labour Government of the day made a very firm statement about that. There was nothing discriminatory about focusing on that particular problem; we must focus on the problem where the totalitarian doctrine is being applied.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am grateful, as ever, to my right hon. Friend.

I raised with the Foreign Secretary the issue of how the Government calculate defence expenditure, and I entirely accept that that expenditure fits with NATO guidelines. However, we have only met that 2% target by shifting money from other Departments into defence, which I do not think is the way to proceed. I hope that we will see a real increase in defence expenditure in the coming years, so that we can proceed with the Type 26 global combat ship—our new frigates—for which I had some responsibility in the Department. I welcome the renewal of the deterrent, as will my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), but let us get on with it.

On Europe, in their determination to frighten the public, the Government and their “remain” friends stand accused of talking down the British economy. If leaving would produce such dire outcomes, why on earth are we holding a referendum at all? Why did the Prime Minister readily acknowledge that Britain can survive outside the EU? What has changed? We prospered well enough in the glorious 1950s under the Macmillan Conservative Government—“you’ve never had it so good”—and people were able to move around the continent for work, as my father did in the mid-1950s, when he weekly commuted to Hamburg where he established the Johnson Wax company in Germany. These fears are being raised deliberately to frighten the British people. We should have confidence in our ability to exit the EU, and head for the sunlit uplands where we can prosper as an independent nation on our own.

Defence Expenditure (NATO Target) Bill

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Friday 23rd October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for independently adding to the case on what we face around the world. Russia is engaged in about the same ramping up of its defence spending and, accordingly, its capability. I am very grateful to her for making that point.

Significantly, the message for those engaged in drawing up defence planning assumptions is that in the space of barely three years the assumptions on which we worked in 2010 were blown apart. None of the events I listed earlier was remotely foreseen. For those of us brought up in the shadow of the iron curtain, over which two massive superpowers pivoted in an uneasy equilibrium—I was brought up in Germany—today’s outlook seems decidedly more complex and more dangerous. It is against that backdrop of a seriously turbulent world that we need to judge the priority we accord to defence of the realm.

There is no doubt that Europe’s security and peace for the past 70 years has been largely delivered by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation—NATO. The north Atlantic treaty was signed on 4 April 1949 as a means of establishing enduring stability and peace in Europe. Under article 5, the new allies agreed

“that an armed attack against one or more of them…shall be considered an attack against them all”

and that were such an attack to take place, each ally would take

“such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force”

in response. Understandably, much has been made of article 5 as the foundation stone of north Atlantic peace, and the onus it places on all alliance members, but it is also worth considering article 3, which states that

“the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.”

Arguably, this set the precedent for the 2% target long before it was first mooted in 2006, and it has subsequently become the target for alliance members.

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

May I urge my hon. Friend not to use the word “target”? It is in fact a minimum. Those countries that are below the minimum may have it as a target; those that have always been above it should not be ringing the church bells just because we have decided not to go below it.

Devolution and the Union

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I apologise to the House for not having been here at the start of proceedings. I hope Members will understand that I was having lunch with our former colleague, my great friend Mr Geoff Hoon, a former Defence Secretary who now does sterling work promoting British defence exports around the world on behalf of Westland Helicopters and who is currently based in my constituency.

I salute my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) and the others responsible for bringing this debate before the House. It is of enormous importance because, first and foremost, we tamper with constitutional matters at our peril. We should be very, very nervous about upsetting constitutional arrangements. There is no doubt that the devolution process, which was started in 1997 by the previous Labour Government, was designed to be a sop to nationalist sentiment, but far from being a sop it actually fuelled it. I took part in the Scotland referendum, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore). I went up to Scotland and as an Anglo-Scot—my Douglas family are on the borders of Scotland—I found it a very depressing experience. I believe it has opened Pandora’s box.

Reference has been made to the vow. [Interruption.] I will make some progress before I let the Scottish nationalists intervene. The so-called vow issued by the leaders of the three main political parties was, I recall, dismissed at the time by the Scottish nationalists as just a gimmick. Now they have grasped it as though it were the holy grail. It is as though the vow, which was made out of nowhere, is now the very thing on which they hang. I made it clear at the time, as, indeed, did many people I spoke to on the doorsteps in Scotland, that the leaders could only make those promises subject to the will of Parliament. They cannot just make policies—certainly not policies of such constitutional importance—on the hoof. It had to be a decision of this House and the other place. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that it is not being taken for granted by anybody other than the Scottish nationalists.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am completely undecided on the correct course to take when a vow that could well have influenced, to some extent, the result of a referendum was given without the authority of Parliament. Does not the whole process show the danger of panic reactions by all three party leaders in the aftermath of a single rogue opinion poll?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I think that one of the factors that influenced the campaign in the end was my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister speaking directly to the Scottish people about his passion for retaining the Union and his belief in the importance of Scotland.

Unlike my namesake, the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth), I do not sense that there is any enormous appetite in England for a change in our constitutional arrangements. In particular, I do not believe there is the appetite mentioned by the Local Government Association for devolution of further powers to the English regions. Aldershot certainly does not have that appetite, but it may exist in Knowsley.

Defence Reform Bill

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

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

In support of what my hon. Friend has just said, which is the single most important observation anyone can ever make about defence planning, namely the unpredictability of future crises, may I remind him—that is not to say that he needs reminding—that only a few years ago the constant predictions were that it would be all about boots on the ground for the next 30 or 40 years? Let us therefore not make the mistake of doing something too rigid when we need maximum flexibility.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Naturally, I agree with my hon. Friend.

Maritime Surveillance

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Thursday 7th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Good. I am so pleased.

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

He did stop us going into the euro.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Yes, he did. I have been searching for something positive to say about the hon. Gentleman’s right hon. Friend, and I am happy to say that he was right about that.

I got the House of Commons Library to do some research for me last week. I pay tribute to the Library, which does a fantastic job for us. The Library found that this year, the overseas aid budget will increase by £2.65 billion. The Government are struggling to spend the money as it is. We have done our bit and shown an example to the rest of the world. It does not make sense for us to increase overseas aid when we lack such important capability.

Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister will go back to our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—I know that they are close friends—and say that this is what we should do. When I put to him the issue of ring-fencing overseas aid and not defence, the Prime Minister said, “I gave a commitment in 2009, as I did on the third runway.” I respect the Prime Minister for that principled view, but the world has changed. We have had the Arab spring and turmoil around the world. Our armed forces are one of this kingdom’s greatest assets, and our defence industry is one of the economy’s. There is a need, a requirement and an obligation, and we have a number of options to deliver that capability. I believe we should provide it now and that, quite legitimately, we should divert funds from overseas aid to provide a maritime patrol aircraft, which would contribute to stability around the world and greater prosperity among the countries we are trying to help.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire and his colleagues on the Defence Committee on their report and on bringing the matter before the House. They have done a great service to Parliament and the country.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

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

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) on initiating the debate, and the Backbench Business Committee on choosing it as today’s topic. I was particularly pleased that my right hon. Friend started the debate by emphasising the unpredictability of future conflicts, a point re-emphasised in the strongest possible terms by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray). Having listened to the Secretary of State for Defence today, I believe that what he is trying to do is create a balanced budget without sacrificing the aim of having the balanced forces that we need. That is a necessary approach, and we should resist the temptation to say that we ought to sacrifice particular capabilities forever, simply because we cannot conceive at this moment of going to war, or entering some lesser conflict, unless we are in coalition with allies.

I was impressed by some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who pointed out the gaps in capability resulting from the cancellation of the Nimrod MRA4. In a later intervention she referred to the problems relating to the loss of fixed-wing aircraft carrier aircraft capability. If we acknowledge the certainty that we will be unable to predict the vast majority of cases in which we shall need to send our armed forces to war, and couple that with a restricted budget, which means that we will often have to choose either what is commonly and derogatorily called salami-slicing, or abandoning certain capabilities permanently, I believe that the salami-slicing approach, unpleasant though it is, is broadly the correct one—because we do not know when, where, against whom or how we will have to go to war. We cannot predict which of the vast range of military capabilities that we currently have we will need to use. Therefore, in straitened economic circumstances when we cannot afford to spend as much on defence as we would like to, and as indeed we feel in our hearts we ought to, we must nevertheless preserve what are called “nucleus” forces, which give us the potential when the need arises to expand on the capabilities that we have retained, even though at any given time those capabilities have seemed to be inadequate.

In that connection, if Ministers are working within an economic envelope—that is not the best terminology to use, but it has been used today so I shall continue with it—in times of peace, we can all understand that, but, whenever we end up in a serious armed conflict, those economic considerations are always relegated to second place, and Ministers simply have to put aside considerations of affordability in favour of the absolute necessity of taking the measures which that conflict situation requires them to take.

It is now just over 30 years since my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), a gentleman called Councillor Tony Kerpel, a former chief of staff to a former chairman of the Conservative party, and I set up a coalition. It was not quite the sort of coalition that we have today, which, as hon. Members may know, is so close to my heart; it was the Coalition for Peace Through Security, and its purpose was to fight for the changeover from Polaris to the first generation of Trident and for the deployment of cruise missiles in Britain so that eventually we would be able to negotiate a deal, which we did in 1987, to get rid of intermediate nuclear forces on both sides of the iron curtain in Europe.

I am therefore very happy to reassure the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), in his absence, that I do not feel at all proprietorial about the arguments in favour of the nuclear deterrent. I am absolutely delighted when people such as the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who I know had not intended to speak today, rise to their feet and defend it with such vigour.

I was pleased, but I shall look very closely at Hansard tomorrow to see exactly what the shadow Secretary of State said when I asked him to clarify and confirm his party’s commitment to the renewal of Trident, and in particular to the successor generation of submarines. I invite my hon. Friend the Minister, given that the Secretary of State did not refer to it, to clarify our own position on that very subject.

[Mr Gerald Howarth]

Prompted by my hon. Friend, I am delighted to say, as he will know, that in the SDSR and in our Trident value-for-money review the Government committed to renewing the independent nuclear deterrent: submarine-based, continuously at sea, patrolling. That programme is being taken forward. Initial gate was in May last year, and I assure him that all the work is continuing and in progress. If I may, I also take this opportunity to salute my hon. Friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), and Tony Kerpel on the then coalition, because I supported it at the time and am delighted to be in government supporting it now.

Submarines and Frigates (Plymouth)

Debate between Julian Lewis and Gerald Howarth

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Howarth]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely important point, which I endorse and emphasise for the record. It builds on something that the hon. Member for North Durham said about the Treasury. If we are to have the Future Force 2020 that we seek, it will depend on uplift in financial resources from the middle of the decade. One of the last things that the outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff, now Lord Stirrup, said to me was that if we want that uplift in 2015, we must start planning for it now. It is important that we as parliamentarians understand the importance of long- term planning. I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me for latching on to the point that she made about base-porting for the Type 26, but it feeds into a wider argument about defence planning, and she is right to make it.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

In referring to the new frigates as cheap and cheerful, to use the Minister’s phrase—

[Mr Howarth]

It was your phrase.

[Dr Lewis]

My phrase was “cheap as chips”, actually. It upset the First Sea Lord of the day, although not too much. Will the Minister confirm that the reason why it is important and practicable to make the new frigates in that way is that modern methods of naval design enable the production of a ship that is modular? Therefore, we can produce a considerable number of hulls initially and then upgrade them with bolt-on modules as resources allow, rather than producing something expensive from the outset.

[Mr Howarth]

My hon. Friend, as ever, has latched on to an extremely important point. A big selling-point in my discussions with other nations about working in co-operation on the programme is that modular building design not only gives extraordinary flexibility, but is something in which we in the United Kingdom have a world lead. We did it with the Type 45s and we are doing it with carriers; we can do it with global combat ships as well.

My discussions with the Royal Navy, from the First Sea Lord down, have proved extremely encouraging. The Navy has understood the force of the argument and is working enthusiastically to that end. All of us in the House have an interest in ensuring the success of the programme. Personally, I am staking a lot on it myself. If I were to leave office having done only one thing—securing a new fleet of frigates for the Royal Navy—I should feel extremely proud.

On submarines, we have made it clear that the Clyde naval base will become the base port for all Royal Navy submarines. The Vanguard class submarines are already based there, and as the Astute class enters service, it too will be based at and operated from the Clyde. The Department has announced that it will move in-service Trafalgar class submarines from Devonport to Faslane, although we are still assessing how best to implement that decision. None the less, Devonport’s highly skilled work force will continue to be called on to deliver the highest standards of engineering in the vital area of submarine maintenance.

It is important to recognise that decisions about changing the base-porting of naval assets are not simple or straightforward. Although factors such as sustainability and work loads are of importance locally and to the nation as a whole, I am sure we all appreciate that any changes have a major impact on the welfare of the service personnel affected, particularly those with young families. Any decisions to change the arrangements are made only after extensive deliberation and consultation. At this point, I would like to put on the record—I am sure on everybody’s behalf—what an immense debt of gratitude the nation owes to the families of our servicemen and women in all three services. Without their support, the men and women on the front line would never be able to do their job.

As part of the process, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View said, full consideration must be given to the impact on naval service personnel and their families, reflecting the need to give them sufficient notice to plan their futures, in line with the naval service individual harmony guidelines. The guidelines exist to ensure that naval personnel retain the ability to enjoy leisure at their place of duty and that they do not spend excessive time away from their homes and families.

I am pleased to be able to confirm, therefore, that we have made a decision that I hope will reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View. We have decided to make no changes to base-porting arrangements for surface ships, including Type 23 frigates. The frigates at Devonport and Portsmouth will remain where they are for the foreseeable future. That will provide a period of stability for naval personnel and their families at our naval bases, for the naval bases at Devonport and Portsmouth and for our industrial partners, which I know my hon. Friend and other Members were seeking. It is our view that any review of those arrangements should be linked directly to the wider studies informing future strategic defence and security reviews, which we have committed to undertaking during each Parliament, so we do not anticipate any changes until 2020 at the earliest. I recognise that that decision will be of interest to many Members. The Minister with responsibility for defence equipment, support and technology, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire, will write to those Members shortly to provide the detail that I am sure they seek.

To answer a couple of points made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View, HMS Protector will be based at Portsmouth because, as I understand it, that reflects the base-porting arrangements in place for HMS Endurance. However, we expect to decide on the longer-term delivery of that capability, including base-porting arrangements and the future of HMS Endurance, next year. I hope that that puts the matter in context. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport referred to the university of Plymouth study. I say to all local Members that Ministers will be pleased to receive the results of that study.

In summary, I assure my hon. Friend and the whole House that we remain determined to make the fullest use of all three naval bases, including Devonport, and to capitalise on the excellent skills and experience that they have to offer. Difficult decisions have been taken, but everyone involved can now look forward to a period of stability, confident in the knowledge that they will continue to be central to our island nation’s influence, prosperity and security.