Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Nick Harvey and David Amess

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Nick Harvey)]

This has been a frank and important debate at a crucial time for defence. Many of us will remember Thursday afternoons in the last Parliament when defence debates were typically rather poorly attended by the same people making—I hope it is not too rude for me to say this—the same speeches. It has therefore been very welcome to see so many new faces here and to have that participation. We look forward to seeing a huge improvement in our defence debates to come.

The strategic defence and security review gives us the opportunity to look afresh at the role we see for our armed forces in the 21st century. It is a chance for us to harmonise defence policy, plans, commitments and resources. There is a good deal of consensus in the House on the need for change and there is recognition of the need to take difficult decisions. There is probably even quite a lot of agreement about what some of those decisions will have to be. However, we also have to be aware that the nature of the review and the difficult decisions that have to be taken mean that we will not be able to please everyone. My ministerial colleagues and I are grateful for the thoughtful contributions that have been made today on a wide range of topics, and we will consider them further as the review moves forward.

More broadly, we are engaging with the defence community as a whole—with industry and academics as well as with the charities and volunteer groups that support our efforts. That will include giving an important voice to members of the armed forces, as the Secretary of State highlighted earlier. The crucial thing is for defence as a whole to emerge stronger from the review. If it is to do that, we cannot make changes at the edges. Efficiency savings can be made, but they alone will not fix the structural difficulties in the Ministry of Defence’s finances, so we will have to face up to the realities and prioritise.

Structural problems can be resolved only by structural solutions. The review will therefore grapple with fundamental issues. We face a more unpredictable security situation than we have had for many decades. In Afghanistan, which I visited last week, there are clearly many challenges, but I have seen for myself that real progress is being made.

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

On Thursday, 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment— the Vikings—held a post-Afghanistan homecoming parade in Southend that was attended by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) and me. Will the Minister join us in congratulating the regiment on its achievements? In particular, will he ensure that the troops from the battalion who were injured in the conflict will be properly cared for?

[Nick Harvey]

I entirely endorse the hon. Gentleman’s comments. It was a particularly distinguished tour of duty, and the homecoming parade, which I have read about in his local newspaper, and which was mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), was certainly very notable and shows the depth of appreciation in the communities for the work that those forces did.

It is imperative that we continue to build up the size and strength of the Afghan national security force. That is the direct route, ultimately, to our troops coming home. Sometimes that is not as well understood as it could be. While conducting our strategic defence and security review, we must not lose sight of the importance of explaining our mission in Afghanistan. We cannot make the mistake of assuming that all future conflicts that we will be involved in will be like the conflict in Afghanistan, but in deciding what our armed forces should look like, we must consider what the most likely operations that they will be asked to undertake are. In that sense, the review will be policy led.

There has to be a balance between supporting the needs of today and being prepared for whatever tomorrow might bring. There are many potential tasks that we may wish our military to undertake—each will have its own requirements and could be very different indeed from what is going on in Afghanistan—but we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that we can do everything. In that sense, the strategic defence and security review must necessarily be financially aware.

A number of hon. Members have asked questions about how the review will be conducted. Among others, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) specifically asked about the timing of the review, and suggested that it was being conducted very swiftly. I acknowledge that it is being conducted swiftly, but the reason for that is quite simply the financial predicament that the nation faces, and the fact that a comprehensive spending review will take place this October. If we were to wait until after that to start the strategic defence and security review, we would inevitably end up doing so within a financial envelope given to us by the Treasury.

By conducting the strategic defence and security review first, we can make a case to the Treasury on the basis of the foreign policy that has been set out, the security assessment that has been arrived at, and a number of detailed programmes of work on what the armed forces’ structure and configuration will need to be to meet those foreign policy and security requirements. There is clearly an absolute necessity to do that first, so that we can battle our corner within the comprehensive spending review from a position of strength, with a thought-through, strategic position for defence, not by chasing along afterwards to an agenda that has already been set for us. For that reason, it is absolutely right that we have to get on and do it as quickly as we can.