Foreign Affairs and Defence

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

I am most grateful to follow the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn). He and I have clashed on these subjects many times in the past, and I think we will continue so to do. It is extremely telling that he continued to mention Afghanistan without linking it intimately to Pakistan. I shall expand on that later.

I congratulate all those who made their maiden speeches today, in particular my old friend, the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). It is many years since the House has contained a full colonel who carries a Distinguished Service Order. I know that we will be extremely grateful to have not only him but all his newly arrived colleagues with us to add their wisdom to the proceedings of the House. Let me also welcome to their new posts the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for Defence and the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr Howarth)—it gives me particular pleasure to see him in that position.

I want to concentrate briefly on the subjects of defence and foreign affairs, as the two interplay and interlock with each other. I hope and trust that, with the new coalition Government in front of us, we will base our defence policy and military expeditions on the principles of sound, thought-through foreign policy. I hope that we will stop committing our young men and women—our marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen—to expeditions that are based upon dubious intelligence, or perhaps even lies, upon aspirations that have not been thought through and upon aims that are completely devoid of a study of history. It is fascinating to note, for instance, that on 21 July last year, on the Helmand river, the same regiment was in action against the same tribesmen, against a very similar political background—fighting Talibs, for which read Taliban, and Ghazis, for which read al-Qaeda. That is exactly the same position as when almost 1,000 Britons lost their lives on 21 July 1880 in the battle of Maiwand. That is no coincidence. What is deplorable is that a Government could commit us to that sort of action without making a careful study of British history in that area, and, of course Soviet history in that same area.

Therefore, I have no doubt that the new Government will look carefully at the way we approach our defence policy and in particular that we cease to regard what is going on in Afghanistan-Pakistan as an operation. It is not an operation: it is a war. If we are to win this war—I use the words “war” and “win” not in terms of victory medals and parades, of peace treaties and conventional warfare, but in a wholly different and thoughtful way to mean that although the war will never be won, the situation may be contained—we need to understand that, to be successful, our armed forces must be placed on a war footing. Above and beyond everything else, we must have a policy of withdrawing our fighting men and women from harm’s way as soon as they possibly, justifiably and honourably can be withdrawn.

The big questions that await the Secretary of State for Defence and the Foreign Secretary are about having an understanding of where conventional operations and counter-insurgency operations start and stop. One of the great crimes of the last Government was to try to pretend that conventional operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan would make sure that there were no terrorist operations on the streets of this country. But I say to the House that the last successful terrorist operation in this country, in July 2005, was not carried out by Afghans, but by Yorkshiremen. It was carried out by Englishmen trained a little in Pakistan, not Afghanistan, but trained also in the Lake district. How on earth are armoured cars and tanks and bombs—to quote the song—going to stop that sort of operation continuing? It does not make sense.

The reason that our men and women are committed to Afghanistan and Pakistan is to contain that situation, and to make sure that the people of this country understand that this is a regional conflict which stretches from the borders of Iran right the way up to the borders of Russia, and which concerns the use of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of unprincipled enemies who will be only too happy to use them in this country.

The big decisions for the new Government lie in deciding whether we will try and conduct such operations and how we spend our slender resources—broadly speaking and in very crude terms, whether we buy manpower and expertise or whether we continue to invest in high-tech equipment which is less than suitable for this sort of warfare. We must look over the horizon and decide where the next threat is coming from. Will we face a series of minor conflicts verging on insurgencies, or must we be ready for the big questions, the big wars and deterrence, of which we have an understanding and of which history may be able to show us easier lessons?

I do not know the answer to those questions, but I do know that the most important element in helping the Government and the best thing that we can do in the Chamber is to form a vibrant, thoughtful and knowledgeable Defence Committee that is properly led and directed and which can ask the difficult questions of our Front-Bench team and of the Opposition, and ask the Ministry of Defence to make sure that its resources are no longer squandered.

For instance, in these times of extreme financial difficulty, why do we have five headquarters? Why do we have a Ministry of Defence, Permanent Joint Headquarters, Strike Command, Land Command and Fleet Command stuffed with senior officers, senior civil servants, batmen, drivers and computer operators? Why do we have more civil servants than we have members of the Army? Why do we have at any one time only 9,000 men and women who are capable of driving a tank or thrusting with a bayonet? Why do we need five massive, expensive headquarters to deal with that? These are the sort of questions that a well-balanced Defence Committee should ask. Such questions will define our defence policy over the next couple of decades.

But we must not allow ourselves to be narrow-minded. We must not allow ourselves to prepare for the last war, or to go through the sort of thing that I had to go through when I was a serving officer. After my 25 years’ experience, mainly operational, my last job in the Army was in charge of part of the Army Training and Recruiting Agency. When I asked why there were no war plans to increase the number of men and women that we would need to fight the next war, I received a clear statement not from the major-general commanding, but from an individual who described himself as the chief executive. He wore the uniform of a major-general, but he described himself in that civilian role. He said, “Young man”—I was flattered—“there is never going to be another war like that again.” How wrong he was, and how wrong were so many of the speeches, including the excellent speech that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Newport West.

How many of the speeches misunderstand the nature of the wars that we will have to face, and the nature of the pool of manpower from which we can draw to fight those wars. These are the difficult questions and the reason the Defence Committee must make itself available as a loyal but critical servant of the Government, is to make sure that we do not continue the sort of mistakes that we have seen over the past 13 years.

Lastly, we must all salute those young men and young women, many of whom were on the list which, I agree, should have been read out by the last speaker, who allow us to debate in freedom while they risk their lives.