Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Robert Flello and David Crausby

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this important debate.

These are difficult economic times, with more problems to come, no doubt. The temptation to cut the defence budget is inevitably high. If there are efficiency savings to be made, we should make them, but they must be made in the back office, and not, in these circumstances, in any way that affects the front line.

[Robert Flello]

Does my hon. Friend agree that something that we should look at very carefully is the number of top brass? Indeed, the suggestion has been made that there are more admirals than there are vessels in the surface fleet.

[Mr Crausby]

It is important that we use our helicopters for what we need to use them, and not use them to ferry our top brass to other functions.

If we can make efficiency savings in the back office, I am in favour of doing so, but may I take the opportunity to emphasise the fact that there is nothing more important than the defence of our people and the land in which we live? To cut any further our already stretched resources will put our security and service personnel at even more risk. I do not accept that our forces are overstretched, but only because they demonstrate the absolute reverse through their ability to cope. However, they have certainly been under immense pressure for too long, and that simply must not continue.

I have consistently held the view that the defence budget is too small. To cut it now would be unthinkable. Education and health are vital, and it is right that they should be ring-fenced, but their importance will pale into insignificance if our way of life is threatened by terror or, even worse, if we find ourselves under the heel of a foreign power. The difficult question is, as always, estimating the level of the threat that we face, but we must always err on the side of caution and fear the worst. The justification for defence expenditure should be based primarily on necessity, rather than affordability. In conjunction with the strategic defence review, we must look at our foreign policy commitments, because we must decide what sort of country we want to be before we make up our mind on our strategic defence position. We could, for example, model ourselves on Belgium, Switzerland or Scandinavia, and send the message to the world that we do not intend to do anyone any harm, in the vain hope that they will not do us any.

Alternatively, we could growl fiercely at our would-be aggressors, declaring that if they give us a problem, we will sink our sharp teeth into them. One thing is clear: we would be unwise to flip between the two models. It is sensible not to be too aggressive, but Britain’s history, its place in the world, and our culture define us as a nation. For my part, I confess to feeling much more comfortable with an ability to bite potential invaders, as opposed to begging for forgiveness and pleading for mercy.

George Robertson, in the last defence review in 1998, said that the cold war had been

“replaced by a complex mixture of uncertainty and instability.”

That certainly has not changed. The 1998 review was radical, and it reflected a changing world. The reality is that the Ministry of Defence has reformed, and made considerable progress since 1998. Our forces are much better configured to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Change was essential, and there is room for more, to enable us to meet and to defeat the new threats that we face, but such ambitions do not come cheap, and no defence review is effective if it is used simply to save money.

Government after Government have failed to provide the financial resources needed, which is simply unfair on our Army, our Navy and our Air Force, and it just cannot go on. We are extremely fortunate that Britain’s armed services have dealt with a lack of resources in most ingenious ways—it is what we would expect—but make do and mend cannot last, and time to train, and to recover, is absolutely vital to maintaining the world-class standards of our forces. I therefore urge the Conservative-Liberal coalition not to make the same mistakes as previous Governments by under-resourcing and over-expecting. If we are not prepared to lay out the resources that will increase our forces’ size and complexity, we have a responsibility to downgrade our global role.

I do not think that we should do so, but we cannot have it both ways. As the 1998 review explained, we can decide not to have a significant military capability. What was true in 1998 is even more true today, and we must now add Iraq and Afghanistan to our commitments. We must always be prepared to be able to defend ourselves against threats that we do not expect. For example, the discovery of oil around the Falkland Islands means that we must be ready to defend ourselves against increasing tensions in the south Atlantic. My genuine fear is that coalition government is not exactly the ideal vehicle for the task in hand, especially a coalition as diverse as one including Conservatives and Liberals. I really hope that I am wrong.

An important question is the future of tranche 3 of Eurofighter Typhoon. In the general election campaign, the Liberals said that they would cancel tranche 3, and the Conservatives said that they would retain it—I agree with the Conservatives. It would be interesting to know what the coalition intends to do with Typhoon—and the industry is entitled to know sooner rather than later. The prospects for our new aircraft carriers are another worry, and their acquisition is in the interest of those who will gain useful employment from their construction. Much more importantly, they are vital to Britain’s independent defence capability.

We need two aircraft carriers, and we must have joint strike fighters to fly from them, and indeed the support ships to defend them. The Treasury must be quaking in its boots, because all of that will be expensive, but I return to my earlier point: our defence capability must match our foreign policy expectations. If we are not willing to keep our forces up to speed, we should not expect them continually to perform miracles without resources. In conclusion, the most important job for the coalition is not just delivering an effective strategic defence review, but paying for it.