Strategic Defence and Security Review

Simon Reevell Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Simon Reevell (Dewsbury) (Con)]

There has been much discussion here and in the media about aircraft, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, and reference has also been made to the importance of high-technology warfare, run through cyberspace. However, it is worth remembering that, ultimately, any defence review is actually about the young men who will risk their lives fighting through the ranks of whoever is our enemy in order to substitute our flag for theirs. Any review that produces gleaming new carriers but a shortage of body armour, or that makes us powerful in cyberspace but short of troop-moving helicopters, has failed.

In the first Gulf war we watched on the news as the cruise missiles appeared almost to stop at the traffic lights and turn left. Iraqi command and control systems were destroyed from the air, but the Republican guard in the desert were cleared from their trenches by the infantry using bayonets. The Taliban will not surrender because their wi-fi has been brought down. There is of course a valuable role for technology, but it will only ever assist rather than replace boots on the ground.

Our armed forces have had to make do and make do, because events have demonstrated that second-guessing the future is simply impossible. Part of the cold war peace dividend was to be a saving on the costs of heavily armoured vehicles, especially main battle tanks, but a short time later the armoured regiments had to cannibalise every vehicle in Germany in order to form up in the Gulf, with the men from Vickers flying out there to attach better armour protection in theatre. The kit shortages for the second Gulf war and the war in Afghanistan are well known and an absolute disgrace.

The approach of assessing what we want to be able to do, and of equipping and training our armed forces in that context, has a certain logic, but it works only if there is the political will not to intervene in conflicts that fall outside what has been envisaged. That commitment is impossible to give. The problems of huge overstretch caused by fighting simultaneously in Iraq and Afghanistan are an example of politicians ignoring defence planning assumptions and asking the armed forces to sustain the unsustainable. In that case the situation was made worse by a refusal to recognise that and act upon it, but the basic danger of the problem recurring will always be present because circumstances may well not be of our making.

The solution is to build sufficient tolerance in troop numbers into the system. That is not waste; it is the price that has to be paid for the flexibility that may well be the difference between success and failure, and between the lives of our armed forces being saved and lost when the unexpected occurs. We have a duty to ensure that we have a properly trained, fully equipped and fully protected front-line Army. It must have the equipment necessary to move and resupply by air, and we need soldiers in sufficient number to allow rapid and effective deployment and to avoid deploying the same troops repeatedly in relatively short periods.

The smaller the Army, the shorter the gap between deployments and the greater the burden placed on not just our soldiers but their families. The fact that they would never shirk that burden makes it all the more important that we do not impose it upon them. By all means let there be discussion about carriers, aircraft and submarines, but let us not forget those who fight on the ground and our obligation to them.