Defence Reforms

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Edward Leigh

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It is a great honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) who has given distinguished service. I never rose higher than a most diffident and incompetent trooper in the Honourable Artillery Company, so I speak with some diffidence in this debate. I may be an amateur in military strategy, but I know a bit about parliamentary procedure, and I am concerned about the way that debates on our armed services are effectively being downgraded. The House is on a one-line Whip, and we are debating a motion that we have not heard a lot about. The motion

“urges the Government to delay the disbandment of regular units until it is established that the Army Reserve plan is viable and cost-effective.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), who is sitting next to me, will press the motion to a vote, so it will—I presume—be passed by the House. It is incumbent on the Government to listen to the House if it expresses an opinion in such terms.

[Mr Ellwood]

On that point, I stress that this is a serious motion, but the House needs to reflect on how we pay tribute to our armed forces. I do not believe that a half-day debate on a Thursday is the way to do that. We previously had four debates a year on the issue. I hope that the powers that be will listen—I hope my hon. Friend will agree—and that we can return to that and do justice to what our armed forces are doing for this country.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree with my hon. Friend. When I arrived in the House we had an annual Navy debate, which was the only debate in which Mr Bonner Pink—a great man who represented Portsmouth—spoke in the course of an entire year, so important was it. We greatly respect my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, but we would like the Secretary of State to be present on these occasions and in these most important debates.

We are, of course, sympathetic to Defence Ministers, and we know the intolerable pressure they have been put under. I will not get into a debate about the £35 billion black hole, just in case the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) intervenes on me, but as we know, the money has to come from nowhere—or rather, from somewhere—and difficult decisions must be made. I hope that was not a Freudian slip, Madam Deputy Speaker, and by the way, welcome to the Chair. Thank you for calling me; you are doing wonderfully well so far.

We all know the pressure that those on the Front Benches are under, but that does not absolve them from answering the central question in this debate. We can argue about the relative costs of reservists compared with regular forces, but we cannot deny that the previous Secretary of State made a pledge to the Chair of the Defence Committee that we would not reduce the Regular Army unless we were sure we could recruit these reservists. That is the nub of this debate, and we must not get lost in the detail. We must keep our eyes firmly focused on the issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) has played a distinguished part in this debate, and his independent commission concluded:

“Our Reserve Forces are in Decline.”

Why are they in decline? The commission concluded:

“We have failed to modernise Reservist Roles.”

We must ask my hon. Friend, and the Minister, whether we can increase the burdens we place on reservists when we are still modernising their role. The 2013 MOD White Paper “Reserves in the Future Force 2020: Valuable and Valued” was produced in response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I did not want to focus on legacy issues and procurement—all hon. Members are well aware of them, and there are questions to be answered on both sides of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

And the carriers must be protected by frigates.