Defence Reform Bill

Debate between Tobias Ellwood and Gerald Howarth

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I absolutely agree.

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend was absolutely right to mention my concern. I think that we have similar views on the desirable size of the armed forces, but I remind him that we had a vote on military intervention in Syria not long ago and this House decided fundamentally not to participate in that. I wonder how the House would vote on all the scenarios my hon. Friends have just mentioned. That will have a huge impact, and I worry about how this House is involved in that, but that is a concern on the size of the armed forces that we actually need.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

If my hon. Friend thinks that Syria is a reliable or predictable template for the future, I urge him to be very cautious indeed, because it has special circumstances. I see no resiling by the Conservative part of this Administration from the Foreign Secretary’s statement to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 2009 that a Conservative Government would seek to help shape the world in which we found ourselves and not simply to be shaped by it, and I entirely support that. I think that we need to have the means to back it up.

I will conclude by making this point: we are where we are. I have sought to set out why I believe we are where we are and what I believe we need to do for the future. I must say to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay that the Chair of the Defence Committee, our right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire, made a good point when he observed that the new clause would require the Government to put on hold the process of enacting the provisions for enhancing the reserves, and I know that he feels strongly about maintaining the number of regulars. The numbers of regulars are reducing, in accordance with the timetable set out two or three years ago. Therefore, the imperative is not to put the reserve generation on hold, but to ramp it up as fast as we can.