Foreign Affairs and Defence

Debate between William Cash and Mike Hancock

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (LD)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to see you, Hugh Bayley, sitting in the Chair as Deputy Speaker? My only regret is that you will not be one of the candidates who will occupy it on a long-term basis; that is the House’s loss.

I point out to the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who has just spoken, that there is one Liberal Democrat who knows exactly where he stands. I am totally opposed to the replacement of Trident and the continued holding of nuclear weapons by this country. There is no ambiguity there.

I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on his speech and the Secretary of State for Defence on the interventions that he made; they were helpful. It is regrettable that there is not a single former Defence Minister on the Labour Benches at the moment. I congratulate the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), who has left the Chamber, on his contribution as the current Chair of the Defence Committee. He has shown honesty in chairing the Committee and owning up to every mistake made by the Governments in whom he served when it came to defence. The first thing he did at the Defence Committee was to apologise for all the mistakes for which he was responsible—and even for some for which he was not responsible. However, we have heard no similar apologies or comments from the current batch of former Defence Ministers from the Labour party.

I congratulate the hon. Members for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) on two excellent maiden speeches; the House will look forward to further contributions of equal class and style from them both. The hon. Member for Beckenham raised a very important point that other Members have talked about—the critical role of how we treat our veterans and their families when those veterans return from conflict suffering sometimes grievous injuries. Many have suffered, and continue to suffer, long-term effects, particularly relating to mental health. It is interesting to note the serious concerns that are now being expressed about the long-term psychological wounds that many of our servicemen and women have suffered over the past few years and will, sadly, suffer well into the next phase of their lives.

Coming from Portsmouth—I am sure that I can also speak on behalf of the recently elected hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt)—it would be wrong of me not to say that we are very concerned about the future role of the Royal Navy, particularly the naval base in Portsmouth. It is not helpful when leaks from the Ministry of Defence suggest that, once again, the future of the naval base and its 17,000 jobs are very much on the front-line agenda. I was delighted to hear that in fact no such proposition has been on Ministers’ desks, and I hope that it will not be. Such leaks and comments are not helpful when people’s livelihoods are put at risk time and again. They sap not only the loyalty of the staff and service personnel who work on the naval base but the long-term potential to protect those critical jobs. Long may the carriers be part of the defence of this country, long may they be based in Portsmouth, and long may there be no big question mark hanging over the future of the naval base.

One ship that currently resides in Portsmouth dockyard is HMS Endurance, which has not been to sea since it was returned on the back of another ship after its unfortunate flooding in South America last year. A decision on the future role of HMS Endurance is long overdue, and I hope that one of the first things that the Defence Secretary does is to come clean and make a proper statement to this House about that. Is it going to be refitted, scrapped, or replaced by a bought-in trawler, as has happened in the past, or is there no longer any need for us to have a ship of that nature going regularly to the Antarctic? One thing is for sure: we need answers to those questions.

On Afghanistan and Pakistan, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) talked about the possibility of our taking responsibility for Kandahar. I sat on the Defence Committee when we were told by the then Secretary of State for Defence, John Reid, that all the intelligence that he had received just prior to going into Helmand led him to believe that hardly a shot would be fired, and he certainly did not envisage any casualties. How wrong those words were, but how wrong it was that the intelligence services had got it so wrong about Helmand province. The former Minister who spoke earlier rightly stressed that we should not take on another commitment in Afghanistan unless we are absolutely sure that the intelligence we are getting about Kandahar will materialise and that we will get the support of others in the fight against insurgency and the remnants of the Taliban there. If Helmand was difficult, Kandahar would be twice as difficult because of its historical links and the strong power base that the Taliban and al-Qaeda had there in the past. I urge a lot of caution on that proposal.

On the role of the Royal Navy and other navies off the coast of Africa, the big problem is the rules of engagement that naval captains in the Royal Navy, the American navy and others have as regards what they can and cannot do about stopping ships, boarding ships or even sinking ships that might be engaged in piracy. One of the big drawbacks that allows the problem to continue is the failure to get common agreement on rules of engagement that would allow naval captains in the area to act on their own initiative in difficult circumstances and be sure that they would be supported after the event. I urge the Secretary of State to consider carefully the rules of engagement that are given to our naval personnel engaged in that work.

I wish to raise the issue of the scrutiny of defence and security as a European concept. Under the Lisbon treaty, many matters will cease to be the responsibility of the old Western European Union, which will cease to exist. There will be no national Parliament monitoring of European defence and security, and I suspect that many in the Chamber would not welcome the European Parliament taking on that role.

[Mr Cash]

It is quite possible.

[Mr Hancock]

It is, and the European Parliament would grasp the opportunity willingly, but we have to have a proper way of ensuring that there is national parliamentary scrutiny of what is happening in Europe when it comes to defence and security. If we do not, we will be badly letting down the people of this country and our armed forces. I do not want more powers to go to Europe, and I certainly do not want defence and security powers to be scrutinised by the European Parliament with this Parliament having little or no say on them.

I wish also to make a point about EU integration and further countries entering the EU. I was disappointed that there was not a clearer approach in the past, particularly about Turkey, and I hope that in the coming weeks and months we will have a clear indication from the coalition Administration of what their policy is towards Turkey and greater expansion of the EU. I would very much welcome Turkey being in the EU, as well as Croatia and possibly one or two other countries, but the Government must sign up to a plan for how that can be done.

I echo the sentiments of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) about the Chinook crash. One of the biggest disgraces during my second spell in Parliament was that in 1997, the Defence Committee refused to carry out an inquiry because of the lead that it was given by one of its advisers, a retired air chief marshal who took the Air Force line that the pilots had to be to blame. We refused to carry out an investigation, but our colleagues in another place grasped the initiative and carried out an inquiry. The results were different from what the RAF came up with. The two young men who flew the helicopter that day deserve to have their reputations returned to them, and that can be done only if there is a proper independent inquiry and all the facts and information relating to the crash are put on the table. Without that, it is a disgrace to the RAF, the Ministry of Defence and this Parliament that those two young men’s lives and careers were besmirched by the findings of the RAF board of inquiry, which in my opinion did not give the whole truth of what happened on that day.