Debate on the Address

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate. The Queen’s Speech is supposed to mark a new parliamentary year and set out the Government’s position; in other words, it is an indication of the party in power’s vision of where this country is going. However, having listened to the Foreign Secretary’s contribution, we are all very puzzled as to where this country is going. We would have learned more about the UK’s policy on Kazakhstan by watching the new film starring ““Borat”” than by listening to the Foreign Secretary. I begin, as others have done, by paying tribute to our armed forces and their activities around the world. We have commitments across the globe—from Northern Ireland, to Cyprus, Africa, the Falklands, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, Germany and Sierra Leone, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan. I therefore find it somewhat ironic that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are telling the troops, ““You are doing a good job—well done.”” What they really want is to hear that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are doing a good job. Instead, there are cuts in manpower, equipment and funding. Since 1997, the Army has been reduced by 9,000, the Royal Navy by 10,000, and the RAF by 16,000. As has been said time and again in the House today, we are now experiencing overstretch. Soldiers in Afghanistan do not want a pat on the back; they want the Government to do their job. Our soldiers are rightly respected the world over, but it is increasingly hard for them to do their job when they are constrained by the size of the force and the nature of the equipment that they receive. The Government’s failure to support our armed forces is having an impact, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) said. There is a recruitment crisis and there are problems with retention. As has been mentioned, the number of Territorial Army reserves has reduced from the 1998 level of 56,000 to 36,000 today. Some 13,000 reservists have actually resigned because of the consequences of current policy. If that were not enough, people are also demoralised by the procurement process. We have the most complicated procurement process possible, and there are delays in getting equipment to the front line. Let us consider the SA80 rifle. It cost £92 million to modify 200,000 SA80 rifles, which works out at £460 per weapon. However, they only cost £400 each. There are other such examples right across the military spectrum, one of which is the Apache helicopter. This very important aircraft is doing a fantastic job in Afghanistan, and we wanted to buy it. But rather than purchasing it off the shelf, we decided to build a factory in this country and to construct them here. The price went up from $12 million to $40 million per helicopter. Aircraft carriers, on which we have just had a brief discussion, are an issue that is at the very heart of the problem. Let us get the right kit for our military, rather than deciding what is best for a particular constituency in an effort to save particular jobs. Of course it is appropriate and useful to protect jobs in a given constituency, but the bottom line must be the kit that is being used by our soldiers, sailors and airmen on the front line. If they are not getting it—if there are delays—it is they who are affected. There are other key issues that have not been discussed, such as—as was pointed out—the joint strike fighter. Key decisions are going to be made in America in the next couple of months. Perhaps the Defence Secretary can bring us up to date on what is happening with that project, which is very much in the balance. I turn now to two major areas of interest that have been covered in depth, the first of which is Iraq. The mid-term elections in America have prompted a new way of thinking, and I hope that the United Kingdom will be able to participate in consideration of the direction that we take with Iraq. The United Nations mandate for the multinational force runs out in December and has to be renewed. That provides us with a chance properly to consider where this country is going on that issue. I never supported the war in Iraq and I never made the link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. I also fully condemn the complacent attitude to planning for the peace. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) objected to the war, so she decided not to participate, from the perspective of the Department for International Development, in the post-war planning. She has a lot to answer for, in that we did not take advantage of the small window of opportunity in Basra to win over the local population. Things are getting out of control there. We have a civil war taking place, with more than 3,000 deaths every month. We have heard many arguments about how we should proceed. The Americans are talking about three options—go long, which means stay in Iraq for a long time; go hard, which means put in more troops; or go home. That is how basic the argument is in the United States. However, we could consider another solution and I suspect that we will come to it in the end, one way or another. We can carry on as we are, heading towards civil war—I do not wish to detract from the work the British and American troops are doing, because removing them would cause chaos. The only solution is to partition the country into three separate areas. Look at the costs. Britain alone has spent £4,500 million in Iraq since 2003. What have we got to show for that? There is very little electricity, hardly any petrol for cars, no development of communities and no jobs. The atmosphere is very scary. Add that to the billions of dollars that the Americans have spent and we could have built housing estates, hospitals and roads. We need some method of asking the Iraqis whether they would like to have a partitioned country with a federal system to take advantage of the oil that they are sitting on. That is a solution that could lead to peace.