Debate on the Address

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, and I would like to pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) who made an excellent speech giving us a global perspective. I pay tribute, too, to my right hon. and learned Friends the Members for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). As a new entrant to this place, it was a privilege and a pleasure for me to listen and learn from their contributions. I commend my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) and for Billericay (Mr. Baron) for their consistency and for the passion with which they communicated their views; they were articulate and to the point. Britain is a force for good in the world, and if we are to extend that good, we need a foreign service. Tributes have been paid to our diplomats today. However, that foreign service has never been so overstretched, so I hope that Ministers will give a commitment that they will listen to concerns, which are often expressed only in private, about the overstretch of the foreign service, not just about the overstretch of our military. We have some of the best diplomats in the world, and they are respected throughout the world, but however good they may be, if they are not physically present that good clearly cannot be recognised and heard. They must be in post, so they need to be recruited, and the appropriate resources for such recruitment must be put in place. I agree with the Government’s aim of trying to open up the foreign service and the civil service to a wider range of people. However, I hope that that will not lead to quota hunting and—if that happens—any diminution in the standards that have held the foreign service in repute for many generations—indeed, for hundreds of years. We need to ensure that the foreign service recruits the very best people from our universities and puts people in diplomatic posts on the basis of merit and ability, rather than by ticking boxes. It is right that the debate has been focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, but I hope that the Government are keeping a watch on other important places in the world, such as the Philippines, which has a fragile democracy, and Indonesia, the democracy of which might be destabilised by certain factions in the country. We know that democracies throughout the Asia-Pacific region are subject to shifting public opinion and forces at work inside those countries, because we have seen that recently in Thailand. Although resources are rightly focused on Afghanistan and Iraq, I hope that we will not take our eye off other important countries in the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America. It is not insignificant that places such as Venezuela and Bolivia have regimes that allow British assets to be seized. Those assets form the pension funds of many people inside and outside the House. It is only right that the British Government should ensure that there are the necessary foreign service resources in all those parts of the world. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said that a common foreign and defence policy would assist Iraq and Afghanistan. I do not think that he has listened to what the French have said about Iraq and Afghanistan from the very outset. A common foreign and defence policy would undermine what has achieved consensus in the House today: the pursuit of a new era in which we seek collectively to have an independent British foreign policy. Yes, we should work closely with the Americans and our European partners when that is in our national interest, but there is no conflict or contradiction between having a global perspective or caring for those less fortunate than ourselves in countries near and far, and the self-interest to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) referred. That self-interest, and Britain being a force for good in the world, can come only from a strong Britain, a Britain that is secure. If we are weak and insecure, we cannot be a force for good in the world. I shall touch briefly on defence issues. In the context of comments that have been made about the Warrior armoured vehicle, I make no apology for mentioning the Army Base Repair Organisation in my constituency. I am grateful to those on the Government Front Bench for their courtesy in replying speedily, on the whole, to my letters on a range of topics. I am also grateful to the Secretary of State for granting a stay of execution to ABRO following the excellent report from the Defence Committee, for which I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot). The Committee rightly pointed out that the attrition of vehicles in both Iraq and Afghanistan meant that repairs were required. Many of those repairs are undertaken in my constituency, and I hope the stay of execution to 2009-10, saving 800 local jobs, will be extended and a permanent solution found for ABRO. That leads me on to the subject of the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency, which is also in my constituency. It has a superb and committed work force and I hope that the current so-called efficiency savings—a euphemism for cuts—will be reconsidered. We need to get kit out to the front line more quickly than ever, and the frequency has increased. Many of those who work for the Defence Logistics Organisation at Sapphire house in the neighbouring constituency of Telford live in my constituency. I am concerned that the relocation from Shropshire to Bristol will undermine the important work that Defence Logistics Organisation staff do. We rightly honour and praise, applaud and celebrate the work of those on the front line, and I pay tribute to the Royal Anglian Regiment based in Shropshire, which has been committed in Iraq recently. We should also praise those who supply our front lines, who provide the logistics behind all operations not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Bosnia, Congo, the Falkland islands, Canada, Germany and all over the world. I hope that the 6,000 defence workers in Shropshire will have a secure future as the Government recognise that if we are to be successful in the operations to which the Government have committed our armed forces, they need the support of all those important organisations. Much of the defence industrial strategy is right, but I hope that the Government will recognise that in a changing world the only way that we can be ahead of those who seek to undermine our nation is through technological advantage. That ranges from unmanned aerial vehicles to intelligence intercept technology. I hope that the DIS will be flexible enough to deal with the threats that we face now and in the future. The procurement process needs to be speeded up, so that the nation can remain safe.