Armed Forces

My Lords, we are all extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord King, for giving us the opportunity to have this debate and, not least, for the usual balanced, thoughtful and comprehensive way in which he made his remarks. I should like to echo just about everything that he had to say. I am delighted to see that great patriot the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, in her place. We have missed her greatly. Privately, I have always thought that she would have made a marvellous Formula 1 driver. Seeing her manoeuvre her new vehicle around your Lordships’ premises today has only confirmed me in that belief. On a more sober note, I echo the words of my noble friend Lady Dean about what is happening in Basra today. Any of us who saw that service must have been deeply moved by it. It brings home to us in the most vivid way exactly what sacrifices our young men and women are making on our behalf. I turn to the problems facing the Ministry of Defence. I was extremely pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, say that the present Secretary of State was the best that we have had in this Government. I dare not comment on that, even though my previous boss is not in the Chamber, but I will say that in the 40 years since I have been at Westminster the present Secretary of State is only the second I knew who wanted the job. He is first one who knew anything about it before he got there, as far as I can make out. He is doing a superb job. That is enough sucking up for one day. The noble Baroness, Lady Park, said that she had various uses for the Gurkhas. She omitted one that it always occurred to me we should have contemplated: sending them to Northern Ireland. We would have had little trouble with the IRA within 48 hours of their arriving there, but that is a purely personal view. It was interesting today to listen to the generals, neither of whom is in his place at the moment, and one field marshal telling us why they wanted all the Navy assets cut for more expenditure on the Army, although they were too delicate to put it so crudely. I do not agree. If we are going to have carriers, we need two; one is no use at all, as what would we do when one is out of action? I am a firm believer in having a four-boat Trident fleet, even though we are told that the new submarines are going to be much more effective and efficient than the generation that they are replacing. We have come more than once close to the edge of not having a boat on patrol, even with the present Vanguard class. I am a firm believer in the nuclear deterrent. I took on board the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, who said that he did not believe that this country should have nuclear weapons and that we should set a moral example to the rest of the world by giving them up. The great thing about nuclear weapons is that they are not only the ultimate war-making weapon but the ultimate peacekeeping weapon. That is their great virtue: they act as a superb and ultimate deterrent. I will never cease to battle to make sure that this country keeps its nuclear deterrent in good fighting order. I think that we could redirect some of our resources quite drastically in the defence equipment budget, although my candidates would be some of the expenditure in the Royal Air Force, where we are committed. One has to recognise the extent to which Defence Procurement Ministers are prisoners of the past and of political decisions of which they themselves had no part. We are now spending huge amounts of money on a fourth generation aircraft when the fifth generation aircraft, the Joint Strike Fighter, will be available to us in a short space of time. We need to remember that we want our Armed Forces not just for peacekeeping and dealing with insurgencies; they have to be there in case we need them for serious war fighting. To that end, some of the kit that we are procuring will not be much use to us in 10 or so years’ time, as other countries acquire fifth-generation aircraft. The most important thing when we are talking about serious war fighting is the need for this country to maintain its capability to communicate in the battle space with the forces of the United States of America. We are close to losing that capability and there is no other member of NATO, so far as I am aware, that has it. I consider that of supreme importance to the defence posture of this country. Parenthetically, I want to say how much I welcome the Secretary of State’s renewed emphasis on the Special Forces and his intention to deliver some resources to increasing their size and capability. My noble friend Lady Dean said that of course we need to spend more on defence. I could not agree more. Over a few years we should increase our defence expenditure by the tune of something like 25 per cent. She also said that something would have to give way. I disagree with her profoundly on that. When we see how many resources we are finding to bail out incompetent and greedy bankers—that is a serious remark; it is not intended as a jest—I see no reason why we cannot find the resources for the Armed Forces, particularly when we are in a time of increasing unemployment and the resources are available. We owe it to our Armed Forces. It is a question of political courage. I hope that my noble friends in my Government or any successor Government will make the resources available to the Armed Forces, which we so easily could do.