It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, and to be called to speak in this debate. I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty) on securing this timely debate. He walks in the footsteps of many of his predecessors in being a stout defender of our armed forces. I have very happy memories of my own service, starting in his constituency in New Normandy Barracks and Normandy Barracks with 2 Para and 1 Para. He has done us a great service today in providing an opportunity for an important debate about the size and structure of our armed forces.
It is also, as always, a great pleasure to see the Minister in his place. I know that he takes these matters incredibly seriously. It is a reality of parliamentary procedure that questions and debates relating to defence are responded to by Ministers from the Ministry of Defence. Perhaps we could employ our collective nous to see whether at some point in the not-too-distant future we can find a way of gathering like-minded colleagues together to make some of these points and put some of these concerns to the Minister’s colleagues in other Departments, namely the Treasury and the Cabinet Office.
Like all hon. Members present, I am constantly inspired by the skill and commitment of our servicemen and women, who serve our country often in the most difficult circumstances. My concern, though, is that very soon there may not be enough of them to do what is required, and not only will they suffer from being over-exposed and overstretched but, as a result of having fewer personnel in our armed forces, the UK will be less secure.
With that in mind and with an eye to the forthcoming defence review, I want to draw attention to a few of the reasons why, in recent years, the importance of numbers has been downplayed. First, there is a misunderstanding about the threat environment. In recent years and months, the eyes of Westminster and Whitehall have been focused on cyber-threats and the broader concepts of soft power and security. It is important to look at such emerging threats, but we run the risk of that focus coming at the expense of a focus on the conventional threats that we still face. At a time when the UK is under greater threat than at any point since the cold war, that focus has resulted in the Government considering reducing the personnel in our armed forces to an historic low.
As hon. Members are aware, the risk associated with those low numbers is often hidden behind the term “capability”. Every time people voice a concern about size, what tends to follow is a response about technology, structures or training, and someone telling them that in the 21st century, less in fact means more. The truth, however, is that even in the 21st century, less still means less, and quantity still has a quality all of its own. I am certainly not denying that new equipment and structures can mitigate the loss of numbers, and it is of course true that technology is a force multiplier, and that well trained troops are better than poorly trained ones, but it is equally true that there is an irreducible number of people that a credible Army cannot go below.
My greater concern, however, is focused on why those misunderstandings of both threat and capability occur, and why they are allowed to take root. In my view, the answer is threefold: poor processes, a lack of expertise
and undue emphasis on money. For too long, we have allowed the loud whispers of Whitehall generalists, often in the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, to drown out the voices of subject matter experts, be they civilian or military. That must stop.
Due respect must be given to those who understand hard power, hard security and the application of conventional force. Similarly, any review process must be done correctly, beginning with analysis of the world in which we live, including the threats posed by it and the role we want in it—not with a list of the savings that must be made, and where the Cabinet Office and Treasury think they should come from.
As such, I very much hope that the Minister and his Department use any forthcoming review to re-emphasise to those in Whitehall the importance of both strategy and of specialists. If they do not, I fear that we run the risk that any review may be no more than a fig leaf for yet another round of Treasury-inspired cuts.