Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I begin by putting on the record the whole House’s thanks to the members of our armed forces for the service they give selflessly to protect us all? It is often said that the first responsibility of a Government is to protect the nation, keep it safe and protect its citizens. I think we need to look at what has happened over the past 14 years.
My hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) said in his contribution that the armed forces are being “hollowed out”—not his words or mine, but those of the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace). Have we got to that situation by accident? No, we have not. That has been a deliberate policy over the last 14 years, including the 18% cut in the defence budget up to 2015-16. Today, the defence budget is 7% lower in real terms than it was in 2010. As my hon. Friend said, we saw our armed forces personnel cut by nearly 50,000—they were not only cut; there were compulsory redundancies. If a Labour Government had done that, every national newspaper would have had a lot to say about it. One in five ships in the Royal Navy has been taken out of service. We have 200 fewer aircraft in the RAF now, and satisfaction ratings for service life are at an all-time low of 50%.
Is it a time for serious policy and serious money on defence? Yes, it is, but we have not got that from the Government or from the Prime Minister’s announcement, which is the usual smoke and mirrors. It is about soundbites that can be sold at the next general election. The Defence Secretary could sell snow to the Eskimos in his confident sort of way. I am not sure they would come back and buy more snow from him once they discovered what they had actually been sold.
If we look at what has been announced, an extra £75 billion is the headline. That will be repeated by every Conservative candidate in the general election, but we know they only get that figure if the defence budget would have been frozen for the next six years—something the Defence Secretary fails to admit. Also, where is the money? If my colleagues on the Labour Front Bench had announced this, straightaway people would be saying, “Where’s the money coming from? Where’s the detail?” There is no detail; it is just an aspiration—that is all it is. There is no separation between how much will be spent on resource and capital departmental expenditure limits. What we have from the salesman that is the Secretary of State is a whole shopping list of everything that will be put right by the supposed huge expenditure he has announced. It is pretty hollow.
Let us deal with facts. The Secretary of State does not like dealing with facts. It is like when he came before the Defence Committee. If we take the money to Ukraine out of the budget, the defence budget for next year—this was confirmed by the strategic finance director of the MOD—falls. The question that people need to ask at the next general election is: where is the money coming from? Why are our armed forces in such a dire state? We know the answer to that. It is because of the past 14 years.
We need to concentrate on three things: the defence of our homeland and the contribution to NATO, which has been mentioned; the capability of our equipment
and how it can be delivered; and putting weight behind British industry and skills. The Secretary of State said earlier that the announcement meant a huge boost to UK defence expenditure, but the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) demonstrated what we have seen over the last 14 years: contract after contract given to the United States, without any commitment to UK skills. My right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) mentioned the case of the fleet solid support ship given to a Spanish shipyard. That would never happen in any other European nation. We must ensure not just that we have the right equipment and procurement procedures, but that decisions are taken to boost our armed forces and to help UK plc.