DEFENCE

§ The Minister of Defence (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft)

I beg to move, That this House approves the Statement on Defence, 1963, contained in Command Paper No. 1936. We are embarking upon a series of debates about defence. A few weeks ago we had a debate about the deterrent, and today we are starting on a two-day debate on some of the wider issues of defence policy, and that will be followed, as is our custom, by detailed examination, Service by Service, of the Estimates.

In 1962, we took a five-year look at defence policy, and obviously many of the basic problems, which are in part problems of geography, remain today much as they did then. Defence continues to take about 7 per cent. of the gross national product, and the deterrent continues to take about 10 per cent. of the defence budget. I should like today to concentrate in the main on some of the central problems of defence and, in particular, on the rôle of the Ministry of Defence itself. I will therefore start with some general observations on defence policy and defence equipment.

There are really three main factors, as I see it, which affect defence policy. First of all, there is the need to deter any attack upon these islands. This is an aspect which is at times forgotten. Nevertheless, I take it to be axiomatic in defence policy. Secondly, there is the need to provide a continental army and nuclear support for N.A.T.O. This is something really new in our experience in peacetime. Thirdly, there is the fulfilling of a world-wide rôle, particularly in the area between Singapore and Suez.

On any account, these are very formidable obligations and cannot, in any circumstances, be cheap. Indeed, I do not think that any major reduction in defence costs is likely so long as our commitments remain broadly as they are today. While we shall and must attempt to keep spending at around 7 per cent. of the gross national product, it must be remembered that the costs of research and development in all countries are rising faster than the increases in the gross national product. It is that single factor 32 more than any other throughout the world that is tending to force defence costs upward in this and, indeed, in almost every major country. The best way of containing that is by what is broadly called interdependence, which is by seeking to share the costs of research and development and production and, if possible, the markets with other countries. I think that that is the answer to those who say that every nut and bolt of every weapon ought to be made at home.

In dealing with the deterrent and the defence of these islands. I do not intend to repeat all that was said a month ago. There are sincere differences between the Government and the Opposition parties on this aspect of defence. I do not think that that is a bad thing. I remember Aneurin Bevan once saying that the House of Commons should not be a lot of old gentlemen leaning up against each other. When truly great issues which raise great moral and military implications arise, it is not wrong that both sides of the House of Commons should take an opposite view about them.

We intend to keep the deterrent. We intend to keep the V-bombers, to be succeeded later by Polaris and reinforced by the TSR2. As I understand it, the Opposition wishes to scrap the British deterrent. But, in our judgment, to scrap it would gravely impair the independence of this country in foreign policy and in the use of her conventional forces, and we certainly do not intend to allow Britain to be in a position where she could be just pushed around. Not only do we intend to keep the deterrent for ourselves, but we intend to subscribe it to our allies. We believe in a N.A.T.O. nuclear force.

The problems of command and control of a N.A.T.O. nuclear force are very formidable. They would have been formidable in a Europe that was united, and they are obviously the more so in a Europe which is divided. What is possible is to give to N.A.T.O., and through N.A.T.O. to Europe, a much larger say in the targeting and planning of nuclear weapons, both strategic and tactical. Indeed, the choice in the long run may be between this and the further spread of the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

Thus I would say to the House that both sides should ponder well before 33 they dismiss as of no importance this conception of a N.A.T.O. nuclear force. We shall certainly do our best, with the United States and Europe, to bring a N.A.T.O. nuclear force into being, and as a first step we have offered to assign the whole of our V-bomber force to it. This has been widely welcomed in Europe. We shall support, too, the efforts which the Americans are engaged upon to bring about a mixed manned force as well.

The debate which lies ahead will, of course, deal not simply with the 10 per cent. of the defence budget which is concerned with the nuclear, but with the 90 per cent. which is concerned with the conventional, and I would like to say here a word or two about that in order to provide a background to the more detailed discussions that will take place when we come to the Estimates.

The object of a nuclear shield is, after all, to enable one to use, if need be, a conventional sword. We already have an effective sword. We are improving it and, as I shall show, are sharpening its cutting edge. Recruiting last year went well, and I can now say with confidence that we are going to have a volunteer Regular professional army. It will be attained on an all-Regular basis this year. We are working towards a figure of 180,000 United Kingdom troops, and this year will be the first year we shall see it on an all-Regular basis.

The Statement on Defence includes the announcement of purchase of a very wide range of conventional military equipment affecting all three Services, and I wish to say something about each of them.

The Royal Navy will, of course, be highly involved, for it will take over the main carrying of the deterrent after 1968, and, quite apart from the nuclear rôle, this year three new guided missile destroyers—"Hampshire", "Kent" and "London"—will come into service to join the "Devonshire", which is already in service. They will be armed with Sea Slug and Sea Cat anti-aircraft missiles. The Wasp helicopter in the "Leander" and "Tribal" class frigates, with new lightweight homing torpedoes, will be coming into service to match the full range of the latest detection equipment.

Looking further ahead, some important decisions will fall to be taken within the next eighteen months on whether to order 34 the first of a new generation of carriers. Some design work is going on on that. Meanwhile, we are examining, as it is necessary to examine, what the rôle of the Navy might be expected to look like in the 1970s and even in the early 1980s—what kind of ships and what kind of weapons will be needed to perform the sort of rôle one can envisage. These are very difficult exercises, but they are the questions we have to pose on both sides of the House in order to come to the right conclusion.

Some people have suggested that the Nassau Agreement jeopardised the Navy's chance of getting conventional ships. This is not so. The defence budget has to be considered as a whole, and other naval decisions, including carriers, have to be taken on their merits and not according to which particular Service is charged with carrying the deterrent.

I will now say a word about the Army. The acceptance trials of the Chieftain tank are due in a few weeks' time, and we hope confidently to place a production order then for delivery early in 1965. I believe that other countries will appreciate the qualities of what is our main battle tank. We are also taking steps to improve the fire power and the mobility of conventional artillery. There are two new weapons to which I would refer in this connection—the Abbot and the American 175 mm. gun. The Abbot self-propelled 105 mm. gun will replace the old 25-pounder in the close support rôle. It will give increased range and weight of fire. It will keep pace with the Chieftain and the armoured personnel carrier. It is already in production; that is to say, the long lead items are being ordered for production on the North-East coast, and it should start to arrive in 1965.

In addition to the Abbot, we wish to improve the longer range artillery, and after detailed consideration we have decided that the most suitable mobile heavy gun now available is the American 175 mm. gun, which is now in production. Subject to satisfactory contract arrangements, if an order is now placed it should come into delivery in 1964.

Then there is the signals equipment of the B.A.O.R., which has often been criticised and in respect of which there have been some delays, but, in fact, a very considerable equipment programme has been undertaken in the last few years 35 and it is now nearing completion. But we are already starting on a new comprehensive communications system which will eventually replace that now in service.

Nor should we neglect the world-wide rôle. The things I have been talking about perhaps have particular reference, if they have particular reference at all, to B.A.O.R. But, in the world-wide rôle, orders are shortly to be placed for the second and third logistic ships before the first is completed. This, incidentally, will give concrete help to the shipbuilding industry. Ail in all, this is a most formidable programme of equipment on the conventional side.

Thirdly, there is the Royal Air Force. Though the Navy will be taking over the main responsibility for the nuclear deterrent from the late 'sixties onwards, the R.A.F. will continue to perform some very important rôles. Until Polaris becomes operational, R.A.F. bombers will continue to be the front line of the deterrent, beginning to be phased out from 1970 onwards. But the Royal Air Force has many other rôles apart from that—in the battle area, to give close support; rôles concerned with reconnaissance and air defence, as well as the very important rote of transport, with which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation will be dealing in rather more detail when he speaks in the debate tomorrow.

Turning to the aircraft themselves, we lead the world today in the vertical takeoff techniques. Indeed, British aircraft are the only ones flying which are really capable of vertical take-off. Aircraft of this type are already flying, and they are being developed by the Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Group, and they will eventually replace those now in service.

Apart from this, there is the TSR2 itself, which is a long-range strike aircraft capable of delivering either high explosive or a nuclear warhead. This is due to fly early in 1964 with a weapon system capable of either a tactical or strategic rôle. Indeed, it is an aircraft unique of its type.

§ Mr. Gordon Walker (Smethwick)

Might I ask about the strategic rôle of the TSR2? What would its range be with the nuclear weapon? Would it be able to go there and back for a strategic strike?

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

I do not think that any country in the world has declared the range of its strategic strike, and I certainly do not propose to make a start with that now.

The Royal Air Force will, therefore, continue to have vital rôles, either independently or in co-operation with other Services, and the finest products of the aviation industry will be available to it.

Looking at the equipment which these Services have today and looking at the equipment which I have outlined, I think I can say that never in peacetime in our history have we had Services better equipped or better disposed in the various theatres which we are considering to meet any threat which they may have to be called upon to meet.

§ Mr. George Brown (Belper)

When will all this be so?

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

It is so now. These three Services have today, and will have increasingly in the future, formidable striking power. Their maximum strength is deployed when they are deployed together. Modern warfare demands mobility, flexibility and fire power, and that requires the closest relationship between all three Services. A great deal has been done already to secure that relationship in joint planning of operations under the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Chiefs of Staff and the joint planning system, and joint Service schools have been set up and a joint warfare organisation has been established within the Ministry of Defence.

Overseas it is already a commonplace for one Service to provide the hospitals for other Services, or for one service to take the responsibility of feeding the other Services, or for one Service to provide the petrol for all the Services. These are commonplace arrangements in most theatres. Unified commands have been set up overseas. In the view of Her Majesty's Government, the time has now come to take further important steps in this field and at the centre.

I turn, then, to the central organisation of defence, to the rôle of the Ministry of Defence itself, to its relations with the three Service Ministries and with the Ministry of Aviation. What I propose to do is to make some general reflections, to inform the House of what decisions 37 in principle we have taken and to indicate the kind of steps which must he taken in working out the many detailed problems which are involved. If I may say so, these are matters which go rather beyond party boundaries, for whatever decisions are taken about policy and whatever differences men may have about the deterrent, it is the common interest of all parties to ensure that the machinery for making and for implementing those decisions is the best that can be devised.

A great deal has been said and written about this subject over the years, and I have been assisted since I have been at the Ministry of Defence by being acquainted with it. I have also been assisted by discussions that I have had on an informal and departmental basis with Lord Ismay and Sir Ian Jacob, and I am grateful to them. But the decisions on policy are, of course, the responsibility of the Government themselves, and it is our view which I am now putting forward.

The formulation of defence policy falls into two parts. The first goes beyond defence proper. It is concerned with foreign policy. It is concerned with Commonwealth relations and colonial policy. It is concerned, as ever, with the Treasury, and it is concerned with strategy and politics on the international scale. Such problems fall within the ambit of the Defence Committee, which in many ways is the successor of the old Committee of Imperial Defence, presided over by the Prime Minister and eventually, of course, the responsibility of the Cabinet itself.

The second broad area, the area with which I am more closely concerned, deals with problems of a specifically military character. The centre of this part of the organisation is the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the subsidiary committees and staffs set up by it. This military organisation consists today of the Ministry of Defence, the three Service Departments and the Ministry of Aviation. The question is whether we should leave it as it is. Are we satisfied that these arrangements are soundly based? Obviously, any arrangements can be improved in detail, but is the broad principle right? Is this concept of four or five separate Ministries, each with its political head, the right one?

Few with experience of the Ministry of Defence, or the Service Ministries, or 38 the Ministry of Aviation, would say that these arrangements were ideal. After some experience in the Ministry of Aviation and the Ministry of Defence myself, and talking to those with much more experience than I have had, I am satisfied that real doubts exist about the present system. I might observe, too, that the Estimates Committee focussed these doubts in its Report of July, 1962, I believe that there is some substance in them.

May I try to summarise the doubts as I see them expressed? First, there is doubt as to the effective power of the Ministry of Defence to make the defence budget a real synthesis of defence problems rather than a carving up of the cake among different claimants. The second doubt is whether, when resources are under pressure, the interests of individual Services do not prevent the formulation of what could be called a real central policy. The third is whether research and development can really be effectively devised and controlled, and I may say that that is one of the most difficult problems of all.

I would emphasise that these are not doubts which are held simply by the Ministry of Defence. They are shared widely in the Service Ministries and also in the Services themselves, outside Government circles, and they have been voiced from time to time in the House of Commons. If there is substance in them, what steps should we take to remedy them? May I make a few reflections about how I think we ought to approach this problem?

First, I do not believe that we should look to an amalgamation of the Services as a solution. Fighting efficiency depends in the last resort upon the pride a man takes in his ship, in his regiment or his squadron. We do not want to blur that. What happens elsewhere, what the staff officers are doing, is by tradition a matter for cynicism among fighting men, but we want to preserve the pride in the unit which now exists.

Secondly, in action the Services are increasingly interdependent upon each other. Most operations today involve two of them, and many operations involve all three, and in my judgment this tendency will grow.

Thirdly, this situation in any event will compel the development of staffs drawn 39 from all three Services but trained to think and to act in terms of Services other than those in which they were brought up.

Fourthly, the sophistication of modern weapons and the problem of ensuring that expensive weapon systems and communications devices serve all three Services is increasingly difficult and there is a real need to centralise the operational requirement staffs of all three Services.

Fifthly, it is easy on paper to draw up a system which theoretically would give the Minister of Defence power over every aspect of defence, but the trouble is that in doing so one might so easily overload him with work and the obligation to answer Questions that he would never have any time to think about the main issues of defence policy.

Sixthly and finally, the Chiefs of Staff are the heart of any military organisation and should remain the professional heads of their Services and the principal sources of advice, together with the 'Chief of the Defence Staff, to the Minister of Defence and, of course, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

§ Mr. Brian Harrison (Maldon)

My right hon. Friend has raised a very important issue. When the Secretaries of State for the various Services have become Ministers of State, will the Chiefs of Staff have direct access to the Prime Minister?

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to complete my review of what we intend to do.

Those are my reflections on the background to this problem and how in broad terms we should approach it. The main decision of principle which the Government have made is that there should be one unified Ministry of Defence and that it should be comprised of the essential core of the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry, grouped as subordinate branches to the new Ministry of Defence. The organisation will be on a Service basis, that is to say, each Service branch of the Ministry of Defence will have a Minister and a Chief of Staff responsible to the Minister of Defence. There will thus be one Department of Defence responsible for advising the Government on defence policy rather than four. I will refer to the Ministry of 40 Aviation separately, because it is a rather separate problem.

This new Department will be housed in one building. Its staffs will be grouped bringing the Ministers and the Chiefs of Staffs adjacent to each other, and the Naval, General and Air Staffs will be similarly adjacent. The fact that separate Services will no longer be in their embattled fortresses—that is to say, the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry will have disappeared under this arrangement—is certainly a step forward and much will stem from this. But some important and difficult problems arise, of which one is the question of the Ministry of Aviation.

I have served there and in the Ministry of Defence over the last two years, and I can claim to have seen something of this problem from both sides of the fence. The greater part of the research and development work of the Ministry of Aviation is work done for the Ministry of Defence and the Service Ministries on an agency basis. Clearly, military and civil aviation research and development—I think that this is common ground—ought to be kept together. It would not make much sense to have one person doing civil R. and D. and someone else doing military R. and D. The Ministry of Defence taking over research and development in full and doing the rather smaller civil part on an agency basis for another Ministry is obviously one possible solution. We have not taken a final decision on this, and indeed I think it requires some further consideration before a final decision is taken. The fact is that research and development cannot really be separated from production, and this makes it a very heavy burden indeed. There is the question of responsibility for the aircraft industry. To bring it down to practical realities, there is the responsibility for projects like the supersonic transport, or the European Launcher Development Organisation, and one hesitates a little before one adds these to the burden of the Ministry of Defence.

There is always in administrative reform the important task of seeing that the Minister of Defence is not so overloaded with detail that he cannot, no matter to what party he belongs, apply his mind to the big central decisions to which he ought to apply it.

§ Mr. George Wigg (Dudley)

This is the 64,000-dollar question. Is there to be one accounting officer for all three Services?

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

I do not agree that it is a 64,000 dollar question, but it is an important one and it is right to draw attention to it. I do not think we ought to make a statement about that too quickly. Obviously the Minister of Defence will have to answer for the activities of his Ministry, but there are many ways in which that can be done, and whether we have four separate accounting officers or one accounting officer for what will be a budget of £1,800 million is something which ought to be discussed in considerable detail with the Treasury before an announcement is made.

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to finish this.

There has been much discussion about whether all this would not be better done on a functional approach, that is, whether one Minister should be appointed to deal with all weapons, another Minister to deal with all research, or clothing, or supplies, or something of that kind. I believe that the effects of this would be grossly to overload the top, because in effect it would mean that there would be only one man in the Ministry who could ever answer any particular question—because most of them are broader than a single function—and so we reject the functional approach. I think that in any great administrative change it is important to preserve a clear chain of command, and where that chain of command exists it is a pity to lose it.

We are anxious to devise a system in which future Ministers of Defence can concentrate on the main issues of policy and intervene if they wish from choice but not from necessity in fields of administration within their Department. Under these arrangements, there will be a functional approach, but it will be on a case-by-case basis and will arise naturally from the proximity of staffs dealing with related subjects. There will also be a degree of integration at the top. Service officers above the rank of brigadier, though they will still belong to their own Service and wear their own 42 uniforms, will increasingly be doing jobs associated with all three Services. The principle to be applied is therefore a unified Ministry on a Service basis, and we think it right to put that decision of principle before the House for discussion and debate and then to listen to the views in Parliament and outside and take them into account.

Clearly there are many matters of detail to be filled in. The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) mentioned the question of finance. There is the question of legislation, and there are some quite complex problems of administration. The task of solving these will fall, in the main, to the Ministry of Defence, and the necessary staffs are being assembled and, indeed, have already started work.

§ Mr. P. Williams

Will my right hon. Friend give way now?

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

There is to be a debate, but if hon. Members want to ask questions I am prepared to answer them.

§ Mr. Wigg

In view of the importance of this subject, would not it have been better if the Government, become coming to the House, had published a White Paper setting out their proposals? After all, in July, 1958, we were given an excellent White Paper, Cmnd. 476, for which one has to send hurriedly as soon as one hears rumours of the intentions of the Government. Is it not treating the House and the country cavalierly to come here and put forward proposals which, in the long run, may be a matter of life and death?

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

I have often heard the House of Commons complain that it was faced with all the details having been worked out without being given a chance to debate the subject. When a Minister says this is the principle we wish to follow, one Ministry on a Service basis with Service Ministers subordinate to the Minister of Defence, let us discuss and debate that principle so that later when we have heard the debate and heard the views inside and outside the House we can come forward with more detailed proposals, I should have thought that this was a proper way to treat the House of Commons.

§ Mr. P. Williams

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He will recognise that in talking of weapons 43 systems there are not two elements but in fact three. With regard to aircraft, there are the engines, the airframes and the control systems. The development of control systems can be of vital industrial and commercial importance. Where does this element fall in the outline that my right hon. Friend has developed this afternoon?

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

A great many of the control systems fall within the electronics industry as it is broadly defined now. As far as the sponsoring Department is concerned, this is part of the responsibility today of the Ministry of Aviation, and it was because of these complexities that I said I thought it right to give further consideration to the precise relationship between the new Ministry of Defence, organised as I have broadly indicated, and the aviation problem. That is why I made that reference.

§ Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

On the question of machinery—and one congratulates the Government on having translated the principles we discussed ten years ago into some kind of action—what will be the position of the Board of Admiralty? Will it be in the new building, or in a separate one, and what will be its functions?

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said he would have heard me make it plain that there will be one Department of Defence presided over by the Minister of Defence. Within that there will be air staffs, naval staffs and the general staff of the Army. It may well be convenient to have an air board, a naval board, or an army board within it, but the Admiralty as we know it will disappear and the Services and the Service Ministers will be subordinate to the Minister of Defence.

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

The hon. and learned Gentleman can ask questions during the debate and I shall be delighted to answer them. There will be public discussions of this matter. I believe that it will help and not hinder this process if these discussions take place and if we can have these views which can be expressed either here in debate—and we are to debate this subject for two days— 44 or outside, because many serving officers outside will have views to express. Our object will be to place detailed proposals before the House in the light of those discussions later in the summer, and I hope that the whole process will be well advanced by early 1964. These problems concern us all, and I hope that the House will help us in the work which lies ahead.

These then are our proposals both on policy and on administration, and I commend them to the House.

§ Mr. Speaker

The Question is—

§ Mr. Paget

Mr. Speaker, I was seeking to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman before he sat down.

§ Mr. Speaker

I thought that was probably so, but the appearances were that the right hon. Gentleman had sat down. If I was wrong, I will refrain a moment.

§ Mr. Denis Healey (Leeds, East)

I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof: has no confidence in a Government whose defence policies have collapsed repeatedly over eleven years and which now presents no policy to justify asking the taxpayers for the biggest defence expenditure in the peacetime history of Great Britain. We have just listened to a very lame and half-hearted speech from the Minister of Defence, in which he had nothing to say on the fundamental problems of defence policy which face the nation. It is not surprising that since he had nothing to say on those problems he seemed to have little confidence in what he was saying. The whole of his speech on the policy side was essentially a lengthy petition in bankruptcy.

Towards the end of his speech, he raised a great cloud of steam to cover the absence of any clear policy on the major issues of defence and he indulged in a lengthy philosophical ramble about general principles and about constructing the machinery for making decisions at the official level. All his proposals were completely vague. The general principles which he announced had in large part been suggested by Government after Government during the last ten years, and he seemed incapable of 45 answering any of the major questions on detail which were put to him. But what was most depressing about his speech was that he seemed neither capable nor willing to take any of the fundamental policy decisions about defence, on whose absence the weakness of our defence establishment at present depends.

I come new to this responsibility, although, like many hon. Members on both sides of the House, I spent so long in the Armed Forces that I am always tempted to give my profession as "soldier" when asked to state what it is. I have spent a great deal of time in the last eight years talking to serving officers at every level, from the Imperial Defence College down to candidates for the Staff College of Northern Command. What has impressed me again and again during those years has been the fact that Britain has never had such an able, alert and dedicated body of men to serve it in its Farces. Moreover, I doubt whether the military establishment of this country has ever been quite so open-minded and liberal in its attitude on general problems as that which we possess today.

It is also the case that we have never spent so much on our Armed Forces as we have in the last twelve years—£18,000 million. As the Secretary of State pointed out, that is a steady 7 per cent. of our gross national product, despite the very daunting economic problems that we face. Indeed, there is only one country in the Western world—the United States—which spends more. Most of our European Allies spend on defence less than half as much of their national product as we do.

Why is it that, despite the quality of the men serving us in our Armed Forces and despite the colossal sums of money which we have spent on those Forces, our units in Germany and other parts of the world still lack equipment, still are under strength, still are incapable of performing the tasks allotted to them—or succeed in performing them only at the price of taking hair-raising and quite unjustifiable risks? This is a question to which the House must address itself this afternoon. The Minister failed to throw any light on this; I will come to his suggestions later in my speech.

It is worth looking for a moment at the actual record of our defence achieve- 46 ment when we have been called upon to implement our policies over the last eleven years. Let us look back to 1956 and to the Suez operation. My hon. and right hon. Friends opposed it in principle, but the Government nevertheless decided to commit a large part of our defence services to a military operation against the Egyptian Government, and after three months of warning and preparation and in eight days' operations our forces failed to achieve a very limited objective against negligible opposition from the Egyptian Army. [Interruption.] I know that hon. Members opposite do not like to be reminded of these facts, but I suggest that they should read again General Keightley's report on the Suez operation and ask themselves honestly—because I think that some of them care for the security of this country and the morale of our Armed Forces—whether the state of affairs revealed by that report is one of which any British Government could be proud. I know that the Minister of Aviation agrees with me solidly on this—although he will recollect that his first responsibility when he came to office was to defend the conduct of the operation in question.

The Secretary of State will say, "But everything is different now. Look at Brunei." I understand that during the last N.A.T.O. Council Meeting in Paris he cited the Brunei operation as proof that we were carrying out our overseas responsibilities with panache and efficiency. There is no question that at Brunei, unlike Suez, there was prompt and effective action by forces close to the spot—although, let us admit it, the opposition that they had to face came only from a few thousand men armed with blowpipes and bows and arrows.

But let us look a little more deeply into the Brunei incident. At the first hint that the conflict there might be extended the Government were compelled to pre-empt one half of our Strategic Reserve and to plan to employ a full regiment of artillery—the Fifth Field Regiment—without its guns, in an infantry rôle, and to rob B.A.O.R. of an essential component of its Signals. Although it is true that the brigade group called upon from the Strategic Reserve to stand by a few weeks ago has now been stood down, a glance at any newspaper will show us that it may be called 47 upon today, tomorrow, next week or the week after.

Let us look at the situation in B.A.O.R. In 1955, the Government undertook to keep four divisions or the equivalent in B.A.O.R. until the end of this century. Within a year or two it had cut this commitment, after a great deal of arm-twisting of allies, to three divisions of two brigade groups and one of three brigades. I hope that some Minister in the course of his speech will either confirm or deny the rumour that the Government are planning to withdraw the third brigade from the division which contains three brigades, in spite of the fall in the number of effectives in the Rhine Army as a consequence.

Although we persuaded our allies in N.A.T.O. to agree to reduce our commitment to 55,000, we have still not achieved even that level. The situation is even worse than that because the shortages of manpower are, in the main, in vital technical arms. We have equipment which, on the whole, is inferior not only to that of our allies, the United States and Germany, but, much more important, to the enemies we may have to face in the field. The Government themselves admit in their Defence White Paper that it will be at least eighteen months before the Rhine Army has the strength in Signals that it requires in order to fulfil the rôle allotted to it by Her Majesty's Government.

The result is that the British Government have been compelled to adopt a strategic doctrine at variance with the doctrine of the alliance as a whole, so that the Rhine Army is compelled to fight on assumptions denied by the troops standing on its flanks. A few months ago the British Deputy Supreme Allied Commander at S.H.A.P.E. was saying that the Rhine Army must alter its dependence on nuclear weapons to come into line with General Norstad's policy of using conventional weapons first and nuclear weapons last in the event of a war in Europe, and the same week the British Corps Commander who was responsible for last year's exercise in Germany was saying, We are training for a nuclear war in Europe". Why is it that this has happened? How is it possible, despite the calibre of the 48 men who serve us, and an expenditure of £18,000 million, that after twelve years our defences are so gravely weak in Europe and overseas? The reason is that for twelve years we have been attempting to do more than our resources could manage and in the process we have been gravely weakening ourselves. We have, in a sense, been trying to do two things at the same time. First, we have sought to be a nuclear Power matching missile with missile and anti-missile with anti-missile, and with large—I am not suggesting that economies have not been made—conventional forces in the Far East, the Middle East and the Atlantic at the same time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd January, 1958; Vol. 580, c. 1295.] I am glad to see that the Minister of Defence recalls those words. They were words used by him during the spasm of realism which he showed when he resigned from the Government in disgust five years ago. It was one spasm of reality, and what a contrast it made with the unctuous inanity which characterised most of his speech on defence policy this afternoon.

The reason is very simple and the answer to this problem is not to be found in changing the organisation of the officials who give advice to the Ministers, although this could help. The reason for this failure is that there has been no effective political direction of our defence policy from the top. The Government have usually avoided decisions altogether. When they have taken them, they have usually taken the wrong ones, so they have been compelled to take new decisions within a year or two, and, above all, they have tended to use slogans as a substitute for policy. Indeed, the Government at all stages have shown hair-raising irresponsibility in the way in which they have presented defence policy to the House and the nation.

Let us take the two central elements in our defence policy—manpower and deterrents. In 1957 the Chiefs of Staff gave advice to the Minister of Defence at the time. They said that we should need 200,000 men as the minimum to carry out our commitments. They said that we could only hope to recruit 165,000 men by voluntary service up to 1963. The Minister of Defence at the time—I regret that he is not here this afternoon to listen to the debate; it is rather like Hamlet without the grave-digger—insisted on presenting the figure of the maximum which 49 could be recruited by voluntary means as the minimum we should require to fulfil our commitments, eliciting a comment from the Chief of the Imperial General Staff at the time, which I regret that Parliamentary rule will not allow me to repeat in the House. What has happened since then? In 1962, recruiting went well—I give credit to the Government on this, one of its few achievements in the defence field—but the Minister himself suddenly decided that we needed 170,000 men as the minimum to fulfil our commitments. In 1963, without a word of explanation, buried away in the Appendix in the Defence White Paper, was the decision by the Government to allow recruiting to rise to 180,000 men. Why? Has there been some major increase in our commitments since 1957? Of course, there has not. Our commitments, in fact, are very much lower than they were then. The reason is, as we all know, that the Government think now that they can recruit 180,000 men, so they are prepared to tell the House that we really needed 180,000 men all the time. [An HON. MEMBER: "Unemployment."] Let us take a look at the deterrent problem.

In 1957 the Government wanted a virility symbol to compensate for the exposure of its military impotence at Suez. So the Secretary of State for Defence at the time decided to give first priority in our defence programme and expenditure to an independent British deterrent based on the missile called Blue Streak. He told us at that time that the end of the manned bomber was in sight. He said that Blue Streak would give us an independent British deterrent, and in the following year we spent £300 million on Blue Streak.

In 1960 the Government decided that Blue Streak was no good. Suddenly, the Minister of Defence decided that, in fact, the manned bomber had a very long future, always provided that we bought some Skybolts from the Americans. It was suggested to him at the time that perhaps the Polaris submarine represented a much more effective deterrent with a longer life, but the Minister of Defence said that the Polaris submarine was no good because there was every reason to believe that it would be detectable under seas by the time it came into effective service. 50 He got the argument completely out of his own head; nobody in the Admiralty had any reason to believe there was any truth in it. It simply suited his book to tell this to the House of Commons.

Hon. and right hon. Members opposite swallowed this with the same inert complacency that they had swallowed every volte face in defence policy over the past eleven years. If we are to buy the essential component in a defence policy from the Americans, we can hardly call it an independent deterrent so we have called it "an independent contribution to the Western deterrent", although now and again the former Secretary of State for Air, who is now Minister of Civil Aviation, forgets himself and continues to refer to Britain's independent deterrent.

In 1963 the Skybolt project fell into trouble and although the American President offered Skybolt to the British Government at Nassau on most generous terms—50 per cent. of the total cost—the Prime Minister, at some time while over the mid-Atlantic, between getting into the aeroplane in London and getting out of it in the Bahamas, decided that Skybolt was no good anyway and that the detectable submarine Polaris was the real answer to the problem. Now we are committed by the Nassau Agreement to buy four or five Polaris submarines, one of which will always be in dock and the others, in a crisis, will be lurking around in easily identified and restricted areas in inland waterways, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Baltic and the Barents Sea because their missiles cannot reach Soviet targets if they are put anywhere else.

The question is now can we call this "an independent deterrent" or an "independent contribution to the deterrent." The United States President told us at Nassau that this must be an integral part of the N.A.T.O. collective forces. After all, we are to get all the missiles from the United States and an effective third of the submarines from the United States as well. But the British Prime Minister at Nassau took a different view and he is reported as making clear that except where Her Majesty's Government may decide that supreme national interests are at stake, these forces will be used for the purpose of the international defence of the Western Alliance in all circumstances. 51 Not surprisingly, the fact that the right to withdraw the Polaris force from the collective N.A.T.O. force was asserted by the British Prime Minister—without any indication whether or not the American President agreed with him—led to some concern among hon. Members on the benches opposite. Members of the Defence Committee of the Conservative Parliamentary Party went to see the Minister in the middle of the Recess—an almost unprecedented act. He did not come out very well on that occasion. He is reported in the Daily Express as saying at the next meeting of the Conservative Defence Committee: I made a mess of it last time I met you. I am worried about the party's opinion. I tried hard last week but this is a difficult job and I am learning the hard way. I dare say that we did not get the full report of what the right hon. Gentleman told them at that second meeting of the Defence Committee. But we were all agog to find out whether we had an independent deterrent as a result of the Bahamas meeting and when we had a defence debate in Parliament a few weeks ago we thought that here, at last, was an opportunity for the Minister of Defence to lay it on the line and make really clear what was the situation. I think it worth while reminding the House what the right hon. Gentleman told us on that occasion. These are his actual words: So far, I have dealt with the British deterrent. Independence is important, but interdependence matters, too. He added: As I have said"— here the right hon. Gentleman went rather philosophical, as he did earlier this afternoon— these are great issues. Some of my hon. Friends think that interdependence is so desirable and so attainable that we should abandon independence now. It is a very big question. The right hon. Gentleman went on, because he is very fair in balancing things when trying to deal with a serious problem of this nature: There are others who think that interdependence is so uncertain and so distant that we can trust no ally and that we must make every nut and bolt of any deterrent ourselves. First, the right hon. Gentleman set the scene. Now we are to find out what he really thinks about it. He went on: 52 I ask the House to imagine the possibility that we are somewhere on the hard road between those two schools of thought. Then, delving even deeper into the broad philosophic approach, he said: The political institutions for the new world are not yet devised. Perhaps even the moral stature of the world has not yet reached that stage. Sovereignty is still a feature of national life. We still might find ourselves alone and, therefore, the case we argue is"— here it comes, clean like a dividing spear— that we must keep our independence but share our work with friends and contribute its products to our allies".—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 31st January, 1963; Vol. 670, c. 1164–5.] This is not Mr. David Frost speaking, or Mr. Lance Perceval. This is the British Minister of Defence, trying to justify to the House the expenditure of £400 million. It is absolutely typical of the dishonest, misleading, equivocal way in which this Minister of Defence and his predecessors have dealt with every major issue of defence policy in the last eleven years.

It is easy to attribute the chaos for our defence policy to the fact that we have had so many Defence Ministers over the last twelve years. We have had nine. Some have been appalling and some have been good. The noble Lord, Lord Head, was a good Defence Minister. But he could not stomach his position under the present Prime Minister and so he resigned and passed the responsibility over to the right hon. Gentleman who held that office in 1957. The plain fact is—I think this emerged clearly from what was said by the Minister of Defence this afternoon—in one sense we have had nine Defence Ministers in the last twelve years. In another sense we have had none at all, because we have never had a Minister who has taken the necessary decisions and seen to it that the three Services carried them out.

Moreover, we have never had a Minister of Defence who was master in his own house. Not only have his three Service Ministers been free to do more or less as they liked, but the Prime Minister has insisted on taking the central decisions himself. And let us remember that the Prime Minister has been there for the last six years continuously.

The tragedy about the Prime Minister—I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not present this afternoon; I 53 should have thought this an important enough occasion to justify his presence—is that although the right hon. Gentleman served in the Forces and was at the Ministry of Defence, he does not take defence seriously. This has emerged again and again during his tenure of office. He told us, "There ain't gonna be no war"—"Its all got up by the papers". These casual, offhand remarks portrays his attitude to the whole problem. He is not interested in defence policy. He is simply interested in wriggling through the series of political crises with which he finds himself faced from time to time. Every time there is a crisis in the 1922 Committee we get a new statement of defence policy. It is the most expensive public relations exercise in British history. The extraordinary thing is that it is directed simply at a dozen hon. Members on the back benches opposite. It has cost us £18,000 million over the last twelve years.

The nadir of this situation was reached in the defence "Blank Paper" with which we were presented last week. The taxpayers are being asked to pay the highest defence budget in British history. The increase over last year is £116 million, with no policy whatever put before Parliament or the people to explain or to justify the expenditure. There are 200 words of platitudinous nonsense at the beginning and that is the lot.

The Minister of Defence claims that, after all, we issued the "Next Five Years" defence policy statement last year, so why do it again? I will tell the right hon. Gentleman why we should do it again—because the situation has changed fundamentally since last year. The Skybolt project has collapsed with a tremendous reduction in the rôle of the Royal Air Force. But there is no reflection of that in the Defence White Paper. On the other hand the Polaris submarine project is in, at a likely cost of £400 million to the Royal Navy over the next ten years. But apart from a reference to the expenditure of perhaps a million or so next year, there is no indication of that whatever in this year's White Paper. The major decision of policy so far as the Army is concerned—the right of the Army to recruit up to 180,000 men—is put before us, contradicting what was said last year, 54 with not a word of political explanation as to how or why it is possible.

§ The Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Profumo)

Will the hon. Gentleman say what was said last year?

§ Mr. Healey

Last year the Minister said that they were permitted to recruit up to 170,000.

§ Mr. Profumo

That is not true. I did not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. But I think he had better look at the facts. We have never mentioned a ceiling for the Army.

§ Mr. Wigg

Before my hon. Friend replies to the Secretary of State for War, will he ask the right hon. Gentleman to look at the Defence Estimate for 1959 where the figure of 180,000 is specifically mentioned?

§ Mr. Healey

In addition to the fact that these major changes, which surely are implied by the failure of the Government's policy last year or its new policy this year, are not reflected at all in the Statement on Defence for 1963, we have what the right hon. Gentleman has described as a formidable programme for equipment. What we want is some formidable equipment, not a formidable programme. The plain fact is that this Statement on Defence is—as year after year such statements have been—largely a catalogue of "pie in the sky", of weapons which do not exist, whose prototypes do not exist, which are not operational and, so far as we know, may never be.

There is one novelty about this year's Defence White Paper, and that is the reference in the Navy Estimates to a cruiser which disappears even as we look at the Estimates. One of the three modern and versatile cruisers referred to in this year's Defence White Paper is H.M.S. "Blake". The hull, I believe, was laid down in 1940. The vessel was re-equipped at a cost of £15 million, and has just had its crew provided and captain appointed. Last Thursday we heard that it is to be put into "moth balls" in June.

Worst of all and the most staggering deception in the history of Defence White Papers is what has happened in the last twelve months about the TSR2. The TSR2 was presented to us in last year's Defence White Paper as a tactical weapon. It turns up in this year's Defence White 55 Paper as a strategic weapon. No wonder that the Minister of Defence was so coy about discussing its range when he was questioned during his speech by my hon. Friends. The only ground whatever for believing that the TSR2 is a strategic rather than a tactical weapon is the reference to the wonder bomb developed with the Buccaneer and now transferred to the TSR2.

It is difficult to discuss wonder bombs when we know nothing more about them, but it looks as though this is a powered artillery shell which will increase the range of the TSR2 by—at the outside—ten miles. It cannot possibly be presented as in any sense turning the TSR2 from a tactical to a strategic weapon. We do not know if the TSR2 will exist. It has not even flown yet. What we do know is that if it does and if these bombs are based on the TSR2 it will cost about £400 million to make such a system fully effective.

This is not reflected in any way in the Defence White Paper. Are the Government telling us that we are to spend £400 million on the Polaris deterrent and £400 million on the TSR2? If so, where is the money to come from? Are we to increase the percentage of the national product which we spend on defence or cut still further the equipment of our conventional forces, which many of us on this side of the House regard as infinitely more important than the attempt to maintain an independent deterrent?

Many will echo the question asked by so many defence correspondents in commenting on the White Paper, is it perhaps the case that reference to the TSR2 as a strategic weapon is another attempt by the Government to gull their back benchers by misleading and dishonest statements about the capability of weapons? I think that at some stage in the debate the Minister of Defence, or one of his spokesmen, should tell us what it implies. It is unbelievable that the Minister should not have referred to or explained all this in his speech. Are we to spend a colossal amount of money to make the TSR2 an effective strategic weapon and, if so, is there any chance whatever that we shall succeed?

I suspect that the answer to both those questions is no. I suspect that the 56 Government know it but are so frightened of a handful of back benchers on the Government side that they are not prepared to admit it in the Estimates this year. This would be funny if it were not tragic, but it is a tragic business. It is tragic for everyone in the country because it takes from six to nine years to implement a defence policy. As the Minister of Defence knows very well, he and the nation as a whole are paying now for bad decisions taken by the right hon. Gentleman who was Minister of Defence in 1957. It will be we on this side of the House and the nation as a whole who will pay over the next five, six, or maybe nine years for the total vacuum in defence policy into which this Government have finally come to rest in 1963.

What we believe is that it is vitally urgent to get this defence problem straight, to take the decisions on policy and weapons which will enable our forces to fulfil their proper rôle. I believe that there are a few simple principles which are of decisive importance and which so far the Government have consistently ignored. The first one, which the right hon. Gentleman came near to admitting in his speech, is that defence policy must be the servant and not the master of foreign policy and colonial policy. I confess that the Government and successive Ministers of Defence have been in difficulty here because the Government's foreign policy has been as inconsistent as their defence policy.

Over the last ten years they have been consistently unable to decide whether their future lay with Europe in the Common Market, and therefore had to curry favour with Dr. Adenauer and President de Gaulle, or whether their future lay in developing N.A.T.O. into a genuine Atlantic community. It is absolutely typical of the Government's behaviour that they should have made the Nassau Agreement a few days before the crucial talks in Brussels without attempting to acquaint General de Gaulle with decisions being made between the Prime Minister and President Kennedy at Nassau.

The Government have been equally incapable of deciding whether they wanted to disengage from Africa and Asia or to maintain their imperial heritage, or whether they wanted to stop the spread of atomic weapons or lead in a small 57 Power atomic arms race. What I want to do is to try to answer the fundamental questions of policy which must decide the shape of our defence forces. They are questions which, to be fair, the right hon. Gentleman himself asked. First, how do we ensure our survival as a nation? Secondly, how do we protect our interests overseas, interests which are less than vital? It seems that on the question of our survival as a nation there is a fair amount of common ground between the two sides of the House as to what the main threats are.

The major threat lies in the continuation of the arms race itself. This was frankly admitted by the right hon. Gentleman who was Minister of Defence in 1957, who had some glowing paragraphs about the importance of disarmament. But, if we want to stop the arms race, we have to decide what the first steps are to be and how the defence policy will contribute to them. There can be no question of what they are. The first is to stop the arms race between the great Powers, America and Russia, and the second is to stop the spread of atomic weapons to small Powers. Our defence policy must be compatible with those two basic aims.

§ Mr. John Biggs-Davison (Chigwell)

Will the hon. Member explain what he would do?

§ Mr. Healey

I am going to explain exactly, and I am glad that the hon. Member appears ready to listen. Until disarmament is achieved, our national survival depends on our membership of N.A.T.O. I do not think the Minister of Defence, or his hon. Friends—or most of them—would contest that. It also depends on N.A.T.O.'s ability, on the one hand, to deter war in Europe, and, on the other, to halt it without race suicide if deterrence should fail. Surely one major fact stands out a mile. It is that the American thermonuclear capacity for deterring aggression is infinitely more than sufficient for its rôle. For most of this decade the United States will have 700 B.52 bombers and supersonic B.58 bombers, many A.3 Js, which are supersonic carrier-based bombers, several hundred Atlas and Titan based missiles, 950 Minutemen and 656 Polaris missiles. A single B.52 with a 20 megaton bomb 58 could cause more destruction to the Soviet Union than the whole of the allied air forces caused to Germany during World War II. It is ludicrous in the face of this American capacity to talk about any need for a contribution from America's allies in this field, but I do not deny that there is a serious—

§ Mr. Stephen Hastings (Mid-Bedfordshire)

I must have misunderstood the hon. Member. Is not this great American armament what he is seeking to get rid of by his first objective of disarmament?

§ Mr. Healey

I rather welcome this type of interjection because it reveals the intellectual incapacity, or lack of imagination—those are the only conceivable phrases to use—of hon. Members opposite. Of course we are seeking to get rid of these armaments, but only on condition that the Russians get rid of their armaments and in conditions which will enable us to look forward to a secure peace under some sort of international control.

There is a serious political problem, nevertheless. I feel that the military capacity of the United States is more than enough for every potential need, but there is the fact that our ability to rely on the United States using this capacity in any case of conflict is liable to be reduced if the result of using this capacity is 100 million or 200 million deaths in the United States itself.

The fact that the Soviet Union now has a large and invulnerable second strike retaliatory capacity of its own makes the old Dulles doctrine of massive retaliation far less credible than it used to be. My own opinion is that many fears of the declining credibility of the American deterrent are grossly exaggerated, and half the time, of course, Ministers in the present Government say that they are exaggerated. It is very doubtful whether Russia will risk challenging this capacity even if the risk of its being used is as low as, say, 5 per cent., particularly after Russia's experience in Korea, when she seemed to be given the green light by the United States to permit the North Korean invasion and then America hit back with almost everything she had.

The trouble is that none of America's allies is likely to remain content with the situation if the credibility of America's 59 assistance in case of conflict has sunk as low as 5 per cent. The problem is not a military problem or a problem of hardware; it is a political problem, a problem of psychology and a problem which has lain at the root of the trouble of the Atlantic Alliance for at least the last six or seven years. We on our side of the House believe that there are two lines along which this problem can be met. In the first place, we believe—and I gather that the right hon. Gentleman agreed with us here—that what is most needed is more co-operation and information for the European allies in the organisation and planning of the United States European nuclear forces. This, I understood, was agreed at the Athens meeting of the N.A.T.O. Council, among others, by Ministers sitting opposite.

I do not believe that the answer to this problem is a multilateral force under American veto, such as seems to be under discussion at the present time at meetings with Mr. Livingston Merchant on the Continent, because this would not add in any way to the deterrent capacity of the Western Alliance, although it might in some ways assist the American balance of payments. But I equally believe that there is no answer in having a lot of allied national nuclear forces which can be withdrawn from collective use in the case of an emergency, because I believe that this would both undermine the solidarity of the alliance in a most fatal way and greatly increase the risk of war.

It seems to me that the only answer on the military field is to bring America's allies into much more intimate consultation in the organisation of America's nuclear forces and the use to which they will be put. In return for America giving us a greater share in the control of her nuclear force, we on our side of the Atlantic must be prepared to reduce America's liability to use her nuclear forces by raising the threshold at which N.A.T.O. is compelled to use atomic weapons in response to a conventional attack and also by withdrawing atomic weapons back from the front where their use would be inevitable in any conflict. This has been American policy since the change of Government in Washington over two years ago and, as far as I can understand ti, it has been N.A.T.O.'s policy, too, over the last two years.

60 Personally, I tend to feel that American defence officials exaggerate the size of the conventional forces which would be required to deter or suppress a local conflict in Central Europe. But I ask the Government, if N.A.T.O., for reasons of pure collective self-interest, decided to adopt a non-nuclear policy and to redeploy its atomic weapons in order to make this possible, is there not everything in the world to be said for trying to make such unilateral action bilateral through negotiating an agreement with the Warsaw Pact Powers to control arms and forces on both sides of the Iron Curtain?

This is an idea which was put forward by the Prime Minister several years ago when he met the Soviet Head of Government in Moscow. It is an idea which has been put forward by General Norstad—the idea of limiting and controlling arms and forces on both sides. One variant of it has been put forward by the Polish Foreign Minister, Rapacki. Why do not the Government now take this question up again? I can understand that while they were trying to overcome resistance in Bonn and Paris to our entry into the Common Market, they played it down, but this inhibition should have disappeared by now, and thinking in this field in Germany is changing very rapidly.

Why do not the Government respond to the Soviet offer of a non-aggression pact between N.A.T.O. and the Warsaw Pact by saying that this is something about which we can negotiate but let us make it meaningful by tying to it an attempt to control and to reduce forces on both sides of the iron curtain, so that the whole thing makes sense? I believe that if we took an initiative on these lines there would at least at the moment be a great opportunity of getting a response in Washington as well as in Moscow. I believe that it would help to solve our most serious military problem in Central Europe by ruling out the possibility of a massive surprise attack and I believe, furthermore, that it would provide an invaluable pilot project for general disarmament.

The reason that the Government have taken no initiative in this field, I am afraid, is their obsession with the question of the British nuclear deterrent. 61 I ask the Government—it is not too late—to reconsider their attitude here. It is clear that they will never have an independent deterrent now, whether they like it or not. Why on earth do they not admit this and revise the rest of their policy accordingly? It is no good the Prime Minister saying, as he said in the last debate, "We are satellites if we do not have our own deterrent." Are the Germans satellites if they do not have their own deterrent? Are the Italians satellites if they do not have their own deterrent? Are the Turks satellites if they do not have their own deterrent? And yet if they have their own deterrent, how long does anyone think the Western Alliance will last?

Moreover, as long as we continue to chase after the will-o'-the-wisp of nuclear independence we shall never be able to afford the equipment required for a conventional strategy in Central Europe and, therefore, any form of arms control with the Russians will be out of the question.

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I want to make sure that I have this right. I understand that he is against the N.A.T.O. nuclear deterrent, he is in favour of taking tactical nuclear weapons away from the front line altogether and he would abandon Polaris. Am I right about that?

§ Mr. Healey

The right hon. Gentleman is right on the last two points, and as for the N.A.T.O. deterrent, it all depends on what is meant by that. If the right hon. Gentleman means the type of joint consultation and planning which he endorsed in his own speech and which was agreed at the Athens meeting of the N.A.T.O. Council, I am solidly in favour of that. If he means the proliferation of independent national forces, then I am solidly against that. If he means a multilateral national force still subject to the American veto, then I can see no military or political function which it could possibly perform.

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

I want to get this absolutely straight. The hon. Gentleman would withdraw our offer to assign the V-bombers to N.A.T.O.?

§ Mr. Healey

No. Possibly the best answer to the problem of our obsolescent V-bombers is for their remaining life to assign them to the alliance nuclear force 62 and let them be completely integrated with the S.A.C. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not seen fit to make this offer.

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

They are integrated into that force.

§ Mr. Healey

They are not fully integrated, for we retain the right to withdraw them at any time. We can withdraw them not only in a major national emergency but even to take them to Brunei if we wish to do so.

§ Mr. Thorneycroft

Do I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that the only circumstances in which he would never use them would be in our own defence?

§ Mr. Healey

I tell the right hon. Gentleman—and this has been stated often from these benches and it is a view widely held on both sides of the House, outside the House and throughout N.A.T.O.—that it is impossible to conceive a situation in which Britain would be threatened alone with massive nuclear attack by the Soviet Union and would even be given time to operate her deterrent in her own defence. If the Prime Minister is seriously suggesting that he is spending £800 million to prepare against every eventuality, I suggest that he goes and looks for another job. If there is one thing one cannot do in defence it is to prepare for every conceivable thing which any lunatic anywhere in the world might ever do.

§ Mr. Healey

I must get on. I appreciate the honour which hon. Members opposite do me in taking our defence policy a great deal more seriously than they take that of the Government. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), and his hon. Friends will have ample opportunity of asking these sort of questions in about a year's time. They will be able to ask them twice a week for an hour.

In my opinion—and this view is widely held by people who have thought about defence, including hon. Members opposite and independent experts—the Government's determination to maintain the fiction of an independent British deterrent is undermining the solidarity of N.A.T.O. and is thereby producing just the dangers against which it seeks to guard. It 63 decreases America's readiness to trust in Europe and European readiness to trust in the United States.

§ Sir Cyril Osborne (Louth)

Far too long.

§ Mr. Healey

I know that my speech may be too long for some hon. Members opposite. It would be much better if some of them would contain themselves while I am speaking. It is criminal for the Government to undermine N.A.T.O. in this way, now of all times, when the collapse of the Brussels negotiations has meant that N.A.T.O. is the only instrument by which we can hope to bind Western Germany to the West and prevent the whole of Western Europe coming under the spell of the disastrous doctrines of General de Gaulle.

I will conclude with a word or two about the general principles which the Minister referred to in the latter part of his speech; the question of integration. All of us have agreed in principle for years that we need far closer integration among our Services than we have now. I urge the Minister to remember that there is no institutional gimmick which will achieve this. Integration does not mean dividing the Defence Estimates into roughly three equal sizes and combining them together in the same cover, as the Government have done this year—as an indication, they say, of their devotion to the idea of integration.

Integration does not even mean housing the defence staffs under the same roof like the Pentagon, although we were intrigued by the Minister's suggestions in that respect and some of what he said might be helpful. The United States had this type of integration for years, yet the "civil war" between the three American Services was more savage than the civil war between our own. That civil war went on until something happened—and what happened was that for the first time in their history the United States found a man, a Secretary for Defence, who was prepared to knock the heads of the Services and their arms suppliers together. I refer, of course, to Mr. McNamara.

Such integration as there has been in the United States has resulted from clear political direction from the top, and that is the only way in which we will get in- 64 tegration in this country. There is no answer in setting up a Parliamentary Defence Committee or a Royal Commission on defence. You will not solve defence policy problems in that way, although both of them may have a rôle to play if we have a rational defence policy. The plain answer is that there is no substitute for decisions at the top by the elected representatives of the British people. The only answer to our defence problems is firm decisions by the Prime Minister on the task which our forces must perform in supporting our foreign policy and firm decisions by the Minister of Defence on how the Services should work together to provide relevant and efficient forces.

The trouble is that our defence policy has failed over the last twelve years because these decisions have not been made, either in No. 10 Downing Street or in Storey's Gate. The Government have now reached an advanced stage of general paralysis. It was evident from the Minister's speech today that the Government no longer have the will or the power to take decisions. It is said that a chicken can stagger about for quite a time after its head has been chopped off. This Government is no longer capable of any form of life, except this macabre illusion of vitality. I suggest that the morale of our Armed Forces, the security of our nation and the survival of our alliances demand that they now resign.

§ Brigadier Sir John Smyth (Norwood)

I should like to begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) on his appointment as Shadow Minister of Defence, although I was disappointed with his speech. It was a long speech and, while he was speaking, I recalled that he had been in the forces for a considerable time. He would have done far better to have spent more of his time being constructive about the Armed Forces instead of devoting half his speech to political party cracks which really wasted the time of the House.

I had the horrid feeling while he was speaking that the hon. Member was taking the line that he was God's gift to the world on everything to do with defence, for he repeatedly said things like, "This is the only answer" and "This is the answer to this" and "This is the answer 65 to that". Defence is not as easy as that. It is not an exact science about which the hon. Member for Leeds, East has all the answers. I apologise if I have misjudged him, but I must tell him that he gave us the impression that he knew all the answers and was announcing what he was going to do about America and Russia and how he intended to bring them together.

§ Sir J. Smyth

Defence is a much more difficult problem. I must refer, firstly, to my right hon. Friend's speech, for it was an extremely important one on some subjects of lasting effect and interest. He began by referring to the success of the recruiting campaign, and I believe that all hon. Members would wish to congratulate the Government, particularly the Secretary of State for War, on that success. I am sure equally that a number of hon. Members have done much to achieve that success, and the hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) has done a lot in this direction. However, the ordinary soldier in the ranks is probably our best recruiting officer. If he does not speak well of his Service we may be sure that a lot of people who have joined would not have done so.

The hon. Member for Leeds, East paid a generous tribute to the excellence of the men in the forces. They were, he said, alert and efficient, but, unfortunately, he then went on to say that almost everything was wrong with the forces. In my experience one does not get alert, efficient, capable men in a show which is as inefficient as he tried to make it out to be.

My right hon. Friend's approach to the central organisation of defence was admirable. He threw it into the pool of discussion and we shall have an opportunity of full debate upon it. This is not a new idea. Thirty years ago Sir Ian Jacob and I were discussing it together at the Staff college. Many people have talked about it but few people have ever gone much further with it. My right hon. Friend has taken a step further and I congratulate him on not overdoing it and on not trying to integrate the actual men in the forces but keeping them as essential separate units. This is very important, particularly in our long service 66 voluntary defence force. It was always of importance to us and was also of the greatest importance to the Indian Army which in two world wars has been the greatest voluntary defence force in the world.

The hon. Member for Leeds, East and others have criticised the fact that the policy statement which was announced in last year's White Paper was not included at the beginning of the Statement this year, despite the fact that we had a memorandum on the Nassau Agreement and we had a long debate on it on 30th and 31st January. It is a matter of opinion whether this should have been done, but certainly the Minister has made our defence policy absolutely clear to the House and to the country. The party opposite may not agree with it but the policy has been debated time and time again and I am certain that it is absolutely clear to the country at large. I agree with repetition and with the Government policy. Therefore, I should have liked to have seen a condensed edition of last year's White Paper placed at the beginning and introducing this year's Statement on Defence.

The expenditure, of course, is tremendous and we must watch it very carefully. It is now 7 per cent. of the gross national product, but when the Labour Party went out of office it was between 9 per cent. and 10 per cent., which was a great deal too much. It is extremely important that the cost of the nuclear deterrent should be kept to 10 per cent. of the whole budget.

§ Mr. Wigg

I have never heard the right hon. and gallant Member make a more unfair statement than that. He knows perfectly well that the Labour Government went out of office at the time of the Korean War and he and his right hon. Friends were criticising and pressing the Labour Government not because they were spending too much but because they were not spending enough. For the right hon. and gallant Member to compare the ratio of expenditure now with that at the time of the Korean War is utterly unfair.

§ Sir J. Smyth

The hon. Member is quite wrong over this. We, of course, supported the Government in power, as we always do over things of great national 67 importance. We supported the Government when they undertook, as they had to do, an increase and a re-organisation of the Armed Forces.

§ Sir J. Smyth

I cannot keep on giving way in the circumstances. I am answering the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). As soon as we came to power we started to reduce that three-year budget which the Labour Party had introduced in 1950–51, because we thought that it would lead to too great expenditure. Anyway, 9 per cent. of the gross national product is too much.

§ Mr. S. Silverman

I wished to intervene only on a point of fact, and I know that the right hon. and gallant Member would not wish to get his facts wrong. I happen to have been one of the half-dozen people who were opposed to the Labour Government in 1950 when they raised the armament expenditure as a result of the Korean War. I am not defending or supporting that now, but I remember very well that I was persuaded not to vote against it because the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) put down a Motion of censure on the Labour Government at that time. His ground was, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has just said, that the Labour Government were not spending enough, and as I could not vote for that I had to vote for the Labour Government.

§ Sir J. Smyth

I must get on with my speech, but I think that we would all agree that the expenditure this year is very heavy and that we must watch it continually or we may lose the cold war on the economic front.

The hon. Member for Leeds, East made a great deal of heavy weather about the independent deterrent. If the hon. Member wants to read a very good statement on it he will find it in what is in my opinion the best speech ever made on the subject from the Front Bench opposite. This was Mr. Gaitskell's speech on defence on 1st March, 1960. He deprecated very much our excessive dependence on the United States. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will re-read that speech. I have read it again over 68 the weekend. It was a most excellent speech.

§ Mr. Gordon Walker

The right hon. and gallant Member will have read the whole of the speech, which included very powerful arguments against as well as for an independent deterrent. Mr. Gaitskell set the arguments out for and against at that time.

§ Sir J. Smyth

As the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned it, I should like to recall to the House what Mr. Gaitskell said: The real case for our having our own independent nuclear weapons is fear of excessive dependence upon the United States … if we got into the situation—it may be very hypothetical, but one has to consider these things—in which we had had a little difficulty with the Americans, and the Russians were threatening us over some issue about which we felt strongly, I cannot help feeling that if the Russians knew that we had the power to inflict fairly serious damage on them it would be a factor that they would take into account."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st March, 1960; Vol. 618, c. 1136–8.] There is a great deal more and I suggest that the right hon. Member for Smethwick should re-read it. He may have forgotten some of it.

§ Mr. Gordon Walker

I remember it very well.

§ Sir J. Smyth

Some people, and particularly the hon. Member for Leeds, East, decry the effectiveness of our V-bomber force. I do not think that many people would agree with the hon. Member for Leeds, East, and I remember only a year or two ago the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker), who is not now in his place, saying what a powerful force we had in the V-bombers. He said at Bristol: If the Royal Air Force got an order tonight to launch a sudden attack against Russia they could lay the country waste from end to end. No one wants to lay the country waste from end to end, but this is a deterrent and it is the deterrent effect that is so important.

Now I want to say something about N.A.T.O. We have committed about half of our defence forces to N.A.T.O. and we really know little