DEFENCE

§ Mr. Speaker

Yesterday I was able to call only 15 Back Benchers. One speech lasted for 38 minutes, which certainly cut out at least two other hon. Members. There are at least 25 hon. Members who wish to speak today. I hope that no one will approach the Chair today, because it is much too difficult for me to deal with inquiries of that sort and to do justice by the House. It is also much more unpleasant for me.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy (Mr. A. E. P. Duffy)

In opening the second day's debate on the Defence Estimates 1979, I refer to the speech yesterday by the hon. and learned Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck). His reappearance at the Dispatch Box last night must have brought pleasure to hon. Members on both sides of the House. He certainly addressed himself to his subject with all the composure and authority that the House would expect from a former Minister.

I shall take up a couple of his points arising from yesterday's debate. He asked for a cost of living allowance to be paid 275 to sailors visiting expensive foreign countries. I regret that I can tell him only that the question of sea-going local overseas allowance for North-West Europe is still being considered.

The hon. and learned Gentleman made a plea for a strong naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Royal Navy deploys world-wide, and our plans for this year have included, for some time, a group visit to Australasia and the Western Pacific, passing through the Mediterranean, where they will take part in a major NATO exercise.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) raised the question of the pay of upholsteresses in the Royal dockyards. I have discussed this matter with him many times. The work that these upholsteresses do is work which elsewhere in the MOD is not regarded as craft work. It is not a question of discrimination; it is purely a question of the nature of the work. The matter is still on the agenda for discussion by the shipbuilding trades joint council, which is responsible for the matter, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will not expect me to go further while it still remains a matter for negotiation. My hon. Friend also asked about the closure of air cadet gliding schools. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force is well aware of the problem and will be writing to my hon. Friend shortly.

I shall now concentrate on some aspects of defence not covered in detail by my right hon. Friend yesterday—the operations and activities of the Armed Forces, including the contribution that they make to the community at large, which is often taken for granted. I should also like to say something about the equipment programme. If our Armed Forces are to play their part in time of tension or war, it is essential for them to test their preparedness for their role. To this end, all three Services attach great importance to taking part in exercises, either under national command or jointly with our allies.

At sea, the largest exercise of the year was "Northern Wedding", one of the most powerful ever held by NATO. It was designed to demonstrate the readiness and effectiveness of the Alliance in 276 conducting maritime, amphibious and air operations and to test NATO's operational techniques.

Later in the year HMS "Ark Royal", in her last appearance in a NATO role, led the United Kingdom contribution to "Display Determination", which took place in the Mediterranean. This exercise, involving land, sea and air forces, was aimed at demonstrating and improving NATO's capability to reinforce her southern flank.

Both these exercises formed part of the autumn "Forge" series of exercises, which linked together NATO and national exercises held throughout Allied Command Europe in the autumn of 1978. Of exercises on land which formed part of the series and in which the United Kingdom participated, I would mention "Bold Guard". Troops of the United Kingdom Mobile Force, including units of the TAVR, took part in this exercise in North Germany which aimed to test external reinforcement of the Baltic Approaches.

Apart from participating in these major NATO exercises, United Kingdom forces, in particular the Royal Marines, regularly exercise each winter in North Norway, together with the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, in order to gain experience of Arctic and mountain warfare in preparation for their operational role in the defence of the northern flank of NATO.

While our defence effort must be concentrated on NATO, we do not intend to neglect the rest of the world. The British record in the training of forces in many parts of the globe is a distinguished one.

Outside the NATO area we have several specific defence commitments that entail the stationing of forces. In Hong Kong, for example, where we are responsible for the colony's defence and security, we have a garrison drawn from all three Services. Our defence commitment to Belize is also represented by all three Services.

In Cyprus a force protects our sovereign base areas and mans the airfield at Akrotiri.

Outside Europe we retain a Gurkha battalion in Brunei and shall continue to do so until 1983. In the Falkland Islands there is a continuing requirement for the 277 Royal Marines detachment to be stationed there and to deploy HMS "Endurance" to the area.

Apart from the specific commitments to which I have just referred, we must be prepared to deploy forces outside the NATO area to meet other responsibilities—for example, for the external defence and internal security of our remaining dependent territories, for United Nations peacekeeping operations and, of course, for the safety of British citizens overseas, where the need arises.

I am sure that at this point the House would wish me to pay a tribute to the efforts of the Services in the recent evacuation from Iran. Their calm efficiency was praised, I believe, by all those who were evacuated.

I should like to mention in particular two areas of operations—Northern Ireland and fishery protection. Nowhere are the high standards of professionalism of the British solder more apparent than in Northern Ireland. The other two Services also provide essential help. The 40 Royal Marine Commando is just beginning a 12-month tour of Ballykelly, while the RAF provides vital mobility. We are now working on plans to introduce another resident battalion as and when suitable accommodation is available.

When I last visited the Province I was impressed by the skill, the determination and the resourcefulness with which the Armed Forces, including the UDR, carry out their exacting and often dangerous task.

Besides Northern Ireland, the other major non-NATO role of the forces is fishery protection. I believe that hon. Members now recognise how successful the arrangements we made to meet the expanded commitment have been in operation. The Island class vessels, with their endurance and seakeeping, have shown themselves capable of meeting the patrolling task in some of the roughest and most inhospitable waters in the world. Our satisfaction is such that we have ordered two more, which will enter service this year.

§ Mr. James Johnson (Kingston-upon Hull, West)

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, speaking at an international conference in Hull last weekend, emphasised 278 that conservation is absolutely vital to our fishing stocks? Skippers at that conference told him that without enforcement conservation policy was a mockery. Would my hon. Friend enlarge on that and tell us what has happened in the last 12 months? Are our skippers justified in believing that they have been looked after?

§ Mr. Duffy

I know that my hon. Friend would not expect me to comment on conservation policy, but I shall gladly inform the House of our success in enforcement. In the 12 months preceding the end of last month, we boarded 1,622 fishing vessels. Twenty-two convictions for fishery offences have followed. An indispensable part of our plan for fishery protection is the part played by RAF Nimrod aircraft and the information that they pass to the Fisheries Department. They have been of immense value in the deployment of the Island class ships and to the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. Scotland, civilian-manned ships which patrol the area to the west of Scotland.

The Island class vessels are also equipped to provide assistance in emergency, having a fire fighting and an oil dispersant spraying capability and a range of communications equipment giving them a control and command facility.

I am mindful of the remarks last night by my hon. Friend the Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright). The Island class vessels and Nimrod patrol aircraft have another, equally important, task to perform, since they also undertake regular surveillance and deterrent patrols of the offshore oil and gas installations around our shores. They represent, therefore, in a very tangible form, the Government's commitment to protect these vital installations.

As well as these continuous tasks, the Services undertake a number of activities on a more ad hoc basis. As the House will be aware, search and rescue operations are carried out by the Services all the year round, but the Services contribute personnel and equipment in other areas such as in snow and flood relief.

§ Mr. Alec Woodall (Hemsworth)

My hon. Friend has mentioned the search and rescue services carried out by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force in perilous seas. Will he also bear in mind 279 the magnificent contribution made by all the Services in bitter weather conditions inland? Is he aware of the magnificent contribution made by RAF Wittering during the recent terrible Arctic conditions? They turned out in a terrible storm and took in 500 people who were trapped in their vehicles, including my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) and me, and gave us food and shelter. We shall be for ever grateful to RAF Wittering.

§ Mr. Duffy

I was going to confine myself to the contribution made by the Services in rescuing personnel and equipment from the snow and floods, but it is right, as my hon. Friend says, that I should remind the House that the work of the Services, especially this winter, on the ground and in the air and often in the most appalling conditions, has extended to providing generous hospitality.

Can the House imagine that any other establishment would have responded so impressively and readily on the night that my hon. Friends the Members for Hems-worth (Mr. Woodall) and Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) and 500 others were marooned? They were invited in and looked after for up to 16 hours. Only a Services establishment such as RAF Wittering could have responsed so magnificently.

The Services also continue as a matter of routine to assist wherever possible in a variety of projects of social value to the community. Typical activities have included land clearance and the preparation of recreational facilities.

I turn to the defence equipment programme. I trust that hon. Members will have seen that we have adopted a new approach to chapter 3 of this year's defence White Paper and I hope that they will find this useful. The right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour), unlike his hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson), obviously did not notice this, since he appeared to have read only two paragraphs. He overlooked the substantial improvements that we are making in the Services' equipment. A sizeable block of resources—some 40 per cent, of the defence budget, or nearly £3,500 million—will be devoted in the coming year to the development or procurement of equipment. Of this, about 90 per cent. 280 goes to United Kingdom industry or to collaborative programmes in which the United Kingdom is involved. Our aim this year has been to show more clearly why this equipment is needed, by relating it to the various roles and tasks of the defence forces, many of which involve more than one Service.

To match the progress made by the Warsaw Pact in the quality and quantity of its weapons, and to keep abreast of advances in technology, we need to apply considerable resources in industry, and in defence research and development establishments, to development. As the hon. Member for Chichester observed, there is over £1,150 million in the Estimates for research and development in 1979–80.

I take one major example from the defence research and development programme, the beginning of project definition of the Chieftain tank replacement, known as MBT 80. Like all major development ventures, the complete development programme will take a number of years to produce a completely new generation of tank.

A special MBT 80 executive has been set up in the Ministry of Defence to carry this project forward with the highest priority in the Army equipment programme. Development is not confined to single-Service projects. For example, we have continually to improve our means of detecting, and acquiring as targets, opposing forces and weapons, whether these be, say, submarines, incoming missiles or armour. Much effort is being devoted, for example, to the development of new sonar devices mounted on ships or deployed from aircraft. I emphasise the extent to which our development programme aims to reap all possible benefit from the revolution in computing and microprocessing. Ever more sophisticated computers are under development for use in avionics systems and homing weapons.

All three Services have development programmes which will harness automatic data processing in such a way as to achieve major advances in command and control in the next decade. The application of ADP to the land battle is foreseen. Developments are in hand at a tactical level to improve computerised shipborne action information and fire control systems and at a strategic level to update 281 the United Kingdom air defence ground facilities.

Developments in these related fields of command, control and communications are increasingly important in the face of the numerical superiority of the Warsaw Pact.

I turn to our production programmes and refer specifically to next year, as against looking 10 years' ahead. I shall indicate some of the main areas in which we shall be spending the Estimates between now and next March.

In the coming year a greater proportion of the equipment programme will be devoted to production of aircraft and associated weapons, including about £750 million on fixed-wing aircraft alone. By far the largest contributor is the Tornado GR Mark 1, where production of the first 150 aircraft for the three partners is well advanced. The first RAF aircraft are due in service next year. Other significant fixed-wing production programmes—besides the large requirement for spares and repairs—include the Sea Harrier and additional RAF Harriers and the Hawk trainer, whilst a principal helicopter programme in collaboration with the French is the Lynx.

About £250 million is to be spent this year in our shipyards on fighting ships. Work will be in progress on six classes of major ships including all three new antisubmarine warfare cruisers; nuclear-powered fleet submarines including the improved Trafalgar class; Type-42 destroyers and Type-22 frigates, of which the first, "Broadsword", was recently accepted, as well as the glass-reinforced plastic advanced mine countermeasures vessels of the Hunt class, of which the first, HMS "Brecon", the world's largest glass-reinforced plastic ship, will enter service this year.

§ Mr. Alan Clark (Plymouth, Sutton)

Has not the cost of the "Broadsword"—the Type 22—only slightly exceeded in some cases the cost of refitting the Leanders? Would it not have been a better bargain to have sold the Leanders off and commissioned a larger construction programme for the Type 22?

§ Mr. Duffy

I shall ask my hon. Friend to take up that matter, which is of importance and which is of interest to me. I 282 should like a considered reply to be given to that question.

Nearly £500 million is earmarked for production this year of guided weapons and associated systems, missiles and torpedoes for the Services, including major programmes for the Skyflash air-to-air missile, the Milan- and Tow anti-tank guided weapons, the Rapier ground-based air defence missile, the Mark 24 heavyweight torpedo and shipborne Sea Dart and Sea Wolf missile systems.

Also there is nearly £500 million to be spent on the production of Army systems and vehicles. If I may pick on just a few items here, the coming year sees the peak of expenditure on equipping the Army with the FH70 gun and the combat engineer tractor; re-equipment with the Clansman radio is in full swing; and there is continuing expenditure on supplying the Army's vehicle fleet.

Those are just some of the major projects on which the Government are spending money this year. The defence equipment programme is specifically aimed at supplying the equipment for our Armed Forces, of course. Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the important benefits that the defence programme brings to the economic life of the country, as the hon. and gallant Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) reminded the House last night.

The reliance of our main contractors on their subcontractors, for example, and of these subcontractors on their own suppliers, and so on, the whole way down the chain, is an important feature of the defence equipment programme. It is therefore worth remembering that the size and complexity of the overall defence equipment programme, along with the industrial structure that supports it, make for a considerable degree of inflexibility in the programme, especially in the short term.

The programme is not something that can simply be cut dramatically or substantially increased overnight. The essence of our equipment programme is that it is a long-term programme with very considerable industrial implications, and, because of this, immediate decreases— and increases—in defence spending on equipment are not sensible courses of action, leading as they must to a less efficient use of resources both by us and within industry. Therefore, I hope that 283 those hon. Gentlemen opposite who sometimes seem to have an addiction to immediate calls for more tanks, missiles, ships or whatever, without any reference to the industrial capabilities available to produce them, or, indeed, the funds, will bear that in mind. I hope they will also bear in mind the judgment of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson)—the Liberal Party spokesman on defence—who declared himself in his own contribution to our debate last night convinced that the Government have got it about right on defence".—[Official Report, 26 March 1979, Vol. 965, c. 115.] So I conclude: we have a programme that continually improves the equipment of all three Services, and hence the balanced contribution that our forces make to NATO; and in achieving that there are incidental but substantial benefits to the wider economy.

I commend to the House the motion of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence.

§ Mr. Geoffrey Pattie (Chertsey and Walton)

It is not unknown for speakers in these debates to compare the dearth of real information in our defence White Papers with the annual United States defence posture statement by the Secretary for Defence. In the very substantial American document, there is at least a recognition that problems and issues exist and that the public might just have a right to know about these matters, bearing in mind that they pay for the bills.

What is particularly interesting in the American system is another, smaller document, described as an overview, by General David C. Jones, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If that feature were translated into our system, there would be quite a scramble to secure copies of the overview of British defence policy written by our own Chief of the Defence Staff. Then we might be allowed to know official views on the issues that confront British defence policy, instead of which we have this little document, the White Paper, which sidesteps every issue with the agility of a Welsh wing three-quarter and is nothing more than a glorified head count and stores check, with occasional chatty descriptions of adventure training, written in the style of the "RAF News".

§ Mr. Alan Lee Williams (Hornchurch)

The hon. Gentleman has just enunciated a very interesting doctrine, that the Chief of the Defence Staff in this country should be able to issue his own assessment. That is a very interesting proposal. Does he have the consent of his right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour) for that proposal?

§ Mr. Pattie

I said that if this American feature were imported into our particular system, it would be extremely interesting—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] In a new context, in the new situation in which we shall find ourselves when we come into office, obviously we shall want to consider that and any other suggestions. We are very glad to know that we shall have the hon. Gentleman's support.

Noting the occasional chatty descriptions of adventure training to which I have referred, I almost expected to turn a page in the White Paper and find some pictures of the squadron mascots, or perhaps of the Secretary of State listening to the sound of distant jet engines, or of the Minister of State swinging from ship to ship by jackstay. But no; the White Paper is a form of annual report on our Armed Forces. If the nationalised industries are anything to go by, the degree of glossiness in their annual reports is in inverse ratio to the amount of information imparted, in which case this White Paper ought to be a lavish production, full of photographs and printed on high quality paper, because it tells us very little indeed.

I have, however, to confess to some sneaking admiration for the authors, because of the considerable skill shown in the writing. It takes great skill to refer to the Polaris strategic system and completely to avoid any mention of the major debate that must commence this year on the replacement of that system—undoubtedly, the major defence decision facing a new Conservative Government. There is not one word about the finite hull life of the submarines or the options that exist for replacement, even though it is widely accepted that a decision has to be made in 1980, one that will have a crucial bearing on the defence policy of the country for the rest of the century and beyond.

§ Dr. Alan Glyn (Windsor and Maidenhead)

I think the Minister said yesterday quite clearly that there was no 285 necessity for a decision since the present system was good until 1990. I wonder whether my hon. Friend would like to comment on that.

§ Mr. Pattie

That is correct. The present system is good until 1990, or perhaps a year or two after that, but the point is that the long lead time with modern systems means that we must have a decision in 1980. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House of that point.

There is no debate in the White Paper; there is no problem at all. Even the Prime Minister said quite recently in this House that a decision would have to be taken in the next two years—but, poor chap, he does not even get a mention. It takes considerable skill to write about the strategic arms limitation agreement without making any mention of the legitimate anxieties of the United Kingdom and other European NATO allies about the non-circumvention clause in the draft protocol. It is of absolutely fundamental importance to us to know whether we shall be able to receive key items of technology from the United States. As far as the White Paper is concerned, that potential problem does not exist.

It takes considerable skill to write about the MBFR talks and other disarmament matters at length without once referring to the so-called "grey areas". True, the Backfire bomber and the SS20 have been mentioned elsewhere, but these systems are not considered in the context of arms control generally. As far as the White Paper is concerned, "grey areas" do not exist and our cities could remain targeted by the SS20.

Considerable skill has also been used to write a White Paper which makes no mention of the cruise missile. So far as the authors are concerned, it might never have been invented. The implications of its use in either nuclear or conventional mode are considerable for this country, but there is not one word about it. No mention is made of the burgeoning foreign exchange costs of keeping our forces in Germany. This is widely recognised as a serious and growing problem which will not conveniently go away, but no attempt is made to address it.

Any White Paper making a proper assessment would address itself to these major problems: Polaris replacement, arms control implications, BAOR costs 286 and, another major issue, the future structure of our Armed Forces. No attempt has been made to consider the fundamental question of relating our military tasks to our future economic capabilities. Are we to go on trying to carry out all tasks, or is there a case for concentrating on certain specified roles? For example, is the Navy to concentrate on antisubmarine warfare and maritime air power, the Army to concentrate on being a light air-portable force and the Royal Air Force to concentrate on air defence and ground support? There is nothing about any of these. There are no factual inaccuracies of which I am aware. It is what is left out that counts. This is, in short, a suppressio veri document. The only part that appears to be fully accurate is the section on Warsaw Pact capability. There may be some significance in that fact.

The long-term development programme is mentioned. It is all very well to list the aims of the long-term development programme as agreed through NATO as though they had happened already, but how about a progress check? How about a situation report to tell the House and the great British public, who are paying for all this, about how it is going? It is listed here as though it can be taken for granted, as though it had already happened.

There is brief mention in the early part of the White Paper of disaster relief. It is mentioned in passing. But a great opportunity has been missed to have a whole section on the peaceful use of military forces. We all know what the peaceful use of military forces means. There are basically three tasks: peacekeeping for the United Nations, disaster relief and military aid to civilian communities in the form of roads, bridges, afforestation and drainage operations, and vocational instruction. On disaster relief, there is urgent need to persuade NATO to set up a standing group which will co-ordinate the resources made available by member States. Everyone calls for this kind of assistance whenever there is a disaster, but it has to be done beforehand. Unfortunately, the White Paper could not even get this right by including it.

One of the most important pieces of truth which has been suppressed is the amount of remedial action which the Government had to take once they realised 287 the consequences of their 1974 cuts. We are reminded that in August 1978 increased manpower was authorised for the Army to the tune of a further 1,900 men, in addition to the 4,000 men authorised previously, but anyone who collects the press release of the Ministry of Defence will have noticed that they were rather more candid than the White Paper has been with the House. The press release dated 15 August 1978 states: The need for this further increase stems from a number of factors. First, it has become clear that the reductions in unit establishments that were implemented as part of the restructuring of the Army have had some adverse effects which were not originally expected. Experience of restructured establishments has shown that units have had some difficulty in meeting all the demands made of them in peacetime. Hon. Members who visited BAOR know that that certainly is the case.

Last night the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army, in a rather curious speech, used some unusual long words, including "schizophrenia". I was interested that he should have used that word because it is fairly obvious that his speech was written by two people, one person writing the beginning and talking about long lead times, and someone else writing the last part and talking about the accelerated implementation of equipment programmes.

The Under-Secretary of State referred to a speech I made in Chicago—I have a copy of it here—in which I said that the introduction of Milan and Tow antitank weapons had been delayed in the face of a rapidly increasing Soviet tank threat. I repeat that. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army said that that could not be true because the Government had accelerated the introduction of these weapons into the Army. He does not seem to be aware that Tow entered service with the United States forces in 1972, the MOU was signed in 1975, evaluation took two years and purchase was released in 1977. That is what I call delay. For Milan the MOU was signed in October 1976. Here we are in 1979. The Minister might well talk about accelerated production—I should hope he would—but that does not in any way refute what I said on that occasion.

No mention is made of another reorganisation which was spoken about a 288 few years ago, the abolition of brigade level of command in Germany. That was a disaster in practice. Moreover, it created vast turbulence for nothing. We heard in earlier White Papers that "Bulwark" would be paid off. "Bulwark" is now back in. We heard some years ago that the 41 Commando battalion was to be disbanded. That is now back in. We heard that Gurkha battalions were to be withdrawn from Brunei; now they are staying. We are delighted by all these changes, but they are evidence of a realisation by the Government that the cuts they made four or five years ago went too far.

We have been told that Sea Harriers are coming in. We are not told why they are continually being ordered in penny packets—one order for 24, an order for 10 and a further order for 10. Would it not be more sensible for industry to have an order for 50 straight off? It does not help industrial planning, to which the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy referred in his speech earlier today.

We are not told whether the Navy is to get its airborne early warning cover now that the Gannets have gone ashore. The Backfire is a very serious threat; our Phantoms cannot get near it. It is no good saying that it has to come down and slow down to release its missiles. That would be relevant only if we were able to keep up with it in the meantime, and we cannot.

We are not told that, although work continues on new systems, such as replacements for it, the Mark VIII torpedo is still used as the main anti-ship weapon by our nuclear hunter-killer submarines and it is more than 50 years old. No mention is made of the Type 24 concept, a first-class idea for developing a new class of ships for export which can be used, if necessary, by the Royal Navy.

We are told about the need to improve productivity in the dockyards, but we are not told that refits are taking 20 per cent, longer and spares are not in overall good supply. Captains are taking their ships to sea with equipment not working rather than risk further delays.

We are told that a new fleet support ship is included in the Estimates, as are two 289 fleet tankers. They are very welcome. We are not told that these were all cut out in the 1974 review and have had to be restored through sheer necessity.

We are told that RFA "Tarbatness" is being converted for amphibious support for the Royal Marine Commando. We arc not told that this is because trials have shown that the 1974 defence review idea of getting Royal Marines ashore tactically from North Sea ferries was not on.

We are told that the coverage of Bloodhound surface-to-air missiles is being extended, but it is not pointed out that the system is virtually obsolescent. We are told that we have only six air defence squadrons in the United Kingdom, although "only" is not employed. We are meant to be reassured by the fact that this tiny number is refuelled in the air and is supported by our ancient Shackleton airborne early warning aircraft.

We are told something about the highly important future tactical combat aircraft. We should have welcomed confirmation that the RAF has decided on two modes—a ground support aircraft, and an air superiority fighter. Co-operation for one or other of these could come from the United States as well as from the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Chinook medium-lift helicopter is listed without the batting of an eyelid. The project has been approved and it has been in the budget for several years without being ordered. Therefore, it is extremely overdue. In a written answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan) on 22 March 1979, it is shown as having been cancelled by the Labour Government in 1967. But it is one of the projects now being vaunted as an improvement to our Armed Forces.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force (Mr. James Wellbeloved)

What happened between 1970 and 1974?

§ Mr. Pattie

I am perfectly aware of what happened between 1970 and 1974. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the White Paper, he will notice that there is a list of cancellations totalling £285 million of which one, amounting to £5 million, was cancelled during the Conservative Administration.

290 In the vitally important area of electronic warfare, we are told that it is planned to equip Harrier and Jaguar with active and passive electronic counter-measures. There is no mention of when that will be. More critically, it is little short of criminal for those aircraft not to have that facility now, in view of the electronic environment that is the modern battlefield.

There is a cosy section on the defence equipment programme in industry, which lists the sums that have been spent in Britain and the number of job opportunities being sustained both here and for the export programme. However, this is a perfect example of suppressio veri. No mention is made of the number of jobs that have been lost—200,000 on the Government's own figures—as a result of the 1974 review cuts.

There is no mention of the costs to the defence budget in laying down the production of items such as the Tornado—"moving the expenditure to the right", as the jargon has it. There is no mention of the effect on spares support when manufacturers no longer regard the Ministry of Defence as their prime contractor. That makes nonsense of the 1974 claim that it was possible to cut the tail and not harm the teeth.

Paragraph 126 states that the Government have agreed to improve Britain's protection against biological warfare. But they have decided to transfer the Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton, where so such important work has been done, to civilian control. There would appear to be an inconsistency there.

It is a pity that, in the section on research policy, emphasis is not given to the fact that Professor Mason, the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser, has said that only ½ per cent, of our research and development money is spent on genuinely innovative programmes. That involves only 150 people of the total of 28,000. That point was rightly highlighted in yesterday's debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson).

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour) dealt supremely well with the vexed question of premature voluntary release—PVR. If my right hon. Friend had required any further support, he would have 291 found it in the words of the First Sea Lord: PVR is now at crisis proportions". We are told, for example, that a man leaving the Navy within the last five years can rejoin even though he may be 57 years of age.

§ Mr. Churchill (Stretford)

Dad's Navy.

§ Mr. Pattie

That is some indication of the scandalous loss of skilled personnel. PVR is the most serious condemnation of Government policy by those who have to carry it out. They are taken for granted, underpaid, ill-equipped and called upon at all hours to do any dirty job. The White Paper then has the gall to state that the turbulence was unavoidable following the review, as though the review was an act of God rather than a folly of man.

The reserves are dismissed in 14 lines. They are not reserves in the generally accepted sense of the word but are such an integral part of the front line capability that the capability does not operate until they get there. That cannot be too strongly stressed.

In the section on Euro-NATO training, we are not told that our costs have been put up to such an extent that Dutch fighter controllers, for example, can be trained at a third of the cost in the United States. Is that the way to help our NATO allies?

In the section on the hydrographer, no mention is made of the desirability of part of his costs to be met by other Departments—a rather obvious point. In the section on flying training we are told of an increased requirement for pilots". There is no mention of the serious shortfall and that by 1980 we shall be 200 pilots short.

There is no mention anywhere in the White Paper of home defence. Obviously no attempt has been made to assess the importance and relevance of that extremely important activity. There is no mention anywhere about the present state of negotiations regarding co-located operating bases—the arrangements whereby United States aircraft are accommodated on British air bases in the United Kingdom. The House will recall the serious problems that arose last year in the constituency of my hon. Friend the 292 Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson). There were arrangements whereby the United States tanker aircraft, KC135s, were stationed at Greenham Common. The aircraft were eventually allocated to Fairford. The requests for dispositions by the Americans will always create local problems, especially if a Government Department has authorised houses to be built close to airfields. As far as the White Paper is concerned, the problem of co-located operating bases does not exist.

I have listed the omissions because they are indicative to my right hon. and hon. Friends of the inadequacies and omissions of the Government's defence policy. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham speculated as to who is to blame. The Secretary of State can hardly lay claim to be called the Service man's friend. There is a myth, which harks back to the early days of 1974, about that doughty Yorkshire fighter, the right hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason), supported by his intellectual friend—the one-man disaster area—the right hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Rodgers). They were said to be a powerful duo and it is said that we fell on hard times only when the Ministry of Defence passed into the somnolent care of the present recumbent.

However guilty the Secretary of State may be, however unable he is to resist his Cabinet colleagues, and however ineffective he is in righting for the Services, the real damage to our defences was the ruthless cutting that was carried out by the defence review of 1974. That was carried out with the bogus smokescreen that the teeth arms would not suffer and that the cuts would fall only on the tail—as though there is a meaningful difference between the two.

The guilty men moved on to pastures new, leaving the Secretary of State to try to cope. The White Paper is inadequate, reflecting the Government's inadequacy on defence—moreover, the Government's inability to honour their NATO commitments in full. On the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of NATO, it is worth recalling that this Government have the doubtful privilege of being the only British Government ever to be publicly rebuked by the Secretary General of NATO for falling down on Britain's commitments to the Alliance.

293 The Opposition prefer to be guided by the opinions of those best able to judge this Government's defence policy, namely, the Secretary General of NATO, the First Sea Lord and the men who are queueing up to get out of our forces. We shall vote against the White Paper.

§ Mr. Stanley Newens (Harlow)

For the sixth year running, the Opposition are bitterly criticising the Government for not spending enough on arms and the Armed Forces. The hon. Member for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie) has followed a similar line.

The Opposition have clamoured for more expenditure on developing a new generation of nuclear weapons and building up ground forces in Europe. They have called for more resources to match the growth of Soviet naval forces, to counter Soviet strength in the air, to develop new equipment and to increase recruitment by improving pay and conditions for the forces.

However, when I challenged the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour) yesterday to state what the Opposition would regard as a necessary increase in expenditure, his courage deserted him. After the most extravagant bluster, punctuated by sweeping condemnations and calls for resignations, he refused point blank to answer the question of cost by pleading the feeble excuse that the Opposition did not know because the Government had fiddled the books. If anything brings politics into disrepute, it is that sort of utterly irresponsible exaggeration, coupled with a refusal to be frank and, in this case, to tell the public what would be the cost of the Conservative alternative.

The persistence of the Conservative Party in demanding more military expenditure is matched only by its persistence in the campaign for cuts in public expenditure as a whole. The military requirements that the Conservatives have postulated could easily cost, at a most conservative estimate, £2,000 million to £3,000 million on top of what is proposed in the Defence Estimates. In other words, the Opposition are proposing much more than the 3 per cent. increase asked for by NATO.

294 We therefore have a right to ask where they will get that sort of money. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) suggested last week savings in education expenditure as rolls fall, but without the most savage cuts in health, welfare, education, public transport and so on the funds that would be required to meet the Conservative criticism on defence could not be found without increasing taxation.

If the Conservatives are genuine in their criticism and wish to avoid the charge of seeking to deceive and defraud the electorate, they must come clean about the huge increases in expenditure which their criticism would require and the cuts that would be imposed on the living standards of our people.

§ Mr. Patrick Wall (Haltemprice)

The hon. Gentleman is always complaining about the lack of costing of the Conservatives' defence proposals and the plans of his own Government. Can he tell us what the Tribune group would spend on defence? Nothing?

§ Mr. Newens

I shall come to part of that question later, and I hope that the hon. Member will follow me carefully, because my hon. Friends and I have talked in the past of cuts of £1,000 million. I do not wish to run away from his question. My colleagues and I who tabled the amendment have never sought to conceal our belief in the necessity for genuine cuts and we have never sought to conceal what would be the effect of such cuts.

However, I have never argued that Britain does not need to spend anything on defence. We need an efficient conventional force in which personnel should have good conditions and be properly paid. I have also pressed on numerous occasions for provision to be made to rehouse our Service men when they leave the forces.

I have also never sought to justify the policies pursued by the Soviet Union in increasing arms expenditure, intervening in Czechoslovakia or restricting the liberties of its citizens. On the contrary, I have continually denounced all those actions, and I continue to do so.

The bases of our demand for cuts in public expenditure are quite different. Even if Conservative Members disagree 295 with them, they should at least try to face up to them. We question how Britain can possibly be defended in a war when we have allowed so many nuclear weapons to be stored here and aimed from our country that we have become a prime target for any potential enemy. We do not believe in starting work on a new generation of nuclear weapons or in remaining part of a nuclear-based Alliance.

My most fundamental reason for opposing increased military expenditure, however, is that it helps not to diminish and defuse world tension but to increase and perpetuate it.

The argument in favour of increased expenditure is that the Soviet Union is increasing its forces well beyond what can be considered necessary for purely defensive purposes and that that poses a growing threat to the West. The White Paper states that military capabilities cannot be measured simply in terms of figures, but even in terms of capabilities the facts cited in the White Paper and by many Conservative Members about Soviet military superiority are highly selective and fail to represent the overall position.

The latest edition of the "Military Balance" published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that NATO has 11,000 deliverable nuclear warheads. The Soviet Union has 4,500, although that number could rise to 7,500 in the early 1980s. It is clear that the Western side has a huge superiority in that respect.

While the Warsaw Pact has in central Europe more troops, more tanks and more artillery, NATO has, in total, more men under arms. In terms of naval strength throughout the world—not just in the Eastern Atlantic area—the West still has much greater strength and the same is true of our military equipment.

Less than two years ago, the then CIA director, Mr. George Bush, told the United States Congress: The Soviet Union does not have a single weapon system that demonstrates technological superiority to the United States. On the other hand … the United States has many weapon systems that the Russians cannot duplicate. In addition, Western estimates of the balance of forces conveniently omit the Chinese, against whom the Soviets will certainly deploy part of their forces.

296 If increases in Western and British defence expenditure can be justified in the circumstances that I have outlined, we must realise that they can always be justified at any time in the future. However, mankind cannot support that process. It is all very well for the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham to grin, but I ask him to listen carefully because I am coining to the nub of some of the arguments to which the human race must turn its attention.

World military expenditure in 1977 is estimated at $360,000 million, according to the Stockholm Peace Institute. The figure can be found on page 3 of the institute's 1978 yearbook. A total of 70 per cent. of that money was spent by NATO and Warsaw Pact countries. The nuclear weapons held by all the world's nuclear Powers were equivalent in explosive power to 1 million of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Expenditure on arms by underdeveloped countries, with which 75 per cent. of the world's arms trade takes place, is rising. While this huge military expenditure is undertaken, we, as a race, are neglecting the need to improve the living standards of people throughout the world. The number of undernourished people on this globe continues to rise yearly.

It is expected that the world population will grow from 4,500 million today to 6,000 million by the end of the century. We need to increase by 60 per cent. world food production to sustain that sort of population at present levels. The hunger and misery that are growing in the Third world represent a much greater potential threat to the stability of the world than the Soviet tanks now stationed in Eastern Europe. Those hungry people represent a much greater threat. The arms that we are foolishly supplying to unstable regimes—

§ Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles (Winchester)

We?

§ Mr. Newens

By that, I mean the Western Powers and the Soviet Union. Our policy of supplying arms to unstable regimes like that of the Shah may prove, in the long run, infinitely more destructive of world peace than anything else we are doing.

Many of our calculations in the world today are based on the assumption of the availability of oil not only to generate 297 energy but also to provide fertilisers on which crop yields in the modern world depend. Recent events in Iran—obvious, in my view, for years before they occurred—have already produced unpleasant consequences. Similar events in other oil-rich countries which are inevitable in due course will produce new changes that could prove disastrous to Western economies. Such events could gravely threaten the stability of the whole world.

We are not asking in our amendment that Britain should denude itself of arms completely. We are asking now for substantial cuts which may well be forced upon us in future years, in much more difficult circumstances, by our inability to meet the cost. The argument has been advanced that we need to manufacture and sell arms to provide jobs. That is a dangerous argument. Not only is it unlikely, if the account is compiled in full, that we avoided losses on arms sales to Iran, but the opportunity for profits in the future has also disappeared suddenly. This may occur again elsewhere if we concentrate on arms sales to the extent to which we as a country are at present committed.

I should like to mention a situation in which the Soviet Union is not directly involved. The struggle between Argentina and Chile last year might have flared into war. It is wrong that we should be prepared to fuel circumstances in which poor people murder other poor people in other parts of the world. It is also wrong that we should believe that it is necessary to sell arms to provide jobs.

It is essential to redeploy the arms industries and to seek to provide alternative work, as the Lucas Aerospace workers have been arguing, to their credit. I am sorry that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench have not gone much further along the lines that have been suggested. It is comparatively easy for Conservatives and others to foster and increase fears in order to fuel an arms race. It is particularly easy in circumstances in which the threat of unemployment is always present. It is not easy to stand out and seek to expose the insanity of the arms race in such a climate. None the less, it is important to point out the immensity of the dangers not only to people in this country but 298 to the human race as a whole if the arms race continues.

I yield to no one in my love for this country and the British people, but I believe passionately that our fate is bound up inextricably with that of humanity as a whole, whose very existence on this globe is threatened by the eventual outcome of this arms race. I do not believe that we should leave Britain defenceless. But, at some time, we have to call a halt. My hon. Friends and I who have tabled the amendment make no apology for putting it before the House at this time. Against the clamour from the Conservative Benches to which the Labour Government, I regret to say, have yielded to some extent for increasing expenditure on arms, we believe that the case has to be put for arms cuts and for sanity and for Britain to turn around and not to continue to devote an ever-increasing amount of its resources to military purposes.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern)

Mr. Speaker earlier indicated to the House the large number of right hon. and hon. Gentleman anxious to speak on this final day of the debate. I repeat his appeal for brevity so that we can accommodate as many as possible of those hon. Members who wish to take part.

§ Mr. Maurice Macmillan (Farnham)

Before deciding, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie) suggested, the nature and scale of the defence forces and their task, we need to be clearer than has so far been shown in this debate about what our defence policies are for, and from where the threat comes. I hope that the whole House can agree that the main object of our defence policies must be the security of the United Kingdom itself, the freedom and independence of Western Europe, the protection of our imports and free access to our trade routes. This implies that the Western Alliance generally should have the capacity to ensure the free movement of trade and free access to raw materials.

Many speeches have reminded me all too horribly of similar speeches to which I listened as a boy in the 1930s when sitting in the Gallery suggesting that the threat comes from the arms race. I do 299 not agree. The main danger comes from the present imbalance between the Warsaw Pact and the West in general and the European defence forces in particular. Whatever we may say about numbers, I should have thought it clear to the meanest intelligence that the only Power with a really aggressive foreign policy is the Soviet Union. The only Powers building up their forces on land, sea and air, far beyond the needs of self-defence, are the Warsaw Pact countries. The only Powers that are increasing their essentially offensive as opposed to primarily defensive armoury are the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries. This is giving them an increasing capability to wage offensive warfare in Europe. It has already enabled them to have dominance of the sea routes. By using their own "advisers" and Cuban mercenaries, they have secured bases from which they could control our access to essential raw materials.

Speakers on the Labour Benches have been insistent in asking what we on this side propose to do. As I have every expectation that it is my right hon. and hon. Friends that I am in effect advising and not those at present on the Government Front Bench, who are beyond advice, I make a few suggestions about how to counter both the aggressive foreign policy of the Soviet Union and our present imbalance with the Warsaw Pact forces. It is essential to do that mainly through the NATO Alliance. However, NATO was not able to help when the Cubans invaded Angola. It is therefore necessary to strengthen the European element in the Alliance. We have already seen how quite small forces may operate successfully as the Belgians and the French did in Zaire. We see the effect of the French presence in Djibouti compared with the situation in Somalia and Ethiopia.

I suggest, first, that in the Alliance generally, and especially in the European element of the Alliance—that element is the most dependent on imported raw materials and access through sea routes to the oil—we should consider building a sort of aid force to help our friends in different parts of the world. I am not suggesting that this should be done on a massive scale; all it needs is a force sufficient to mean that to move it requires a degree of aggression from a 300 superior force, which the Soviet Union will be neither willing nor able to undertake so far from its home base. That in itself will be enough to prevent the terrorists and the Cubans from having the degree of success that we have seen, for example, in Africa.

If we are short of personnel, I do not see why we should not increase rather than disband our Gurkha forces. What is wrong with that? If it is all right for the Soviet Union to use Cubans in Africa, why is it wrong for those who are opposing Soviet forces to use Gurkha troops?

Secondly, we should work more widely with other countries. I agree with those who have suggested that Japan is as dependent on imported raw materials as Western Europe. There is a great deal to be said for bringing Japan into the ambit of the Western forces as an active partner. On the old principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, I hope that we shall continue to help China and do all that we can in its aid. I hope too, that a Conservative Government, when considering both aid policies and the question of whom to supply with arms, will bear in mind British interests in political as well as economic terms.

Thirdly, we should contemplate what economic action we can take, or refrain from taking, in order to do something to force the Soviet Union to reduce its arms budget and to change the whole pattern of resource allocation within the Soviet Union. In 1920 Lenin wrote to his foreign commissar: The capitalists of the whole world and their governments will shut their eyes to the kind of activities on our side that I have referred to, and will in this manner become not only deaf mutes but blind as well. They will supply us with the materials and technology which we lack and will restore our military industry, which we need for our future victorious attacks on our suppliers. In other words, they will work hard to prepare their own suicide. After nearly 60 years we are still doing just that. We continue to send grain from the West to support the inefficient Soviet agriculture system. Agriculture is essential to the Soviet economy in itself but it is also a necessary part of their policies to increase incentives and improve all-round productivity. We should seriously reconsider the whole pattern of our aid, especially our cheap loans, to the Soviet Union.

301 The measures that I have outlined, which are partly political, partly diplomatic and partly military, could not be undertaken by the United Kingdom alone, but they could be undertaken with our NATO allies. I think that they should be undertaken. They meet the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Prentice) when he quoted General Haig on the effect of events outside NATO boundaries and the danger that those events could have for the security of the Alliance.

These three sets of measures that I have advocated have also the advantage that they would not add very much to the cost of the United Kingdom defence programme compared with the benefits that they might bring to our security.

There are one or two other things that we should do quickly on our own that would also not add much to the cost of our defence programme. There are two essential priorities for which the United Kingdom must have sole responsibility. First, there is the air defence of Great Britain against attack by Backfire bombers carrying conventional weapons or nuclear weapons. I know that suitable aircraft for this role are expensive, whether we manufacture them or buy them from abroad.

There will, however, be a time lag before such aircraft are ready for action. They will not be able to go into action at all until we have rehabilitated and repaired our airfields. It is essential to start the reconstruction of our airfields as soon as possible. We should include in this the hardening of dispersal points and control centres against chemical warfare as well as against heavy conventional bombing.

Surely we are able to undertake that work at once. We have many unskilled and semi-skilled men who are unemployed. Much of the resources of the construction industry is unused. Surely those men and those resources could be turned to that task, which is essential to our safety. As it is, even if the Americans were willing to come to our aid and send over their fighters to defend this island, there would be nowhere to put them and nowhere to control them. Therefore, the work must be done.

302 We are now spending about £25 million a year on civil defence. It does not seem that we are getting very much for that expenditure. If we are to improve the protection of our aircraft and those who control them against air attack, as I believe we must, we must start to improve the defences of our people. The Soviet Union is doing a great deal in civil defence. It has been carrying out civil defence exercises on its western border and in the Baltic provinces. We should embark on work to strengthen our protection against conventional attack as well as nuclear attack.

The second immediate priority that we should carry out by ourselves is to start training instructors so that we may increase our manpower and build up a proper first-line reserve. This is part of our essential fighting force. If we are to build a second-line reserve on it and strengthen the air defence of Great Britain, we shall need skilled pilots and skilled men and women in every part of the Armed Forces. To expand those forces we shall need instructors. Training, especially the training of instructors, is one of our biggest needs.

My right hon. and hon. Friends will have difficult decisions to make about the active side of our air defences. Their decisions will take time to implement. However, they will be totally ineffective unless work is started now in these two priority areas.

Other difficult decisions must be taken very soon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chertsey and Walton said, we must decide on the strategic nuclear effort to succeed Polaris—whether it should operate on land, or on the surface or under the sea, and whether we should seek to do it on our own or in conjunction with the three-pronged French effort.

We must take difficult decisions about tactical nuclear weapons. Do we believe that the tactical weapon in United States' hands will remain indefinitely credible without the fear that possible escalation will inhibit its use? I do not know. However, we must think and make decisions on that matter quickly. We must think, as an alternative, of the possibility of chemical warfare, using limited, short-term substances which are less likely to escalate into nuclear action and which are as effective in a purely defensive role as the neutron bomb.

303 We need, too, better defence against chemical warfare. The Soviet Union has in every command 80,000 men devoted not to chemical warfare defence but to the active use of chemical warfare. The Soviet artillery and ground-to-ground missiles have chemical warheads. The BM21 multiple rocket launcher can launch 720 chemical rounds in one volley. If those rounds are charged with hydrogen cyanide, the lethal effect is short-lived so that the Russian troops may follow through quickly. If we are to have an effective defence, is it not possible that we require a retaliatory capability? I am talking not about strategic biological warfare but about the use of short-term agents as a possible alternative to the tactical nuclear weapon.

We have a great deal to do by way of collaboration and standardisation within Europe. There are massive difficulties. But a great deal is to be gained both in terms of effectiveness and reduced cost. I should like to see more work being done on upgrading the Independent European Programme Group—that is to say, all the European members of the Alliance plus France and Portugal—which was started in 1976. I should like to see a European defence institute empowered to discuss some of the common defence problems of the European countries in the Alliance and to make recommendations.

We must accept that any realistic defence will cost more in the future. Reference was made to the beneficial economic and industrial effects of defence procurement. In 1952 France spent 8 per cent. of her gross domestic product on defence. That figure had dropped by 1977 to 4 per cent. Meanwhile, since 1966, the French gross domestic product doubled compared with that of the United Kingdom. Therefore, French spending, in real terms, had gone up, though taking a small proportion of available resources.

I remind the House of the German experience immediately prior to the Second World War. Between 1935 and 1939 German military production rose by 200 per cent. In those years consumer goods production went up by 38 per cent. The expansion of both was derived from unused capacity and high unemployment. By 1935 to 1937 the stimulus of rearmament gave 304 a great expansion to employment, investment, output and income. Even after the excess capacity of the German economy had been used up, total income continued to grow because of the technical progress and improvement that defence expenditure had brought with it. It was only after a further considerable expansion that any degree of choice was required between the consumption and defence industries.

Alas, our economy is working at a three-day-week level. We have a long way to catch up before we must face a choice between civil and military goods.

The United States' experience was similar. Between 1939 and 1941 industrial production went up by 48 per cent. By 1945 it had gone up by another 45 per cent. After the war it was unemployment that went up, by 1949, to 8 per cent. Arms for Korea brought the figure down to 5 per cent., and by autumn 1953 it was 1.8 per cent. Incidentally, the defence programme gave an enormous stimulus to the Californian economy. If I had time to go into details, I could show from them that the defence industries could bring far greater regional benefit to the United Kingdom than the temporary employment subsidies, with all their displacement effects. It is no accident, comparing different economies in different periods, that the gross national product tended to rise parallel to a rise in defence spending. In the United Kingdom there was an increase of 63 per cent. per head between 1955 and 1964. In that period our defence spending rose by 24 per cent. per head. In France defence spending went up by 86 per cent. per head. The GNP went up by 130 per cent. per head. The correlation is there.

So it is economically possible to carry through my few modest but practical suggestions. I hope that they are constructive. Some we can implement at once with an immediate effect. Some require immediate decisions but will not take effect for some time. I have tried to give some idea of their likely consequences for industry and for the economy. I hope that as a nation we shall be able to do more. I believe that we dare not do less.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. Unless speeches last for a maximum of 10 minutes, only a fraction of those anxious to take part in and who have sat patiently 305 throughout the two-day debate will be accommodated. May I therefore make an earnest appeal for brevity?

§ Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South)

I very much support the concept of the TAVR, and that is what I propose to speak on this evening, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Not many speakers in the debate so far have addressed themselves to that subject, but the whole of our defence force is closely integrated, the role of the TAVR being integrated with that of our Regular forces. The Defence Estimates devote little attention to it, and the proceedings yesterday and today have devoted much less attention to it than its importance merits.

I support the whole concept of the TAVR, and not just because there are two units in my constituency—the excellent Mercian Volunteers and 143 Plant Squadron RE(V)—but because historically the role of the citizen army has been very important, not only in breaking down the idea of a military caste but embodying the enthusiasm and commitment of a large number of people who for a variety of reasons do not want to join the Regular forces.

One of the most important arguments that may be advanced is that the whole system of using volunteer forces is very cost-effective, but it is of relevance only if this cost-effective force is competent. I remember as a student making a special study of Machiavelli and his attitude to mercenary soldiers. Machiavelli, in Florence, hated the idea of mercenaries and wanted to employ exclusively volunteer forces. He diligently trained them, and at the first sight of battle the entire volunteer force disintegrated. There is no point in relying heavily on a volunteer force if it is unable to match the professionalism of the enemy or, indeed, the professionalism of our full-time forces. I am not saying that this is the case, but we need to address ourselves to this problem.

Much greater thought must be given in the House to the employment and use of reserves, and specifically of the TAVR. In the 1976 Defence Estimates it was stated that a feature of the Defence Review reorganisation plans will be the closer integration of the TAVR with the Regular Army, which should 306 enhance not only the effectiveness of the Army but also the morale of the Volunteer reservist". We hear a great deal of the concept of "One Army", and the Americans use the phraseology of "total force policy" to explain their similar approach, but the total force concept means the integration of planning, programming and budgeting, and this absolutely requires that the availability and readiness of the Reserve forces must be as certain as the availability of active forces. We must do more than simply sloganise about one army. Obviously, the reserve soldier is not identical to the full-time soldier. Nevertheless, we must ensure that the facilities and resources available to the volunteer soldier are as good as those available to the full-time soldier.

In terms of the current importance of the TAVR, I should like to refer to some statistics. First, 25 per cent. of the total BAOR wartime strength will be TAVR. Second, 38 of the 88 infantry battalions during a war will be TAVR—that is, 43 per cent. But, despite this enormous dependence upon TAVR, we have to ask whether the resources devoted to it are adequate. The budget is around £70 million per year, which is 3 per cent. of the Army Vote and 1 per cent. of the overall defence bill. When we consider the dependence upon TAVR and the expenditure upon it, it would appear that either TAVR is extraordinarily good value for money or it is not getting the resources that it fully merits.

How is the money spent on TAVR to be wisely spent? Should we, as I believe, devote more of our defence resources to the TAVR? The key areas to which I want to address myself are training, equipment, mobilisation and transportation. Of the 72,000 TAVR force in theory, we are up to about 60,000, but there is a shortage in medical units and sponsored units. The worrying thing—obviously, everyone is aware of it—is the high wastage rate or turnover, which is between one-third and one-quarter every year. This is not conducive to good training. Clearly, some turnover is desirable, but not of the order of one-quarter to one-third. If we could reduce the outflow by 10 per cent. annually, this would mean that the TAVR would be up to strength in seven to eight years. We must look to this very quickly.

There must be a change in employer attitudes. Perhaps employers could be 307 encouraged financially, as well as otherwise, to allow their employees what could be called a regular paid training holiday, in addition to the normal vacation. The Government could give a lead in this respect by offering a model programme that private employers could follow. The Government should provide a variety of incentives to private businesses to release their employees for this absolutely vital role for the future of this country.

It is no coincidence that a large number of members of the TAVR are either self-employed or unmarried. Obviously, the difficulties of the married man in full-time employment are very considerable and not conducive to his doing the requisite amount of training and playing the role that we demand. What is needed is a vigorous recruitment campaign, and it is necessary to dispel some of the myths of the TAVR.

The Expenditure Committee report said that there is a widespread belief that TAVR…was abolished … in 1967. We are all familiar with the image that is still, regrettably, prevailing, and sometimes perpetuated by the media, of the TAVR being a latter-day "Dad's Army". That is, of course, absolute nonsense. Although I enjoy the programme whenever the series is re-run, one perhaps feels that it does not always do the kind of service to the TAVR that we should like to see.

High-level support from the Government towards this recruitment policy and towards encouraging employers would go a long way to meeting many of the difficulties and objections. There must be more joint training with Regular forces. The occasional trip abroad for two weeks is not quite adequate to professionalise our volunteer forces. We also need to educate a number of Regular soldiers concerning the usefulness of their volunteer compatriots.

A further question is that of equipment. The Ministry of Defence, in evidence to the Expenditure Committee, said that it aims to provide the most modern equipment available for TAVR units and, ideally, equipment identical to that in use by the Regular Army. I wonder whether we can be satisfied that this is the position today. I suspect not.

308 We must not be concerned exclusively with the quality of equipment but rather with the type of equipment. We have to remember that a volunteer soldier spends perhaps 40 days a year in training. I do not want to be disparaging—far be it from me to want to do that—but perhaps in the period available we should be careful as to the type of equipment that the man is asked to use. A full-time soldier, with more chance to become professional and to enhance his expertise and prowess, would be able to use highly complicated equipment perhaps far more readily. I am not arguing, by any stretch of the imagination, that all that the TAVR troops are worthy of using is rather simple and second-rate equipment. That is certainly not the case, but obviously we have to be very careful in regard to what is required of the TAVR soldier bearing in mind the difficulties he inevitably faces.

Weapons improvements have given to soldiers in the TAVR the ability to do all sorts of things that hitherto they would have been unable to do, such as destroying tanks and aircraft at very long range. The question of type of equipment is therefore one to which we ought to give a great deal of thought.

§ Colonel Sir Harwood Harrison (Eye)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and also for speaking about the TAVR. I should like him to know that, in a number of TAVR units, those who are designated on mobilisation to go to Germany straight from their fields and factories, or to take their part against the enemy, are provided with equipment at least up to the standard of the Regulars. It is those who are second in the TAVR, and used for home defence, whose equipment is perhaps a bit less good.

§ Mr. George

I certainly agree with that. Obviously, what is required of a TAVR soldier is not just technological competence. The old days of simple weapons, where a man was given a rifle or pike or bow and pointed in the direction of the enemy, are regrettably gone. Today, fighting is a highly complex process requiring technical skills as well as bravery. The bravery to face a Russian tank at 50 yards is perhaps something to which not every hon. Member would ultimately be able to aspire. However, the point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) concerned 309 mobilisation. There is no point in having, if we are able, soldiers with wonderful equipment and courage if we are unable to get them to the battlefield quickly enough.

Full-scale exercises are, I believe, highly disruptive but nevertheless desirable. Certainly, far more small-scale tests should be feasible to ensure the strict mobilisation and transportation of our forces. Here, once again, there is an obligation on employers to co-operate. Paragraph 207 of the statement on Defence Estimates reads: The improvement of procedures for the recall of regular reservists is currently under study, with the aim of further reducing the time required for the mobilisation of our forces". I hope that we shall receive a report on that review very quickly, and that we can be reassured that our troops can be transported swiftly.

Transportation obviously constitutes a complex set of arrangements and official documents are filled with asterisks, just like a President Nixon tape, so we are not fully able—quite rightly so—to know what all the problems are. However, the importance of getting troops mobilised quickly cannot be over-exaggerated, and I hope that the Shapland committee will, in subsequent Ministry of Defence discussions, consider this urgently and act.

If the whole idea of a citizen army is based on a concept of swift mobilisation of people who are normally in productive work, and not hanging around doing important but non-productive jobs, in policing frontiers, some problems emerge. The threat of mobilisation can be seen by the enemy as either showing great resolve and providing a deterrent or as an act of aggression. The First World War is testimony to how the enemy can often see one's own mobilisation as an act of aggression which, indeed, can precipitate a conflict. However, I should like to say that the confidence-building measures as laid down by the Helsinki final act will certainly minimise those dangers.

In conclusion, I believe that, although technology has increased very considerably over the last 20 or 30 years, and the quality of equipment has improved enormously, strategic thinking has not kept apace. An eminent thinker on this 310 subject, Edward N. Luttwak, said in a recent article: NATO's doctrine is one which still presumes a net superiority in material, a style based on the methods of attrition rather than manoeuvre. I believe that Luttwak's argument is that the strategy of Douglas Haig and First World War tactics have still not died, and that what one needs is not just good equipment but new thinking—strategy, manoeuvring to outflank the enemy, not simply to wear him down. Certainly, highly mobile and qualified TAVR units can play a major part.

What I want to see is a rejuvenated TAVR as an alternative to the dilemma facing the Government of choosing between a massively expensive, large conventional force and a suicidal reliance on nuclear deterrents. The TAVR can go a long way to providing Britain with a credible defence at an acceptable cost.

§ Mr. Patrick Wall (Haltemprice)

I was delighted to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George). After some of the speeches we heard from Labour Benches yesterday and today, it was a pleasure.

Having been a member of the Royal Marine Forces Volunteer Reserve while I was a Member of the House, I fully sympathise with the hon. Gentleman's views about the TAVR and I know they will find sympathy on both sides of the House. However, I hope that he will forgive me if I cannot follow him on that line as I have a particular row of my own to hoe.

The White Paper begins by pointing out that this year is the thirtieth anniversary of NATO. Paragraph 106 states: The United Kingdom devotes … to Alliance purposes the overwhelming proportion of its defence efforts; … it has made a prompt and constructive response to the long-term defence programme. I wish to confine all my remarks to NATO. My qualifications for so doing are eight years' service on the North Atlantic Assembly and, more recently, as chairman of the military committee. My opposite number on that Committee is the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Williams), whose speech was enjoyed by the whole House yesterday. I do not always agree with him, but he always speaks with both knowledge and common 311 sense. I think that he and other hon. Members will agree with me when I say that I believe in the North Atlantic Assembly as the most important forum in the Alliance for parliamentary conversations on defence matters. As such, it serves a very good purpose.

Turning to NATO itself, I believe that there are many issues facing NATO, but three are of vital importance and those are the ones I wish to discuss. The first problem is the nuclear problem—strategic and tactical. Secondly, there is the conventional problem, both on the central front and on the northern and southern flanks. Lastly, there is the maritime problem, or what I would call the battle for resources.

Starting with the nuclear problem, the strategic nuclear problem is the responsibility of the super-Powers but it affects each one of us. We must realise that the United States lead on strategic missiles has vanished. She still has more accurate missiles than the Soviet Union but has lost her lead in both numbers and throw weight. In recent years the USSR has introduced three new ICBM systems—the SSI7, 18 and 19—and is producing these missiles at the rate of 125 per year. In the same period the United States has modernised its Minuteman 3 but has introduced no new ICBM system. Indeed, the United States has delayed development of its new MX system, which will not be operationally available for some years to come.

At sea, the story is the same. The USSR will have at least 27 Delta class submarines at sea by the time the first American equivalent, the USS "Ohio"—which is of the Trident class—is operational in 1981. These Delta class submarines are armed with SSMX18 missiles with a range of about 5,000 miles. They can fire at the heartland of America from the Barents Sea, where it would be extremely difficult to get at them.

There are also reports in the defence press that the Soviet Union is now building even bigger submarines than the "Ohio", which is 18,700 tons. Therefore, the Americans must certainly work very fast to keep up in the strategic missile field.

What are we doing in Britain? As so many speakers have said, there is a need 312 to continue our strategic nuclear deterrent. I wonder whether the Tribune group would really like the Americans to be the only providers of our strategic nuclear deterrent, and the French the leaders of Europe because they have a nuclear deterrent and we have given it up.

It was said yesterday and it has been said today—the Secretary of State said so himself—that Polaris will continue into the 1990s. However, Polaris will be a very short-range weapon. There is probably a case for taking on Poseidon with a larger range. That can be done with the same ships, by enlarging the tubes as the Americans have done. Or perhaps, as I think is in the mind of my hon. Friend, we ought to go for a new generation such as Trident—which would mean entirely new boats and is very expensive—or the cruise missile. The Government are at last having a Sub-Harpoon as the main weapon of our submarines. The cruise missile can be fired from torpedo tubes of submarines. However, it will have an entirely different function because the Harpoon is a tactical missile, whereas the cruise missile is strategic.

I hope that the Government are giving this consideration. I will say no more than that. I merely repeat that I hope that the next Government will immediately give this matter their consideration, because it is a matter of great importance to this country and NATO.

I turn now to the tactical nuclear missile. The problem here is that the Soviet SS20 is a mobile tactical missile with a strategic range. It has a range of 3,000 miles-plus. The Secretary of State said, on 19 March, in answer to a question, that over 100 were deployed and targeted on Europe. As it is a mobile missile with such a long range, it will be extraordinarily difficult to eliminate. It can be fired from the middle of Russia. We would have to send in our aeroplanes, and it would be very difficult to hit such a missile without considerable loss.

What can we do? We can produce a new tactical missile which can deal with the SS20, and there is nothing in the NATO inventory as yet that can deal with that. Pershing is our longest-range nuclear missile and that has a range of some 750 miles, and even if stretched will not go much beyond 1,000. Therefore, here again it may well be that the cruise missile is the answer. I have put this point 313 to the Secretary of State several times and I hope very much that he will give it consideration, though he has not so far vouchsafed to take the House into his confidence.

We then come to SALT II, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie) in his excellent speech. The two problems about SALT II in relation to Europe are that the SS20 is excluded from that treaty because it is a tactical, nuclear missile but has a strategic range. That is very dangerous indeed. In addition, the non-circumvention clause will make it very difficult for the United States to give her European allies the know-how on the TERCOM maps and satellites that are required to make the cruise missile effective. This is a point that we must consider carefully.

The deployment of the cruise missile by the Americans in Europe will also be difficult, because under the treaty they are limited in range to 2,500 kilometres for the airborne cruise missile and 600 kilometres for the ground or sea-based missile. This will make cruise unsatisfactory for dealing with the SS20. This is an important matter for this country and for the Alliance as a whole.

I should also like to point out, particularly to the Left wing of the Labour Party, that all Soviet exercises carried out in recent years have ended with conventional war going nuclear. That is their automatic assumption, and all their exercises are carried out with full chemical and bacteriological preparation. I think that the writing is on the wall should the balloon ever go up in Europe.

I turn to the conventional sector. The question has been asked whether the USSR will ever repeat Herr Hitler's successful blitzkrieg. The USSR is in a position to do so, but whether it will remains to be seen. However, anyone who disregards that, such as the Tribune group, is either very stupid or has been duped by Soviet propaganda. The evidence is perfectly clear. The important point about the Soviet forces in central Europe today is not only that underlined in the White Paper—namely, the disparity in numbers—but the fact that in the last three years Russia's forces have changed posture from one of defence to offence. That is significant.

314 If the House wants evidence, I would merely point out that the Russians have instituted a BPM-60, which is an armoured personnel carrier regiment to every division as a spearhead of the assault. They have increased their tank forces and expanded them with the T-72. Their artillery, tactical missiles and antitank missiles are all mobile, and most of them are mounted behind armour, which is not the case with the NATO forces. Their air defence, both gun and missile, is far better than NATO's, and that is also mobile, and their bridge-building capability is said to be able to cross a river the size of the Rhine in half an hour. In addition, their fighter bomber f