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1.13 pm
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Dr. John Reid): First, I thank the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) for her concern to save me. I deeply appreciate that, and the efforts that she has put into the debate. Today is a significant day, because we have yet another debate on the Territorial Army and because the right hon. Lady has shown us that she remains
in training for a return to the Front Bench. It is also my mother's birthday. I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing her all the best on her 79th birthday.
Miss Widdecombe: Will the Minister convey my wishes to his mother for a very happy birthday? I am sure that all hon. Members join me in that.
Dr. Reid: I am most grateful. No doubt that will counter-balance the animosity that my mother feels towards anyone who even mildly criticises me, but I shall explain that the right hon. Lady was doing so in her normal constructive fashion, and is a doughty fighter for her constituents.
The right hon. Lady's remarks were motivated by a concern for the Territorial Army and for genuine defence reasons, and I do not dispute that for a moment. She made a well-informed speech, and I shall address a number of points that she has raised. I shall be less generous than I have been in the previous two debates on the issue, as I am sometimes criticised for not providing answers. Part of the reason is that, every time I give an answer, an hon. Member wishes to dispute what I say, so I cannot address every point. I shall try to address some of the points that have been raised today.
First, it is worth restating, and reminding hon. Members, that the process in which we are engaged has been a uniquely open one. By Ministry of Defence standards, it has been unprecedented in the way in which we have debated and consulted on the issues throughout. This is the second Adjournment debate, and probably the third debate, in which the Territorial Army has featured. The subject has also been raised in seminars and panel discussions, and in written submissions. It seems that a phalanx of TA people is following me to every dinner and discussion that I attend throughout the country to raise various matters with me.
Secondly, it has not been an exercise to find savings, although we have to be realistic about what we can afford. Nor has it been an attempt to protect any one part of the armed forces at the expense of another. Let me say in all courtesy to Opposition Members that there sometimes seems to be a theme running through the legitimate task of protecting the TA that manifests itself as antagonism towards the Regular Army. The Regular Army does not have the public capacity to argue, lobby, publicise and write to Members of Parliament in the same way as the TA does, so I advise Opposition Members to be cautious about turning public opportunities to defend the TA into antagonism towards the regulars, who do not feel that that is a fair representation of the position.
Thirdly, we should try wherever possible to get rid of hypocrisy on these matters. The right hon. Lady spoke with great strength and passion, but she was also a member of a Government who cut the TA by 30,000. Today, she is discussing the possibility of a cut of half that number, and that is speculation. That puts the issue in proportion. If the right hon. Lady felt that it was legitimate in defence of the country to cut the TA by 30,000, she has at least an obligation to accept that, and the fact that numbers are not the only consideration.
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow):
Will the Minister give way?
Dr. Reid:
I am trying to reply to questions that have been raised, against an earlier complaint that I was not providing answers.
On targets, it is incorrect of the right hon. Lady to say that, if we reach 100 per cent. of our targets, we will not reduce the shortfall. I am sorry, but that is wrong. The targets take account of the shortfall, and we need to get rid of it.
There is a dreadful shortfall in the armed forces, which we inherited from the previous Government. The anticipated target that I inherited in respect of the Army was between 5,500 and 7,500. I can tell the right hon. Lady that the current figure is not 7,500 or even 5,500. We are reducing the shortfall. I anticipate that this year the figure will be significantly beneath 5,000. There is a long way to go, but I fully intend to make sure that the TA is not viewed as a stop-gap for deficiencies inherited from the previous Government, but stands in its own right as a modern and usable force.
Mr. Gill:
Will the Minister give way on that point?
Dr. Reid:
No. I shall make progress. If I have time at the end of my speech, I shall allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene.
Of course we shall take account of the footprint of the Territorial Army throughout the country, and the cadet force will be one of the elements we shall consider. The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald should not proclaim publicly that we are cutting resources to the cadets. When the review is concluded, she may find that she is wrong about that as well.
A package of proposals has been put to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. They cover the full range of defence issues: the structure of the regular forces, strategic lift, logistics and medical support, to name but a few. Among those are proposals for the reserves. Taken together, the proposals point towards conclusions that are coherent as a whole, and will give us the flexible and robust forces we need to discharge our policy objectives.
We shall now decide collectively on the final outcome of the review. Rumour and speculation, I understand, are inevitable at this stage, but no final decision has been taken. However, I am confident that the outcome will be good for the armed forces, the reserves and the nation.
I want to talk about what we shall seek to achieve with the reserves. First, we need a Territorial Army that is relevant to today's strategic environment. It must be structured for all the roles and tasks that we can plausibly foresee. The right hon. Lady rightly pointed out that the role of the TA did not relate wholly to home defence or reinforcement in the event of a conventional war against Russia. No one is speculating about getting rid of the TA. However, she must recognise that a significant aspect of the Territorial Army's traditional role over the past decades was predicated on an imminent Soviet Union attack on Europe or the United Kingdom. That was a significant element in the configuration of the TA.
Mr. Brazier:
And of the regular forces.
Dr. Reid:
And of the regular forces, which is precisely why we are changing the regular forces. I say to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), who is today the aide-de-camp to the right hon. Member for Maidstone and
However pessimistic we may be, none of us expects to wake up tomorrow to the threat of an imminent drop of spetznaz troops on the UK mainland. We must examine the TA's traditional role and consider how we can update it. The previous Government, of which the right hon. Lady was a member, started to change the Territorial Army's role, and that process is continuing and being updated.
I know that the right hon. Lady is a strong supporter of the Territorial Army, and I point out to her that to leave any part of the TA languishing in an outdated cold war role while modernising the rest of the services would do it no service, and would render it irrelevant, subject to criticism and unusable in the future.
Our review has shown that there is a particular need for certain elements that have been mentioned in debates on the TA: signallers, drivers, artillery men and women, military police, intelligence and survey teams. Those are specialists. We need Territorial Army soldiers who can repair battle-damaged vehicles, operate sophisticated military equipment such as the multiple-launch rocket system, deal with local civilian populations, and engage in a wide range of specialist and core military tasks.
It does the TA no service continually to diminish its range of capabilities with the speculative scare stories that we sometimes hear during debates such as this. I expect that the review will conclude that we need many more medical reserves. The review of the whole force configuration shows that there are serious weaknesses in the medical force.
Secondly, we need a Territorial Army that is usable. Achieving that would do the TA a service in future commensurate with what it has done in the past.
A clear, and perhaps not surprising, conclusion of our foreign policy-led analysis is that speed of deployment in an international crisis is important. Reserves are often a cost-effective source of military capability, but they take longer to get ready than regulars. That is particularly true in the case of front-line infantry and armour roles, which demand a great deal of all-arms training.
There are roles for which we can expect to call on reserves at short notice. Some units and individuals must be capable of being deployed on operations with little warning. At present, almost all the Territorial Army is held at low readiness against the remote possibility of a major attack on NATO. That must change. One way in which the TA must change is that, in the event of a major crisis--
Mr. Brazier:
It could be a matter of months.
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