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Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot): Does my hon. Friend understand the risk of fitting a foreign missile to
a domestic aeroplane? The United States might withhold supply of the missile if we wanted to sell the Eurofighter Typhoon to other countries.
Mr. Hunter: I am well aware of that argument; as my hon. Friend knows, it has been well rehearsed. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not pursue it again, because of the shortage of time. I acknowledge that it is often made.
There is a second programme in which it will be interesting to see whether the Government put into practice the policies and principles on procurement set out in the White Paper. I refer to the procurement of a successor identification friend or foe system. It is widely acknowledged that Raytheon Systems in Harlow--not in Basingstoke--has been at the forefront of that technology for more than 50 years. The company has put together a bid that offers immense advantages to the UK defence industry as a whole. About 85 per cent. of all identification work would be done in the UK; there would be 45 UK subcontractors, five of whom would--hopefully--be in Basingstoke.
Those two programmes--the extended-range air-to-air missile and the Raytheon SIFF solution--would bring substantial advantages to the UK defence industry as a whole. It will be interesting to see whether the Government can live up to and deliver the expectations that they have raised.
I make my concluding comments in the light of chapter 4 of the White Paper, "People in Defence". In relation to Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State said that
Laura Moffatt (Crawley):
I am pleased to be able to speak in the debate. I cannot possibly make my speech without saying a word or two about Michael Colvin, whom I considered to be my hon. Friend. He was a delightful Member. I speak on behalf of women Members, because my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) and I were the first two women ever to serve
When one joins the Defence Committee, one comes with no baggage; one has no preconceptions--unfortunately, one has no experience either. However, through that Committee I have learned much about the work of the defence industry and of our forces. It has been the most rewarding part of my work at the House of Commons and has given me an enormous grounding. I have learned how much the world of defence is changing. When I hear hon. Members talking as though defence and our armed forces should be kept in aspic--they should never change, develop and modernise--that seems a great shame. I find it fairly astonishing that a Government such as this, who are prepared to meet the challenges of a modern world, are greeted with derision.
Although I do not have enormous experience of the subject, I am aware that the view that everything terrible with defence procurement has happened since 1 May 1997 is complete and utter nonsense. Those who give evidence to the Defence Committee put that argument to bed very quickly. We have faced difficulties with defence procurement over the past two decades and we now have to reap a terrible reward.
If our armed forces are our most precious commodity, they need to be valued. There is no question about that--we must ensure that they are valued. From the visits that the Select Committee has made, we know that they like to be busy, but that they do not want to be overstretched. They like to be rewarded for what they do, and they do not want us to undervalue them. Therefore, it is important that we understand their needs. That is the challenge.
I have listened to speeches in the House that have suggested that it could undermine our armed forces if we were ever truly to embrace equal opportunities in relation to race, ethnic origin, religion, gender, social background and--this is the most difficult for hon. Members, particularly Conservative Members, to accept--sexual orientation. I do not know how many Members have heard of, or are fans of, the comic Ali G. He is truly wonderful and I advise them to obtain his video "Ali G Innit". Major General Kenneth Perkins MBE, DFC appears in it and Ali G asks him, "What about gays in the armed forces?" One of the most decorated members of the armed forces says, "There have always been gays in the armed forces. If you want to make a problem of it, there's going to be a problem. If you don't, it'll be fine." That is the best way forward. Given the advice that officers in the armed forces have been given, the challenge can be met and we can have armed forces of which we can be proud and which are still able to carry out their duties.
Recruitment is on the increase and my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces has told us how well we are doing on that. Retention remains a difficulty, although the problem is not as bad as it was. We have seen all sorts of ways in which retention can be improved. They include helping families--an issue in which I am especially interested--improving education for people in the armed
forces and extending leave after they have been away. All those measures will help with job satisfaction and will make being in the armed forces more worthwhile.
On a recent visit to Kosovo, I was amazed to see the awful conditions in which some of our men and women lived. I was there for only a couple of days, but if I had to live in those conditions, I would have given up long ago and come home. Our armed forces were living under canvas and using chemical loos. The Committee Clerk, Carol Oxborough, and I were so cold one night that we could not sleep, but we did not dare complain because of the awful conditions in which our service personnel were living. Did they once complain about what they were doing? They did not, because they felt valued and were working in the community.
We heard much in the press about the dreadful delays in the provision of temporary field accommodation. However, we spoke to members of the armed forces about that accommodation and they told us that they did not want to stay in it. They said that they liked being where they were in the heart of the community. They could protect and assist people and do the job for which they were trained. It is important that we make our armed forces feel that they are doing the job that they want to do.
Like most Members, I am interested in people in the armed forces, but I came to the subject of defence through having to deal with procurement issues in my constituency. I have listened to the debate and it seems that the procurement industry is changing enormously. Some say that, in the next decade, we will have only three major defence companies in the whole western world. If that is true, it makes complete nonsense of the old allegiances, and we can no longer sustain arguments about whether everything that the Americans do is wonderful or whether all our actions are wonderful and we should ignore the Americans.
I sound a word of caution about the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency: the MOD should ensure that DERA follows its advice on procurement, and no action should put that at risk.
I turn now to defence medical services, on which I have most empathy and feel most pain. As a nurse, my visit to Royal hospital, Haslar, which was under threat of closure, and my understanding of how those people were feeling will remain with me, although I completely support the view of the MOD and defence medical services. The situation reflects what is happening in the NHS throughout the country. More than 70 trusts are having to make decisions to ensure that all their people work on one site and that they get the right expertise and mix of cases. All those issues were affecting Royal hospital, Haslar, as they affect Crawley hospital in my constituency, so I can empathise with the staff at Haslar and their sense that everything would fall to pieces if the hospital closed.
the Government cannot and will not contemplate anything that suggests any equivalence between the security forces and terrorists . . . there is no way in which such equivalence would be acceptable.--[Official Report, 22 February 2000; Vol. 344, c. 1397.]
Those are reassuring words. I hope that they carry weight. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Defence realises that the Government have created a credibility problem in relation to those matters. The present, interminable inquiry into the shootings in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday is offensive to the Army and unnecessary. Initially, it was to have been held under conditions that would have endangered the lives of soldiers on duty that day. It is a public relations gimmick designed to appease Irish republican terrorism and is thus a disgrace.
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