Defence in the World

01.02.07

Mike made the following contribution to a debate on "Defence in the World" in Parliament

Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South) (LD):

Some Members might be under the impression that the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith) was lukewarm on the idea of the training centre being sited in St. Athan; I have surely heard him speak with a lot more enthusiasm on that subject. I want to echo the sentiments of the hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers), who spoke with real concern about the way in which service families are treated. The Minister has made it clear in the past that he is understanding of those problems, but sadly, the cases that the hon. Member for Gosport identified are not unique. Given that 58 per cent. of the Navy’s married quarters are in the Greater Portsmouth area, he and I, along with other Members representing the region, know only too well the ongoing problems that many of our service families face. The same point emerged from the speech of the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), who said that the general morale of the forces is closely linked to the way in which service families are treated. That was a very important point to make, and I had a lot of sympathy with what he had to say—except on Russia. The right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) was right to point out tothe hon. Gentleman that he had over-exaggerated the threat, and that he had failed to realise that some of the things going on in Russia have caused the Russians to do what they are currently doing. However, I share100 per cent. the hon. Gentleman’s view on Turkey. This is an awful situation. The decision that the French took in passing their motion on the Armenian genocide problem could be repeated in the United States. I simply do not understand how that can be beneficial to the future of NATO or to the harmony that we want to create.

I do not want to discuss the nuclear deterrent in detail today, but I want to put a marker down. A one-day debate on that issue in this House would be wholly unacceptable. Given the level of interest in it, such a debate ought to last at least two days, preferably three. This issue is vital to the country, and a six-and-a-half hour debate on it would be simply unacceptable. The House should be given the opportunity to have a much wider debate, so that more Back Benchers have a chance to contribute.

I thank the Secretary of State for the time that he took and the generosity and good humour that he showed during his visit to the Portsmouth naval base. It was good to see him there. I had a few words with him before this debate started, and he was full of admiration for the base. He said how much he enjoyed the visit and seeing the new shipbuilding going on, and he noted the commitment of the work force, the Royal Navy and the city to maintaining the base. Other Members will doubtless make the same point about their constituency interests in this issue.

I was delighted, as many Royal Navy personnel doubtless were, that the Secretary of State expressed the view that newspaper stories about six or seven ships being taken out of service this year were complete nonsense. He said that he had just come from a meeting with the commander-in-chief, who had not asked for ships to be taken out of service. The Secretary of State reaffirmed his position and gave a full commitment, saying that he was in no way contemplating that, and that no such suggestion had been put to him.

No one can fail to have admiration for the men and women who serve in our armed forces. Those of us fortunate enough to have service establishments in our constituencies regularly meet service people who have returned from, or are about to leave for, other countries. That our nation has more than 20,000 personnel serving in some pretty dangerous parts of the world is a tribute to the training, dedication and commitment of those young people to doing that job. None of us should be anything but grateful for what they are doing on our behalf; we should appreciate what they are doing.

The question that I posed earlier about the reliability or otherwise of the trained Iraqi police and army is one that one hears repeated when talking to service personnel who have been there. Their problem is one of confidence. They are concerned about what might happen if the braking mechanism of the UK forces—or the US forces in other parts of Iraq—goes. Our forces act as a brake on much of the violence that is perpetrated by some of those we have put back in uniform. In answer to an intervention, the Secretary of State mentioned what had happened in Basra with the serious crime group, which has now been broken up. However, nearly every member of that group took their weapons with them when they left their post. Where were those weapons going? Were they going straight into the hands of the insurgents? We should have considered total disarmament in that situation, as we should have done in Afghanistan when we firstinvaded it.

Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I am highly cynical about and critical of the US’s new plan for Iraq. For them, it is a do or die situation. They have not been able to control the area thus far, so what will they do now? It will need to be an all-out war in that part of Baghdad, but what will happen if they are not successful? When the Secretary of State gave evidence to the Joint Committee recently, he likened the situation to squeezing a balloon—a squeeze in one area means a bulge elsewhere. I had some sympathy for his answer that the squeeze would not necessarily be felt down in Basra.

We got our intelligence hopelessly wrong about the state of Iraq. We disbanded the Ba’ath party organisation and the armed forces from day one, because intelligence supposedly told us that that was the right thing to do. No one in intelligence gave us any clue about the infrastructure in Iraq and how much of it had been shot away during the Saddam years. We got it wrong.

In Afghanistan, we have the appalling situation of young service personnel dying there while young people are dying on the streets in the UK from drug addiction fed by the very poppy crops that our armed forces are not allowed to eradicate. We are part of a community that is paying farmers billions of euros every year not to grow anything. Would it not have been possible to eradicate the poppy crop and pay the farmers to do nothing? The Secretary of State suggested that that might double the poppy crop, because the farmers would take the money and grow the crops elsewhere, but we are supposed to be in control of that part of the country. Surely we owe it to those men and women whose lives are on the line in Afghanistan to allow them to do something that would save lives in the big cities of Europe, including the United Kingdom. It is a tragedy that we have not been able to do more on that issue. We should be able to do more.

Is it seriously suggested that we can put a timetable on our involvement in Afghanistan? I am sure that hon. Members recognise that Afghanistan is a much more difficult problem than Iraq, but the very reason we should eradicate those poppies is, as I have said, to prevent the deaths that they cause and to stop the financing of the very fight that is being taken to us. Without the financing from the poppy crop, the Taliban would not have been able to do what they have done. We should not allow it to continue. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to what has been an important and, I hope, helpful debate.