Sir Bernard Jenkin
MP for Harwich and North Essex · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Despite long and historic disagreements between successive UK Governments and Israel, it has remained a steadfast ally in counter-terrorist efforts to keep our people safe in this country. We are now embarked, it seems, on a full diplomatic dispute with Israel and tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.”
“I would very much have liked to have discussed the medical devices questions arising from the Bill. The Minister made an incredibly short speech about that important matter. It is quite clear that these provisions are part of the covert dynamic alignment with the EU and the covert rejoin agenda being pursued by the Government.”
“I am as keen as anybody to get on with discussing the Health Bill, but this topic is too serious an opportunity to miss, given that the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) has raised such important issues. I really commend his speech and his initiative. Everybody should read it.”
“The Minister shakes her head, but she is yet to give a good reason as to why this measure is in the Bill. When we had an Adjournment debate in July with the then Minister for patient safety, the hon.”
“The chief executive of the CQC is wantonly conflicted in terms of looking after the safe space, so he cannot be the one left in charge of that function. The real point here is that we are missing the opportunity to save so much money. Governments keep having public inquiries.”
“I asked the Minister, in a letter I sent her after the debate in July, to give us the information on how much the transfer of all this would cost. Nothing has arrived. I never had a reply to the letter. Of course, the Government have changed the Minister and the new Minister for patient safety, the right hon.”
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“The MOD and the Royal Navy will not countenance cutting the carriers because they are a prestige programme, so they just delay them, but there is little indication that the Department has thought through the practical consequences of building these carriers and what sort of Navy we want to possess in the 21st century. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex was absolutely right to question the purpose of these two 65,000 tonnes carriers. They seem to point towards ambitions for a powerful blue-water Navy, but at the same time we have seen the number of frigates and destroyers slashed and significant cuts to the number of attack submarines at a time when the Americans value most highly our minesweepers, for the capability that they can bring, rather than our larger capital ships.”
“As elsewhere, cost pressures and political expediency mean shifting the cost of delays until after the general election. It was disappointing that the Minister was unable to furnish the Defence Committee with robust figures about how much the delay to the programme would cost. We now have the figure of £600 million floating in the air, to which the Minister will neither indicate assent or dissent. He is shrugging his shoulders. We know that this is likely to be yet another bill that will land on the Secretary of State’s desk after the next general election.”
“Aware that there was a danger of the fleet being cut in half by 2020, the MOD has now announced plans to extend the lives of the Chinooks, the Pumas and the Sea King Mark 4s and 7s. Despite repeated questioning, however, Ministers—including the Under-Secretary who will reply from the Dispatch Box this evening—will not reveal how much these decisions will cost, or when the money will be made available for these life extensions. Again, decisions are shifted to the right so the financial consequences of today’s decisions will be felt only after a general election. We have already discussed the carriers, but the decision to delay them reeks of money more than any other consideration. To argue, as the Minister did, that this leaves our defence capability “unaffected”—the word he used—is simply not credible.”
“647.] That is unlikely to be until 2015, so HMS Daring, the first Type 45, will have taken more than six years from first metal being cut to entering service—meaning that the first FSC is not likely to enter service until at least 2021—provided there are no further delays, which seems unlikely. What is two years between friends in the Ministry of Defence, we might ask, but between 2019 and 2021 three Type 22s are due to leave service, reducing our surface fleet still further. The decision to extend the lives of the Type 23s, with no answers to parliamentary questions about the cost implications of the decision, is merely another attempt to push cost decisions to the right. It is the same story with the helicopter programme.”
“The Department remains obsessed with the SDR idea of capability over numbers in an age when numbers of platforms and troops matter as much as capability, if not just as much as they ever did. For example, the decision to extend the life of the Type 23s by up to eight years has been made because the future surface combatant programme will be slowed on account of budgetary constraints. Ministers still claim that the first FSC is expected to enter service “around the end” of “the next decade”, but it seems more likely that it will not be until the beginning of the following decade at the earliest. The Under-Secretary of State told the House at Defence questions before Easter that construction on the first FSC will begin “as soon as the second carrier has been launched” —[ Official Report , 30 March 2009; Vol. 490, c.”
“For example, the Government said: “The SDR continues to inform our thinking; our future procurement strategies are designed around the analysis contained in it.” —[ Official Report , 30 October 2008; Vol. 481, c. 1071.] The SDR was designed before Kosovo, before 9/11, before Afghanistan, before Iraq, before the Iranian nuclear programme, before we went to Helmand and before the Georgian war. There is a sense that all this has to move on, but it has not done so because the Government dare not because it would open up so many questions about what our defence policy should be. The challenge we must face is: how do we escape from the straitjacket of SDR being funded inadequately, leading to vital decisions being delayed because of costs, where Ministers argue that dwindling numbers of platforms and troops do not matter?”
“Outside Downing Street, everyone recognises the need for a new defence review, but we all know that it cannot happen this side of the election because the Government know that a review will identify either the need for more money, more equipment and more troops, which it is now impossible to provide, or that the only realistic choices lie, at least in the short term, in what to cut from the programme. The Secretary of State is reduced to falling back on the strategic defence review mantras. I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex—that the SDR is a fine piece of work, but the Government have become too complacent about it.”
“That has meant that the long-term equipment programme is increasingly unaffordable—the collective view of the Defence Select Committee. There is estimated to be a £2 billion black hole at the heart of defence budget. Everyone in the MOD, in the Cabinet, in the House and in the media knows that the Department is increasingly paralysed by the Government’s inability to deliver their stated policy on defence. I have a certain amount of sympathy for the Secretary of State, knowing, as we all do, that he comes to the House with his hands tied by the Prime Minister and the Treasury.”
“The equipment report of last December delayed the carriers, mothballed MARS, cut Future Lynx numbers and kicked FRES into the long grass. Even the compromise reduction in tranche 3 Typhoon, as discussed earlier, is being questioned, when it could maintain skilled jobs in the north-east throughout the recession. We can expect only more cuts and more delays when the results of the latest planning rounds are finalised—if ever they are. Defence must share the pain with other public services, but why is it, we may ask, that the only time when our armed forces seem to come first is when budgetary restraint is called for? The Government’s attitude has forced the Ministry of Defence to prioritise current operations ahead of the long-term procurement of capabilities, as the national security strategy made clear.”
“He has preached the need for more Government borrowing and spending to get us out of a debt crisis and has brought forward £3 billion of expenditure on capital projects—on everything from £30 million for play facilities for children to £300 million for road building. When I tabled a question to ask the Ministry of Defence to say what had been brought forward in defence to revive the economy, the response was: “No Ministry of Defence capital expenditure has been brought forward in response to the economic downturn.” —[ Official Report , 27 January 2009; Vol. 487, c. 308W.] That sentence sadly sums up where the armed forces come on Labour’s list of priorities—and it gets worse. Not only has funding not been brought forward; it has been put back.”
“The recession has changed the public expenditure landscape, and we can no longer expect any Government to provide dramatic increases to allow the armed forces to catch up with other public services in the short or medium term. That opportunity has passed. The public finances are in crisis, and will be for years to come. Defence, like everything else, must learn to cut its cloth and live within its means. I say that as someone who has, for some years, advocated significant increases in defence spending. It is frustrating that, once again, we see that when it comes to designing fiscal stimuli to resuscitate the economy, defence is left out of the Prime Minister’s mindset.”
“I merely point out that our defence expenditure has declined, relative to that of other nations, and that our defence expenditure as a proportion of total public expenditure has also been in decline. It has also been in decline as a proportion of gross national product, as everyone knows. I do not think that the Government made a conscious decision to do that when they were first elected, but that is what has happened, and I think that it explains why our armed forces are under such strain and why there is probably a £2 billion hole at the heart of this year’s defence budget. There will probably be a bigger hole next year, because there seem to be no proposals to fill the hole, apart from pushing programmes forward, as I shall explain.”
“Its chief executive told Der Spiegel last month: “It is better to put an end to the horror than have horror without end”. I wonder what the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), who has responsibility for defence procurement, might say about that. Up until the end of the last financial year, the MOD had spent £564 million on that programme, but the main expenditure is not due until 2011-12, and by putting the programme out of its misery we could save around £2 billion, much of which could be diverted to proven models such as the Globemaster or C-130J. Furthermore, 25 C-130Js could be purchased for around £1.1 billion, which would save the MOD around £900 million, assuming that we do not have to wait too long or have missed our place in the queue.”
“Few navies would dare to put to sea knowing that the British, the Russians, the Americans or the French were operating submarines in their area. That is a powerful capability to have. Could we compromise it in the short to medium term to make ends meet? Delays, however, are unlikely to be enough on their own. Some projects may have to be cut entirely. Could we abandon tranche 3 of Typhoon? Would it be worth the savings? Is there any point fighting the Treasury to keep the A400M? Again as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex said, are we likely to be operating in any substantial theatre where heavy lift is not available from one of our allies? Airbus—aware of the technical problems and delays that have hit that programme—has admitted that the programme may collapse.”
“The Government have been frightened to cut programmes, but a new Government must have the courage to break the logjam and provide the MOD with some clear direction. That is bound to be extremely tough. Can the Trident upgrade be delayed? The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, is asking a perfectly legitimate question. I am not minded to agree with him, but he is entering into a debate that we need to open up and discuss more than we have so far. Although most of our costs for the Astute submarine have already been met, would it be possible or practical to slow down or delay the construction of boats 5, 6 and 7? Astute is an essential component of a blue-water Royal Navy.”
“In the long term, recent research by Decision Analysis Services suggests that by 2028 the defence budget would need to be around £88 billion at current prices to achieve the current equipment programme, but, given trend spending growth of merely 2 per cent., it will be under £50 billion by that date. We cannot put off this choice any longer: either we play a global role and pay for it, or we do not, and we take the savings and risks that come with such a decision. I am convinced that we must maintain our global role, in which case the defence review must nurse us through the current crisis in the public finances. The current procurement budget is around £5.5 billion and the next defence review will have to go through it with a fine-toothed comb.”
“We must decide whether we wish to slim down, cutting back on the carriers, JSF, the full complement of attack submarines, tranche 3 of Typhoon, FRES, future Lynx and FSC or whether our national interest demands that we maintain a global role, in which case the review must lay out a pathway to and the real costs of achieving armed forces capable of sustaining such a global role, in both Professor Strachan’s present war and the future war. In the long term, that means a bigger Army, more helicopters, more strategic and tactical lift, and a blue-water royal naval fleet. For too long, we have sought to play a global role but without being willing to pay for it. In the short term, even our current expenditure plans are unaffordable, leaving aside any ambition to expand.”
“Decisions of that type need to be faced in a defence review that must take account of the short and medium-term fiscal crisis from which defence will not be immune, however much ring-fencing we call for in our speeches. How should we configure the armed forces for the type of country that we wish to be in the medium and long term, despite the pressures that we face in the short term? We must ask ourselves whether we really want to continue to play a global role—I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex. In the past 10 years, we have punched above our weight, but we have come close to exhaustion in doing so.”
“Minehunters, I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Royal Navy is facing in two directions and there is a real danger that our pretensions for it will not match our capabilities to deliver it. If the carrier programme is to go ahead—I very much hope it does—we must build a Navy fit to go with it. If we cannot afford to do this or do not want to play such a role on the world stage, the £4 billion would be better spent elsewhere and we will finish up getting out of blue-water naval capability. I cannot believe that that would be the right decision, but that is the nature of the decisions that we face on the current budget.”
“I am just winding up, if I may. Defence must be prepared to make sacrifices in the current climate and current operations must take priority—that is certainly correct—but we cannot ignore the crisis in defence funding that has been building up over the past decade. The next defence review must place the armed forces on a sustainable footing and ensure that, once the fiscal crisis is over, we are ready to make the kind of investment that the brave men and women who serve in them deserve and which is necessary for the future security and prosperity of our country.”
“If this programme is so affordable, why have the Government been forced to extend the life of the Type 23 frigates, so that they will be the oldest frigates in service in the Royal Navy since the days of sail?”
“May I forecast that this will not be the last time that the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes to the House to make a statement of this nature? Can we be absolutely clear that this crisis is not a failure of capitalism or markets? It is a failure of governmental regulation. It is a failure to control profligate borrowing and profligate lending. Markets are punishing Governments, regulators and countries for failing to supervise the capitalist system properly.”
“There has now been a credit crunch in the economy for 18 months. The Government have introduced a great many measures, but is there any evidence that they are working? Has not all the extra liquidity that the Government have thrown at the banks been insulating them from the need to make the changes to and the clarifications of their balance sheets? Is it not the case that they will not start lending to each other until they trust each others’ balance sheets, and that the Government have not actually forced them to come clean about what is on their balance sheets?”
“Will the Minister confirm that the review was conducted by Major-General Cottam, who left the Army months ago and now serves as the registrar at St. Paul’s cathedral? That suggests that the review was completed, but that the Government are uncomfortable with its findings.”
“Is my hon. Friend aware that Combat Stress, the mental welfare charity for ex-servicemen and women, has reported that whereas in 2005 only 5 per cent. of those presenting with PTSD were unfunded by Government help, that figure has now risen to 43 per cent. and is continuing to rise? That is putting great strain on the charity’s resources. Given that the disorder arises directly from employment in Her Majesty’s armed forces, is that not something that we really have to address?”
“I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend. Is not the point that he is making particularly relevant to the conduct of Government policy in Afghanistan? It is being conducted by a Cabinet Committee that meets once a fortnight, rather than the whole Government being engaged in the effort.”
“I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, but while her responsibilities are inevitably focused primarily on her own Department, may I commend the cross-governmental approach that the document adopts? Does she share my concern that the pages on Pakistan and Afghanistan suggest that it is hardly possible to say that the Prevent strategy is working in those countries? In fact, what we have done in Afghanistan seems to have fed the forces of radicalisation rather than defeated them. What discussions is she having with her counterparts in the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence on revisiting the Afghan strategy to ensure that we start to provide a more stabilising influence in that part of the world and to devote a fairer proportion of our resources to Pakistan rather than just to military effort in Afghanistan?”
“I wish to acknowledge that although the new rules were not fully in force at the time, it was a mistake for me not to have taken proper advice at the time, so I apologise without reservation to the House for any breach of the rules, and I will place a copy of my letter to the parliamentary commissioner in the Library.”
“On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it be in order for me to use this opportunity to apologise to the House, as I believe I may have breached the new rules on the use of Commons dining facilities in relation to political fundraising? I hosted a lunch for a leading charity in a Commons dining room on 19 October 2007. I have written a full explanation to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, asking for his advice and for him to take whatever action he considers appropriate. However, it is my understanding that he can neither give me advice nor investigate this matter at my instigation, and this may raise an issue that the House would wish to consider.”
“May I remind the Secretary of State that when British forces were first deployed to Afghanistan back in 2002, we were promised a six-month deployment, yet we have been there for a period longer than the second world war? May I also draw his attention to the fact that he has issued revised defence planning assumptions that still class Afghanistan as a contingent operation instead of a standing commitment? Is it not about time that we treated our Afghan deployment as a standing commitment, and configured our armed forces accordingly?”
“I do not think that that was a full and frank answer. Will she now give the House a full and frank answer and place the material in the Library of the House, or do I have to make a freedom of information request?”
“May I say how delighted I was when the Leader of the House gave me such a splendid answer the last time I asked her a question? It was about the answers that Ministers should give in response to parliamentary written questions on ambulance trusts, and she said that it was quite unnecessary that we should have to use freedom of information requests to get information out of Ministers that they should give in parliamentary answers. I am now a little disappointed with her after I tabled a question to ask her “what meetings she has attended with Mr Speaker on the arrest of the hon. Member for Ashford and the search of his office; what was discussed; if she will place” copies of this material “in the Library”. —[ Official Report , 26 January 2009; Vol. 487, c. 67W.] I got the answer that she has regular meetings with the Speaker.”
“On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It was reported in The Sunday Telegraph that you had ruled, on grounds of privilege, that foreign trips funded by the British Council should not be subject to freedom of information requests. Could you confirm that that is in fact the case, and could you possibly furnish us with reasons for the ruling?”
“I am a little startled that the Foreign Secretary has not used this opportunity to put on record how much we regret causing civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Will he do that?”
“I am most grateful to the Foreign Secretary—I will make best use of it. As we are putting the international house in order, may I suggest that the Government put their house in order and open up the discussion that is needed between the military and DFID about how our military forces can use cash instead of military force to achieve the effects that they want? At the moment, our forces do not have access to nearly enough cash. The result is that they resort to military force instead, which is not only much more destructive, but much more expensive.”
“We would also be tackling the roots of the insurgency in Afghanistan; at present we are treating the symptoms and not the cause.”
“Given the scale of the potential strategic threat of terrorism, and the disastrous possibility that a Government armed with nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of extremists, why on earth is military diplomacy not being addressed with far more urgency? We have spent billions of pounds in Afghanistan, perhaps not very effectively. A few hundred million more spent in Pakistan would be of far greater strategic benefit. We should be helping to reform and modernise the Pakistani military to give the army the self-confidence to conduct modern and sophisticated counter-insurgency campaigns, to divert it from its hopeless preoccupation with India, and to help it integrate into a stable Pakistani democratic settlement.”
“That is more than just bad for the UK; it threatens our ultimate success. With our history and blood ties in the region, particularly in Pakistan, we are uniquely placed to be effective and proactive. It is true that Pakistan is vital to success in Afghanistan, but that misses the real point. In the long term, Pakistan is far more significant strategically than Afghanistan. We should be devoting far more to our excellent mission in Pakistan and committing far more military resources to helping the Pakistani army. Military diplomacy was meant to be a big thing in the 1998 strategic defence review, but the Government keep cutting the numbers of defence and military attaches in our embassies. We have a good but tiny military-to-military relationship with the Pakistan.”
“The UN does not and cannot successfully prosecute wars. Wars need leadership of the kind that, in this case, only the United States can provide. If some nations are not prepared to accept that, it would be almost more helpful if they left the field altogether instead of insisting on overcomplicated command chains and caveats that preoccupy commanders with process instead of outcomes. If we Europeans want a say in US strategy, we must commit the European forces that can make a real difference. Sadly for the British, our armed forces are so overstretched and run-down that we have limited additional military capacity to offer just as the new President is looking to America’s allies to prove themselves. We are losing influence in Washington and at US central command in Tampa, Florida, and we have only ourselves to blame.”
“NATO is operating the 21st-century equivalent of the Schlieffen plan at the start of the first world war, when railway timetables behind the German front lines became the driving factor of German military policy. With a new US President, it is time to say these hard things in the hope that a coherent strategy will emerge. Lord Ashdown suggests that three essentials are required alongside additional military and aid capacity: an international plan, signed up to by everybody; proper international co-ordination expressed with a single voice; and a regional construct—a treaty—to involve Afghanistan’s neighbours, including Iran, that is underpinned by the world powers, including China. Let us hope that Richard Holbrooke’s appointment heralds that new single voice, but reinforces another lesson.”
“We would do well to recall the greatest Chinese military thinker, Sun Tzu, who said “strategy without tactics is the slowest way to victory” but “tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”. I agree entirely with the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), who has unfortunately absented himself from the Chamber, that the lack of strategy is our biggest problem. The hesitancy of the Foreign Secretary, perhaps in an attempt to seem reasonable and open-minded, conveys a lack of confidence that I have also picked up on in private meetings in the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence and from our military commanders. We have a campaign plan but we have no overall plan to win the war, as pointed out by Professor Hew Strachan recently at the Royal United Services Institute.”
“I met a senior non-commissioned officer who was back from Afghanistan just before Christmas, and he told me, “We are there to help them but they just don’t want to be helped.” That reinforces the central message of James Fergusson’s excellent book, “A Million Bullets”, which is that much of what we have found ourselves doing in Afghanistan seems to have been counter-productive. Our armed forces are brilliant and brave, but their tactical successes seem to contribute little towards strategic success. They merely stir up a hornets’ nest. Lord Ashdown went even further in a remarkable interview on the “Today” programme on 24 January. It pains me to repeat him, but he said: “I fear…we are now wasting the lives of our young men and women”. That is a serious charge to bear for us as politicians responsible for the situation.”
“Our soldiers continue to win battles against the Taliban in Helmand but the politicians in Afghanistan and the west seem incapable of taking advantage of the time and space won by the blood of our brave troops. The story is the same across Afghanistan. We went to Afghanistan, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) pointed out, solely with the objective of toppling the regime that sheltered al-Qaeda. However, we have finished up nation building. Our problems in Helmand are a microcosm of the wider difficulties that the international security assistance force is experiencing: lack of military and civil capacity, a vacuum of governance, overstretch and a complete lack of strategic direction.”
“Let me start by protesting at the absurd shortness of the debate, which is totally inadequate even for the sprinkling of Members present. Why are so few people here? It is because so few people will get the opportunity to speak. I blue-pencilled my speech to fit it into the time available, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway) who has spent days working on his speech, drawing on his enormous experience, will be reduced to a few scraps. It is intolerable and I hope that the Government will take that to heart and give the House more time to discuss these vital issues. I agree with much of what has been said and, most worrying, I find myself agreeing with those who are most doom-laden.”
“I cannot believe that the Minister really thinks that a sanitised response to a Select Committee report—we all know what responses to Select Committee reports are like—is a substitute for regular parliamentary statements, which mean that Ministers can be cross-examined by the House. That is the least that we ask for. It is unprecedented that a military campaign should be in progress and statements given so rarely.”
“Secondly, if it is ultimately to be left to the Member concerned to decide what to do in such circumstances, that might place them under undue pressure. Surely matters of privilege should rest with the House as a whole, according to the statement made by Speaker Lenthall in 1642.”
“On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In your statement on 3 December at the state opening of Parliament, you said: “From now on, a warrant will always be required when a search…of a Member’s office, or access to a Member’s parliamentary papers, is sought.” You went on to say: “Every case must be referred for my personal decision, as it is my responsibility.” —[ Official Report , 3 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 3.] However, in your statement made a week ago last Thursday you said that the police need only “advise the Serjeant at Arms” —[ Official Report , 22 January 2009; Vol. 486, c. 897.] and that the Serjeant at Arms would then approach the Member concerned directly. First, why have you changed your view, if you have changed your view? I believe that colleagues would be far more reassured by your first statement than by the subsequent one.”
“Further to my original point of order, and to the subsequent comments that have been made, Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for your clarification. With the greatest respect, may I put it to you that there are people outside the House who do not attach sufficient importance to what you have said? Until the House has debated these matters, and referred them to the Privileges Committee for proper consideration before bringing them back to the House to be resolved, we are pulling our punches and the police are failing to respect your word. That is a serious slight on this House.”
“Given that the Secretary of State for Health is constitutionally responsible for the conduct of the health service, should he not provide the information in parliamentary answers that a local newspaper could obtain on request?”
“On the matter of the demonstrations in Parliament square, I make the plea that we treat the individual demonstrators with respect and that we respect their views, which are sincerely held. Will the Leader of the House have a word with her Cabinet colleagues about how they answer written questions? I have been attempting to obtain data about the performance of the ambulance service in the two districts in my constituency. That information used to be given in parliamentary answers, but since the regionalisation of the ambulance service it has been denied to us. The Colchester Gazette has been told that it can obtain the information through a request under the freedom of information legislation.”