Sir Julian Lewis
MP for New Forest East · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I will share with the House one particular case that is representative of many. My constituent, Mrs Gillian Pothecary, lost her husband almost a year ago. She wrote to me in July about her valiant but so far unavailing quest to obtain a civil service widow’s pension.”
“She said: “Mrs Pothecary’s…case falls under the commitment to be fully resolved by early September at the absolute latest. Capita has assured me that her case is on their escalation log and has been flagged for priority handling.” I rang up Gill just before coming into this debate and—you’ve guessed it, Dame Siobhain—she has not yet recei…”
“As the Minister seems to have run out of supportive Back Benchers, I shall endeavour to ask him a helpful and easy question. Accepting that it will be some years, to put it mildly, before we can eliminate our dependency on oil and gas, does he accept in principle that we are more secure if we exploit our own domestic oil and gas resources…”
“I warmly endorse almost everything the Secretary of State has said today, and I genuinely congratulate him on his appointment. In my first speech in this House almost 30 years ago, I promised to support Labour Governments as long as they supported the nuclear deterrent, the conventional armed forces and NATO.”
“On Monday, just as campaigners from the New Forest and Waterside were handing into Downing Street a 32,000-signature petition against the appalling and unfair outcome of local government reorganisation affecting our area, the welcome announcement was made by the Government that the local government reform proposals for Hampshire and three…”
“We are now in a situation that is worse than that at the height of the cold war, so the comparison we have to make is between what we are spending now and what we spent during the cold war, which was, in modern calculating methods, between 4.5% and 5.1% on defence. So let us not talk about increases to 2.7%.”
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“It was the discovery by the British intelligence services of that correspondence that finally showed the Americans where their interests lay and helped to precipitate their entry into the first world war, from which time the outcome of the conflict could no longer be in doubt, because arguably—I would say that it is probably beyond argument—it was the entry of the United States that forced the Germans to embark on their last-ditch attempt in March 1918 to break the stalemate on the western front, and that led to the sequence of events, including the battle of Amiens later in the year, that ultimately led to the allied victory. Similarly, with regard to the military relationship in the second world war, it is well known that the Americans helped us with lend-lease. The “Destroyers for Bases” deal is also well known.”
“This was a revelation of a conspiracy in which the Germans had offered, if I remember correctly, the Mexicans some great tranche of US territory if they would co-operate with them in hostilities against the United States.”
“Yes indeed, and that puts me in mind, of course, of another thing that the two countries have in common, which was also encapsulated by Winston Churchill when he said that “democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others”. I see something common there because the United States is a great democracy and the United Kingdom is a great democracy and, as I said, when we get to what really matters, we can always count on each other. The intelligence relationship no doubt goes back a good deal further than the first world war, but the period that I know something about is the 20th century, and of course in the first world war we had a classic example of the work of the intelligence services in this country with the discovery of something called the Zimmermann telegram.”
“It is now widely acknowledged that the covert assistance that the Americans supplied to the British, particularly in the field of intelligence, was of great value to the country and to our campaign, notwithstanding the competing attractions and incentives that the United States experienced at that difficult time, which might have encouraged them not to assist us. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield has done the House a service by securing the debate, the House has not done him a service in that, unusually for a Tuesday, it will sit only at 2.30 pm, so many people who would otherwise have contributed to the debate are sadly not here. In other circumstances, I am sure that there would have been many more participants. The best laid plans always suffer the occasional hiccup, however.”
“I am sure that Hansard will be equal to the occasion. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman meant that Hansard would convey the good sense of my somewhat convoluted prose. Sometimes it is better to be right than simply to be tidy. During the Falklands conflict, we saw the constructive tension in the relationship between the UK and the US at its most interesting. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick was wholly hostile to the British position over the Falkland Islands, while Secretary of Defence Caspar Weinberger was very sympathetic. In the end, the Weinberger view prevailed with President Reagan.”
“For many years, the Americans have done us a favour by making it possible for us to maintain an ultimate minimum strategic deterrent as a final insurance policy to ensure that our country can never be blackmailed by people armed with nuclear weapons. The benefits for both sides are beyond question. Long may the relationship flourish, long may it continue and long may it survive attempts to undermine it by people who wish neither country much good.”
“Overwhelmingly, our American allies see the benefit of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, assigned as it is to duties in NATO but ultimately under the entire control of the British Government. It is beyond dispute that the Americans welcome the existence of that force and do everything they can to facilitate it and to ensure that it is replaced as each generation reaches the end of its life. I began by saying that the relationship between the UK and the US occasionally has scratchy, ungrateful or divergent moments. As I have said, however, when things really matter, we know that we can always count on each other. I believe that we have done the US a favour over Syria. Time will tell whether I am right, but I suspect that it will not be too long before the American Administration agree that things have worked out for the better.”
“The design of the successor submarines that will carry the next generation of the British strategic nuclear deterrent is at an advanced stage, and it is interesting to learn that co-operation in the matter is so close that there will be an identical common missile compartment in American ballistic missile submarines and future British ballistic missile submarines. It is occasionally suggested that certain officials in the American Administration are not enthusiastic supporters of Britain’s continuing to have a strategic minimum nuclear deterrent. Such individuals, who are seldom named—I have seen one or two names occasionally bandied about—are very much in the minority, however.”
“We will have to do the best we can in the extra time available. I am sure that the Front Benchers will rise to the occasion and give us so many good reasons for the support, pursuit, development and continuation of the Anglo-American relationship that the time will simply fly by. I turn, finally, to the Trident missile system. As my hon. and right hon. colleagues know, the Trident missile bodies in the UK nuclear deterrent force are supplied by the Americans. We and the Americans have a common pool of such missile bodies, although the British, under the terms of international treaties, manufacture the warheads ourselves.”
“May I put it on the record that even at the time of the most anti-American phase of the Labour party, the right hon. Gentleman, the shadow Minister, never signed up to that point of view?”
“I welcome the suggestion by the shadow defence team, which I hope will remain its position under its new head, that given that even the Liberal Democrats now claim to want to have two replacement Trident submarines, we should get on with making that decision irreversible as soon as possible so that Trident does not become a political football in coalition negotiations after the next election, as, regrettably, it was after the last one.”
“The right hon. Gentleman refers to that period in the immediate post-war years, and I do not think that the harshest Eurosceptic would dispute the fact that Britain needed to be involved then. However, surely that period also shows that it is possible to be heavily involved in shaping the future of Europe without being a member of a European Union.”
“Members that if we simply revert to being civilians visiting the military, something very precious will be lost from the scheme. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I am delighted that colleagues are endorsing that with various signals, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) will do so explicitly.”
“I am delighted that this is one of those debates in which one can honestly feel that one agrees with every sentiment expressed so far. The scheme has many things to recommend it, and I will pick up one or two of them in the time available. Both the Labour members of the Defence Committee, the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) and for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), referred to the sense of involvement in and participation with the armed forces, and to the difference between visits to the armed forces wearing their civilian suits as Committee members and wearing whatever variation of military uniform they have been privileged to wear on their scheme visits. I know that lawyers have been taking a close look at that, but I assure hon.”
“Mr Walker, as a master of parliamentary procedure, you will know that when participating in a debate, one is not supposed to refer to the presence of anyone outside the confines of the Chamber. However, I am sure that you will allow me to say what a pleasure it is to know that Sir Neil and Sheila Thorne are present today to hear all the wonderful tributes to them and, as I am sure they would be the first to acknowledge, to hear the tributes that must be made to the civilian and uniformed staff of the Ministry of Defence over 25 years for their huge efforts in arranging the visits from the armed forces’ side. It is a real honour to make the last speech by a Back Bencher in a debate about a scheme that has been an unalloyed and phenomenal success for a quarter of a century.”
“When one considers the very large numbers of colleagues of all parties who have been through the scheme, it is remarkable that there have been hardly any cases—in the low single figures—of raised eyebrows about someone going on the scheme and immediately tabling a raft of hostile questions on the Floor of the House. That excellent outcome is very different from what might have been predicted at the start of the process. As something of an amateur military historian, I look forward to the day when I can go to the National Archives at Kew and look for the file of correspondence that must exist relating to the period in which Sir Neil originally approached the Ministry of Defence to propose that MPs have direct informal access to all ranks of the armed forces.”
“I could not have expected or desired a more reassuring comment. I now look for a second reassuring comment. I will not get it immediately, but I am looking to my old Front-Bench colleague of many years’ standing on the former shadow defence team—he is now, thank goodness, the Minister—to address what one might call the issue of trust. The reason why the scheme has worked so well is that people have been given privileged access to members of the armed forces at every level. There has been, as it were, an unwritten understanding that that privilege would not be abused.”
“It is important that Members of Parliament who want to support the armed forces have the intellectual ammunition, on a non-partisan basis, to speak with authority about them. I conclude by pointing out that the scale of the scheme when it started was for two Members of Parliament to visit each of the three armed forces, with two more visiting the Royal Marines, which is of course a subset—some would say, a superset—of the Royal Navy.”
“Members, all I can say is that Ministers should take a deep breath, look at what has happened with the armed forces parliamentary scheme and realise that a tunnel vision approach to access by civilians, whether they are reporters or Members of Parliament, to the military is counter-productive. The armed forces parliamentary scheme is a boon to hon. Members with little knowledge of defence, as it is to hon. Members when, as sometimes happens, their political party goes through a phase of anti-militarism. There was a period—thank goodness, long in the past—when the Labour party shifted in a unilateralist direction, and I am sure that it was very valuable to those courageous members of the Labour party who did not go in that direction to be able to recharge their intellectual batteries by having access to such a scheme.”
“To inject a slightly quizzical note into my speech, that is why I was a little concerned recently to read an article about the eminent military historian Sir Max Hastings being refused the sort of informal contact that for many years he and many others have been allowed with senior serving personnel in the MOD network. That runs counter to the spirit of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, but I hope that it is simply a case of over-zealous application of some rule against leaking things to the media. Certainly, if we reach a situation in which people like Sir Max Hastings—eminent historians and public commentators—cannot secure the degree of access that they used to have, or indeed if a similar bar is put on hon.”
“Exactly. That is precisely how people who have engaged in the scheme have understood their responsibilities, with very few exceptions. When one considers that the final stage of the scheme is membership of the Royal College of Defence Studies, that is quite remarkable. It may not be common knowledge, but those of us who are fortunate enough to be parliamentary members of the RCDS are taken on as full members and are considered to remain members for life. The essence of the RCDS course is meeting people, learning from them and establishing formal and informal contacts that will stand one in good stead in relation to one’s understanding of defence developments at home and abroad.”
“Indeed, which was the reason for my quick interjection of the word “superset”. The scheme then moved to having five Members per service, and it now has very large numbers. We measure the effectiveness of a scheme or organisation by the demand for it. There is a huge demand for this scheme, and we are very grateful that the supply will continue to meet the increased demand.”
“Do the changes have any implications for the military justice system, given the continuing concern both in this House and the country at the huge costs bill faced by the courageous SAS Sergeant Danny Nightingale as a result of trying to defend himself against an inappropriate prison term?”
“It cost the Ministry of Defence £1.4 billion to extend the life of the four Trident submarines so that the Liberal Democrats could study alternatives. Now that that study has shown there is no alternative to Trident, will the Prime Minister consider signing the main-gate contract for the first two submarines, so that we can never again be blackmailed by the Liberal Democrats in a hung Parliament?”
“On Thursday evening, the Prime Minister gave an unqualified pledge to the House and the country that he had heard the message and that we will not be involved in military action in Syria, yet parts of the media are dominated by people who wanted the vote to go the other way saying we should have another vote. Will the Foreign Secretary confirm once and for all that we can rely on the pledge that the Prime Minister gave on Thursday evening?”
“In order that the Secretary of State does not keep having to tell us that he must not go above his pay grade, will he carry the message back to No. 10 that as Labour Front Benchers say they are willing to sign up to two of the four boats before the next election, and as the majority of people in this House would like to have that main-gate decision implemented at least in part, why should we not go ahead so that we cannot be blackmailed by the Liberal Democrats in the event of a hung Parliament after the general election?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will have noticed that the Defence questions Order Paper was dominated by questions about the Trident successor and the Liberal Democrat-demanded alternatives review. Given that the delay to the main-gate decision cost this country £1.4 billion in extending the life of the existing submarines, is there any way in which I, within the rules of order, can set on the record that, present for those questions, were no more at any one time than two or three out of nearly 60 Liberal Democrat MPs?”
“Although the Joint Intelligence Committee says it is baffled about the motivation for Assad’s use of chemical weapons, it says it has “a limited but growing body of intelligence which supports the judgment that the regime was responsible”. I appreciate that the Prime Minister cannot share such intelligence with the House as a whole, but members of the all-party Intelligence and Security Committee have top-secret clearance to look at precisely this sort of material. As some of its members support and others oppose military intervention, would he be willing for them to see that material?”
“Similarly, Churchill thought of using poison gas against the V-weapons in 1944, and decided not to do so on military advice. The gas protocol had nothing to do with it.”
“As the Prime Minister pointed out, poison gas was extensively used in battle in the first world war. That led to a revulsion that was formulated by the 1925 Geneva gas protocol, which banned the use of poison gases but did not prevent a country from possessing a stockpile so that it could threaten retaliation if attacked by such gases. That protocol had nothing to do with the fact that poison gas was not used in the second world war—what prevented Hitler from using it was the threat of overwhelming retaliation. Indeed, sarin and tabun were nerve gases that Nazi scientists invented in the 1930s and 1940s. Hitler proposed to use tabun in 1943 but was deterred from doing so by the mistaken belief that the allies had discovered it too, although they had not.”
“My two questions are: first, is it proven beyond reasonable doubt that Assad did it; and secondly, even if Assad or his regime did it, is a military strike sensible? On the first question, the UN inspectors will not tell us anything about whether or not Assad did it, as I understand it. All they will do is tell us whether or not a sarin gas attack took place, so we cannot look to them to point the finger as to who did it. The Joint Intelligence Committee has been cited and we can all read the summary. That summary is not conclusive and in fact states that the JIC is baffled to find a motive for Assad having done this, as well it might be. If Assad did it—and perhaps he did—it was the height of irrationality for him to do the one thing that might get the west intervening against him.”
“I am delighted to have the extra minute, especially as that was the next point I was going to make, given that a large proportion of members of my family were among those victims who were gassed. Hitler used poison gas against those innocent victims because he did not give a fig for the gas protocol; he cared about whether or not people could hit back. Those victims could not hit back whereas the allies could, and that is why he did not use gas against them. I do not want to divert too far into that, but it is important to understand the realities of what makes countries use poison gas and what deters them from using it. In my mind, the questions we must consider resolve themselves into two, rather than the four elegantly put forward by the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.”
“I greatly respect my hon. Friend’s opinions on this and all other related matters, but nevertheless his point would make more sense if Assad were willing to acknowledge that he had been testing the water, rather than vehemently denying that he did it.”
“Nobody thought that the assassination of an obscure archduke would lead to a world conflagration. As Admiral Lord West has said, this is a powder keg, and we should not be lobbing weapons into the heart of such combustible material.”
“One thing that bothers me greatly is that it is now being suggested—I say this as someone who is generally supportive of Israel—that Israeli intelligence might be the source of the evidence that the Assad Government did it. If Assad is behaving irrationally and if he is so desperate, what is to prevent him, if he is attacked militarily by us on the perceived basis of intelligence supplied by Israel, from retaliating with a chemical attack against Israel? What will Israel do? It will retaliate in turn. What will America, Iran and Russia do then? I began my speech by referring to the first world war. Next year, we will commemorate the centenary of the events of August 1914. Those events have a worrying parallel. At that time, a series of actions and reactions drew in, in an escalating fashion, one country after another.”
“The Intelligence and Security Committee is cleared to see classified material well up to the level of the material that the JIC and the Prime Minister have seen. I see no reason why those of us who have been cleared for such access should not have it. I shall now move on to the second question. Let us suppose that Assad did it. Is it then sensible to reply with military action? We have heard the arguments about red lines and the sacrosanct taboo that we must stand up for. If my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) is correct, however, and if the Assad Government did that irrational thing, it shows that they are behaving very irrationally indeed.”
“I will not give way as I am still answering the previous question. I think it just as likely that if the regime were responsible in some way, it might have been done by some part of the regime unauthorised by another part. That leads me to the question of contradictory evidence, because from the leaked reports on the one hand we are getting stories that the attack was ordered by Assad’s brother in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt on the leadership, and on the other hand hearing that there is intercept evidence that somebody who was unauthorised was responsible and that there was a telephone conversation in which somebody said, “Why on earth did you do this?” and a panicked reaction to the unauthorised release of poison gas. The point is that it is very far from certain that the evidence stacks up.”
“I am grateful to the Chief Secretary for giving way. He says this is the most comprehensive examination for many years—that is open to question—but will he explain why it considered only the four-boat and three-boat options for Trident, not the two-boat options that the Liberal Democrats plan to put to their conference as Liberal Democrat policy?”
“I read that report in The Times , and it seems to me that what was being said was that the Labour party is committed to continuous-at-sea deterrence and the only question is whether it can do it with three submarines or whether it would have to do it with four. The one thing that is absolutely certain from the report is that it cannot be done with two, yet the Chief Secretary’s position is that if a crisis arose they would step up their performance. How could we build a third or fourth extra submarine in time to step up our performance if a crisis arose?”
“For the sake of clarity, it is important to stress that in the report the only options for Trident are a four-boat fleet or a three-boat fleet. That is where the £4 billion would come into it. The report does not even consider or cost a two-boat fleet, because it would be impossible to reinstate to a higher level of readiness.”
“I could just about stay with the hon. Gentleman’s argument if he was saying that we ought to build four submarines but not send them all to sea until the situation became worse, but he is not saying that. He is saying that we should build only two or three such submarines, which would mean if the situation got worse, we would not be able to reinstate continuous-at-sea deterrence because we would not have the submarines. Without the submarines, we cannot have the posture, much as he might like to reinstate it when the situation gets worse.”
“The hon. Gentleman may be aware that all the talk about the Liberal Democrat conference considering a two-boat option comes from a Liberal Democrat document that has been drawn up by a Liberal Democrat group. When I asked the Chief Secretary earlier today at a briefing whether any copy of the review was going to be taken to the Liberal Democrat conference for consideration, he said, “Well, I might take a copy, but it will just be in my briefcase.” In other words, the review is not the document that the Liberal Democrats are going to consider. They are going to consider a completely different document making completely different recommendations, which the review did not even bother to consider.”
“The Liberal Democrats could then say to the Leader of the Opposition, “All that stands between you and entering No. 10 Downing street is to get rid of this weapons system.” They would not say, “Go down to two boats”; they would say, “Get rid of it completely”, because that is what they have wanted all along.”
“That is perfectly okay, except for one thing—the use of the word “deterrence”. They could just as easily have referred to something like “intermittent deterrence”, “semi-deterrence”, microscopic deterrence” or “virtually zero deterrence”. It is not really deterrence unless it is certain; that is why it used to be called “mutually assured destruction”. It is not enough to be able to threaten destruction; it has to be assured because otherwise the person may not be deterred. It may seem as though the Liberals’ policy is in disarray, but they could still emerge, at the end of this process, as the winners. I will explain why. At the next general election, we could have another hung Parliament, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) suggested.”
“The whole point about nuclear deterrence is that it is unacceptable and unavoidable that a country will suffer nuclear destruction if it uses its nuclear weapons against a similarly armed country. In the document, which was prepared by two civil servants in the Cabinet Office specially seconded from the Ministry of Defence, a number of strange concepts are articulated. One of them is familiar—continuous deterrence, which is referred to without quotation marks. Then the document refers to things called “focused deterrence”, “sustained deterrence”, “responsive deterrence” and “preserved deterrence”. I have studied this subject for at least 31 years and I have never come across those terms before. At a briefing earlier today, the two civil servants were good enough to admit that in fact they had made them up.”
“He made a comparison between the atomic bomb, which at the time had not yet been tested or used against Japan, and the concept and practice of duelling: “Duelling was a recognised method of settling quarrels between men of high social standing so long as the duellists stood twenty paces apart and fired at each other with pistols of a primitive type. If the rule had been that they should stand a yard apart with pistols at each other’s hearts, we doubt whether it would long have remained a recognised method of settling affairs of honour.” However, if the duellists do not know whether the pistol is loaded, then even if they are standing only a yard apart they might just be reckless enough—“reckless” is the word that we hear time and again in the context of this Lib Dem policy—to take a chance.”
“That is where the whole concept of continuous-at-sea deterrence is central, because if one thinks one has a chance of avoiding an unacceptable level of retaliation, one might well take that chance in the hope that one will not have to face up to it. I have quoted before, and I will quote it again tonight, what was stated the first time a senior British defence specialist considered the concept of what in those days would have been called atomic deterrence. That was in June 1945 in a top secret report drawn up by a committee of defence scientists headed by Professor Sir Henry Tizard.”
“I think that it is possible to make a principled and coherent case either that we should have an effective and continuous nuclear deterrent or that we should not, but one cannot make a sensible case for having a part-time deterrent. I have looked at the report in some detail and will pick out a couple of elements that I regard as particularly significant. The very first sentence of the executive summary states: “Deterrence rests on the notion of ‘unacceptable loss’—the ability to inflict a level of damage that a potential aggressor would judge outweighed any benefit they might gain by a particular course of action.” Well, yes and no. It does not just rest on the notion of unacceptable loss; it rests on the twin notions of unacceptable loss and unavoidable loss.”
“In the past few months we have had several opportunities to debate nuclear deterrence. The hon. Members for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and I, from our respectively opposite sides of the argument, successfully procured a debate on 17 January. Strangely enough, I did not hear many of these Liberal Democrat midway positions articulated on that occasion. The hon. Member for Islington North then secured a debate in Westminster Hall on nuclear deterrence and the non-proliferation treaty on 22 June, and I seem to remember that there were no Liberal Democrat contributions to that debate at all.”
“I urge Opposition Members who believe in deterrence to join Conservative Members and put relentless pressure on our leaders for a grand coalition to bring forward the main-gate decision and secure the future of the nuclear deterrent—”