Defence
13 MAY 1974
1001
payments to Service men who have been disabled in the fighting. My right hon. Friend suggested that it might be that this was mostly due to sheer administra- tive difficulty in the Northern Ireland Office in getting through the number of cases with which it has to deal. Would not it be a good idea if those payments were made by the Ministry of Defence, which would be able to deal more quickly with the administration? That is no criticism of those at present dealing with these matters. We know that they are doing their best.
We have spent most of the debate deal- ing with the vexed question of the cuts which, we were told with such glee by the Secretary of State, have to be con- sidered in this defence review.
We have seen the Government's sup- porters in considerable disarray in this debate. It cannot have escaped the notice of anyone that there are such wide divergencies of opinion on the Govern- ment benches that the right hon. Gentle- man's task will be extremely difficult.
It is no part of our thesis or proposal to the House that there never can be cuts in defence. Some hon. Gentlemen oppo- site seemed to make out that that was the case. It is not. I go further and suggest that it is the responsibility of every administration dealing with defence always to search for ways of carrying out our commitments at lesser cost, if pos- sible. The previous Government, of which I was pleased to be a member, made a number of cuts in ways which did not materially affect our ability to carry out our commitments. That is the im- portant criterion against which all defence cuts ought to be considered.
I come now to the vexed question which has gone through a number of speeches namely, whether the Govern- ment are aiming at a figure-many hon. Members have referred to cuts of £1,000 million per annum- and, if so, whether this is the right way to go about it.
This matter can be quickly disposed of by the words of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy who, addressing himself to the question of cuts in a speech at Portsmouth on 19th April, said:
"First. if we are to behave rationally and constructively in government we cannot simply pluck a percentage or figure from a hat and say that our defence expenditure must at all costs
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be pegged to it. There is no logic in such an approach."
I thoroughly applaud those words. I am sure that they will be supported by the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend. They seem, from the mouth of the Government, to clear up the question whether there is any rationale at all in approaching defence cuts from the posi- tion of saying, "We are going to cut £X million, come wind, come weather, or whatever happens.” That is not the approach of the right hon. Gentleman or his hon. Friend, but it is the approach of many hon. Gentlemen opposite. suggest, with respect to their sincerity, that that is a completely negative, im- practicable and wrong way to approach a constructive defence policy. I hope that they will think carefully before pressing it too hard on their right hon. Friend.
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Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House must fight for defence cuts, if they are to take place, to be made within the agreed commitments that we have to undertake. There is no sense in defence cuts unless they are related to the commitments which we as a nation decide we must undertake. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman must ensure, first, that the assessment of our commit- ments is right and acceptable to him and his colleagues in the Government and, secondly, that the necessary provision is
made to meet those commitments.
There was a moment in an otherwise admirable speech at which I thought the right hon. Gentleman's logic was be- coming a bit shaky, and I intervened to question him on one point. I am sure that, referring to the possibility of with- drawal from Hong Kong, I heard him say, "Our commitment is there." Then in another place he said. "We are examining our commitment about this matter."
If the commitment is there, then it has to be met. If it is not there, clearly it is open to the Government to decide to save the money by withdrawing troops from that area. Therefore, we must be careful that the logic goes through all these considerations.
There was a slight doubt in my mind whether it was clearly understood in the exchanges earlier that it was or was not