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"jevolved in overseas conflict". Incidentally, he was in the S and not the Marines, and therefore not part of the normal contingent.
If Robert Allan Burns knew that, as I believe he did, and if other young men in the SAS knew it, as I believe they did, why did no one tell Lord Franks and his colleagues or were they told? If Franks was told the fact ought to have been recorded in the committee's report. If Franks was not told, why was he not told? If Robert Allan Burns, aged 22, from Dundee, knew all that, what about the occupant of Downing street? Did that lad know something in February 1982 that the Prime Minister did not? If that is so, it raises the most acute problems of military and political control over the military
I believe that the Prime Minister knew full well from MI6 and was fully aware of the JIC assessment of the likelihood of war, referred to in paragraph 95 of Franks. If the SAS knew in February 1982 that it would fight in the Falklands, what other explanation can there be than that the Prime Minister thought it in her political interest either to be a war leader in what the British people might see as a righteous cause, or, to borrow the odious phrase attributed to the Chaplain General to the Forces, to send some "purifying spirit" through the British people by shedding blood. I thought that that was an unfortunate speech on the Falklands by the chaplain general. There may be an explanation. If there is, either he or the Archbishop of Canterbury should give it.
I refer now to the build up on another dependency, Ascension Island. I asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
"whether he has had discussions with the Organisation of African States and individual African states on the issue of British military development of Ascension Island."
The answer was none.
The Minister of State replied to another question: "There have been no discussions with the American authorities about developing a British base on Ascension Island, although we have continuing discussions with the Americans about administrative arrangements for the use of the airfield and related facilities there.” - [Official Report, 13 April 1983; Vol. 40, c. 421.]
I do not think that I shall get an answer to this question: what is the cost of all the build-up in Ascension Island? According to "World in Action" and other television programmes, it seems to be massive. I am not saying that the troops should not have their sports facilities and better accommodation, but a cost figure should be given to the House to show precisely what we are becoming involved in.
Disgusting treatment has been meted out not only to British shipyards on the refitting of the Cunard Countess but to merchant seamen, many of whom risked their lives in the south Atlantic. The Merchant Navy and Airline Officers Association and its secretary Eric Nevin, have been in touch with me. The association says that it imagined in April 1982 that merchant ships would be used in supply lines and not in the fighting area. I refer to paragraph 4.11 of its document, which I promised Mr. Nevin I would read:
"It alarms us to read in newspapers that the military chiefs were expecting a far higher casualty rate and a higher loss of ships than in fact happened in the South Atlantic conflict. This can only mean that the Government were prepared to sacrifice merchant ships and merchant seafarers in the exercise. It means too that they had made certain unilateral assumptions about what was an acceptable level of loss yet made no effort to communicate to seafarers the nature and magnitude of the risks of the situation for which they were volunteering.
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Seafarers' representatives were initially told that Merchant Navy personnel would always be protected. These assurances were not honoured and we should be told upon whose authority they were overturned. We should also be told whether any warnings were given to seafarers that they would be used ‘in the sight of the enemy' and not just used as a supply line open to long range attack."
I have talked yet again to my friend Jim Slater of the National Union of Seamen last night. Why do not the Government invite the NUS and the Merchant Navy and Airline Officers Association to join the Shipping Defence Advisory Council?
Mr. Clinton Davis (Hackney, Central): Absolutely right.
Mr. Dalyell: My hon. Friend, who has just assented to that question, knows a great deal about the Merchant Navy.
Mr. Davis: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This matter was raised in the debate on merchant shipping only a few days ago. There was a deafening silence from the Minister with responsibility for shipping. It seems that the doors to his room have been closed to the shipping unions to discuss matters in which they have an unrivalled expertise and a clear and deep interest.
Mr. Dalyell: This is a serious matter on which there should be comment in the light of the answers given by the the Under-Secretary of State for Trade.
I am glad that the official Opposition are against the proposals for Stanley airport. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) made it clear during the recess that the Opposition were against spending probably over £880 million on Stanley airport, leaving out the cost of the diversionary airfields. In answer to a question that I asked, the Minister for Housing and Construction said: "Tenders have been invited from three consortia: Taylor Woodrow-George Wimpey; Tarmac-Costain; Laing-Mowlem- Amey Roadstone Construction. There were selected as United Kingdom civil engineering contractors with the experience, capacity and management strength necessary for an overseas project of this size and nature. Survey costs have been, and will be, met from public funds.”—[Official Report, 13 April 1983; Vol. 40, c. 409-10.]
Some of us would like to know the survey costs. The building of runways, let alone 8,000 miles away in difficult geological conditions, is a formidable operation. Heaven knows it was difficult enough to build a runway at Edinburgh, about which I know a great deal, but to do it in the Falklands in doubtful conditions could be enormously expensive. How much of the aggregate is to be transported from northern Europe? Once we make such expenditure we are cemented into a policy, to borrow a phrase of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli, from which it will be difficult to escape.
On page 16 of the New Scientist of 7 April, Ed Harriman said:
"Argentine military representatives have been in London talking to bankers and arms firms."
Have they, or have they not? Harriman went on to say:
"There is a feeling on the British side that the Junta will soon get its spares."
Can that possibly be true? I have no responsibility for that article, but I know from my experience of 15 years as a weekly columnist for the New Scientist that it is fastidious about what it prints. I should like to know the answer to my question. The details are becoming clear, not only about the Amirante Browne, the Meko 140 destroyer, but about three other formidable Hamburg ships, the La
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