TNAG-0476-FCO40-541-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 129

901

Defence

13 MAY 1974

The final sentence in the defence sec- tion of the manifesto is equally dubious,

Defence

902

Mr. Gilmour: That is not the reason at all. It would be schoolboy logic to say that because we made cuts other people The right reason is that we made cuts which left very little fat on the Services, so that the right hon. Gentleman has little justification for making further

cuts.

"The ultimate objective of the movement towards a

must not. more satisfactory relationship in Europe must be the mutual and concurrent phasing out of NATO and the Warsaw Pact."

To mention NATO and the Warsaw Pact as being similar is a travesty. NATO is an alliance of entirely free nations, and if the alliance were ended those free nations in the aggregate would be much weaker than they are now. The Warsaw Pact is nothing of the sort It is entirely dominated by Russia, and if it were ended at the stroke of a pen it would make not the slightest difference to the relationship between Russia and her satellites. To phase out NATO and the Warsaw Pact would only be to weaken the West with- out in any way hurting the East. Is that what the Labour Party wants? Whether it is or not, we shall not know until we know exactly what the right hon. Gentle- man's defence policy is to be.

I return to the question of cuts of £800 million or £900 million. It was totally irresponsible of Labour to talk about cuts of this size when it had not the slightest inkling of where or how or when it would be able to make them. The only thing which it did know was that they would have a crippling effect. The last Labour Government did it in 1964 and the damaging uncertainty they created amongst people who had decided to make the Services their career and

the defence amongst

industries intolerable. It would be intolerable if the right hon. Gentleman allowed such uncertainty now to continue until the autumn. He has a duty to come to a conclusion, and if he does not we can only conclude that he and the Govern- ment are afraid to tell the people and their party the truth.

was

The second point is that there is already very little fat on the Services. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is not going to argue that because we made some cuts he is entitled to make more. That would be very twisted logic. The point is that, because we made cuts, he has much less room for manoeuvre than he would otherwise have had.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Roy Mason): In other words, the Conservative Government could make cuts but no one else must do so.

8 D 21

Where is the axe to fall? In his speech at Newcastle-under-Lyme, the right hon. Gentleman mentioned practically every subject under the sun. He even talked to the NUM about inflation. As it hap- pened, because of his unfortunate in- discrimination about Northern Ireland, the rest of his speech did not get much publicity. He said that he was obliged by the party manifesto to examine defence expenditure so that it could be cut. He went on,

“I am undertaking the most severe examina- tion of our Defence rôle commitments ever mounted in peacetime.'

The extraordinary thing is that the right hon. Gentleman said it with pride. He should have said it with shame. He was rather like a company chairman, puffed up with pride and glee, announcing that the company was going to have the worst year it had ever had. I do not think that that would be considered very good man- agement.

Rather more sensibly, the right hon. Gentleman said that the United Kingdom and NATO would have first call on our resources. The only trouble is that they have had first call on our resources for quite a long time. There is no change. there. Over 90 per cent. of our defence expenditure goes on the United Kingdom and NATO. Once again the right hon. Gentleman does not have much room for

manœuvre.

In considering the small percentage of our defence expenditure represented by spending outside NATO, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to

assure us that he has no intention of cutting the garrison in Hong Kong and no intention of doing away with the Brigade of Gurkhas as the last Labour Government intended to do. The Foreign Secretary has said that it is not the inten- tion of the Government to leave Hong Kong within the foreseeable future, and I hope, therefore, that it is not too much to ask the Defence Secretary to say that, as the commitment remains, the garrison remains, too.