As Secretary of State for Defence, my departmental responsibilities are: to make and execute defence policy; to provide the armed forces with the capabilities that they need to achieve success in the military tasks in which they are engaged at home and abroad; and to ensure that they are ready to respond to tasks that might arise in the future.
I thank the Secretary of State for that response. According to Government figures, operations in Iraq in 2006-07 cost £956 million, while operations in Afghanistan cost £738 million. Will he explain why that is, given that there is a much larger troop presence, and much more troop activity, in Afghanistan?
The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is simply that that is what we needed to spend. The complexity of the two operational environments is such that comparisons of that sort cannot be drawn simply from the figures. I suggest that he avail himself of the opportunity to visit one or both of them. When he sees that there are some similarities between them, but also significant differences, he will understand why such a comparison cannot be drawn.
I have answered questions relating to vehicles at the Dispatch Box on a number of occasions, and indeed in debates we have gone into the subject at some length and in some depth, so I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that the Government’s responsibility is to provide operational commanders with a suite of vehicles that cover all operational requirements. I am sure that he will accept that. Consistently, military commanders are of the view that Snatch Land Rovers perform a necessary function in the operational theatre because, in part, the security of our troops there is related to how they present themselves to the communities in which they operate. That means balancing the risk of not having the protection that other vehicles, such as the Mastiff, may provide, against factors such as flexibility, speed of movement and presentation.
Every single day, I spend time with people in the Ministry of Defence looking at how we can enhance and improve the choice, and how we can improve protection. I stand by my record, and the record of my ministerial team in the MOD since I have been in charge. We have considerably improved investment in the vehicles that we have been able to deploy, but there is more to do. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me time to identify where the vehicles in question are, to equip them and to deploy them, I am sure that he will see them in the operational theatre in the medium term.
Of course; that applies across the entire industrial estate. My hon. Friend made a point about the skills that there will potentially be in Portsmouth for generations to come. They have to be exploited, but we cannot do that on our own in the MOD. I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to work with other Departments to do so.
To go back to the point that the Secretary of State made a moment ago, I should say that Snatch Land Rovers do have flexibility, and commanders appreciate that. However, the risk to our troops is getting ever greater. Can the Secretary of State expand on his previous answer and tell us what alternatives the Government have already considered to replace the Snatch Land Rover? What might the estimated costs of such a programme be and does he expect the full cost to be carried by the Treasury reserve?
The hon. Gentleman is aware that we have approved more than £3.6 billion of urgent operational requirements for Iraq and Afghanistan, and the majority of those have related to force protection, including the requirement for protected vehicles. From his own experience in the operational theatre and from talking to military commanders, he will be aware of how welcome the Mastiff vehicle, among others, has been in the operational theatre. Protected vehicles, armour, electronic counter-measures and body armour are all part of the complex suite of capabilities that we need to protect our people in theatre. Commanders now in the operational theatre are extremely positive about the equipment that they have.
However, all vehicles, including the Mastiff, have their vulnerabilities; no vehicle can completely guarantee protection, which is derived from a combination of factors. However, we have a range of vehicles now. There is a role for the Snatch, the Viking, the Land Rover, the Jackal and the Mastiff. There is also a role for the Ridgback vehicle—the 4x4 vehicle that we are in the process of procuring, up-armouring and completely fitting out. That investment is being supported by the reserve. However, there is also, of course, a role for the MOD to look forward at how it purchases and protects vehicles for the long term. That has to be part of the thinking in respect of the ongoing equipment programme.
On 8 July, the Secretary of State told the House:
“The MOD does not make provision for the net additional cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan—this is recovered from the Treasury Reserve.”—[Official Report, 8 July 2008; Vol. 478, c. 1458W.]
However, is it not true that when procurement through urgent operational requirements reaches £900 million, 50 per cent. of the cost is directly carried by the MOD? This year, with troops active in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with fuel costs soaring, the MOD will be forced to cut £400 million from its own budget. What sort of crazy agreement penalises the military when they get new equipment and cuts the core budget in the middle of two wars? That arrangement is not the Treasury reserve carrying the burden of Afghanistan, but a guarantee to bleed the military dry over time.
I read in my copy of The Times this morning that the hon. Gentleman was threatening to grill me about the increase in the fuel bill. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says, “Don’t believe what you read in the papers.” I have often given him that advice, including when he has briefed the papers to report what was being reported. The fact is that I did not recognise the detail that had informed the story in The Times. [Interruption.] I say to the hon. Gentleman that the total cost of fuel last year for the MOD was about a quarter of what has been suggested. If he is relying on the information in The Times, he is misinformed. The agreement to which he refers, which is reported and transparent, is designed to get the balance right between long-term investment and urgent operational requirements. I have never been refused any request that I have made to the Treasury for urgent operational requirements, and I do not expect that I ever will be.
I assure my hon. Friend that I will keep him up to date, as I have on a regular basis. The last thing that I said to him was that there would be a ceremony at the Cenotaph for the 90th anniversary. I have also been in discussions with my French counterpart about what might happen in France. I assure my hon. Friend that as soon as I have more details I will write to him with them.
I had the privilege of visiting 4 Mech Brigade twice when it was deployed in Iraq. No words will be sufficient to recognise the contribution that it has made to the improvement in the situation for the Iraqi people, particularly in the city of Basra and the wider province. It is a small thing for those of us in this House to welcome the brigade here, to spend some time with the soldiers and to say thank you. I am delighted, Mr. Speaker, that you have given permission—I am sure that that was easy to do—for them to march through Carriage Gates. I am even more delighted that you can be there to welcome them on behalf of us all.
As has already been reported to the House, an equipment review is going on in the MOD. That is designed to inform the decisions of the next—2009—planning round. The issues that the right hon. Gentleman talks about are part of that review, along with a lot of other things.
Will my right hon. Friend comment on the success or otherwise of recruitment from ethnic minorities? I am thinking specifically of the Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities in the north of England, where there are high levels of unemployment.
We are making some progress on recruitment among ethnic minorities, but not nearly as much as we would want. To be frank with the House, we are still behind on the targets that we have set ourselves. However, we are moving in the right direction, albeit at a slower pace than I, or my hon. Friend, would want. How exactly we go about placing ourselves well among some of our ethnic minority communities needs constant thought. If she has any ideas that she wants to feed into that process, they would be most welcome to me and to my ministerial colleagues.
We addressed this question earlier. As I have made plain, including in my written statement to the House, the number of helicopter hours and the availability of helicopters have increased significantly—by 30 per cent.—and we are taking further steps to increase the fleets from which we will deploy aircraft into Afghanistan. In addition, we are part of a coalition, and the Canadians have taken steps as a consequence of their review to buy six additional Chinooks and eight Griffins, and they are leasing eight Mi-17s in the short term.
The hon. Gentleman will also be aware that, in co-operation with France, we have engaged in an initiative with the European Union and NATO to increase the deployability of the many hundreds of helicopters that many of our allies have but which are not deployable, either because their crews are not skilled enough to fly them in the environment or because they are not suitably equipped to provide the maximum amount of safety. Those things are going on all the time; the problem is that it takes time to get from where we are to a point where we have further deployable equipment in the operational theatre. Every single day, however, we make a step in the right direction.
The Israeli Government’s position is four-square with that of the international community in the preponderance of activity in trying to deal with the Iranian challenge across the board, in terms of the diplomatic effort. Where some encouragement of the Iranians has been needed, we have all gone to the United Nations. We have significant numbers of troops deployed in the region, and other assets there. We have contingencies for almost any eventuality, in terms of the protection of our troops and others in the region.
The Government were well represented at the Farnborough air show. A number of Cabinet Ministers were there; indeed, when I attended there were at least three other Ministers present. I heard no complaint from those who were at the Farnborough air show, exhibiting or engaged—[Interruption.] I heard no complaint from any of those who were there that they had not got the support that they expected from the Government. On the contrary, I consistently heard praise for those in the Government—in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and my Department in particular—who had supported them to win those orders, which created the jobs that the hon. Gentleman identified.