Defence Policy 1970

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 19 November 1970.

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Photo of Mr James Wellbeloved Mr James Wellbeloved , Erith and Crayford 12:00, 19 November 1970

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles). There have been occasions when he and I have contributed to the debate on minor naval matters, as he will recall. Later in my speech, I shall join him in talking about the subject of the Soviet maritime presence throughout the oceans of the world.

The whole House will have greatly appreciated the contribution of the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Lt.-Col. Colin Mitchell), in particular, among the maiden speakers that we have heard. I was particularly struck by the passage of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's speech in which he described war and the commitment of forces as always being a risk, and sometimes being a great risk. How true that is.

What distinguished the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and what distinguishes almost overwhelmingly those who command our naval, land and air forces is that when they are in command in the field they share, and expose themselves to, the risk which they expect their men to face. I am more than delighted to join the hon. and gallant Gentleman and other hon. Members who have paid tribute to our forces.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman spoke of a threat which he foresaw, in an undetermined future year, of our having to deal with insurgency forces. I hope that the Government spokesman will say a few words in winding up about the presence of the Gurkha battalion in Britain and tell us what part the Gurkhas will play in performing what the Minister of State described in a Written Answer as the normal duties of British forces within the United Kingdom, which has now been clarified as "Great Britain".

Will the Gurkhas be used for the normal duties of troops as they were, for instance, during the recent local authority strike? In my constituency, soldiers conveyed rubbish to a dump from another borough. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) will be waiting with bated breath to know precisely what part these very gallant and distinguished soldiers who have served our country so well, will play in performing the duties of British soldiers garrisoned in Great Britain.

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Moyle)—in fact, I will call him "my honourable and gallant Friend"; I understand that he was commissioned and, as accolades of this type are bestowed all over the place, I want to confer one upon him—in the tribute he paid to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). For five and a half years my right hon. Friend carried a unique burden with distinction. The casualty rate of the ten years before my right hon. Friend took office, during which time there were eight Tory Defence Ministers, is a tribute to the stamina of my right hon. Friend, in that he survived the great burden that falls upon the Secretary of State for Defence.

My right hon. Friend has also with great distinction created for himself and for the United Kingdom considerable standing throughout the world in defence matters. The whole country will be grateful to my right hon. Friend for the great part he played in getting the N.A.T.O. countries to agree on guidelines and move away from the appalling doctrine of instant massive nuclear retaliation, which was instant world suicide, to the more credible, if not more acceptable, doctrine of flexible response, which carries hope of survival for mankind.

I am in wholehearted agreement with the Government about paragraph 4 of the White Paper, which refers to the N.A.T.O. Alliance as the vital element in Britain's security. It is, indeed, vital for Europe's security.

The House will recall that in 1967 and the early part of 1968 one could sense building up a propaganda campaign against the N.A.T.O. Alliance. That campaign was brutally brought to an end when the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. I fear that that rumbling and that propaganda campaign will re-emerge as the memory of the murder of Czechoslovakia, for the third time in its history, begins to diminish. We must ensure tnat the post-1945 generation, who know little apart from what they have read in history books of the horrors of the last confrontation that the world endured, understand the part that N.A.T.O. has played and must continue to play in maintaining the peace and freedom of the Western world.

It is necessary, not only to spell this out in terms of peace and freedom, but also to bring more to the fore the other things that N.A.T.O. does and is trying to do. N.A.T.O. is not only a military alliance. It is a political alliance. It has other organisations which can play a vital part in solving some of the problems confronting the world.

It emerged this afternoon during the questions that followed the statement by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs that the feeling was that there should be an organisation to deal with international disasters. N.A.T.O. could be such an organisation. It has a Committee—the Committee on the Challenge of the Modern Society—which is considering and discussing such matters as coastal pollution, the environment and disaster relief. In combating the coming propaganda war which I foresee against N.A.T.O., we must ensure that the other aspects of the alliance are fully understood.

That is not the only danger to N.A.T.O. There is also the danger that will face us if, for any reason, the United States decide to return to isolation and, after 1971–72, drastically to reduce their force level in Europe. The only thing that gives credibility to the defence deterrent aspect of the Western Alliance is the presence of United States troops on Europe's soil. If they go, N.A.T.O. can only remain a credible deterrent and a credible defence if the unspeakable should happen, if Western Europe, whether it be within or outside the E.E.C., is able, willing and determined to increase its contribution in force evel and in terms of nuclear deterrent. I do not take the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun). I believe that there is a price that we must pay to maintain stability and freedom.

Another threat that I see to N.A.T.O. arises from what is in the White Paper. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. George Thomson) said in his remarkable maiden speech as our defence spokesman, on virtually the same expenditure as that undertaken by the previous Administration the present Government are to expand their military responsibilities throughout the world, but without increasing the financial contributions that are necessary if there is to be a meaningful expansion. What does this mean? If these token forces—these tethered goats, as some would say—who will be at risk in a five-Power military force in Malaysia need reinforcing, from where will the reinforcements come? They will come, not from the reserves referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Toxteth (Mr. Crawshaw), but from N.A.T.O. There is no other place from which they could come. They could not be withdrawn from Hong Kong. This is the second, and even greater, worrying threat of weakening N.A.T.O. because of the Government's commitment east of Suez.

We hear right hon. and hon. Members opposite mouthing on the television and on the public platform the view that they will look after Britain's real security interests. I say to them that our real security interests lie in the maintenance of the credibility of Western European defence, of our N.A.T.O. commitment, and of sufficient forces within N.A.T.O. The Government are raising the expectations of our allies which cannot conceivably be met without drastically weakening our real security interests in Europe.

I turn to the point made by the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester about the Soviet maritime threat. I agree that this is a new development and a growing worry, but it is a political rather than a military threat. I do not take the view of the hon. and gallant Gentleman that we could be faced with a situation, to use his words, below the threshold of declared war. I do not believe that interference with allied shipping, or an attack on British or allied shipping, or a sinking, would be a little local difficulty. If there were Soviet interference with the essential trade routes of Europe, that would not be a little local difficulty, a confrontation below the threshold of war. It would be something which must lead to global confrontation. If there were Soviet naval interference with our shipping and the shipping of the West anywhere in the world, we would be a hot 'phone call away from the unspeakable.

We could not have that sort of interference with our shipping and trade routes—and I read the N.A.T.O. letter to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred—without calling into being the whole of our defensive capability throughout the world. Therefore, the protection of our trade routes from Soviet maritime forces lies in the credibility of our European commitment and of the West to defend itself.