Orders of the Day — Defence Estimates

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 12 December 1973.

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Photo of Mr Philip Goodhart Mr Philip Goodhart , Beckenham 12:00, 12 December 1973

I agree that partners should be aware of what is being done. I listened carefully to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks, and it seemed that the tenor of them was distinctly hostile to what the Americans had done. We should have pressed the Americans earlier to move to a state of alert. However, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is consistent and we need some degree of consistency in these defence debates.

I have argued for more than a decade that it was absolute madness for us to withdraw our forces from the Persian Gulf at a time when we were wholly dependent on oil from the Gulf for the energy which our industry needs.

I do not argue that if our forces were still in the Persian Gulf there would be no oil problem today. I do argue that by abandoning our positions in the Gulf we have weakened our negotiating position with the Governments there. At the same time, I do not argue that we should turn round and try to put forces back into the Gulf tomorrow. We have to look at the question whether we are still as much in favour of the status quo in the Persian Gulf as we have been for the past 40 years. We are living in cloud-cuckoo-land if we imagine there will not be some violence in the Gulf in future.

When there is an explosive combination of heavily armed Arabs, vast quantities of money and vast reserves of oil, the chances of a conflict or a coup before we cease to be so dependent on Middle Eastern oil—by the end of the decade—are very good indeed. I believe that our contingency plans should take this risk into account.