Orders of the Day — Defence

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 December 1976.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Rear-Admiral Morgan Morgan-Giles Rear-Admiral Morgan Morgan-Giles , Winchester 12:00, 20 December 1976

I cannot tell a lie—I came here to speak about motorway inquiries. But I listened to siren voices, and I did so not least because motorway inquiries is a topic which is very low on the list and may not be reached. Secondly, I was absolutely outraged by the remarks of the Secretary of State for Defence the other afternoon, when he was replying to questions on Defence. I am sorry that he is not here tonight. I wanted to put a skewer into him about this subject.

In answering an extremely difficult question, the Secretary of State said, in a throw-away line, that the Chiefs of Staff "could speak for themselves". They cannot speak for themselves, and the Secretary of State knows it. The two squirming Ministers on the Government Front Bench know it, too. They should be thoroughly ashamed of what their political boss has said. It is grossly unfair to the Chiefs of Staff to suggest such a thing, and to take refuge behind their skirts in such a way.

All they can do is go to the Prime Minister as a body and represent their professional judgment of the facts. That is a very rare event, and that is what they have done. It is not too strong to say that it was despicable for the Secretary of State to suggest otherwise.

Having got that off my chest, I want to say that since the cuts we have, of course, inadequate forces for waging war. We also have inadequate forces for preventing war. One of the troubles with discussing defence is that we so often escalate it into a declared war in which we are all shooting each other and rushing around sinking submarines. I was unimpressed, by the way, by the suggestion by the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) that life was becoming easier for anti-submarines. As an old anti-sub-mariner, I assure him that if one is chasing a nuclear submarine, it is 10 times more difficult, not the other way sound.

I expect I am bound to be thought of as a crusty old—I almost said an unparliamentary word there—admiral, who wants squadrons of battleships sailing the seas, and hordes of aircraft flying through the skies. I admit it, I do! But, joking apart, I want to prevent war. Those who have seen a war at the sharp end are those most likely to want to prevent another. If a country is too weak in its conventional defence, a potential enemy may be tempted to exercise blackmail by the use of its greater strength.

Several hon. Members have spoken of the adverse effect on NATO of these ad hoc cuts. That is a strong argument because of the downward spiral in NATO which could be induced by our cuts. Members of NATO look up to Britain. They look up to our forces because they are professional—I think that they are the best. If we spiral downwards, others in NATO will do the same.

As in our own national defence, one of the greatest inadequacies in NATO is prevention. I fear that the arrangements within NATO for crisis control, for handling a situation before war is declared and for the prevention of war are inadequate. General Alexander Haig, the Supreme Commander of NATO, told me at a recent North Atlantic Assembly meeting in open session that he was dissatisfied with the security of his communications in time of crisis. He said that he had no adequate means of securely communicating with subordinate commanders in NATO. If that is so, it is a deplorable weakness which should cause the Government to think again about the cuts: the money that they are cutting could surely be used to remedy that weakness.

Another inadequacy is in our Home Defence reserves. Our reserves consist of good people with a vital role to play. They experience interesting training and I am not dissatisfied with the quality of the reserves, but we have virtually no reserves for home defence, and the Government in previous incarnation cut civil defence.

I talk of prevention and crisis control, not of war itself. We all remember the Orsen Welles broadcast about men from Mars landing on our planet and the way people screamed out of town in a panic. There could be a panic situation without a bomb being dropped or a rocket being fired if blackmail were brought to bear against this country. Just the threat of rocket attack could cause tremendous panic among civilians, but there will be no one to stand at the end of the street and say "Go back home: everything will be all right".