§ 16. Sir Ian Orr-Ewingasked the Secretary of State for Defence how much of the foreign exchange costs shown as £61 million gross in Annex H of Command Paper No. 4290 in respect of the Far East is attributable to each of the following, namely, Hong Kong, Gan, defence of remaining dependencies, exercises, general capability and the Beira Patrol, respectively.
§ Mr. HealeyHong Kong £11 million, Gan nil, exercises £¾ million, Beira Patrol £30,000. The remaining £49 million is local defence expenditure of forces stationed in the Far East in fulfilment of our treaty and other obligations.
§ Sir Ian Orr-EwingIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that, though we shall have to examine the figures, it seems very surprising that the Beira Patrol, which employs a total of six destroyers—two on their way there, two on their way back and two on patrol—should cost £30,000 a year; and that that figure makes us suspicious that all the figures are as erroneous as others that have been given in this House?
§ Mr. HealeyWith respect, I think that the offensiveness of the hon. Gentleman's remarks is due to a familiar confusion in his mind between the foreign exchange costs of a particular operation and its resource costs in the defence budget.
§ Mr. RipponDoes the Secretary of State recall that last year he told the House that defence costs could be reached by multiplying the foreign exchange costs by three? How, then, if existing forces east of Suez cost £50 million gross in foreign exchange, does he ever arrive at a figure of Conservative policy costing £300 million?
§ Mr. HealeyWith respect, I never said that the resource cost was three times the foreign exchange cost in all cases. I said that it was only in the case of infantry battalions. There is a very big difference between the amount that people on ships of the Beira Patrol can spend and the amount that can be spent by an infantry battalion which goes every night into Singapore.