HC Deb 19 July 1973 vol 860 cc996-1003

6.28 p.m.

Major-GeneralJackd'Avigdor-Goldsmid (Lichfield and Tamworth)

The contents of the Nugent Report were released recently. Amongst a wide variety of suggestions the Committee recommended that the Royal Armoured Corps gunnery school should be moved from Lulworth and Lulworth be given up by the Ministry of Defence. My aim this morning is to urge the Government to reject this recommendation.

Before doing that, I wish to congratulate the Nugent Committee on the trouble it went to, the immense detail it went into, and the amount of evidence it sifted. Despite that, the Committee's final recommendation does not follow as a logical conclusion from the factors presented.

To understand the matter fully, we must acquire a little background knowledge. Lulworth is the Royal Armoured Corps gunnery school. Courses are run there throughout the year and officers and non-commissioned officers, after attending courses, return to their regiments where they are employed as gunnery instructors.

In the Royal Armoured Corps gunnery is probably the most important part of the training, and the armoured regiments have in the Chieftain tank what is recognised world wide as the best tank gun in existence. It is capable of firing a high velocity, fiat trajectory, armour-piercing round for dealing with enemy tanks. It is capable of firing a high explosive round for dealing with other types of target. The rounds are entirely different, as are the techniques of shooting involved. The Chieftain also mounts machine guns.

The sequence of instruction, whether it be at Lulworth or in a regiment, follows the same line: classroom activity, then work in the close confines of tank turret or the turret of an armoured car, followed by work on a simulator and then range practices. Shooting is an integral part of the course. This is something which the simulator cannot replace, because it cannot reproduce the flash, bang, smell, smoke and all the other things which go with normal shooting.

Most of the armoured regiments concerned-11 of them—are stationed with the Rhine Army in Germany. There they form the main conventional hitting power of the British contribution to the NATO ground forces. While they are in Germany, they fire their annual prac- tices on ranges at a place called Hohne. They are NATO ranges and are shared by the Germans, Belgians and Dutch. A British armoured regiment does about 10 days' firing each year and they fire by day and by night. They fire at stationary targets and at moving targets. Some practices are fired with the crews wearing respirators. It is the most important part of their annual training.

The climax comes with what are known as battle runs, and the squadrons are exercised in fire and movement. The runs are long, the variety of target wide, and tactical handling is an integral part of the exercise. The Hohne battle runs are exceptional, and I criticise the Nugent Committee for saying that, in its opinion, the battle run at Castlemartin is unique in Europe. I have gone into this matter in some detail to get a better understanding of the problem. But the Hohne ranges are also used for guided weapon firing on ground level and from the air.

The Nugent Committee, seeking to release Lulworth, looked at alternative sites for the gunnery school. There were two possibilities—one in Scotland, at Kirkudbright, and one in Wales, at Castlemartin. For reasons which I shall not go into, Kirkudbright was rejected. Castlemartin is at present used for five months in the year by the Germans. The Committee investigated the possibility of sharing this with the Germans. I think that I can best explain the conclusions it reached by quoting from paragraphs 70 and 71 of its report.

We considered whether both German and RAC training could be carried out at Castle-martin if additional ranges were built, bearing in mind the little used land at the east end of the site, or if the site were extended. We were told that the existing site could not accommodate more ranges, but that an extension of some 3,000 acres would permit both British and German training to be carried out simultaneously. In summary, we concluded that the RAC Gunnery School could not share the range at Castlemartin without some increase in land, or adjustment either to its own training programmes or to those of the Germans. But the Germans could not be found an alternative training area in the United Kingdom, except at Kirkcudbright, and then only if additional land were acquired. The Committee went on to consider the acquisition of this extra land but rejected that because 3,000 acres were good quality farming land much used for holiday purposes". Furthermore, the Committee was honest enough to admit that it found opposition from the Welsh Office and local authorities.

It then examined the possibility of sharing Castlemartin on a 9:3 basis, that is, nine months for ourselves and three months for the Germans. The British Army was to have its time reduced to nine months, which would mean having to push through in nine months what had taken twelve. That would entail additional skilled instructions and additional equipment, apart from the fact that they would be wasted when the Germans were on the ranges.

The ramifications on the German side are more serious. First, range sharing is never an easy operation. Secondly, if the Germans were to have their range allocation reduced from five to three months—this year it is seven months—they would naturally require more time on their NATO ranges at Hohne. That would have the effect of reducing the time allocated to British, Belgian and Dutch regiments.

I have already tried to explain the importance of this period. In summer, when it is dry, the tracer from the rounds often causes fires in the scrub, the peat and the heather. The fires have to be beaten out and shooting time is lost in the process.

In summary, these were some of the main factors. Despite that, the final recommendations of the Committee were that Lulworth should be given up and that the Royal Armoured Corps should have to go to Castlemartin and that the range should be shared, leaving the method to be discussed with the German authorities. This decision will entail a vast new building programme at Castle-martin where at present there is merely a hutted camp.

I should like to comment on the final recommendations and on a series of priorities which it is up to the Government to decide. But which comes first: the efficiency of the Royal Armoured Corps and the need for it to train on and fire its operational equipment, or the desire to accede to the wishes of pressure groups which are not supported by the local population?

Secondly, why did the Committee seek the highest military advice available, in the form of the Chief of the General Staff, Field Marshal Sir Michael Carter, and then disregard it?

Why have the full ramifications been disregarded of reducing the German allocation, with the effect that that might have on British regiments in Germany?

Why, at a period of financial stringency, was a blind eye turned to the fact that if this project were put into effect it would require additional instructors and equipment on our side?

The third and most important point relates to expenditure which was mentioned only in the final recommendation. The Committee passed off the sum of £14 million quietly by saying that it would be required for building at Castle-martin the barracks, instruction rooms, tank hangars, workshops and married quarters, all of which are at present in good order and in use at Lulworth. This project, which is being submitted at a time when the defence budget is being cut by £50 million, is phased over five years. In my experience, the cost of buildings does not decrease year by year.

This project is unnecessary, wickedly wasteful financially and harmful to the efficiency of the Royal Armoured Corps. I hope that in his reply my hon. Friend will give a breakdown of the £14 million and will say whether it has been calculated at 1973 or at 1978 prices, as this is a five-year project.

The Nugent Committee recommended that this item should not be a charge against the defence budget. Will my hon. Friend guarantee that it will not be a charge against the defence budget? On whose charge will it fall?

Finally, I urge the Government, in grounds of economy, common sense and military efficiency, not to accept the recommendation of the Nugent Committee so far as it affects Lulworth.

6.44 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Peter Blaker)

I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Major-General Jack d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) for raising what is pehaps the single most important recommendation about individual training sites in the Nugent Report. I am also grateful to him for giving me advance notice of the most important points that he intended to raise.

My reply must necessarily be brief, for reasons which I will explain. That implies no discourtesy to my hon. and gallant Friend and no suggestion that the subject is unimportant. Indeed, it is of very great importance.

The Nugent Report was published only two weeks ago and it is the Government's intention to give an opportunity for public comment and discussion so that all views expressed can be taken fully into account in considering the recommendations of the report. As the report was very long and complex, the Government published an explanatory memorandum at the same time to focus attention on the main issues raised and drew particular attention to the difficulties recognised by the Nugent Committee in its recommendation that the Lulworth ranges should be released and the RAC Gunnery School should move to Castle-martin. These were the practicability of the RAC Gunnery School sharing the facilities at Castlemartin with the German Army; the environmental considerations that would arise at Castlemartin; and the estimated heavy cost of the transfer.

I cannot of course today forecast what the Government's decision will be. Nor can I answer for the Nugent Committee, which was independent in its assessment of relative priorities or the weight it put on the very extensive range of evidence submitted to it. Therefore, some of the questions by my hon. and gallant Friend are not for me to answer. They concern the reasons why the Committee took the view it did.

There are two points of general interest which are brought out very clearly in the Nugent Committee's Report on Lulworth. First there is the difficulty of finding alternative locations for defence activities, particularly service ranges. There is a misconception, widely if not universally shared, that there are large areas of land or coast, particularly in Scotland or the north of England, which might be used to take defence activities, including gunnery ranges.

The examination by the Committee—which was very full—of possible sites for the Lulworth ranges showed that the only site which could meet the necessarily stringent military and safety requirements, without the acquisition of additional land, was the existing RAC range at Castlemartin in Wales. Second, the report shows, and again this is well brought out in the committee's examination of the problem we are discussing today, that the preservation of wild life and important archaeological features is by no means incompatible with the operation of a service range.

A number of those who gave evidence to the committee thought that military occupation had on balance, preserved the beauty of the landscape and created an important wild life reserve, as well as preserving important archaeological remains.

Other matters of equal importance are dealt with fully and fairly by the committee. Indeed, no one who has read the report, especially on the whole difficult and complex issue of the future of Lulworth, could fail to pay tribute to the great industry shown in examining all shades of opinion and all possible courses of action.

Perhaps the best picture of the final balance struck in their considerations can be found in paragraph 85. We recognise the importance to the British Army of the training facilities which are at present provided in Germany and the need to avoid action which would prejudice them. We think that there is a reasonable basis for opening consultations with the German Government about their future training needs in this country. with the prospect that it can continue unchanged or even be increased for the next five to seven years and thereafter might possibly continue for some lesser but still useful period each year. We have naturally been unable to put our proposals to the German Government, but propose that consultation should now take place on how best to provide for German training requirements in this country in the future. I can assure the House that we are now well embarked on those consultations with the German Government.

As I have already indicated, the problem of the cost of transferring the RAC Gunnery School to Castlemartin is well recognised. The figure of f14 million is not a detailed estimate based on a full-scale works investigation, but a broad estimate of the cost given to the committee. It is at 1972–73 prices. It covers the cost of providing at Castlemartin facilities comparable to those at Lulworth.

The eventual Government decision will, of course, include consideration of costs. As regards the source from which the money might be found, my hon. and gallant Friend will have observed that the committee recommends that the cost should not fall on the defence budget. I regret that again I cannot anticipate what arrangements would be made if it were decided to release Lulworth.

My reply has been short, for the reasons I have mentioned, but the debate has been a valuable contribution to the present phase of public comment and discussion, which was the object of the publication of the report by the Government. I have no doubt that others, whether organisations, individuals, or local authorities, will have comments on the report, and if so they should send them to the Ministry without delay. Like the views of my hon. and gallant Friend, they will be taken fully into account by the Government in considering this difficult issue.