HC Deb 15 April 1975 vol 890 cc259-60
11. Mr. Adley

asked the Secretary of State for Defence how many jobs will be jeopardised in total in Hampshire. Wiltshire and Dorset as a result of the defence review.

Mr. William Rodgers

Planning of reductions in Ministry of Defence civilian employees is continuing and it is not yet possible to give details. However, three of the stations which the RAF proposes to vacate are in these counties. So far as defence industries are concerned, we expect no significant effects in this area apart from those which might be produced at Westland's factory at Cowes in the Isle of Wight by reductions in our requirements for helicopters.

Mr. Adley

Is the Minister aware that Wessex is heavily dependent on jobs connected with the Forces of the Crown? Will he do his best to ensure that the attitude of his Government, and more particularly of his hon. Friends, is just as sympathetic towards people who are in and connected with the Services and who lose their jobs as it is to civilians who lose theirs?

Mr. Rodgers

The answer to both questions is "Yes".

Mr. Tomlinson

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is something nauseating about the Opposition, which later today will be going through the process of complaining about the public sector borrowing requirement yet on every conceivable opportunity urge upon him additional means of spending the public resources that apparently we do not have?

Mr. Rodgers

If my hon. Friend simply said that there was something nauseating about the Opposition, that would be sufficient.

Mr. Tebbit

May we make the hon. Gentleman aware that we welcome the new-found interest of Government supporters in jobs in the defence industries? We welcome their recognition that they all stood for election on a programme of axing those jobs and putting those men out of work and that they have only just found out. If the hon. Gentleman wants to learn how to restore some of those jobs without increasing public expenditure. why does he not tell the Secretary of State for Industry to abandon his idiotic plan to spend £200 million on nationalising the aircraft industry and to spend that money instead on buying more weapons from the industry to protect the country from his hon. Friends who are sitting behind him?

Mr. Rodgers

The hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair, but then we are all a little unfair from time to time. The question of a balance to ensure an adequate defence—to use a phrase adopted originally by the Secretary of State for Defence in the previous Conservative Government—is difficult. There are bound to be discussions, arguments and some pain. By and large, we believe, in the light of all that, that, broadly speaking, we have the answer correct in the Defence White Paper.