Review (Hansard, 15 April 1975)

§ 6. Mr. Lane
asked the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has received on the subject of the defence review since the Defence White Paper was published.

§ Mr. Mason
In addition to the 36 Parliamentary Questions put to me, I have received many representations from hon. Members of this House, both sides of industry, local political groups and the wider general public. The consultations with our NATO and other allies mentioned in the White Paper are, of course, continuing.

§ Mr. Lane
But is it not exceptionally irresponsible, even by the standards of the present Government, deliberately to reduce Britain's presence in the Mediterranean just at a time when the NATO position in that area is so insecure? Will the Government think again particularly about this part of their policy, in the consultations that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, before they do lasting damage to NATO and Western security?

§ Mr. Mason
If the hon. Gentleman has read the Defence White Paper, he will know that NATO made representations about the southern flank, particularly about our naval presence, and that we have made some compensation. We have decided that occasionally the Fleet will go into the southern region, into the Mediterranean. We shall be available to the naval on-call forces, and the SAS Regiment will be standing by to assist on the southern flank.

§ Mr. Canavan
Will my right hon. Friend ignore any representations he may receive from SNP branches in the West of Scotland calling for nuclear bases to be kept open because of the possibility of loss of jobs and so on? Will he instead listen to representations from the STUC and the Scottish Labour Party, which are at least speaking with one voice in calling for the bases to be phased out?

§ Mr. Mason
My hon. Friend fought two General Elections last year on a policy regarding Polaris.

§ Mrs. Winifred Ewing
So did we.

§ Mr. Mason
Meanwhile we are pledged to maintain the effectiveness of the deterrent until the time is judged right to have multilateral negotiations on the phasing out of the Polaris deterrent force. But this depends entirely upon the progress made with the CSCE and MBFR negotiations.

§ Mr. Goodhart
As the Secretary of State acknowledged that the threat of violence to this country is increasing, why is he also increasing the number of senior NCOs who will be required to leave the Army?

§ Mr. Mason
The hon. Gentleman has obviously studied the White Paper with care. He will have realised that if we are to get down to the force levels demanded to save expenditure on defence we must restructure the Army, which means cutting out a brigade level of command. We decided that we could do it. We shall save 18,000 men in doing so. That, allied with the pooling of specialist functions, will enable us to make the savings in expenditure that we desire.

Mr. Alan Lee Williams
Does my right hon. Friend recall receiving a memorandum from the British Atlantic Committee, which made one or two very constructive suggestions to him and which noted that he still maintained the central thrust of our contribution to the central front of NATO?

§ Mr. Mason
I remember it very well, mainly thanks to my hon. Friend. The White Paper lays down clearly that our priorities are the central front—that is our front line as well—the East Atlantic and the Channel, and the security of the home base. The levels to which we are bent upon reducing, both in defence expenditure and in our Armed Forces, will give us security in those three areas.