HC Deb 27 July 1976 vol 916 cc586-96

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. James Hamilton.]

9.56 a.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (West Lothian)

Over the week-end, on several separate occasions, people volunteered how much they agreed with me in not wanting an Assembly in Edinburgh—but then added that because they were angry with the failure of the local authority to do X, Y or Z or because they were angy with the Chancellor over cuts in A, B or C they would "give the SNP a try" at the next election.

Well, people in Scotland are at liberty to vote as they think fit—but there is an obligation on some of us, before the next election comes, to spell out, as objectively as possible, what the future of Scots personnel in the British Forces is and what would be the cost, in operational efficiency and millions of pounds increase, of separate Scottish forces.

That is why I wrote to Service Ministers in mid-April asking a number of pertinent questions about what would, in reality happen were there separate Scottish forces; why I repeated some of the questions during the defence and Estimates debates; and why this morning I give the opportunity for the Minister of State to reply at greater length than is possible during Service debates to certain questions.

First, if Scottish personnel were hived off from the British Armed Forces what would be the effect on the operational efficiency of NATO? Secondly, would there be sufficient Scottish personnel, with appropriate skills, to establish viable units of Scottish RA Gunners, Scottish RE Sappers, a Scottish Corps of Signals, a Scottish Corps of Transport and the like? Thirdly, what would happen to regiments such as the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and the Scots Guards where there is a substantial proportion of English-born personnel? Could Englishmen accept mercenary status with Scottish regiments and equally, could Scots, in English units accept mercenary status, if they desired such an option?

Fourthly, do the specialisations of Rosyth cover those needed by a putative self-supporting Scottish navy for the defence of that area of the North Sea that international law might reasonably accord to Scotland? What extra expense would be involved for the English Navy if it were required to protect the Shetland oil fields, if the Vikings in Lerwick implemented their stated intention of remaining with Westminster, and shunning the Edinburgh Government? For what would a Scottish navy have to ask for specialist facilities at Devonport, Portsmouth or Chatham? Those of us who have been to Alverstoke know the expensive speciality involved in deep diving.

Fifthly, supposing a separate Scotland got one-eighth of the Royal Navy, what would be the capability for operating in the North Sea? What would be the difficulties for a Scottish navy in making sure that it had a cross-section of skilled personnel in each specialisation?

Sixthly, do the specialisations available in Scotland cover a self-supporting air force? Could a separate Scottish air force provide the necessary training, maintenance, and servicing without recourse to payment for English facilities, in relation to Nimrod, MRCA, and Rapier?

I am bound to recall that Panavia—to wit, Dr. Madelung at Manching—told us that Holland drew out of the MRCA because she was basically too small a country for a separate MRCA capability. Scotland has about a third of the resources of Holland. What would be the effect on such firms as Ferrantis of Edinburgh and the Cameron iron works of Livingston if an independent Scotland opted out of the MRCA programme? I am glad to see present my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), who represents part of Livingston.

Seventhly, what are the existing training costs for a pilot on a sophisticated aircraft, such as Jaguar, and what would be the putative additional costs of training personnel for a separate Scottish air force?

Eighthly, how dependent are the Services on great research centres such os the RRE at Malvern, and what would be the position of Scottish forces if they were denied access to such establishments?

Ninthly, how difficult would it be to disentangle pension rights which have accrued to former and present members of the British Armed Forces, should Scotland become a separate State?

Tenthly, will Ministers regard it as their duty, over the coming months, to lose no opportunity of spelling out to people in Scotland that independence means independence, and that it is no good mincing one's words and supposing that it will all be the same. We could drift into a position which few people in the United Kingdom want.

I have given the Department a great deal of notice that those questions would be asked. Lest anyone should think that they are fanciful, I should like to read a letter dated October 1974 and sent from 22 Kinneddar Street, Lossiemouth, by the then SNP parliamentary candidate for Moray and Nairn, now the Member for that constituency (Mrs. Ewing). She wrote: Dear Elector, RAF and SNP I am often asked "What happens to the Royal Air Force when Scotland becomes Independent? The answer is simple: it continues as the Scottish Royal Air Force and doubtless as English and Welsh Royal Air Forces too. The RAF is in fact the simplest of the Services to apportion as the proportion of RAF Stations in Scotland is much the same as Scotland's share of the population of Britain. The air stations at Kinloss and Lossiemouth among others would continue in operation (the SNP is the only party committed to this) along with its aircraft and equipment. We need these airfields. We need them to fulfil our commitment to NATO of which we would be a member. Near home we need them because they are a very important factor in the economy of Moray. And what of the Serviceman who is not Scottish but who wants to go on serving in the RAF in Scotland? He has two choices: He can opt for Scottish citizenship to which he will be entitled by his domicile in Scotland at the time of Independence or we hope that he will be able to serve in the Scottish Royal Air Force in the same way as men from Commonwealth countries such as Canada and Australia do now and will so continue to do. Of course, this depends on agreements being reached with England and Wales and the other Commonwealth nations which would be to the benefit of all. With Scottish Independence becoming nearer, some non-Scottish servicemen who have bought, or are planning to buy, houses here are asking if they can own houses in Independent Scotland. The answer is a clear yes to owner occupiers of whatever nationality, and servicemen will be entitled to let their houses while on tours of duty abroad. I know that a great number of you, many not Scottish born, voted for me in February. I thank you most sincerely for your support then. I think you will agree that I have not disappointed you as your MP. Yours sincerely, Winifred Ewing. I read that out to show that what I am saying is not fanciful but is a possibility and should be taken seriously by the Department. I look forward to the answer of my hon. Friend the Minister of State, to whom I am extremely grateful for having stayed up through the night.

10.4 a.m.

The Minister of State for Defence (Mr. William Rodgers)

As the only Englishman—perhaps in your presence, Mr. Speaker, I should make clear that I am half a Welshman—to have survived a long Scottish night, may I say first how remarkable is the fortitude of Scots, certainly when they are discussing problems of drink—or no drink, as the case may be—but how glad I am that we have reached this debate at least at a respectable hour on a Wednesday morning.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has asked a number of typically penetrating questions. I appreciate the anxiety behind them. Ten years ago there were very few of us, certainly few like myself who were not close to Scottish affairs, who anticipated the measures of devolution to Scotland that are being discussed today. As a result, there are many Members who remain unhappy about the likely course of events. I was shocked to hear of the letter apparently sent to her electors by the hon. Lady the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing), which seemed to strike an unusual note of irresponsibility. Until my hon. Friend began to raise this matter, I had not realised that the Scottish National Party had seriously considered the possibility of independent Scottish forces.

May I make it absolutely clear that in the proposals that will be put before the House in the next Session there will be nothing related to separate armed forces for Scotland or to Scottish personnel for the Armed Forces. Separate armed forces imply a separate defence policy, and a separate defence policy implies a separate foreign policy. That would mean the end of the United Kingdom. We should not even have a federal system. Scotland would be independent. There would be a frontier. There would be nationality rules. Scots would be foreigners in England and Englishmen would be foreigners in Scotland. I still like to believe, though my hon. Friend may tell me that I am wrong, that only a lunatic fringe really wants it that way.

Before this morning my hon. Friend had asked for a White Paper and others of my hon. Friends have made similar noises. I previously cast doubt on such an idea, and that it still my position. To me, the proposition of separate armed forces for Scotland remains nonsense. It follows that I feel unable to justify the time that it would take hard-pressed officials in the Defence Department to do all the necessary work to produce a White Paper. On our reduced budget we simply have no resources for such activities.

For the same reason—and I very much hope that my hon. Friend will understand this—I might have difficulty in giving precise replies to my hon. Friend's questions. I entirely agree that they are not fanciful. They ought to be taken seriously, but I do not think I can deal with them seriatim, and I hope he will understand that.

As an example, take the number of Scots—or Scottish-born citizens of the United Kingdom—who serve in the Armed Forces. We do not have the figures because we have never counted heads. That is the sort of discrimination that we have previously sought to avoid. What I can say—this goes some way to provide the background for several of my hon. Friend's questions—is that it appears that some 10 per cent. of the United Kingdom Services are recruited in Scotland. With the exception of a number of clearly identified Scottish regiments in the Army, these men and women are scattered throughout the Services with representatives in every branch and specialisation.

The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force pay little attention to the country of origin, and that is important in view of the hon. Lady's letter. Both Services are organised functionally rather than geographically. The distribution of Scotsmen in the Services is, therefore, largely random.

Even assuming that the full 10 per cent. would wish to join independent Scottish forces—I shall comment on that in a moment—the chance of their representing a well-balanced cross-section of all the various trades, skills and specialisations required today is remote. There could easily be, to take an obvious example, a surplus of pipers and a severe shortage of artillerymen, an excess of engineers and a dearth of pilots for the RAF. To bring their forces into balance, the Scots would therefore be faced with a massive and expensive programme of redundancies, retraining and recruitment with, probably, a return to conscription.

This is no idle threat, because I find it impossible, to say the least, that all those Scots who currently join the Services for the challenging career they still offer would find the attractions of a limited life with the separate Scottish forces sufficiently worth while. It should be noted that among our allies all the smaller nations resort to conscription, not least Norway, which the Scottish National Party appears to regard as an acceptable model. Out of a total full-time service strength of 35,000, the Norwegians maintain some 24,000 conscripts. Therefore, an independent Scotland should expect conscription.

My hon. Friend asked about pensions and the problems of disentangling the payments due once independent Scottish forces had been set up. I must confess that this is not a question to which the Government have given a great deal of attention, but I can say that Service records do not differentiate between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, and the task of separately tracing the pension entitlement of all those Scotsmen serving with the Crown would be prodigious. I only hope that those who advocate the creation of separate armed forces, to be drawn presumably from those serving at present, have recognised the considerable pension liability they would inherit and are prepared to honour it. Otherwise, if I were a Serviceman I would be very worried indeed about my security when I left the Services. I would certainly not vote for a party which threatened to create separate armed forces.

Mr. Dalyell

Hear, hear—absolutely.

Mr. Rodgers

My hon. Friend asked about operational effectiveness. I would not contest that separate Scottish forces could effectively discharge some of the minor roles which the United Kingdom Services undertake at present. But the SNP must come clean in declaring whether or not it intends to play any worthwhile part in the collective security arrangements which have ensured our peace and freedom since the 1940s.

Since the inception of NATO, the British have played a major part in the defence of Western Europe. The Royal Navy remains the major European maritime power declared to NATO, whilst the Britsh Army of the Rhine has a key rôle in safeguarding the central front. Faced with the continuing buildup of the Warsaw Pact conventional forces, the Western Alliance is acutely concerned to obtain better value for money from scarce resources. Consequently, every member of NATO acknowledges the need for greater co-operation. This is evident not only in the increasing number of collaborative equipment projects but also in the renewed pressure from NATO commanders for more effective integration of military doctrine and procedures. The break-up of the British contribution to NATO would be a direct reversal of this trend and a most damaging blow to the Alliance. Quite apart from the initial disruption that would ensue, the separate forces eventually emerging would undoubtedly be more costly and less effective than those we have now.

My hon. Friend also raised the question of support for the Services. It is naïve to imagine that the Forces of the Crown can in some way be divided up and that Scottish forces can be set up by simply taking over those units at present located there. The Services are immensely complex organisations, and the growth of modern military technology has resulted in extensive administrative and logistics tails performing the vital functions of support, maintenance and training, without which the front line would soon collapse. It is not enough today to raise the Highland levies and send them into battle. Indeed, from the calculations we have done it appears that all the Scotsmen currently in the British Army could not man the Scottish regiments effectively for lack of the necessary support and logistics back-up. A whole network of research and development establishments, defence contractors, ordnance depots, workshops and training schools is required before a soldier can perform the duties for which he is trained.

In the case of the Army, there are few facilities of that kind in Scotland. There are no central workshops in Scotland, no arms schools, no central ordnance depots, no central vehicle depots and only limited facilities for basic infantry training and running repair of vehicles. There is not sufficient barrack accommodation for all the Scottish units in the British Army, and only one Royal ordnance factory.

For the high-technology Services, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, indigenous Scottish facilities are even more limited. Those facilities located in Scotland are highly specialised and not easily converted to other tasks. For example, the naval dockyard at Rosyth concentrates on refitting the Polaris submarines, which I understand the nationalists are determined to evict from Scottish waters, and also the expensive nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines which could play little or no part in a separate Scottish navy. Likewise, the Naval Construction Research Establishment at Dunfermline specialises in advanced naval work with particular emphasis on submarine construction. The RAF stations at Lossiemouth, Leuchars and Kinloss provide servicing for Nimrods, Shackletons and Rapier missiles. But there are no major RAF maintenance units in Scotland, nor any front-line training facilities, with the exception of the Jaguar operational conversion unit at Lossiemouth. None of the front-line aircraft operated by the RAF is manufactured in Scotland. Consequently there is no industrial repair capacity available either.

My hon. Friend mentioned the cost of training. We estimate the cost of training a pilot for a modern, sophisticated military aircraft to be up to £500,000. On all our evidence, the cost would be a great deal larger if the training for Scotland was clone separately in Scotland.

In summary, I see a number of grave disadvantages in any move, however hypothetical, to establish separate Scottish armed forces independent of the remainder of the United Kingdom. First, recruiting to these forces would not be easy. Secondly, the arbitrary division of the present Forces of the Crown into those who happen to be Scots and those who do not would undoubtedly result in a Scottish rump which would amount to no more than scratch Services, unbalanced in trades, skills and specialisation.

Thirdly, separate Scottish forces would face a serious lack of training and support facilities. Some extensive facilities located in Scotland would be left lying idle. Some establishments might even have to close, with obvious employment consequences. Elsewhere, considerable capital expenditure would be required in providing the necessary infrastructure for the Services to perform essential tasks which are currently undertaken south of the border. This would be an immensely costly process.

Fourthly, the industrial consequences would be similar. The loss of Royal Naval orders to the shipbuilding yards of Yarrow and Scott-Lithgow would be a serious blow, and I cannot see that such plans as there are for a separate Scottish navy would do much to fill the gap. We must also remember that there are no manufacturers capable of designing and building sophisticated military aircraft in Scotland at present, nor are there many firms manufacturing Army weapons or equipment. Separate forces would consequently mean a massive import bill for military equipment, which would add to the other costs of going it alone.

Fifthly, there can be no doubt that separate forces could only downgrade the current contribution which the United Kingdom makes to NATO. With the best will in the world, an independent Scottish contingent, either fighting alongside the remaining British forces or occupying some different segment of the front, at 10 per cent. or less of our current united strength, would have a minor impact not only in military but also in political terms. The break-up of the current United Kingdom forces could only damage the overall credibility of NATO.

It is fair to ask those who advocate this to say whether they want to damage NATO or whether they regard this as an unimportant factor. Are they concerned with symbols or with the realities of the proper security of the Scottish people?10.4 a.m.

It is difficult to assess the financial implications of the proposals we are now discussing as they have not been formulated with any precision. It is for others who want to see separation to produce a properly-worked-out White Paper. Nevertheless, I have seen some reports which suggest a figure of £350 million for a Scottish defence budget, or about 4.5 per cent. of probable Scottish gross national product. This is considerably less than 10 per cent. of the United Kingdom defence budget and would clearly sustain forces of only marginal military capability. Norway, for example, with a population of over 1 mil- lion less than Scotland, spends more than £450 million on defence at current exchange rates. From such calculations as we have been able to do, it is clear that a more realistic budget for separate Scottish forces—if they are to be something more than a combined coastguard and gendarmerie—would be at least £500 million, exclusive of the extra initial costs of transition and disruption—and I repeat that the initial costs of separation would be very high. This would be 6½ per cent. of Scottish GNP compared with the current figure of 5½ per cent. for the United Kingdom as a whole and it would still be a smaller expenditure per head than that of Norway, which appears to be the model.

I conclude that a breakaway movement by the Scots would leave them with limited forces, poorly organised and recruited, lacking sophisticated equipment in any one arm, suffering from a critical lack of support, training and maintenance facilities and ineffective for defending Scotland—all at considerably greater cost than at present. It would be a sad moment for the Scottish people and a black day for us all.

Mr. Dalyell

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reference in the letter of the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) to a Welsh Royal Air Force is equally absurd?10.4 a.m.

Mr. Rodgers

I regarded the letter to which my hon. Friend refers as remarkably absurd. If there were such ridiculous proposals for Wales—I do not believe that there are, and I should not expect them—the greater part of what I have said would apply.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes past Ten o'clock a.m.