§ The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Jeremy Hanley)I beg to move,
That the draft Visiting Forces and International Headquarters (Application of Law) (Amendment) Order 1994, which was laid before this House on 13th April, be approved.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris)I understand that with this it will be convenient to discuss at the same time the following motion:
That the draft International Headquarters and Defence Organisations (Designation and Privileges) (Amendment) Order 1994, which was laid before this House on 13th April, be approved.
§ Mr. HanleyAs you said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it would be appropriate to consider the two orders together.
The first of the orders amends a 1965 Order in Council, which designates headquarters and a defence organisation for the purposes of the International Headquarters and Defence Organisations Act 1964, while the second amends a 1965 Order in Council, which provides for the application, to visiting forces and international headquarters, of law applicable to home forces.
Before I describe the effect of the orders, it may be helpful if I explain the background to the changes in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation command structure which make them necessary.
The area covered by the North Atlantic treaty is divided among three major NATO commands or MNCs—European, Atlantic and Channel—and a regional planning group for Canada and the United States. Below that structure is a hierarchy of subordinate commands: major subordinate commands, or MSCs, principal subordinate commands, or PSCs, and sub-principal subordinate commands. Hon. Members will be aware that the NATO organisational structure lends itself to the adoption of many acronyms, and I will try to avoid quoting too many of them this evening.
A number of adjustments to that structure are being made to reflect the profound changes that have taken place in the strategic environment during the past few years, and to meet the changing needs of the alliance in the mid to late 1990s. As a first step, NATO Defence Ministers decided in December 1991 that the major NATO commands should be reduced from three to two—European and Atlantic. It was agreed that arrangements in the Atlantic command should be left largely unchanged, since they remained appropriate to the alliance's continuing maritime task.
Ministers also decided to reduce the number of major subordinate commands in Allied Command Europe—ACE—from four to three. Those would be responsible for the southern, central and north-western regions.
Those decisions paved the way for detailed planning during 1992 and subsequent implementation. Last year saw the completion of the changes in central region. Under the old structure, the boundary between Allied Forces Central Europe—AFCENT—and Allied Forces Northern Europe—AFNORTH—passed through Schleswig Holstein. The boundary has been moved north, and the central region now includes all of Germany and Denmark. The Allied Forces South—AFSOUTH—structure has been agreed, and is being implemented. Hon. Members may 54 wish to note that I am placing in the Library of the House some maps and an organisational chart outlining these structures.
Later this year, the command changes affecting the United Kingdom will come into being. The post of Commander-in-Chief Channel—CINCHAN—lapses on 30 June, and the headquarters of Allied Forces Northern Europe in Kolsaas, Norway, closes. The following day, reorganisation of the major subordinate command structure in Allied Command Europe will be completed, when the headquarters of the new north western area is activated. That area will comprise the land mass of the United Kingdom, for the first time, and Norway and the sea and air areas surrounding them.
The new NATO headquarters for this area, to be designated headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces North Western Europe—HQ CINCAFNORTHWEST—will be situated at High Wycombe, and will be commanded by a British officer. At the same time, two new principal subordinate command headquarters will be activated in the UK: the headquarters of the Commander Allied Air Forces North Western Europe—HQ COMAIRNORTHWEST—also at High Wycombe, and the headquarters of the Commander Allied Naval Forces North Western Europe—HQ COMNAVNORTHWEST—at Northwood, which will assume Commander-in-Chief Channel's current responsibilities. Some 330 alliance personnel will be located at the new headquarters in the United Kingdom, of whom 130 will be from the United Kingdom.
To reflect those changes, it is necessary to amend the International Headquarters and Defence Organisations (Designation and Privileges) Order 1965 to designate in United Kingdom law the new headquarters. We are also taking this opportunity to designate the NATO airborne early warning force headquarters in Mons, Belgium, and the NATO E-3A component in Geilenkirchen, Germany, whose visiting staff are treated as members of an international military headquarters, but have not yet been formally recognised as having that status under United Kingdom law. The purpose of the first order is therefore to establish the status of the various headquarters and visiting forces.
The second order, amending the Visiting Forces and International Headquarters (Application of Law) Order 1965 provides for the application to the visiting forces and the headquarters, of the law applicable to home forces.
The changes I have described will effectively complete the restructuring of NATO's command structure agreed at the end of 1991. They will help meet our objectives for a lighter, more flexible, command structure, which will enable the alliance to respond more quickly and effectively to the increasingly challenging and diverse demands of the European security situation.
The changes have already led to considerable savings in manpower. In particular, they have allowed the United Kingdom to reduce its overall contribution by more than 30 per cent., mainly from the headquarters in Allied Command Europe.
There are clear advantages to the establishment of a new major subordinate command—MSC—in the United Kingdom. We will retain significant influence at an increasingly important level of command within the alliance's military structure—a level which we expect to play a leading role in NATO's new force structure.
55 There will also be cost savings from home basing for the United Kingdom complement of staff and economic benefits to the High Wycombe area from the presence of visiting forces. Furthermore, United Kingdom firms have benefited from work on the construction and fitting out of the new headquarters, the cost of which will be some £l2 million from NATO funds.
The NATO summit in January charted the next steps for the adaptation of the alliance, and we can expect the new headquarters in the United Kingdom to play an important role in giving practical effect to the initiatives agreed there. This will help to keep the United Kingdom at the forefront of work to ensure that the alliance remains centre stage in European security arrangements in the years ahead.
I commend the orders to the House.
§ Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)I thank the Minister for his clear exposition of the reason for, and significance of, the two orders. I accept that they are linked, and that it makes sense to examine them together. Orders of this nature would normally be considered upstairs in Committee, and it is only the ending of the parliamentary cold war that allows us to have the opportunity to examine them in the House.
As the Minister has said, the orders are consequential and of no great significance. What is significant, however, is what they tell us about the context of the adaptation of NATO to post-cold war realities, and what they reveal about the changed status of the United Kingdom within the alliance. The weight given to our role in the immediate post-war settlement in 1949, at the time of the formation of NATO, has evolved into its current status. I shall dwell briefly on those changes, and pose certain questions to the Minister.
In terms of NATO and post-cold war realities, the organisational chart, which existed in 1949, has already been set out by the Minister. The current integrated military command structures under the military committee stems, largely unchanged, from the 1949 structure with the three major commands, Allied Command Channel, Allied Command Atlantic, and Allied Command Europe. As the Minister has pointed out, they are divided into major subordinate commands, and, within those, principal subordinate commands.
The current MSCs of ACE, which are commanded by Supreme Allied Commander Europe, are Allied Forces North, Allied Forces Central, Allied Forces South, and the United Kingdom Defence Region.
The end of the cold war led to the need for a new NATO strategy, and, in turn, to the need for a rationalisation of the NATO military command structure. The criteria of that review were economic and political. As the Minister has said, financial and personnel savings have been made, perhaps as part of the peace dividend and because the lower alliance force levels reflect the pressure throughout the alliance for less expenditure on defence.
The political significance of the changes stems from the united Germany, which is no longer split between two MSCs—Schlewsig Holstein in AFNORTH and the rest of Germany within AFCENT. One consequence is that all NATO forces on German soil will be under German command.
56 The history of the NATO review, which has led to the two orders, has been set out by the Minister and is well known, but the dates are significant. In May 1991, Defence Ministers met in Sicily to examine the package of changes, and in December 1991, the Defence Planning Committee agreed the consensus package.
The chief casualty of the rationalisation is the elimination of Allied Command Channel, a major command led by a British admiral and based at Northwood. I am not wholly convinced by the Minister's argument that British weight in terms of personnel will remain in tact. In the new context, ACCHAN obviously had to go once its new responsibilities were divided.
What is significant is that, after reorganisation, the two remaining senior command posts are now held by Americans. Is that wholly consistent with the current spirit within the alliance? I understand, however, the need to ensure the full commitment of the United States to the alliance. General Joulwan of the United States has only recently been appointed.
On the weight and the role of the United Kingdom within the alliance, the second key change is the extension of ACE to include the United Kingdom mainland for the first time. That makes sense when judged according to the time of the original settlement, but it is a significant change, as it reflects the different significant role that Britain played in the late 1940s. In turn, the number of MSCs within ACE has been reduced from four to three, with the replacement of UKAIR and AFNORTH by AFNORTHWEST.
The headquarters of AFNORTHWEST is at High Wycombe; hence the need for the order. Will the Minister confirm that it is the Government's intention to ensure that, so far as possible, there will always be a United Kingdom commander of the United Kingdom's land or air forces within the United Kingdom? I understand that there are to be roughly 250 posts at High Wycombe, but I note that the figure that the Minister now gives for the costs of the operation—I think it was £12 million—is slightly greater than the sum that was given to the Defence Committee.
I shall end with a number of questions for consideration by the Minister. One is the relevance of those changes to, and their consistency with, the broad thrust of current NATO thinking, especially as set out in the NATO Brussels communiqué in January—the new move towards a European defence identity and the way in which the new United States administration is more prepared—indeed, seems to be almost enthusiastic—for a greater European contribution.
The changes that led to the orders stem from before May 1991. Indeed, one can probably go back more than three years. The Defence Ministers who met in Sicily in May 1991 reflected the view at that time of the post-cold-war changes and the institutional framework that was relevant to those changes. There has now been, as I have mentioned, a greater evolution, especially under the new administration in the US.
It would be interesting for the Government to reflect on the extent to which the current package of proposals reflects the new thrust of policy as it was enshrined in the Brussels communiqué in January, or whether what the House is now presented with is part of a time warp—that which appeared relevant and appropriate three years ago.
I shall not detain the House by discussing the proposed structure for the Baltic, but it is obviously a compromise, based more on political than military needs. There is an 57 artificial division of responsibility between land and maritime forces—two different commands. That makes no sense, at least in managerial terms.
The inclusion of the NATO airborne early warning force in the two orders presumably also relates to the reorganisation of the NATO commands. For legal reasons, the extension of Allied Command Europe to cover mainland Britain may mean that its executive agency, the NAEWF, may require a new status in the UK. I wonder whether there is another reason—the history of the change—but that may effectively be caused by the need to remedy a legal omission.
It would be wrong to survey the unfortunate decision to proceed, not with a jointly funded airborne warning and communication system squadron, but with a national AWACS squadron with the early warning version of Nimrod, a project that was cancelled in 1986 and which was disastrous for the British taxpayer. As I understand the position, from the mid-1980s the NAEWF was regularly deployed to the UK to help provide early warning cover for UK airspace until the RAF Boeing E—5 squadron became operational in 1991. That is, the early warning system used RAF airfields, even though not covered by the Visiting Forces Act 1952 and the International Headquarters and Defence Organisations Act 1964, so that is in any event putting right a legal omission, bringing into legal form what was already the practice, for a period at least.
Finally, it is fair to say that the reorganisation of NATO headquarters, which is due to be implemented at the beginning of July, may already, to some extent, have become outdated because the merger of AFNORTHWEST and AFCENT might now be possible. I note that, in the "Statement on the Defence Estimates", which was published last month, the Government said:
In the longer term, it may also be necessary to look again at NATO's higher military structure to ensure that it remains suited to the new forces and the new tasks.Finally, I pose the question whether, not in the longer term but in the shorter term, as we adjust to the position in the cold war with the new views of the US administration, we might need to consider a structure which, in spite of those orders, may already be somewhat outdated.
§ Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South)I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the debate, but I was attending another meeting. I shall not detain the House for long.
The wonder of the alliance in 1949 was that it was formed at all. In spite of the threat, Europe and America were, with rare exceptions, if not adversaries, at loggerheads. There had been in Europe a strong tradition of neutralism. Countries such as the United Kingdom were used to being alone.
As a result of wise statesmanship and Ernest Bevin—who was probably one of the wisest of the statesmen—and as a result of a little bit of skullduggery on the part of the State Department and the US Congress, the Americans were committed to a presence in Europe and committed to NATO in such a way that probably very few congressmen and senators who signed up for the agreement were aware of what they were letting themselves in for.
In spite of the vicissitudes of the cold war—one suspects that the internal problems in NATO were in many ways greater than the external threat—the alliance held together. The deal was not an equal partnership between 58 the United States and Europe, because the US was immensely strong militarily and economically, and Europe was prostrate economically and had very few armed forces available to meet a potential threat from the Soviet union.
Nevertheless, in that initial bargain, we had one of the major NATO commands. We had Allied Command Channel, on a par virtually, although not entirely, with the other two major NATO commanders, both American. Therefore, organisationally, if there was not a balance between Europe and north America in terms of senior military personnel, at least Europe was able to say that we had a major commander, alongside an American admiral and an American general. That situation prevailed until quite recently.
Following the cold war changes, many critics in the House hoped that NATO would disappear. When the Warsaw pact collapsed, there were people who wished that NATO would collapse in empathy with the Warsaw pact. They thought that NATO was no longer relevant in the new peace environment that we were entering.
However, NATO showed that it had longevity; that it was not simply a military alliance but a political alliance. It made fundamental changes to strategy and reduction in forces and in the command structure, which I generally support. The changes of creating a new command structure, a rapid reaction corps and the North Atlantic Co-operation Council and, more recently, in the summit in January, the establishment of the partnership for peace and the combined joint task forces, show that NATO has resilience.
What worries me slightly—I do not wish to appear too partisan at this stage in what is obviously if not a bipartisan approach, at least major agreement between both Front Benches—is that in some ways I very much regret the downgrading of the British contribution. Northwood is no longer to be regarded on a par with Mons and with Norfolk, Virginia.
Europe as well as Britain has been downgraded. It is wrong that the two senior military commanders of NATO—SACEUR and SACLANT—are American. I am a committed Atlanticist and desperately hope that the European Union will develop further. Although I want greater co-ordination in foreign policy and perhaps a common foreign policy, greater co-ordination in security and perhaps a common security policy, I shall need persuading that, at this stage in its history, Europe is capable of developing a common defence policy, especially if it is to the detriment of NATO.
When discussing future command arrangements, I hope that, as the Western European Union and the European Union grow closer, they will not see as part of their new macho status the requirement to supplant an alliance which has held us in safety over the decades and will play a considerable role in the future. In the new international environment, NATO will be as important in the future as it has been in the past.
The downgrading of the British dimension is a consequence of the downgrading of our armed forces. If, in the space of a decade, the number of Royal Navy frigates and destroyers will drop from between 50 and 60 to between 30 and 40, we shall cut less of a dash in NATO. Is that a reason why we no longer occupy a major position within NATO's command structure and Allied Command Channel? That relates directly to what we are discussing.
Is the fact that we can no longer provide adequate forces the reason why the command structure was altered? I am 59 worried that Northwood no longer has a British admiral who meets on a par with his American counterparts. If defence expenditure falls further, we shall lose, if not our primacy, our position in other NATO commands, which will diminish our influence in the transatlantic alliance and NATO.
NATO has made considerable changes to its command structures. The way in which the United Kingdom's headquarters are altered reflects the drop in defence expenditure and the need for greater efficiency. I fear that the goal of greater efficiency will not be achieved by reducing forces.
At some stage in the near future, as the balance of the threat moves from the northern and central regions to the old southern region, the southern flank, the southern guard and the southern arc of crisis, Naples will be infinitely more important in dealing with problems in the Maghreb, the Balkans, the middle east and the Gulf. At what stage will NATO consider re-establishing a command on a par with Norfolk and Mons, concentrating not on a command in NATO subordinate to SACEUR, at AFSOUTH Naples, but on a separate and equal command?
I welcome the legal changes that must be made. The Select Committee on Defence considered them in 1992. It is ironic that the House should be considering them more than two years later. Clearly, the changes must be supported. I am grateful for the opportunity of raising this important issue, although it may have been slightly tangential to the subject in hand.
§ 6.4 pm
§ Mr. HanleyWith permission, I shall answer briefly a few of the points that have been raised.
In answer to the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), the Commander UK Land Forces will always remain the UK commander. But the Commander-in-Chief of AFNORTHWEST could come from another nation at some subsequent time.
On the United States' MNCs, there is increasing European representation throughout the alliance's command structure. I do not have the relevant figures to hand, but I am willing to write to the hon. Member for Swansea, East and explain the numbers.
He also queried the cost of £12 million for High Wycombe. The cost of the military budget is expected to be some £7.6 million, and the UK share is fixed at just under 22 per cent., which is some £1.7 million. The cost to 60 the infrastructure budget is expected to be some £4.2 million, and the UK share is some £900,000. The difficulty may have been the fact that the total cost to NATO budgets of establishing the headquarters is £12 million. I am not sure whether the Select Committee received different figures, but those are the definitive ones.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to the Baltic overlap. It is sensible to allow SACEUR the operational flexibility to select the MSC best suited to control joint operations on a case-by-case basis. That is the position that we are in. I shall not comment on some of the other points that he made.
The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) made an important contribution. The White Paper made it clear that the UK's defence is based on NATO. It also clearly set out decisions reached at the NATO summit, which are shaping our defence and security policies. The summit reaffirmed our commitment to the transatlantic link, which is the bedrock of NATO, but it also supported the development of the European security and defence identity to strengthen the European pillar of the alliance.
May I refer back to the speech of the hon. Member for Swansea, East? We are now catching up to 1991, and a lot of water has gone under many bridges since then. This, at least, is now the command structure, and we must let it bed down. In the meantime, the combined joint task force concept was introduced at the last NATO summit. That is designed to allow European countries to act under the auspices of WEU in circumstances where they perceive a need for action, but the north Americans, for whatever reason, choose not to be involved.
The new headquarters at AFNORTHWEST is a good example. The European or British commander and strong European representation in the headquarters will mean that it will be capable of undertaking NATO and/or WEU operations.
The description of the multilateral dimension of our security in the White Paper is not a departure, but rather a reflection of the response of the allies to the changing strategic environment. I am therefore pleased that the House welcomes the motion.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§
Resolved,
That the draft Visiting Forces and International Headquarters (Application of Law) (Amendment) Order 1994, which was laid before this House on 13 April, be approved.
§
Resolved,
That the draft International Headquarters and Defence Organisations (Designation and Privileges) (Amendment) Order 1994, which was laid before this House on 13 April, be approved.—[Mr. Hanley.]