Armed Forces Bill

I am interested in the hon. Lady's intervention. I am sorry that she did not take the opportunity to support the case I am making. The case about defence statistics is quite important, which is why the leader of her party in the Scottish Parliament, Iain Gray, put his name to a joint submission that used those very statistics, together with the leader of the Conservative and Unionist party and the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament. Incidentally, all those party leaders have hinted at their resignations, having lost in the recent Scottish Parliament elections. None the less, all three leaders, together with the Scottish National party, put their names to that submission. The hon. Lady wishes to entice me to talk about the advantages of independence in relation to defence, which I am happy to do at any point. I note that she did not take the opportunity to apologise for the loss of 10,000 defence jobs in Scotland while her party was in power. I am more than confident that using our population share of defence spending in Scotland would provide a net increase in spending and manpower, protecting the bases that have been closed by both her party and the Conservatives. To return to the publication of defence statistics, I would have thought it was a matter of concern to Members on both sides of the House that rather than continuing to provide statistics on these matters, the UK Government have simply stopped answering parliamentary questions and providing the important information. Members who have not looked at the issue might be asking themselves, ““Are the statistics that the SNP is taking about available in other countries?”” The answer is, ““Yes, of course they are.”” The Canadian Department of National Defence provides statistics to its parliamentarians across the range of expenditure. In the United States, members of Congress and everyone else can access information on defence spend across the communities and states of the US. Until recently, that was the case here in the UK. On jobs, we know that when Labour left office there were 10,480 fewer people in defence jobs than there were in 1997. That leaves the current uniform contingent in Scotland at 12,000, which is significantly less than our population share. Looking at the Government Front Bench, I am pleased that the Secretary of State for Defence acknowledged when giving evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee that there had indeed been a disproportionate reduction in defence jobs in Scotland under Labour. However, it must be pointed out that for a number of years we had consistent answers to parliamentary questions on service personnel costs, civilian personnel costs, equipment expenditure and non-equipment expenditure. In fact, there is a complete dataset from 2002 to 2008 showing a number of important but very worrying facts. It shows that the defence underspend increased from £749 million in 2002-03 to £1.2 billion in 2007-08, a 68% increase in just six years. Between 2002 and 2008 the underspend on defence in Scotland under the Labour Government was a mammoth £5.6 billion, contributed by Scottish taxpayers to the MOD but not spent on defence in Scotland. Between 2005 and 2008 there was a drastic real-terms decline year on year in defence spending in Scotland. I note that the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) is not seeking to intervene to explain why the defence underspend was so large under Labour. There was actually a 3% cut in defence spending between 2006-07 and 2007-08, a shocking indictment of the previous Labour Government. If we widen the scope of the statistics to include Wales and Northern Ireland, we see that in the six years from 2002 to 2008 there was an accumulated underspend of £14.2 billion. In the same period in which there was an underspend of £5.6 billion in Scotland, there was a staggering £6.7 billion underspend in Wales and a £1.8 billion underspend in Northern Ireland. I point out to right hon. and hon. Members on the Government Benches representing constituencies in England that regions across England similarly have significant issues of defence underspend. What the statistics show is shocking enough, but just wait for how the Ministry of Defence chose to deal with this! Did it make policy choices to deal with the underspend or make decisions to remedy the fact that there were these cuts in defence manpower? No, it did not. In 2009, tucked away at the end of a report, there was an ““important note”” entitled ““Cessation of National & Regional Employment Estimates””, which stated:"““Ministers have agreed that after this year (2009) the Ministry of Defence…will no longer compile national and regional employment estimates because the data do not directly support MOD policy making and operations.””" I thought, my goodness, surely there is some mistake—that could not be the case. Then, on 6 April last year, the then Secretary of State for Defence provided what turned out to be the last parliamentary answer on defence expenditure in Scotland, confirming that it was not a mistake, and that rather than dealing with the policy challenges the MOD was going to get rid of the proof:"““Since 2008 the MOD has not collected estimates of regional expenditure on equipment, non-equipment, or personnel costs as they do not directly support policy making or operations.””—[Official Report, 6 April 2010; Vol. 508, c. 1200W.]" The information is still readily available within the Ministry of Defence, but the decision was taken not to provide it to Parliament. This has happened since the time of the last Labour Government. Given the public pronouncements about transparency, new politics and the respect agenda that we heard from the Conservatives and their Liberal Democrat coalition allies, I hoped that their rhetoric might be matched by openness. I have not been encouraged by much in the coalition agreement, but it says on page 7:"““we””—" that is, the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats—"““are both committed to turning old thinking on its head and develop new approaches to government. For years, politicians could argue that because they held all the information, they needed more power. But today, technological innovation has—with astonishing speed—developed the opportunity to spread information and decentralise power in a way we have never seen before. So we will extend transparency to every area of public life.””" Section 16 of the agreement, entitled ““Government transparency””, continues:"““The Government believes that we need to throw open the doors of public bodies, to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account. We also recognise that this will help to deliver better value for money in public spending, and help us achieve our aim of cutting the record deficit. Setting government data free will bring significant economic benefits””." There were two specific commitments. First,"““We””—" the Government—"““will require full, online disclosure of all central government spending and contracts over £25,000””;" and secondly,"““We””—" the Government—"““will create a new 'right to data' so that government-held datasets can be requested and used by the public””." Aha! I was encouraged. Surely, given those commitments, we would see the information. I am delighted that the Minister for the Armed Forces is able to join us at this stage, because what I am about to say relates directly to him. I was delighted to hear similar claims of openness from the new ministerial defence team in the House of Commons debate on the strategic defence and security review on 21 June. Hansard records that the new Minister for the Armed Forces said:"““Hon. Members—and everybody else—have the opportunity to contribute and make whatever representations they wish to make. If there are hon. Members who feel that they are under-informed, and want more information to inform representations that they might make during the review, they need only let us know. Ministers have an open-door policy, and Members are welcome to any further information that they feel they need.””" That prompted me to intervene and ask:"““During the previous Parliament, the Labour Government provided statistics on employment and expenditure throughout the nations and regions of the UK. Will the new coalition Government give a commitment to continue producing those statistics?””" The Minister replied:"““Yes. Whatever information right hon. and hon. Members need in order to make representations to the review—””" but to be doubly sure, I interjected:"““Is that a yes?””" The Minister answered, unambiguously:"““That is a yes. Hon. Members need only ask for any information that they need.””—[Official Report, 21 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 132.]" Naturally, I was delighted.