Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 12 Rhagfyr 1973.
No doubt the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) is a judge of that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aidershot was primarily interested, as was the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland, in what we are to do about WEU and the Euro-group. We have read with particular interest M. Jobert's interesting and important speech, and welcome in particular his emphasis on the importance of the Atlantic alliance for our common defence.
We naturally do not rule out a role for WEU in future, but we see that it has drawbacks. It does not, for example, include all the European members of the alliance in its membership—it excludes the flank countries—and we need to take care that it does not cut across the work of the Euro-group, to which we are firmly committed.
The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) and my hon. and gallant Friends the Members for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) and Lichfield and Tamworth (Major-General Jack d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) were all concerned that we should save money by unified training. We have taken note of what the Committee said about this. We have had the Jarrett Report about the medical services, which we are still studying and hope to implement in due course. We are studying how the basic training of non-specialist trades can be made the same in each Service. We are examining the problems of helicopter pilots, drivers, cooks, pay clerks, clerical staff, vehicle mechanics, and so on. This is an important matter, which is being examined carefully. We hope to be able to make a reduction in expenditure.
It would, of course, be logical for us to standardise on procurement and equipment in NATO. We are all fighting the same war in the same way and should have the same kind of weapons. It is difficult to get individual nations to give up their share of manufacturing and to put people out of work, along with the other things which are necessary for such sharing. Some progress has been made and there is a committee within NATO monitoring these things and making suggestions.
There is most hope in the larger projects such as the Jaguar, the MRCA and the battle tank and ammunitions and guns. In these spheres we have made a fair amount of progress. I hope we shall make more.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eye talked about nuclear weapons. The Government have taken note of his Committee's report on this subject and have studied it with great interest. For the reasons explained by the Secretary of State in his oral evidence published with the report, we cannot comment on the detailed arguments of the report or its recommendations for the future. The Government are satisfied that Polaris provides us with a fully effective nuclear deterrent. We do not share the views of the hon, Member for Portsmouth, West about that. Obviously we must keep the position continuously under review and come to the necessary decisions in due course about what improvements shall be made and when.
A number of hon. Members were bothered about peaking in expenditure on various expensive projects at the same time. This is something we must watch closely. If they all came together we would find ourselves in a mess. We have thought of that, and the programme is to that extent flexible, so that we will, I hope, be able to avoid such dangers.