Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 12 Rhagfyr 1973.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Navy will write to the hon. Gentleman to clear up any ambiguity for which I may be responsible, for which I apologise.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth rightly emphasised the importance of pay and housing. My right hon. Friend, in opening, made clear that we appreciate the importance of those matters and will consider them in the spring. He also mentioned, as did my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Peter Rees), the 15-year-olds. We have not closed our minds to the possibility of recruiting 15-year-olds and giving them what amounts to a final year's schooling before they enter full military service. That will be costly and, generally speaking, the Services have never recruited boys before the minimum school leaving age. We have yet to make sure that we can provide them with the education that they would otherwise get in school. At the end of this year we shall have seen the effect on the Forces of the raising of the school leaving age, and I think that we should wait until then before coming to a decision. My hon. Friends are studying this question carefully and agree on its importance.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester asked three questions. He wanted to know what is happening to Lulworth. I cannot tell him that. We are still open to representations, and, as my right hon. Friend said, we hope to publish a statement after Christmas, when I understand that there will be a debate. The reduction in size of the Ministry of Defence and the integration of trade training are under constant review.
The hon. Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman) thought that the lesson of the Middle East was that in terms of weaponry Russia is far ahead. I agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart), Stretford (Mr. Churchill) and Bradford, West (Mr. Wilkinson) that the hon. Member for Coventry, North is too alarmist. He has no cause to be despondent, nor should he reproach the Government for not frantically galloping off in every direction in an attempt to cure the situation. I am glad that the foolish policy of a cut of £1,000 million was repudiated by him. I do not accept the suggestion that NATO is nearly powerless. Of course the Eastern bloc is stronger than we are, but we can inflict unacceptable damage on it. We no longer rely on a trip-wire; we now have a flexible response.
I assure my hon. Friends who are concerned about anti-tank missiles that we have a very good one—in fact, several of different types, and research into smaller types and others is going on energetically. I also agree about the importance of electronic counter-measures and we are devoting much effort to them.
I very much enjoyed the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham, but in the matter of burden sharing we have nothing with which to reproach ourselves. We have set a good example to our European allies. I assure my hon. Friend, from good information, that the United States does not reproach us in this matter of sharing the burden with it.
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) that the Royal Navy has its fuel and has in hand the necessary organisation to deal with the fuel shortage. I am sorry that I have been unable to answer all the questions, but I hope that the House has enjoyed the debate as much as I have.