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OTR HOME INTERVIEWS PEOPLE BEHIND THE SCENES MORE POLITICS BRAINTEASER CROCODILE NEWS BBC ELECTION 97 |
Interview with George Robertson |
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ON THE RECORD
GEORGE ROBERTSON INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 26.10.97
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Paul Wilenius reporting, and George
Robertson is in our Glasgow studio now. Good afternoon Mr Robertson.
GEORGE ROBERTSON: Good afternoon.
HUMPHRYS: Punching above our weight. Previous
governments have been very proud of Britain's ability to do that. Do you want
to continue that for Britain as well?
ROBERTSON: I don't like that expression, quite
frankly. I want Britain to be properly defended and I want our armed forces
not only to defend our country, but to be a force for good, in a very
complicated and a very difficult new world that we're facing.
HUMPHRYS: You don't like the expression. What one
would you prefer?
ROBERTSON: Well, I want the armed forces that are
appropriate for the circumstances that we face today, where one direct threat
has gone, one that I've lived with all of my life, but where new challenges,
new difficulties, new problems are on the horizon, and where you know, since
the cold war ended, the Berlin Wall came down in nineteen-seventy-nine, our
troops have had to fight in two major conflicts, one in the Gulf which used
practically all of the equipment that we had set up for the cold war. But
also in Bosnia where I visited last week, where a combination of capabilities
had to be put into effect to get a period of peace in that part of the European
continent that might allow the instability that arises there from spreading on
a much wider basis.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so, you may not like the
expression "punching above our weight", but the way you've just described the
kind of things you want us to carry on doing implies that we won't be doing
less in future than we have been doing in the past.
ROBERTSON; Well, what we have to do is to match our
capabilities, our assets, the armed forces to the commitments that we have, and
that's why.....
HUMPHRYS: And not the other way around?
ROBERTSON: Well, no. We clearly need to decide in
advance, and that's what we promised before the election, what this - what the
balance is between what the country has to do - for instance the aid to the
civil power in Northern Ireland, with what the country wants to do; and that is
part of its responsibilities through NATO, the Security Council of the United
Nations and the other organisations we're involved in, and how best it can be
done with the armed forces. It's policy-led rather than what the Conservative
Party did, which was to scythe away at the Budget itself and then afterwards
try to pretend that they had a coherent policy. That didn't wash.
HUMPHRYS: If it's policy-led then, one of the
terribly important aspects of our foreign policy, and this is part of the
punching above the weight thing, though you don't like the expression, is that
we have been a permanent, still are, a permanent member of the United Nations'
Security Council. Why should we insist on wanting to be a permanent member of
the United Nations' Security Council, given the extra commitments that that
implies, when we're no longer a great economic power?
ROBERTSON: Well, frankly the decision on that is
not taken by me or by you. It's basically taken by the British people, and
there is absolutely....
HUMPHRYS:: Is it? I don't recall ever having been
asked to vote on it!
ROBERTSON: Well, yes, but I've been a member of
Parliament for nineteen years, and eighteen of them have been in opposition,
when the Labour Party suggested that perhaps we should not be playing the part
in the world that has generally been suggested by the people. And it's only
been as Bruce George said by rebuilding our trust with the British people, by
coming into synch with what the British people want us to do as a nation, that
we've managed to get elected with the size of the majority we have.
HUMPHRYS: It may well be that there are some
British people who don't think we should play such a big part on the world
stage as we presently are, because of the cost involved. Now, are you...
ROBERTSON: That well may be, but I don't actually
think that they represent the majority of people who voted for us.
HUMPHRYS: How d'you know?
ROBERTSON: Well, the manifesto we stood on in the
election made it clear....
HUMPHRYS: Well, you stood on lots of things in
election Mr Robertson. You didn't just stand on that. I mean you can't say
that every single thing that was in your manifesto, the majority of people
necessarily voted, because there's no way of proving that.
ROBERTSON: Well, I can tell you that my instinct
and the instinct of the leadership of the Labour Party is that at some stages
in our past history in opposition we got the defence component wrong, and
people's views wrong. I sincerely and very strongly believe that people want
us to have strong defence for this country, and to continue to play a part in
the world.
HUMPHRYS: Whatever the cost is .... if it costs a
lot of money so be it.
ROBERTSON: Well, let me first of all say that we
have dependent territories which we cannot simply wish away at this time, and
that is a continuing ...
HUMPHRYS: It's only a part of it though.
ROBERTSON: Yes. and we've got aid to the civil
power in Northern Ireland which is a substantial part of it. We are strong
members of NATO and every opinion poll in the last twenty years has shown the
people want us to continue to be a strong player there, and the public I
believe, want us to be a force for good in the world, and use our power and our
influence to be that.
HUMPHRYS: Alright. Well let's pick that up then.
Clearly you want us therefore still to be an important, powerful player on the
world stage. Now this "force for good" expression that you just used there...
ROBERTSON: Yeah.
HUMPHRYS: Again, why? I mean alright -it sounds
jolly good, and the moral thing to do, and all the rest of it, but why could we
not say: well actually we don't have to be that, if the obligations it imposes
on us are as costly as they are?
ROBERTSON: Well, of course we don't have to be
that.
HUMPHRYS: So why are we?
ROBERTSON: We could be non-participants, we could
be spectators, we could run down our armed forces...
HUMPHRYS: We could do what other countries do.
ROBERTSON: Of course, yes, we could do that, but I
don't believe that the British people want us to do that.
HUMPHRYS: Are you sure?
ROBERTSON: This is an island nation critically
dependent on overseas trade, with wide strategic interests that affect our
economy almost directly. It makes absolutely no sense for us to do that, and
....
HUMPHRYS: Well, Japan has an enormous amount of
world trade, Germany has an enormous amount of world trade. They don't
necessarily, indeed they most certainly do not take the same view that we take.
They spend a great deal less proportionately of their money on the kinds of
things that we are... so it's not unique to Britain that we're dependent on
world trade.
ROBERTSON: Well, with the greatest of respect, the
history of Germany is entirely different to the history of this country, and I
don't believe that people would want to draw direct parallels, and one of the
reason that of course Germany spends less on defence is because they have mass
conscription. That provides them with a large force of people at a much
smaller rate, and people in this country certainly don't want the return of
conscription, if that was a way of reducing it.
HUMPHRYS: It isn't one or the other, is it.
ROBERTSON: Well sometimes it is. If we want to be
a major power in the world, and remain to be there with an influence on events
in the world rather than being a spectator, then we have to do certain things.
But we don't have to do it in the old way. There are different and new ways in
which we can and do do it. I was in Bosnia last week. I believe people in
this country wanted us - because I was Opposition spokesman on Foreign Affairs
at the time - wanted us to do something about the carnage inside that dreadful
country - wanted us to play our part in stopping that conflict from spreading,
or from allowing the lesson of ethnic cleansing to become the lesson of success
for the future, and we are playing our part out there doing extremely well at
it and I think the people of this country are proud of the people who are
working for it.
HUMPHRYS: So all of those obligations,
commitments, whatever you want to call them, add up to a great deal of money,
twenty-two billion pounds a year at the moment. You're happy to continue
spending on behalf of the British people that kind of money?
ROBERTSON: Well, the commitment we gave before the
election was that the spending plans of the last government would be continued
for the next two years. Well, we're having a strategic defence review to try
and assess on the broadest possible consensus what the country should be doing
in the longer term anyway, but I want, you know, the money to be spent wisely
that we've go in our defence budget. I looked after a domestic department in
opposition, I am interested in education, I'm interests in rebuilding the
Health Service, but at the same time - as both Malcolm Rifkind and Bruce George
said on your film, we have got to have the insurance policy that defence
represents, if we're going to have any Health Service or have any Education
Service in this country.
HUMPHRYS: So you want to take a detailed look - an
in-depth look - at the whole thing, but you don't want a rethink on strategy?
ROBERTSON: I'm rethinking the strategy, of course I
am. A strategic Defence position.
HUMPHRYS: But you're not, you've just told me that
you want to carry on with precisely the same commitments that we have already
had, because that's what the British people want.
ROBERTSON: But, we may-
HUMPHRYS: So you may take an in-depth look at it
but not if it means actually rethinking the essence of it.
ROBERTSON: No. You are misinterpreting what I'm
saying.
HUMPHRYS: Well, I must have profoundly
misunderstood you. Tell me which bits of it you want to drop, then, and then
I'll understand you.
ROBERTSON: What we're saying is that we must try
and assess what it is we want to do as a country, what it is we have to do as a
country and how best all of that could be done within the constraints, within
the constraints.
HUMPHRYS: Have to do! A big difference between
wanting to do and having to do.
ROBERTSON: Well, there are some things we want to
do - that is like having five thousand three hundred troops in Bosnia - and
things that we need to do - like having seventeen thousand troops in Northern
Ireland at the moment, and having a capability to participate in future
conflicts that might occur that could have a dramatic impact on our own
strategic needs as a country.
HUMPHRYS: Ah!
ROBERTSON: We had a ship, the West Indies guard
ship HMS Liverpool, recently was the first rescue presence at Monserrat when
the volcano blew up. It happened to be there. The West India guard ship is
not some relic of our Colonial past. It is there largely now because of its
role in terms of drug interdiction - one of the biggest problems that we face
in the world - but it was available to help in a civil emergency in a British
protectorate on the other side of the world. So, these are things that can be
done. I am not saying we should build up a military capability all on its own
for that.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, no.
ROBERTSON: But we need to keep a portfolio if we're
going to be able to play that role in the world that I believe the British
people want us to do. But to do it at exactly the same time cost-effectively
and within the Foreign Policy priorities established by the Government itself.
HUMPHRYS: But you talk, you see, about our
strategic interest. You've already made it very clear in an important speech
you made just recently that you want to spend money doing things even when -
and I quote you - "even when our national interests are not directly engaged".
Now, if you're not going to cut anything out and you tell us - as you did also
in that speech - that we are severely - our armed forces are severely -
overstretched - you went through the Election campaign saying that as well -
how were you going to square this terrible circle? Particularly since you
ruled out of the Defence review spending on things like the Euro fighter and
Trident and all that. So, how are you going to square this circle?
ROBERTSON: Because we look very carefully at the
existing Defence Budget, raided as it was by the Conservatives in a most
dramatic style over the years that they were in place; given the holes in
capability that they have left us to inherit; and see whether we can
reprioritise some of the functions and the commitments and the tasks that we
presently have at the moment, so that we can do the things that we can do best
in a better possible way.
HUMPHRYS: Well, what does that mean, reprioritise
some of the tasks? I mean you've just been giving me a whole series of things
that we're going to continue doing. In what way?
ROBERTSON: Well, I am suggesting-We are assessing
every one of these options to see whether we need to do it and whether we can
do it.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, so we might drop some of them?
ROBERTSON: Well, we're looking at that at the
present moment - of course, we are.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, sorry, if I can just stand back a
little bit at this stage, because I am now, if I may say so, I am now
thoroughly confused you see, because you began the interview by telling me-
ROBERTSON: Well, I am terribly sorry about that.
HUMPHRYS: Well, it's probably my fault. You began
the interview by telling me that we had these various commitments and
obligations, that we were going to carry on doing them. No question about
dropping them, even though or even when our own strategic interest was not
directly involved. Now you tell me we may drop some of them. What?
ROBERTSON: Well, I think you are misunderstanding
it. Maybe we are collectively misunderstanding each other. I'm making the
point that we have to establish what the commitments are in advance. That is
why it's a foreign policy-led review and the idea of having a strategic Defence
review based on the overall Foreign Policy of the country, not just in terms of
Defence but also diplomacy, Trade, aid as well is something that has been
widely welcomed even by prominent Conservatives as well. Now that is obviously
going to mean a long hard look at all of those commitments that we have.
HUMPHRYS: Such as?
ROBERTSON: But we still want to be a force for good
in the world and I am not saying to you that we keep every single thing that we
are doing just now because that's the idea of a strategic Defence review. But
there are some things where our strategic interests may not be directly
involved. They're not directly involved, for instance, in Bosnia at the
present time, but we all recognise that, indirectly. If Bosnia descends once
more into violence and into chaos and into partition - at best - that the
effects will spill over into the rest of Europe and we will then indirectly be
affected because we are always affected by instability, uncertainty and the way
in which our economies are so inextricably linked.
HUMPHRYS: So that I clear up any misunderstanding
at all, you are saying that there are some things we are doing now that in
future we might end up not doing.
ROBERTSON: Well that is always a possibility in a
strategic Defence review.
HUMPHRYS: Well such as? You see I'm looking for
some clearer guidance on this. I mean, because you had already said there
weren't, you see, and I'm-
ROBERTSON: Well, I didn't say that there weren't at
any stage. What I've said was that there were certain framework issues that
were established in the Election - one is strong, conventional Defence;
secondly Trident, thirdly our role within Nato. The Euro fighter programme is
one particular procurement programme that straddles the last Government and
this Government, where the Opposition Labour Party supported the Government
decision on Euro fighter which is now about to start. Well, we hope early next
year to go into production and is going to provide a valuable capability. But
outside of that we're obviously looking at everything that this country is
doing, with a view to seeing what it is we need to do and how best it can be
done, to marry the capabilities and assets we've got to the commitments that we
have, of the commitments we want to have in the future. That seems to me to be
quite commonsensical and the function of a review and I can't give you the
answers to the review in this programme because it won't be finished until the
turn of the year.
HUMPHRYS: Well I take that point, but the one
thing you have told me is that there is going to be this kind of restructuring
and all the rest of it. Well now restructuring - and I quote your own man
Bruce George on this - "restructuring means more investment". In other words,
means more money. More money, not less. More.
ROBERTSON: It may mean more money in some areas
where we've got capability holes like the ability and strategic lift to take
some of the equipment and some of the troops to the areas where they might be
required. It might be mean more money into the Defence medical services which
have been left in a powerless position by the last Government and that might
mean reprioritising other items in the Defence Budget.
HUMPHRYS: Here we go again.
ROBERTSON: As we've already done.
HUMPHRYS: Reprioritising. You won't tell me that.
You see, the other thing is-
ROBERTSON: Well, can I say to you, John, that the
Royal Yacht - a new Royal Yacht - sixty million pounds' worth of-
HUMPHRYS: Oh no, now come on. You can't save
money that you weren't going to spend anyway. That's not on. I mean, what are
we talking about?
ROBERTSON: Well, but it was there. It was a
commitment by the previous Government and it's now going to be reprioritised
inside the Defence Budget to go to something that would be much more
manageable. We've got a new programme called Smart Procurement where we are
going to try and get better value from the items of equipment that have been
bought or need to be bought for the future. Now that's just a start. The
strategic Defence review itself we hope will identify other areas where savings
can be made and reprioritised inside that existing Defence budget, because
every penny needs to work in the interest of the defence of this country.
HUMPHRYS: Well. You are going to have to save a
lot aren't you, one way or the other, because restructuring costs more money -
as you say, and certainly in the medium term - you've also got to get- Well,
hang on, you've also got to get-.
ROBERTSON: Well, it might not cost money. Why
should it? If it is being restructured from present capabilities, that is not
itself inside the Defence Budget.
HUMPHRYS: Ask your colleague. Ask your colleague
Bruce George because it's he who said it and he's looked into it with his
Committee. But, the other thing you're most certainly going to have to spend
more money on - and, you've said that this is a matter of priority, too - is
that you're ten thousand under strength in the Army, Navy and Airforce. So,
you've got to recruit another ten thou' - well, that costs a bit of money,
doesn't it? Bringing in another ten thousand people?
ROBERTSON: Well, of course, the capability is
already there. What we're doing is filling the established positions that are
there, in order to relieve some of the overstretch that exists at the present
time. You know, people in the armed forces, at the moment - whom I've met, in
various parts of the World - are doing an incredible job for this country -
overstretched. Some-Some of our troops spend only three weeks sometimes
between deployment to the Falklands and deployment to Bosnia..
HUMPHRYS: Precisely why they'll need more people.
ROBERTSON: Well, that is budgeted for inside the
Budget at the present time.
HUMPHRYS: What? Another ten thousand?
ROBERTSON: And, we've got to become more efficient.
We'll look for efficiency savings inside our Department because we're committed
not to going above the ceiling that we have but the ceiling of the existing
plans is there and is protected as part of the commitment we gave in the
Election.
HUMPHRYS: This is quite a trick you've got to pull
off here, isn't it? You've got to modernise the forces, you're going to bring
in another ten thousand people - one way or the other. I don't know whether
this includes men and women, or what? Are they going to have a different role
for women?
ROBERTSON: Oh, we got rid of some. We got rid of a
hundred thousand people in this country since 1979 when the Conservatives came
in. But, we're talking about holes in the manpower and the womanpower of the
armed forces. Just how we-You've got to look at, for instance, modernising the
way in which we employ people. I hope to be able to make an announcement at a
Defence debate tomorrow about expanding the armed forces, in order to allow
more women to come into the Services and I'll explain precisely how and in what
terms of quantity. But, we must modernise our armed forces.
HUMPHRYS: You want to bring more women in, do you?
In the frontline?
ROBERTSON: Well, yes. I want to bring more women
into the armed forces. We've got women serving in the frontline that you were
showing in that film on Royal Navy ships. It was regarded as revolutionary
and, indeed, it was said to be heresy by a number of the traditionalists when
it came in and it's worked extremely well. And, if half the population in this
country are women but we've only got six per cent in the armed forces, then,
that is an area where we can modernise the whole stance of the armed forces,
give a whole different accent to it and, then, look at the new challenges, the
new problems in the world with a reformed and a much modernised series of armed
forces than we've seen before.
HUMPHRYS: So, more women in the frontline, then.
That's the upshot of all that, is it?
ROBERTSON: Well, more. I want more women in the
armed forces. We're looking carefully and I'll give you an indication tomorrow
in the House of Commons - not on this programme - about what precisely is of
standard but I want more women into our armed forces; I want more from the
ethnic minorities into the armed forces; I want more training and education of
the people in our armed forces, so that they leave with transferrable skills
that they can use in civilian life; I want to use a lot of the technology that
we have in military affairs today to be diversified into the civil
manufacturing community and we're going to publish a Green Paper on that. So,
strong defence for the country does not naturally - just does not equate -
simply to big ships or big guns. It means people.
HUMPHRYS: It doesn't sound like very many cuts to
me, really -does it? And, you're under an awful lot of pressure to make cuts
from many of your own. Five out of six Labour MPs want you to spend less.
But, you're going to keep the commitments.
ROBERTSON: John, we were elected on our prospectus
that said that we would keep to the spending plans of the last Government and
not make the kind of wanton, indiscriminate and arbitrary cuts that the last
Government made in the Defence Budget. This country needs and wants to be
properly defended; wants to have its influence abroad, in terms of Trade and
our economic interest to be backed up by its armed forces and their
reputation.
HUMPHRYS: Right.
ROBERTSON: That's on which we were elected. We
will make sure that Britain is relevant, both in Defence and in economic terms
in the world that we were elected for and why we were elected.
HUMPHRYS: Secretary of State, thanks very much,
indeed, for joining us.
ROBERTSON: Thank you.
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