Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-14-Speech-4-148"
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"en.20001214.4.4-148"2
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"Mr President, I too would like to extend my deepest sympathy to our Spanish colleagues in the face of the latest terrorist murder by ETA. I agree that more resolute action is required against terrorism. It is worth bearing in mind that those responsible for the 28 murders in Omagh have still not been brought to justice.
Turning to the problem of
it seems to me that this is indicative of a more widespread difficulty in the equipment of the British armed forces as a direct result of policies pursued by the Labour government. On the one hand we have a government with no connections to the armed forces and with a card-carrying member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament as Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, using the armed forces as a political tool to further its ambitions in Europe and apparently realising rather too late that the European Union defence scheme would indeed damage the NATO alliance and transatlantic relations.
On the other, the Labour government is not prepared to ensure that the armed forces are provided with the resources to carry out the increasing burden of commitments being placed upon them. It is scandalous that, at this moment, 11 out of the 12 hunter-killer submarines in service in the Royal Navy are non-operational, with four in refit and 7 showing signs of the defect which afflicts
. The recall of the submarine fleet has robbed the Royal Navy of a quarter of its fighting vessels and left the Trident and carrier forces with much reduced protection.
It is a fact that at one stage the only submarine operating in British waters was a German U-boat. Last year, much of the Royal Navy was forced to stay in port because it had overspent its clearly inadequate fuel budget. Meanwhile, at a time when flexibility and rapid response are military watchwords, the Navy's frontline strength is being slashed. The submarine fleet is being cut by almost 20%, the frigate and destroyer fleet, already too small, is being cut from 35 to 32%.
I point all this out because the maintenance and repair problem of
is a reflection of a wider malaise affecting the Royal Navy through cutbacks which have gone too far. And, as we have already heard, it has provided those that do not really have the wider, democratically expressed interest of the people of Gibraltar at heart with an opportunity to make mischief."@en1
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