The Role and Capabilities of the UK Armed Forces, in the Light of Global and Domestic Threats to Stability and Security
(8 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak to your Lordships on this timely subject. Events of recent months, from terror on a Tunisian beach to the great migration precipitated, in part, by the fallout from the evil actions of ISIL in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, have reminded us once more that we live in a darker, more dangerous world. Yet global terror, whether from ISIL, Boko Haram or lone wolves, is far from the only problem facing us. When I last served in the Ministry of Defence 20 years ago, the Cold War was not long over. I could not have imagined that within two decades we would see Russia once more resurgent, threatening her neighbours and challenging our international rules-based order, almost as if the Berlin Wall had never come down.
All these issues pose direct and indirect threats to our national security and remind us of the importance of our Armed Forces. They underline that defence of the realm must always be a Government’s number one priority, and there can be no question—as some would have it—of the UK retreating to its goal line. On the contrary, we have to be more active than ever, levering our global influence and the strength of our Armed Forces to speak out and stand up to aggression wherever we find it. That is what our brave Armed Forces have been doing right around the globe.
They are doing so in the Mediterranean, where our ships are rescuing migrants; they are doing so in eastern Europe, where we are stepping up training of Ukrainian troops and where we have Typhoons patrolling Balkan airspace. Next year they will be back for the third year in a row. They are doing so in Iraq, where RAF Tornado and Reaper aircraft have now flown approximately 1,300 missions and conducted 288 strikes while our Tornados gather 60% of the coalition’s tactical reconnaissance. Are we making a difference? Yes. Thanks to this support, surrogate local forces have regained 25% of the territory ISIL held in Iraq after its advance last summer.
As the Prime Minister made clear in his Statement to the House of Commons last week, the Government will not hesitate to act in Syria, where ISIL’s command and control is based, or in Libya, should there be a direct threat to the British people. The recently successful precision strike against a UK national and two ISIL associates by an RAF remotely piloted vehicle shows our determination to take on and defeat the terrorists wherever they are hiding.
These are far from our only areas of activity. We are currently taking part in 21 joint operations in 19 countries—more than double the number of five years ago. The reason we have been able to maintain this impetus is because of the tough action we have taken over the last five years, ridding ourselves of a financial black hole of £38 billion, balancing the budget and reforming defence from top to bottom, so that we now have a more agile, better-equipped fighting force.
Yet the subtext of today’s debate is whether we will continue to have what it takes to address the ongoing threats of the future. Here, too, I believe we can answer in the affirmative for three reasons. First, we are investing in the capability we need for the future. One of the main results of our defence reform programme was that it enabled us to set aside a budget of £163 billion for equipment over 10 years. Consequently, we are now investing in the best capability money can buy, including Hunter Killer submarines, T26 global combat ships, fifth generation F35 fighters and the cutting-edge Scout vehicle, complete with a new cased telescope cannon.
Some of this kit is on display this week at the DSEI exhibition in Docklands. What you will not get the chance to see, because it is too big, is the first of our two 60,000 tonne Queen Elizabeth class carriers. These future flagships of our fleet are the most powerful vessels ever constructed in the UK. The fact that we are one of four countries in the world building carriers underscores our commitment to remain engaged in the world. Taken alongside our upgraded capabilities across all domains, it gives us a full-spectrum capability to be proud of.
My second point is that innovation is as much about tactics as about capability, and the tactics of our enemies are changing. They are using proxies to wage low-fi warfare and undermine other sovereign states; they are adept at cyberattacks, targeting not just military but civilian infrastructure such as banks and transport networks; and they are making increasing use of social media techniques to spread lies and misinformation, while luring impressionable minds into committing acts of terror against their own countries. To respond, we too must adapt, and we are doing so in a number of ways. We have the Army’s advance guard, 77 Brigade, working to become masters of the narrative and harness the internet to deliver a faster truth. We have the RAF working on a cyberstrategy and building cyber into the planning and execution of coalition missions. And when it comes to facing down terror, the Government are taking a full-spectrum response. We are publishing a comprehensive strategy to counter extremism that will improve our understanding of such fanaticism, introduce measures to promote our shared values and strengthen civil society to prevent extremism taking hold.
We have already joined forces with internet companies to take down more than 90,000 pieces of extremist material. We have trained thousands of local government workers to identify and prevent radicalisation and we have excluded nearly 100 preachers of hate from entry into Britain—more than any other country. Meanwhile, we are using moderate voices across the Middle East, north Africa and in the UK itself to air a counternarrative. The terrorists need to know that we will stop at nothing to stop their poison taking hold, so we are changing our tactics—but we also need to augment our strategy. The conflicts we are facing are global in nature and generational in duration, so we have to forge strategic partnerships with global allies if we are to confront and solve these issues. That is why the UK is continuing to strengthen its network of friendships and alliances. At a bilateral level, we are proud of our ongoing special relationship with the United States, where we work together across the world from the Baltic to the Indian Ocean, and have a regular dialogue with our counterparts across the pond, and we will soon mark five years of the Lancaster House treaty, which has augmented our ties with France.
Next year, our combined Joint Expeditionary Force will take part in an exercise to bring it up to full operating capacity. However, we are not just working bilaterally but multilaterally, especially as part of NATO, the cornerstone of our defence. We have been a leading voice for NATO reform, and since last year’s summit hosted in Wales, we have upped our game. We have committed 1,000 personnel to each year of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force. We have also increased the number in NATO training exercises, from 3,000 to 4,000, and this month we will be contributing an Army brigade HQ battle group, naval task force and RAF Typhoon aircraft to Exercise Trident Juncture, the largest live NATO exercise for over a decade.
Critically, following the Chancellor’s Budget announcement, we will now also be committing to NATO’s 2% target for the next five years—a move that President Obama praised as sending,
“a significant signal from their primary partner on the world stage”.
The Chancellor’s announcement on defence was significant in two other respects. By emphasising that the defence budget would now grow, he has allowed us to invest any future savings we make in the organisation into front-line capabilities, whether in the latest high-tech gear or in the talented personnel to operate it. The Prime Minister has already said that some of this money will be used to augment our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance abilities and Special Forces.
A growing budget means that we now have essential breathing space to conduct our strategic defence and security review. We are not starting from scratch. SDSR 2010 provided the foundations for this review. It set the template for a far more agile and flexible force, able to meet the varied and multiple challenges of an uncertain age. Yet the reason we introduced regular five-year defence reviews was that we understood how much can change in a comparatively short space of time. With our major commitments in Afghanistan now delivered, this review presents an opportunity to refresh our thinking about the roles of defence, the way in which we direct defence activity and how we describe our outputs to the public.
Make no mistake: the review, now well under way, will be full and comprehensive. Led by the Cabinet Office in close consultation with relevant departments, it will be driven by our national security and foreign policy objectives. It will take a look at both traditional defence and security topics, as well as the complex risks we face in a rapidly changing world. It will also go further by creating a new framework for defence. That framework will ensure that we can maintain our operational and technological edge; recruit and retain the best people; forge stronger international relationships and stimulate trade and technology, as well as support industry; allow us to continue making strides on efficiency, since the more we do to reduce cost, the more we can put into the front line; and ensure that we maintain our reputation as a country with some of the best Armed Forces around—a country that is truly a global player. We will formally publish the national security strategy 2015 in late autumn. We anticipate that the SDSR will be closely aligned with the 2015 comprehensive spending review and should be published by the end of 2015.
We are living through what the Chinese might call interesting times. At such times, we are immensely grateful for the tireless work of our Armed Forces in defending our shores around the clock and we have spent the last few years making sure that they have the capabilities—despite financial constraints—to keep responding whenever the call comes. They have done us proud but the threats we face are constantly changing, so our review will help prepare us for what comes next. However, whatever the challenges to come, noble Lords should be clear that we are utterly unequivocal about one thing: the Government are determined to do everything in their power to keep our country safe and secure. I beg to move.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for introducing this debate, particularly today, the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. I will take this opportunity to thank our Armed Forces for all the work that they do. Those noble Lords who are looking closely might notice that I am wearing an RAF lanyard today. I do not normally remember to wear it, but as a member of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme—RAF branch—I thought that today would be an appropriate time to remind everyone of the importance of looking back to the role that our Armed Forces have played over the past century.
We must also look forward. Learning from the past matters immensely, but now is the time to be looking forward to the next strategic defence and security review and the next national security strategy. However, I fear to say that they go alongside a comprehensive spending review. The Minister has already mentioned that we have a template in the forthcoming SDSR—the SDSR 2010—yet in many ways that document was a problem. It dealt with one set of issues: defence spending, procurement and the ongoing defence expenditure problems. It dealt with things on a managerial and accountancy basis. It had some good ideas in terms of Future Force 2020, but essentially it was a Treasury-led activity. So I was relieved to hear the noble Earl suggest today that the forthcoming review would focus on what the threats are to this country rather more than on what the bottom line looks like.
How far will the Government focus on strategy? It is very easy to talk about defence. There is a group of people who talk about defence, what we need to achieve, what the threats are and what the capabilities are or should be. We talk about security in a wider sense, but rarely do we think about the strategic and the longer term. That is one thing that was missing from SDSR 2010. There is a danger that it could be missing from SDSR 2015 as well. However, the opening speech this afternoon suggested that that may not be the case. Certainly, the commitment in the Budget of July 2015 to the 2% that NATO requires of us was a welcome announcement.
The percentage of GDP spent on defence is only part of the issue. Money is important, but how we spend that money, what the procurement strategy is and what we are trying to achieve are also factors that matter enormously. The amount that we put into the budget is important, but what risks do we face? What are the capabilities that we aspire to deliver? All of that goes back to the question of the United Kingdom’s role in the world. That remains an issue that has been insufficiently discussed in the United Kingdom, essentially ever since the end of the Cold War.
We have already heard this afternoon that there is a global role for the United Kingdom to play, but perhaps that is not universally believed in across the United Kingdom. It is not wholly clear, with the change of leader of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, that a commitment to defence and to an international role for the United Kingdom is one that all parties are committed to. So there are questions about where the United Kingdom sees its place in the world that will impact on how we deal with threats, domestic and global, and what future capabilities we think we need.
Returning to SDSR 2010, the government response to the House of Commons Defence Committee’s report stated:
“We can assure the Committee that we will be looking very closely at the evolving threats to our interests in the SDSR”.
Clearly, it is important to look closely, but I suggest that it is also important to look across the horizon. One of the issues that beset the previous NSS and SDSR was a failure to look to the longer term. We looked at the threats as they were in 2010, not at prospective threats. Obviously it is easy with the benefit of hindsight to say, “We should have thought about Russia and we could have thought about the Middle East”. We did not, but one of the lessons has to be that we need to think about the unpredictable, as well as about potential threats and how we might deal with them. So we should look closely, but we should also look long and hard into the distance.
I will briefly suggest that we need to think about our place in the world, how we respond to threats, and what that means for our capabilities. It is easy to talk as if Britain remains a major global player. That has been the predominant narrative of political parties ever since the end of the Cold War, and yet the considerable cuts in defence expenditure as a result of the end of the Cold War and as a result of austerity mean that we have seen considerable cuts made to the Armed Forces, which raises questions about what we can deliver. What we want to deliver depends very much on whether we think that we should be a global player or that our predominant role is that of a regional player. I suspect that most Members of your Lordships’ House, and certainly those present in Grand Committee today, believe that we should be playing a global role. However, if we want to do that, we have to make sure that our commitments are credible.
If we are going to play a global role, is it one that will be predominantly for humanitarian intervention or do we perceive ourselves as a country which may still need to intervene for other purposes? Why do we arm ourselves? Is it for the defence of the United Kingdom—the predominant role of the state—or is it to defend others? How far are we seeking to defend our partners and allies in NATO and how far are we seeking to deal with the problems in Iraq by helping the Iraqi Government because they asked us, or is it because we perceive a threat to the United Kingdom? Here we see the nexus between the domestic and the global. In the 1970s, we assumed that terrorism to the extent that it affected the United Kingdom would be linked to Northern Ireland and to a particular grouping, and that even if funding for the IRA was coming from third countries, it was essentially a domestic problem.
In the 21st century, terrorism is global. The source might be predominantly from the Middle East, but much of it potentially will feed back to the United Kingdom as well, and therefore the global nature of terrorism links back strongly to the threats we are dealing with. However, we need to be clear about whether we are responding to challenges that affect the United Kingdom or taking on the global threat of ISIS. Why we are doing it is going to be hugely important in determining how we deal with these issues and how decisions on deploying the Armed Forces in future are taken—particularly in the other place, where such decisions are likely to be made. Given the importance of tackling the threats of the 21st century, I would be keen for the Minister not only to reiterate the Government’s global view but to consider how far the SDSR and the NSS will deal with strategic decisions rather than simply tactics.
I was going to talk a bit about bilateral, multilateral and other forms of co-operation, but I was delighted to hear that the Minister has already dealt with these issues. Given that he has taken them into account, I do not feel the need to opine any further on them. I will therefore conclude with a brief reference to the phenomenal commitment of our Armed Forces and raise the question of whether we believe that we are going to be adequately equipped and that our forces will be large enough to deal with the threats of the 21st century. There are still questions to be asked about the cuts that were brought in by SDSR 2010 and to consider the moves to increase the Reserve Forces. This is welcome, but it raises a whole set of new questions around whether the Armed Forces will be dealt with adequately. Questions about recruitment and retention need to be dealt with. The more cases we deal with on an international basis, the more deployments we will have. That will raise ever more questions about how we ensure that our reserves are kept fully on board and looked after in the way that we owe them. We owe our Armed Forces a debt of gratitude and we need to look after them. In return, they will provide us with the commitment that we will need to tackle 21st century threats.
Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)
My Lords, I start off with an apology: I am trying to speak also in the other debate in the Chamber, so I will be coming and going in the course of this afternoon. I am delighted, as I think everybody here is, at the initiative of the Minister. I am very grateful for this opportunity to talk about such an important subject today.
There is no point in having Armed Forces unless we can use and deploy them when there is a real need to do so. The great thing about our forces is that, thank God—I touch wood when I say this—they never let us down; they always carry out their missions with superb professionalism and accuracy. That was the case the other day with the RAF taking out those two terrorists in Syria. I was delighted, as I think was the whole country, to see that we were prepared to use our means of defence against the murderous army of ISIL. If anybody ever needed to use their defence forces and had a right to do so, it must be in the face of that kind of threat, so I have no inhibition at all in saying that I congratulate them. I believe that I will be supported by a great many people in this country when I say that. I also congratulate all those who took part in the intelligence inputs that will have been so central to the success of that operation.
Before I come to my main remarks, I want to say a word or two about the Minister. The noble Earl is a man of great ability; the whole House knows that. I believe that he is genuinely committed to defence; for that matter, I believe that I am as well. However, I wish that when he comes to make statements before the House he would raise his game a little and distinguish between facile and disingenuous PR and a fair description of the facts. He said two things today that have led me to make that remark. One was that he said that the Government were now able to go ahead with a whole list of programmes that he then listed, such as Astute, carriers, Scout vehicles, the F35 and so on. In fact someone who did not know much about defence—that does not apply to anyone in this Room today, of course, but applies to an awful lot of our citizens in the country as a whole—would have assumed that the Government themselves had conceived and launched all those programmes. In fact, they were all inherited from the previous Labour Administration, and there is continuity. Indeed, some of them have been held up or reduced, and he did not say that either. So there was something very disingenuous about the way that he presented that.
He also once again raised the issue of the so-called £38 billion black hole. I have had this disagreement with him in the past and we really must resolve it. I think that the Government get to the figure of £38 billion if they use the assumption that we were not going to increase defence spending in real terms, or indeed nominal terms, which would have meant a considerable real-terms reaction—which of course is exactly what the Government did. We were actually committed to a 1.5% annual real-terms increase in defence spending. If he looks at the figures based on that assumption, which is the assumption that I was working on when I was Defence Procurement Minister, he will find that there is no such thing as a £38 billion black hole. I challenge him to ask the OBR to examine the figures, and if it comes back and says, “Yes, there was a £38 billion black hole”, I will formally apologise to the House and eat my words. If it does not come back and justify this figure, I hope that equally he will apologise to the House and eat his words.
We are at a critical moment. The Government are a purely Conservative Administration. They have a majority. They are about to come out with their own defence review. We have had a period of five years of devastating reductions in numbers and capability and programmes have been cancelled or cut—we all know that story—but the Government have now turned over a new leaf. They are going to increase procurement spending by 1% per annum and are committed to the NATO target of 2% of GDP. That is all splendid and I have already congratulated them on that in the House. So this is a good moment to look at matters. I shall focus today on the equipment programme and ask the Minister a number of questions about it. I do not expect detailed answers today but I would be grateful if he would write me a letter following today’s debate and place a copy of it in the Library of the House so that we can see where we are on some of these very important equipment programmes.
First, I will start with a rather sad story, the Nimrod programme. When the coalition Government came to power, within a few weeks—if I recall correctly—they literally cut up the MRA4 Nimrods when every penny of their capital cost had already been incurred. They were not even mothballed so that a future Government could use them. They were simply destroyed. That left a tremendous capability gap and the Government, again, have been less than straightforward about this. They often come to the House and say, “It’s all right. We are covering the gap with the use of other assets”. I have heard that phrase so many times and it is complete nonsense. You cannot cover the gap with the use of other assets. No helicopter has the range or endurance required to do that job and we do not have any other fixed-wing aircraft in the British Armed Forces capable of dropping buoys, let alone with the electronic equipment required to handle the output from those buoys. So there is a very serious capability gap.
I gather that there have been occasions when, because there has been an intrusion into NATO waters—not territorial waters but NATO waters—of an Akula class submarine or other sinister intruder, we have had to call upon the French and the Americans to help us out and to deploy a P3 or something of that kind to locate the submarine. I do not think any great damage has been done, as a result of the co-operation that we have been able to call upon. I ask the Government to state this afternoon or subsequently in a letter where we stand with filling this important capability gap. I do not want to hear that it is the sort of matter that will be considered in the defence review. It is a very urgent issue. I particularly want to know how many times we have had to call on French or American allies. I pay tribute to them—of course, the whole country should be grateful to them for coming to our aid. We cannot really call our independent deterrent “independent” if it requires another country such as France or America to carry out the necessary maritime surveillance to uphold the integrity of that deterrent.
Secondly, I come to the carriers. I thank God for this and take personal pleasure and pride in it because when the Government came to power, they wanted to cancel the carriers but found that it was practically impossible to do so. I am glad to say that they have now made a virtue of necessity and have moved away from their idea of not commissioning the “Prince of Wales”, and we are going to have two carriers. That is extremely good news and I am grateful to the Government for that. I genuinely congratulate them on that very encouraging turnaround.
A carrier is merely a platform—albeit a very impressive one—and it is as much use in defence terms as the systems or aircraft that are carried on it. Can I ask therefore how many F35s we are going to procure? This is an essential question. The number of Force Elements at Readiness that we were planning was confidential under the previous Labour Government and perhaps I should not mention the figure now, but what is known is that each of these carriers has a maximum capacity of 18 F35s. That means 36 F35s could be theoretically deployed. If we cannot deploy as many as 36, what we are doing is reducing the return on capital and on investment in the building of the carriers, which is unfortunate. If we put ourselves in the position where we can sustain the deployment of 36 F35s, how many F35s do we require in inventory to provide that? I suspect that, taking account of the need to recycle machines as well as men in operations, the need to maintain training so that the aircraft can have a flow of pilots—otherwise we run out of pilots—and taking account of attrition and so forth, we are talking about something like 120 F35s. Is that the order of magnitude that the Government are looking at or is it something much less than that? It is time that we as a country should be quite clear where we stand on that and on what kind of capability we are going to get from the massive investment we have made, correctly in my view, in the carrier programme.
I want to come on to other future combat aircraft. In my time in the MoD, we realised that the F35 and the Typhoon were probably going to be the last manned combat aircraft that the RAF would have. I do not think that other NATO countries have made a very different assessment of the prospect of the continuation of manned combat aircraft in the future, but I know that the matter is controversial in certain areas. However, we were determined to make sure that the British aircraft industry maintained its capability to produce UCAVs and UAVs and continued with its effective project management, with research in new materials, new stealth techniques and the essential techniques of aerodynamic design, so that we had the capability to provide the generation of unmanned combat aircraft to replace the Typhoon and the F35 in due course in 20 or 30 years’ time.
We were working on two projects. They were of course not aircraft. One of them we called Mantis, which was an air superiority capability, and the other we called Taranis, which was a deep-penetration bomber. Can the Minister let the Committee and therefore the public know exactly where we stand with those two programmes? Have they been continued, perhaps under different names or with different objectives, and what changes have been made? I brought the French into the Mantis programme, which seemed sensible to get the benefit of their skills and particularly to make sure that if we went ahead with the programme, we had a larger potential market for the resulting vehicles than we would otherwise have had. I would be interested to know how that co-operation has fared.
I want to ask the Minister about a sensitive matter but I think I can remain within the rules of confidentiality when I mention it. It is about tactical anti-ballistic missile capability. There is of course no suggestion of producing strategic anti-ballistic capability in this country. The Americans have been working on that for 25 years, and sometimes parking the project for a long time. That is a different story but a tactical capability is technically feasible and seems essential in the medium term. If we engage in concentrated operations such as amphibious landings or deploying extremely expensive major assets such as carriers, we want to make sure that they cannot be taken out by a ballistic missile. We know that the technologies of this world are such that they not only exist in one or two other countries—anybody can guess where I am referring to—but sometimes leak out of the countries which have developed them, so this is a matter to be taken seriously. There again, I initiated a dialogue with the French on that matter but I would be interested to know what the Government can tell us in public about their thinking on tactical anti-ballistic missile theatre or capabilities.
I will just mention the Scout vehicles—another of the vehicles which you would have thought from listening to the Minister, if you did not know about it, had been launched by this Government, but where almost the exact reverse occurred. I was determined that we should get it through in time before the election, in case that produced some hold-up. It would have been held up anyway because of purdah; we would not have been able to place contracts for the month or so before polling day. Thanks to the two teams in the DE&S working literally through the night and at weekends, we got the development contract through just a few weeks before the election.
I see that the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, is speaking immediately after me in this debate. He may recall a conversation we had about a range of potential armoured vehicles—fighting vehicles, communication vehicles, command and control vehicles and so forth—under what was called at the time the FRES programme. I said to him: “Look, let’s be serious about this. Which do you really want most?”. He said, “What we need most is a reconnaissance vehicle to replace CVRT, which has been there for a very long time”. It was about 40 years, as I recall. I said to him, “Richard, you will get it”, and I think I was as good as my word. So we launched that programme and we were afraid that it would not continue, but I am delighted that it has. However, I would very much like to know the potential in-service delivery date of the Scout armoured vehicle programme.
I repeat that I am not expecting the Minister to give me detailed answers this afternoon. I would not like him to try to do so because it would be impossible to cover those subjects in sufficient detail in his wind-up speech, where he has to deal with remarks made by a great many noble Lords. However, I would be deeply grateful for a letter setting out systematically the progress on these and any other capability equipment programmes which he thinks might be relevant, so that the House can see the position in black and white.
Lord Dannatt (CB)
My Lords, I very much welcome the debate this afternoon, which is very timely in the context of the work being done on the current SDSR. As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, outlined at the start, we are all conscious of the current security situation in which we are operating. Quite rightly, the noble Earl pointed out the wide range of operations and activities that UK Armed Forces are superbly carrying out at present.
I also welcome the commitment made before the Summer Recess to 2% of GDP being spent on defence because that is a considerable help to defence planners as they do their work within the SDSR. I made a side note to myself as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, was speaking. I do not want to step into the word-eating competition between himself and the Minister, but I would observe that in 1997 when the then new Labour Government began their strategic defence review, I was the director of the defence programme staff, which in simple terms meant that I had some staff responsibility for the allocation of funds. It was actually an extraordinarily good SDR with a good series of policy outcomes which were widely recognised at the time. The sadness about that otherwise excellent SDR was its underfunding almost from the start. Over the next 13 years as I progressed from being a brigadier as the director of the defence programme staff until I retired as Chief of the General Staff in 2009, I watched the cumulative effect of the underfunding of the defence programme. I do not know whether the figure was £10 billion short in the defence equipment programme, or whether it was £35 billion or £38 billion short, but a shortage of funds in that programme undoubtedly accumulated as a result of the underfunding of the otherwise excellent SDR of 1997 through to the culmination of the then Government and the election in 2010 and the SDSR of that year. I shall watch with interest to see what the OBR says about the size of that underspend, but I am in no doubt from my own observation of 13 years in and out of the Ministry of Defence that underspend in equipment there undoubtedly was.
A useful and constructive point to make today is that the commitment to 2% of GDP being spent on defence undoubtedly gives the planners, in the context of this SDSR, a confirmed budget and a firm baseline from which to operate and to counter the wide-ranging challenges we know we are experiencing both at home and abroad. We must make sure that we have the right set of capabilities to deal with them.
Without rehearsing the many positives of the UK Armed Forces, I would like to raise a number of points in areas where I think we could and should do better. One of the principal lessons we learnt from our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is that we handicapped ourselves at the outset with our poor level of understanding of the culture, history and background of those countries. The current initiative for greater emphasis being placed on defence engagement is hugely to be welcomed: to use some of our existing resources more robustly when exercising in those parts of the world we think we want to understand better and where there is a possibility that we might find ourselves operating in the future. This seems to be an extremely effective and worthwhile use of military capability. The question I would be grateful if the noble Earl would consider answering either today or at another time is whether defence engagement will formally become a military task. It seems eminently sensible to me—it is not expensive and it would authorise the use of much of our existing capability.
A subset of defence engagement is our ability to communicate with the people in the countries in which we are operating. I am talking about language skills and the need for us to use interpreters. I am mindful of the current criticism of the present Government’s policy on Afghan interpreters and whether we are looking after them adequately. I am grateful to the Minister for his recent letter explaining what the Government’s policy is. I regret that I have not yet written to the noble Earl to thank him, but this is advance notice of my thanks. However, I would point out that there is a perception that our policy is ungenerous and mean in some regards. Whether that is true, I am not entirely sure; I discussed it with the Minister for the Armed Forces last week. If it is not mean and ungenerous, there is a perception that that is the case. In my view, I think that it would be sensible of Her Majesty’s Government to mount a proactive campaign pointing out that we are looking after our interpreters properly rather than to allow the alternative narrative to gain credence. If it is thought that when the UK needs language assistants and interpreters in faraway places where we do not have native skills ourselves, then in the global world in which we live, people in other countries will be very wary of taking on employment with us if they think that when we have departed, we will have no further interest in their welfare or well-being. There is a problem. It must be addressed. If it is only a problem of perception, it still has to be addressed.
Also in this further subject of defence engagement on the softer side of defence, I would be interested to hear whether the Minister believes that sufficient effort is being made in terms of co-operation between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, DfID and the Ministry of Defence in working together to prevent conflict through better integration of our defence, diplomatic and development capabilities. We have talked about this a lot in recent years. I am not convinced that I have sufficient evidence that we are putting substance into the words and there is a lot to be achieved in preventing conflict by better integration of our capabilities in those three areas.
This debate is essentially about capabilities to meet the current security threats that we face. One of those threats is from a resurgent Russia under its current President Vladimir Putin. I have raised before that although back in 2010 and prior to that I was one of those who very much favoured the complete withdrawal of the Army from Germany—in 2010 it seemed to be the right thing and I welcomed that within the context of the SDSR—I believe that we would send a useful and quite significant message if we were to leave an element, perhaps a brigade-sized element, of our Army in Germany. In this regard, is the Minister confident that we will have the funds to complete the withdrawal from Germany in the timeframe predicated in the 2010 SDSR? If, as I suspect, we do not have those funds, it is a consideration that we could turn a necessity into a virtue by deciding to leave an armoured brigade in Paderborn and Sennelagar. That would show solidarity with our NATO allies on the continent of Europe and contribute to sending a message that the UK does indeed take seriously its defence responsibilities in mainland Europe. That would not be an expensive thing to do, but it may be a necessity and I would strongly urge Her Majesty’s Government to consider turning that necessity into a virtue.
Another point that I remain concerned about that I have raised in your Lordships’ House before is the issue of protected mobility. Whether we remain with an element still in Germany or not, our battlefield manoeuvre capability remains compromised by the effective cancellation in 2007 of the Army’s medium-weight vehicle replacement programme. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, recalled a conversation with me at about that time when he asked me about my priority for the FRES programme, which is the unfortunate acronym for that particular programme. My priority was and is the Scout vehicle, mostly because the vehicle that it was due to replace, the CVRT vehicle, was designed in the 1970s and very light. The concept of its design was to be small enough to go between two rubber trees in Malaya. Clearly, that concept was outdated by the time we got to Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, I said that my priority was that we should have the Scout vehicle. But it was only my priority in a whole range of vehicles that we required at medium weight. The only survivor of that medium-weight vehicle replacement programme is the Scout vehicle, now called Ajax.
Now that we have withdrawn from Afghanistan and the Army is reconfiguring to Army 2020 around several brigades but three armoured infantry brigades, there are battalions within those armoured infantry brigades that do not have the vehicles that were originally intended in the 2001-02 endorsed medium-weight vehicle replacement programme. Those battalions are now equipped with what we salvaged from Afghanistan under the UOR programme—the Mastiffs and the Ridgebacks. Those vehicles have no place on a modern-manoeuvre battlefield. I cannot see where we will fight a modern-manoeuvre battle, but a lot of us cannot see much about the future and at some point we will be required to put one or more armoured infantry brigades into the field, probably in a division, and those battalions and combat support, and combat service support units, do not have suitable battlefield mobility. That remains a major failing.
It comes back to this issue of: was there a deficit in the defence budget building up towards 2009-10? Yes, there was. The competition in the Defence Board in 2007 was between two major programmes, of which there was money only for one. One was the carrier strike programme and the other was the Army’s medium-weight replacement vehicle programme. A debate was had, a decision was taken and the carrier strike programme was funded. It would be churlish of me to be anything other than welcoming of the two new large aircraft carriers, in which we can all take pride in the future. However, I am in no doubt that the casualty of that success was the Army’s medium-weight vehicle replacement programme, which leaves our Army hobbled in the future. I have a question for the Minister.
Lord Davies of Stamford
I do not think there is much difference between us on this issue. I am prepared to agree with the noble Lord; I am sure it is still correct that we could have, and probably should have, spent even more money implementing the 1998 White Paper, which, as he said, was an excellent White Paper. That, however, is not what is referred to when the black hole myth is mentioned. The black hole myth implies not that we did not contract for enough military equipment—you can always usefully buy more military equipment and, of course, there are other things we could and would have liked to have done if we had had the money to do it—but that we could not pay for the equipment that we had contracted for. The programmes the noble Lord is talking about—the rest of the FRES programme, apart from Scout and so forth—was not something we ever contracted for or pretended that we had contracted for. There is a real distinction here and I do not think there is any difference between my perception of that period of our history and that of the noble Lord.
Lord Dannatt
I am very grateful for that information. I do not want to extend this debate unduly other than to observe that at the time when the Army endorsed the requirement for what became the FRES programme in 2001-02, the money for that programme was available because we had cancelled two other programmes, TRACER and MRAV, and the production money sat in the budget for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009. We could have paid for it if the money had not been reallocated by the Defence Board to the otherwise very welcome carrier strike programme. However, I do not want to go any further down that track other than to observe, without being unduly lengthy, that I attended the Welcome to Norfolk party for the Queen’s Dragoon Guards last week—a reconnaissance regiment which previously had been equipped with CVRT and might have been expected to be equipped with something like Scout, but discovered that they have four-wheeled unarmed Jackals and their combat boots in which to conduct their reconnaissance. They have less capability than they have had over the last 30 or 40 years and this, I am afraid, illuminates the fact that, if we had more money, we would have done more things that we needed to do. We did not have that money: therefore, we have gaps in our capability.
I am conscious that I have taken far too much time, for which I apologise. However, I have a wider concern about our national defence industrial capability. It is something that we are right to worry about. We are told that European collaborative ventures, while superficially attractive, are the way forward, but experience has shown that many of them are costly and slow. We often do not get what we want when we want it and in a manner that we want. The alternative is that our national industrial capability is protected and preserved. That, of course, is good for jobs and apprenticeships in this country, and is good for giving youngsters coming out of education hope for decent employment in the future. However, I accept that bolstering, if you like, the national industrial capability is more expensive. Perhaps less expensive is not to go down the multilateral European route but to adopt some bilateral options. Some very good examples exist of bilateral arrangements between the French and the United Kingdom at the present time and, indeed, of course, with our well-known partner, the United States.
There is a current debate about Apache attack helicopter replacement: should we buy Boeing off the shelf or Westland, as we did last time? It does not have to be an either/or debate: we could buy the aircraft from Boeing and Westland could undertake to do the maintenance and upgrade. However, I worry that if we go too much further down the European collaborative track we will not get what we want when we want it and it will cost an awful lot more.
Finally, I am suspicious—maybe overly so—that those who are keen proponents of European defence industrial integration see it as a stepping stone to European armed forces integration, ultimately providing a unified set of European armed forces, which is an essential element for those who wish to see full European political integration. I may be overworrying here, and there is a wider issue at stake, but I would not want to see defence used as a Trojan horse in a wider political argument.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth
My Lords, in welcoming this debate, I offer some comments addressing the subtext—as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, put it—and in particular the strategic defence and security review. I am very well aware of the range and depth of experience among your Lordships. I offer these comments without such knowledge and background but from deep admiration for those who serve in our Armed Forces, not least in the Royal Navy, for which you will understand my local pride. We all share a concern for the stability and security of our nation and our world.
Unsurprisingly, I note that, at the time of the last strategic defence and security review in 2010, the plan for 2015—that a light-touch strategic defence review would be needed now—was based on what seems today no more than a pious hope. The world today looks far more dangerous than it did then. There has been a series of issues that make the context anticipated then, of a planned withdrawal of British forces from combat operations in Afghanistan and a period without significant challenge, seem a distant pipe dream. NATO in Libya; the US pivot to Asia; the rise of so-called Islamic State; the Russian illegal incorporation of Crimea and the civil war in Ukraine, among other things, have contributed to the flow of refugees towards Europe. The world has changed and, as we all know, some have also raised questions about the credibility of the United Kingdom as an ally. As one notable American commentator put it rather sharply, Britain has effectively,
“resigned as a global power”.
The journalistic style may be questionable, but such a perception about our credibility is disturbing. As the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, reminded us in his comments about translators, this is a reputational risk, even if not an actual one.
As a credibility gap has emerged over these five years, so also has a capability gap, most notably in maritime patrol aircraft and aircraft carriers. Happily, the Government have already committed to the NATO target of 2% of GDP, with a related, but distinct, commitment to spending 0.7% on international development. Significant other commitments have already been made in advance of the review: enhancement to UK Special Forces; expansion of drone capability; retention of both new aircraft carriers; new Type 26 frigates; no further cuts in Regular Forces personnel; no more regimental reductions; an Army of not less than 82,000; retention of the Red Arrows with new aircraft; a successor system to the current nuclear deterrent with updates at Faslane and Coulport. I hope I have got those right.
With these commitments already made, is the Minister able to commit the Government to deepening and widening the public consultation process? Though there has been welcome wider engagement outside government this time, it has remained largely limited to the traditional London think tanks. The online consultation process limits contributions to only 2,000 characters—rather less, if you count them, than my speech so far. That seems to be superficial public consultation, and I ask the Minister what steps the Government will take to encourage deeper consultation with civil society in a more thorough way.
Secondly, will the Minister confirm that the review will address the capability gaps and shortfalls accepted in 2010 as temporary—in particular the maritime patrol aircraft capability; the challenge for the Navy in crewing ships; the diminishing fast jet fleet; the timing and the size of orders for the F35B joint strike fighter; recruitment and retention within the Reserve Forces; and the not yet resolved issue of women in combat? Will all these be addressed urgently?
Lastly, the review must articulate and justify a narrative about Britain’s place in the world and how the Government intend to respond to changes in the international security environment. As we have seen over the past five years, that will involve not just a response to present circumstances but a plan for other possible challenges as yet unknown. As we respond to secure stability and security, we surely must confirm that we retain the talent, history and capacity not only to respond but to shape the international order.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, I fully support the comment from the right reverend Prelate that the seriousness of the situation that we face as we approach the SDSR requires the maximum possible public involvement and understanding of the issues that we face. I think the Committee will be grateful to the Minister for initiating this debate today at a very important time, coinciding as it does with the very difficult situation that we face internationally and, coincidentally, with the opening day of the very big defence exhibition, DSEI, which sets out a lot of the sort of equipment that many of our armed services would much like to have if they could afford them.
We start this debate helped by a brief from the Library that includes the report of the Defence Select Committee in the House of Commons, published in March 2015—this year. It is full of interesting things, but in a significant sense it is already out of date. Some of the challenges that we now face did not exist then. We know about the issues of failed states, the mass migration of people, the risk of terrorism, the increasing power of Daesh—I insist on calling it that, not ISIL—and the range of different problems that we now face. We are asked to consider the role and capabilities of the UK Armed Forces in the light of global and domestic threats, stability and security.
The changes since the last SDSR are even more profound. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and other noble Lords who are present for this debate have shared with me the responsibility of adjusting our Armed Forces as a result of what we thought was the permanent end of the Cold War. More recently we have come to know the worries about what is developing, and exactly what President Putin’s attitude is must be taken seriously into consideration. I am on the record as saying that I think that NATO needs to show sensitivity towards the understanding that Russia, much humbled and embarrassed as it was by the total collapse of the Soviet Union, is clinging to a desire for some sort of status in the world. That accounts for President Putin’s extraordinary level of popularity in Russia because he has given self-respect back to many Russians after the humiliations they endured at the end of the Cold War.
Having said that, I personally have made it clear that I do not think it is sensible to advance for ever the boundaries of NATO. I do not think it is sensible, and indeed it is provocative. That does not excuse the obvious Russian involvement in events in Ukraine or the way in which the Russians have approached Crimea. But an intelligent and sensitive approach on the part of NATO is important. Against that, as the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, said, there would need to be some evidence of a credible and effective NATO response were there to be unwise approaches coming out of Moscow. There may be some thinking, following the events in Crimea and some Russian activities in Ukraine, that NATO no longer really exists as an effective opposition. Exactly how that should be addressed is a very important issue, and I think that some presence on the ground in Germany in the way we used to have and with no precipitate withdrawal might be a sensible way to proceed.
I turn now to wider developments. There is no question but that the problems we now face are extraordinarily widespread and are coming very fast. We did not have the issues in Yemen on the huge scale they present when the Select Committee produced its report in March. The humanitarian challenges that may be imminent are extremely worrying. Obviously we have been supportive of the attempt to restore the existing Government of Yemen, but the challenges posed by that campaign are very real indeed.
When we look around the world at groups such as Boko Haram and the situation in Libya—I hope to see greater stability in Egypt because that is an extremely important element—we can see the huge scale of the refugee crisis that is only just beginning. We have an idea that we are dealing with the problems presented by the numbers that are coming now. Some 200,000 people have now been killed in Syria in the appalling collapse of order and civil war that is taking place in that country. If there are 4 million refugees resulting from that, the scale and the challenge which such numbers represent, and the difficulties we are having in dealing with the situation, are only going to multiply.
We used to talk about “failed states”. I wonder who could add up for me the number of failed states we have in the world. Some have failed through civil war and others through brutally awful Governments. I do not know what our relations with Eritrea are like, but it was interesting to note the number of Eritreans who have been involved in the deaths and tragedies in the boats as people try to escape. No doubt it is a pretty brutal regime. It is against that background that we should consider the challenges faced by the Ministry of Defence and the Government around conventional defence and what is apparently now called “ambiguous warfare”, but used to be known as asymmetric warfare. I thought that that was interesting.
What are the weapons in the hands of some of the people that we face? One of the weapons to which as far as I know we have no answer at the moment is the suicide bomber. How interesting that in the attacks that have been launched by Daesh and other terrorist groups that have been advancing, the initial salvo is not an artillery bombardment. We saw it most recently in the escape of 350 prisoners from an Afghan prison when the opening salvo was the suicide bomber who blew down the gates. I instance that as an illustration of the quite different challenges that we face. I do not want to sound alarmist about this but I thank my lucky stars for the fact that, including when I was responsible for Northern Ireland, the Irish situation has never involved suicide bombers. It poses a major challenge and we know it is a challenge that we may have to face in this country as well. I instance that because of the range of challenges that are coming up in the SDSR which are the responsibility partly of the Ministry of Defence, partly of the Home Office and partly of the intelligence agencies. The whole range of the defence and security apparatus of our country needs to be knitted together effectively at this time.
It is against that background that I welcome the statement—which took a little time to come—of the 2% commitment from the Government, and the phrases that are used about being “a force for good in the world” and “punching above our weight”, but I then consider how many things we need to do to be able to justify those claims. The Select Committee report states that,
“the UK must rebuild its conventional capacities eroded since the Cold War. The requirements are many, including Maritime Surveillance, Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Radiological warfare training, developing a Ballistic Missile Defence capability, an enhanced Navy and Air Force, a comprehensive carrier strike capability, and full manoeuvre warfare capacity”,
which the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, was talking about. It must also,
“develop new capabilities to respond to the threat from ‘next-generation’ or asymmetric … threats from cyber attack, information operations, and the use of Special Forces … the UK must simultaneously develop the capacity to respond to an expanding series of challenges outside Europe—terrorism, brutal authoritarian regimes (killing their own citizens), extremist groups holding large territories as pseudo-states, state collapse, civil war, and state fragility. It needs to do so concurrently, and with limited resources”.
That shopping list going into SDSR is a challenge and the Minister is looking suitably depressed at this particular moment because the challenge is immense, and it includes also the extraordinary difficulty of the world of social media, which did not exist when I had any responsibility. We know that the advance of Daesh—ISIL—and its capture of Mosul was done on WhatsApp. That was the way in which it communicated with its forces effectively and speedily. Unsurprisingly, we find that with the refugees who are now moving through Greece and being told which way to come through Macedonia and into Hungary and Serbia or wherever, WhatsApp is at the heart of their operations. The whole social media problem poses enormous new challenges for our intelligence agencies as well as our security services, the Armed Forces and the police, in terms of the speed at which they can move.
What all this means—having read that huge shopping list out—is that, of course, we have to be flexible. We have to try and ensure that it is certainly not a time to be weak. There is a real risk in parts of the world of a descent into total chaos and it is against that background that we have to think very hard about what we can actually do in terms of punching above our weight and being a force for good in the world if we start getting involved in too many stabilisation operations. I think of working with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, in the first Gulf War. We went in; with co-operation, the alliance liberated Kuwait in about nine months; and we got out. We are now in the 14th year of our involvement in Afghanistan. Knowing the years we spent in these other territories, the problems they posed and the price we paid for them, the depth to which we can get involved in stabilisation is a very real consideration. The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, talked about understanding the countries in which we get involved. What we knew at the start of Afghanistan is true of other places. I am afraid the message is that, in stabilisation operations, it is very easy to get in and very difficult to get out.
Against that background, I see the enormous challenge represented by the SDSR. The old saw, “the future is not what it used to be”, is very true of the present time. When we did Options for Change, we had forces in uniform of 350,000, which were then reduced to 250,000. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, may nod in agreement with that figure. I was asked at the time by an enthusiastic BBC reporter why on earth we were keeping all those people. The Cold War was finished, what threat were we anticipating? Fortunately, I answered: the threat of the unexpected. Four days later, Saddam Hussein walked into Kuwait, totally unpredicted by the intelligence agencies. The unexpected had hit us very hard.
The noble Earl said, very splendidly, that defence of the realm is the first priority of any Government. It is not for the Treasury, which does not seem to have heard the line yet. Education, health and a few other areas are protected areas of expenditure but defence does not qualify. For the first time, I will say in public that I seriously wonder whether 2%—especially when amended by ingenious devices such as including military pensions and other things—will meet the challenges we face at this time. It is an extraordinarily difficult problem, at a time when the nation’s finances are least able to support it. Manning levels in the Army are a particular hobby-horse of mine. If they are dependent on reserves, and if we are going to be able to sustain the level of those reserves, I hope the Government will stand by their undertaking that if the reserve figures are not matched they will look again at the level of the Regular Army. We cannot tell where the challenges are going to come from, but they are real enough at this time. It is very important that we keep our flexibility.
I will say one other unkind thing. The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, complained about the carriers depriving flexibility for further capital investment in the Army. The Navy has also been something of a casualty. I am a great believer in the maximisation of platforms and we now seem to have got ourselves into a situation where the carriers are not available. We have had to live without them and they have stopped a lot of other things that might have been available a bit earlier and met many of the problems we face. I have been thoroughly unhelpful to the Minister and I apologise for that. He has an exceptionally difficult job and I very much appreciate the opportunity for a number of noble Lords who are concerned about the country’s future and the dangerous world in which we live to contribute to the discussions at this early stage.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for arranging this debate. I would like to follow on from the tour d’horizon of the noble Lord, Lord King, on one particular point—the number of platforms. I have expressed my concern on a number of previous occasions about the paucity of the number of platforms; by which I mean the airframes, ships and fighting vehicles that now form the front-line fighting strength of the three services.
I readily acknowledge that the striking power of individual platforms with modern, smart weapons provides a step change in hitting power and accuracy compared with previous generations. But that makes no allowance for the vulnerability of platforms themselves, nor of aircrew or other key sectors of manpower or logistics that support their use in combat. They are vulnerable to a variety of risks and not just those posed by an opponent. For example, there could be a hangar fire at an operational airfield that destroys a number of airframes; a loss of key components such as engines in a flood disaster; a damaging and fatal explosion in a crowded briefing room or on board a major warship; or a cyberattack on key intelligence or on equipment distribution. There could even be a tornado or other extreme weather event that causes physical damage. Any one of those risks and many more could deplete our already very limited front-line numerical striking strength, suddenly and unexpectedly. It is too easily forgotten that a freak hailstorm in Afghanistan in 2013 did more damage to front-line aircraft than the Taliban managed in the whole of the decade-long campaign in Helmand province. Is it a sensible policy that pays little or no heed to such potentially serious risks to combat capability?
Our complete mastery of the airspace in recent conflicts may also lure some into thinking that future operations will be just as loss-free from enemy action. But a better-resourced and capable opponent could in some future conflict readily inflict operational losses. Even against the less well-trained and equipped Argentinian forces in 1982, we lost half a dozen fighting ships with as many badly damaged, more than a third of our deployed fighter aircraft and numerous helicopters to Argentinian attacks. But we had sufficient strength in numbers to ride out those considerable setbacks. That strength had been procured many years previously and was operationally capable. Today, even small losses could greatly diminish our total combat ORBAT, which so lacks the numerical strength of earlier generations.
As has been mentioned, we pride ourselves that we punch above our weight, but the opposition, too, will doubtless mount some form of counterpunch. To succeed, we must have the resilience and firepower to overcome any form of counterpunch no matter how much damage or destruction it might inflict to our own front-line numbers. Let me say it again: we no longer have such resilience. That could be a critical factor between success and abject failure in future operations.
Even more critical so far as numerical platform strength is concerned is the vital contribution that conventional kinetic power has to play in sustaining and underwriting the credibility of our nuclear deterrent. Previous generations of the deterrent were procured when front-line conventional strength was orders of magnitude greater than what is available today, or likely on present plans to be available in the foreseeable future. Thus, it would have been possible, if faced with some gross threat to national survival, to mount a strong or even sustained conventional response, along with other non-military responses, to the aggressor. This would indicate national resolve and serve to underwrite the determination, if national survival were at stake, and ultimately, after all else had failed to deter or defeat the aggressor, to rely on the threat of a devastating nuclear strike. I fear today that the Government’s determination to remain a nuclear power, which I still support in principle, lacks adequate conventional muscle to underwrite and give a sure credibility to a nuclear deterrent strategy.
What in-depth analysis has been made of a minimum force mix—conventional force mix—that might be necessary to provide the Government of the day with the ability to indicate with strength their resolve to resist an aggressor? Otherwise, due to a paucity of conventional combat power, the Prime Minister could be faced with a most dreadful dilemma: a choice of the very starkest nature. It would be a choice between almost immediate use of a failed deterrent or surrender to the opponent. Does the Minister accept that current levels of conventional hitting power are not yet sufficient to give the deterrent truly believable credibility? Will this aspect of the renewal plan for the four new submarines be given the consideration that it merits in the SDSR work now in hand?
Finally, I return briefly to another issue that I raised, so far without success, in your Lordships’ House. Surely, it is time for the Armed Forces, so much reduced in numbers, to expect and look for some reduction in the number of Ministers with direct responsibility in the Ministry of Defence. I am not singling out personalities: all six of them are most diligent and hard-working, most notably the noble Earl himself. But it should be possible to reapportion responsibilities to have at most five rather than six Ministers on the payroll. Such a discipline has been applied repeatedly over many years within all three services. It would be an important signal to the forces. They have faced redundancies and other cuts. It is time that their Ministers shared in that downsizing burden, allowing the costs saved to be applied elsewhere in the defence budget. It is a reasonable reduction and it is long overdue.
Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)
I, too, am very grateful to the noble Earl for giving us the opportunity to have this debate. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble and gallant Lord, whose wise counsel is always very welcome.
The 2010 strategic defence and security review was undertaken at a time when we faced the biggest budget deficit in our post-war history. There was a widespread feeling that it was Treasury-driven and much concern was expressed, not least in this House, about the swingeing reductions that it set out for our armed services. Ministers were increasingly being pressed to justify the ring-fencing and safeguarding of overseas aid, but not defence.
More recently, there was grave concern here at home and among our allies abroad, particularly the United States, when it appeared that the United Kingdom might be on course to fall below the recommended NATO defence spending target of 2% of GDP. As a result, the Chancellor’s announcement in the Budget that the UK would in fact meet the 2% NATO target for every year of this decade was very warmly welcomed by those of us who felt that the cutbacks had threatened to put our security—and perhaps even our place on the UN Security Council—at risk.
However, relieved as we were, it now seems clear that that promise should be subject to careful scrutiny. It has emerged that parts of the budget for our intelligence services could be included in defence spending, and even portions of the foreign aid budget. In view of this, the words of Dr Julian Lewis, the chairman of the Defence Select Committee in another place, should be taken very seriously. He commented:
“My concern throughout this process is that creative accounting should be avoided and that we should calculate the percentage of GDP spent on defence in the same way in the future as it has been in the past”.
In my 10 years as a Scotland Office Minister, I always dreaded receiving a letter from a Treasury Minister that concluded with the words, “We are not persuaded”, which is well-known Civil Service jargon for a most emphatic “no”. I suspect today that if the Government go too far down the road of creative accounting, many parliamentarians could well answer like the Treasury that, “We are not persuaded”.
It seems that decisions may have to be made against a background of competing priorities for apparently finite resources. On the difficult decisions which may take place, I wish the Minister every good fortune in his detailed discussions and say that we hope to have the outcome that will strike the most appropriate balance. But with the Government seeking a further £20 billion of cuts in departmental budgets over the next few years, it would be unwise indeed to assume that the MoD has nothing further to fear. Although there was a promise in the Budget that defence spending would rise in real terms by 0.5% above inflation each year during this Parliament, the MoD first has to find £500 million-worth of cuts this year as part of overall government spending plans. It has insisted that these cuts will not affect operations or manpower. It is greatly to be hoped that the latest SDSR, which is now under way, will be driven by the long-term needs of our armed services and not by preordained reductions on a Treasury balance sheet in Whitehall.
My noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater made the point very effectively that we need flexibility. We need flexible forward planning and, where necessary, additional resources based on an up-to-date assessment of the defence capabilities required to meet current threats confronting the United Kingdom and her allies. Among a number of commitments already made, the Prime Minister promised that the strength of the Army would not be allowed to fall below 82,000 service men and women—a reduction in numbers of 20,000 since 2010, which has already been reached three years early. This is a pledge which I hope and believe will be kept if we are to retain our international credibility.
Unlike the SNP Government, I strongly support the welcome recent announcement by the Chancellor that more than £500 million is to be spent on upgrading the submarine base at Faslane. However, among the vital issues to which the SDSR must give a convincing response is: what is to be done to ensure the safety of our Trident nuclear fleet in view of the current gap in the United Kingdom’s maritime surveillance capabilities? This issue was raised by many of us today. The situation arose, as we well know, because of the scrapping of the £4 billion Nimrod fleet of aircraft in 2010. Earlier this year, the media were full of reports of how the MoD had been forced to call for help from US planes to track what was believed to be a Russian submarine, spotted off the coast of Scotland. In such situations, serious questions have been asked about our ability to protect the nuclear fleet at Faslane. This is a matter on which the Government, if I may say so, have a definite duty to act so that we have the capacity to respond to potential threats.
I welcome the commitments made by the Prime Minister over commissioning and deploying both the new aircraft carriers being built for the Royal Navy. We would like to be assured that the additional resources will be made available to maintain and protect both carriers. Perhaps the Minister call tell us, in the context of the SDSR, whether the armed services will be able to increase capabilities where there is a pressing need. Will the Government be consulting our NATO allies about the capabilities which the MoD should maintain and protect?
My final and possibly most important point is that the Government must be prepared to allocate sufficient resources not only to deter aggression but to meet unforeseen threats and hazards. My noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater made a point about the threat of the unexpected. That was also touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham. As a former MP, I remember vividly the recall of the House of Commons on that Saturday morning in 1982 when MPs were summoned after the invasion of the Falkland Islands, which the Government, headed by the then Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, had not altogether anticipated. Similarly, the attack on the twin towers in New York on 11 September 2001 came as a great shock and forced a change in global defence strategies.
The Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary have told us recently that you cannot have strong defence without a strong economy, and that for defence to be deliverable it has to be affordable. I agree, but surely the vital question is: now that the economy has recovered, how high a priority is to be given to the defence of the realm at a time of increased turbulence and turmoil in the world? I believe that it should be very high indeed, especially when it comes to allocating resources and protecting favoured budgets.
Lord Burnett (LD)
My Lords, I also am grateful to the Minister of State for initiating this debate. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk of Douglas, who now has very close Royal Marine connections. I had the honour to serve in the Royal Marines. I draw the Committee’s attention to my entries in the Members’ register of interests.
I intend to confine my speech to the predicament of Sergeant Alexander Blackman, Royal Marines, who I believe is the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice. I have given the Minister’s office notice of my intention and the fact that I would be raising this matter. I also wish to put on record my gratitude, and that of many others, to Mr Frederick Forsyth for his immense and invaluable contribution to this campaign; to the Daily Mail and its defence and campaigns team for their tireless research and work on this campaign and their wholehearted commitment to it; and to Mrs Claire Blackman, Sergeant Blackman’s loyal, steadfast and courageous wife.
Obviously I was not present during the events that gave rise to Sergeant Blackman’s court martial, and I did not attend the hearing. I have visited Sergeant Blackman in prison and spoken to him for some hours. He believes that he shot a dead man. Desecrating a dead body is an offence against the Geneva conventions but it is not murder.
To become a senior non-commissioned officer in the Royal Marines is an immense achievement. Being accepted for training in the Royal Marines is extremely competitive. The training is rigorous and long; to pass out from the commando school and King’s Squad will be the proudest day of any Royal Marine’s life and that of his family. Sergeant Blackman would in due course have been selected and passed a junior command course to become a corporal, then, some years later, a senior command course to become a sergeant. These courses are long and also rigorous. He as an individual would have been closely monitored and observed throughout. The same would be true in his lengthy specialist qualification training.
Sergeant Blackman’s 2011 six-month tour of Afghanistan with 42 Commando Royal Marines was his sixth deployment on active service. Deployments of six months are the norm. This is certainly not a complaint; that is what the Royal Marine commandos are for, and for six months Sergeant Blackman commanded an outpost right on the front line. He led a section of Marines. He was more than capable of doing so; he was an experienced and respected leader. On 15 September 2011, insurgents were spotted and an Apache helicopter was summoned from Camp Bastion. One insurgent was located by the Apache crew, who fired 139 rounds of 30-millimetre cannon. The crew believed that the insurgent simply could not have survived such a fearsome barrage. In 50 degrees centigrade of heat, Sergeant Blackman led a patrol to assess the damage. They found an armed insurgent either mortally wounded or dead, and Sergeant Blackman was filmed by a helmet-mounted video camera shooting him in the chest. Sergeant Blackman’s words were also recorded. He believed that the insurgent was dead and has expressed shame for what he said. He has explained his words as foolish bravado and dark humour, used by war-zone troops as a coping mechanism.
It is difficult to describe the extent of the stress and demands made of our combat troops in Afghanistan. These are the troops in the front line, constantly shot at, living, or more accurately existing, in the most basic conditions, and in the searing heat, often with little or no sleep. These men are constantly exhausted. This goes on for day after day, week after week, month after month. Sergeant Blackman and his men were in constant mortal danger. Nevertheless, our troops must in all circumstances comply with the law. However, the law itself recognises that stress, provocation and other factors should be taken into account in determining criminal liability.
I usually carry with me a small card entitled “The Commando Mindset”. On one side, it says:
“Be the first to understand; the first to adapt and respond; and the first to overcome”.
On the reverse are “The Commando Values”:
“Excellence. Strive to do better. Integrity. Tell the truth. Self-discipline. Resist the easy option. Humility. Respect the rights, diversity and contribution of others”.
Under that is “The Commando Spirit”:
“Courage. Get out front and do what is right. Determination. Never give up. Unselfishness. Oppo first; Team second; Self last”.
Finally:
“Cheerfulness. Make humour the heart of morale”.
I wish to say a few words about unselfishness and about:
“Oppo first; Team second; Self last”.
One of the main pillars of the culture of the Royal Marines is team spirit and the highest esprit de corps. In the end, you rely on your comrades for your life and they rely on you for theirs. Shortly before the events I have described, two men from 42 Commando were killed by insurgents, their bodies were desecrated and their limbs hung in the trees. This non-isolated event, and many others, would have had a profound effect on the entire unit.
I understand that new evidence is available. I also understand that whenever the charge of murder is made, it automatically carries within it the ability for a jury or court martial panel to return a verdict of “not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter”. Manslaughter is a serious, but lesser, offence. Unlike murder, it carries no mandatory life sentence. My understanding is that this was never raised at the court martial by the defence, the prosecution or the judge. Given at the very least the extraordinary mitigating facts in this case, even a manslaughter conviction would have resulted in a far shorter sentence than the minimum of eight years that Sergeant Blackman is now serving. These facts alone, and other new evidence, should justify an immediate review of this case by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
I wish to say just a few words about courts martial generally. My noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, who I am delighted to see is in the Room today, and others, including the Judge Advocate General, have criticised the fact that a simple majority at a court martial can convict a person. In Sergeant Blackman’s case, five of the panel found him guilty and two found him not guilty. That ratio would be insufficient to convict in a civilian criminal court. It also appears that a number of members of the panel had not been on active service or had ever heard a shot fired in anger. That goes against the entire ethos of courts martial. You are supposed to be tried by your peers who fully understand through experience all the surrounding circumstances. No one who has not served through the hell and horrors of the front line in Afghanistan or similar war conditions can hope to appreciate the stresses, pressures, exhaustion and danger that will afflict even the strongest human being. I therefore ask the Minister to confirm that all departments of state will expeditiously co-operate with Sergeant Blackman’s defence team and provide the necessary evidence, including reports held by the Government, in order to assist his case. I would also like to ask the Minister to review the court martial system in the light of the comments I and many others have made.
Finally, I thank not only the members of the extensive Royal Marines family for their support, but also the millions of other citizens throughout the United Kingdom and beyond who support Sergeant Blackman. We owe it to our fighting men who continuously and selflessly protect us to fight for them in their time of need. There has been a dreadful miscarriage of justice, and I and millions of others call on the Criminal Cases Review Commission to ensure that justice is done.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I was not aware that the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, was going to raise this case. He has put it most powerfully, and perhaps I may at least join with him in asking my noble friend the Minister to look seriously at all the implications. I do so with a reasonable amount of knowledge of the Royal Marines through my life as a Member of Parliament with Royal Marines stationed both in my own constituency and close to it. I have the greatest admiration for them as an elite fighting force, so I hope that justice will be done in this case. In any case, it is important, when we look at defence in general, to realise how important it is that forces such as the Royal Marines are used fully because they are so flexible. When we do not know, as we have all discussed in the debate today, what threats may come to us, that is invaluable.
I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this debate and for stating so categorically that it is the first duty of any Government to provide adequate defence and security for the realm. I fear he may need to repeat that in other places because too often it is not featured and is forgotten. It is perhaps ironic that the importance of the decision about the size of the House has attracted so much attention that we have had to be decanted into the Moses Room so that we would not start our debate at 10 pm. Need I say more on that point?
I want to look in particular at the role of the Royal Navy. When we had the review of 2010, I was frankly dismayed by the cuts that were made. I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, was rather diplomatic in her description. I will be a bit blunter. It was more of a cost-cutting exercise than a look at a strategy for defence. I hope and pray that the forthcoming review will be much more active and will give us some hope for the future: that we have seen the bottom and we shall rise up again and give defence the real support that it needs.
I refer particularly to the Royal Navy because I believe it has so many duties to perform that we need to think about it very carefully. First, it protects our sea lanes and our trade. We are a big trading nation. A lot of goods come in and out and unless they can be safely delivered, we are at real and immediate risk. We have just been looking at the end of the Second World War. One of our greatest worries then was the ability to get food through to us so that we avoided starvation. We relied on the Royal Navy and the merchant ships to do that for us. Let that lesson not be forgotten for the future.
In addition we need to look at our aircraft carriers. Mention has been made of those already this afternoon. They not only need aeroplanes on their decks, they also need a posse of support ships for them to be able to be used safely and successfully.
Furthermore, we need to look at possible dangers from mines. A few years ago, as a member of the parliamentary Armed Forces scheme, I was in the Gulf and watched a fascinating exercise where they were hunting for and blowing up mock mines. We apparently were much more successful than the Americans who were taking part in the exercise, which I have to say gave me a certain malicious pleasure. What struck home was when one of the officers said to me, “You know, it would be quite easy to put a mine or two in the English Channel and the effect of that would be absolutely devastating”. I do not know how easy or not it would be, but bearing in mind that we always have to be prepared for the unexpected, as my noble friend Lord King said, I think that is something to which we should give particular attention. Our interests could be threatened in this way anywhere else in the world as well.
The other point that I want to make does not refer precisely to the Royal Navy but to our personnel in all armed services. I hope when looking at this review that good account will be taken of the need to look after our personnel and to ensure that they are not persuaded to leave the service before time simply because there are various good jobs outside and we have gone into some pettifogging restriction which really irritates them. I will not go into the details but I am sure that all those who are interested in defence will know that sometimes small things in the course of their employment can be really irritating and can cause a man or woman to leave the service just when they are at their most useful.
I hope, too, that we shall not forget the military covenant. There is a great deal of publicity about this. It is a remarkably fine thing but it must not remain an empty gesture. It must be looked to, refreshed and be in the minds of our Government.
As noble Lords may know, I am also president of the War Widows’ Association of Great Britain. It does a great job in looking to the interests of those who have been bereaved in war. Unfortunately, we have had a good many more casualties as a result of recent conflicts and that continued support will be necessary. I hope we may look to the Government to always give support to service widows as well as those who have been bereaved by conflict.
I am aware that we are discussing a particularly difficult subject and that choices have to be made, but I hope that in making them we always remember that some of our greatest assets are the skill and dedication of the men and women who serve us in the Armed Forces.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
I, too, add my thanks to my noble friend for initiating this debate. It is with some trepidation that I take part in it, because many noble and gallant Lords in this House have spent their whole careers in the Armed Forces and many have much more experience in military matters than I will ever have. However, during the past year I, too, have had the pleasure of being a member of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme, which enables non-military parliamentarians to learn about defence. Through this, I have made a number of visits to the Army at home and abroad, meeting serving personnel from senior officers to new reservist recruits.
We all recognise how dangerous and increasingly unstable the world is. Global interconnectivity means that today’s conflicts can endanger us all, as jihadists call for attacks on London and other western cities. The numbers of displaced people fleeing conflict in the Middle East are higher than at any time since World War II, with hundreds of thousands trying to come to Europe as a result. Delivering security is thus of paramount importance and I am sure we all welcome this Government’s commitment to defence spending. Consideration needs to be given to how and where conflict will emerge in the future, such as the risk of cyberattacks. This is all set against a backdrop of a growing world population where there may not be sufficient food, water and other resources for all.
Our Armed Forces are outstanding and have, in recent years, done exceptional work in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, lessons from Iraq and Libya have taught us that simply removing a hostile regime does not lessen the threat; worse risks may emerge from a chaotic void. Military intervention alone cannot deliver post-conflict stability, and DfID and NGOs need to come in alongside to assist with institutional reconstruction and establishing a rule of law. We may well also need help from the military to deal with the challenge of our domestic threats, and to work with police and security services.
I have been impressed to learn how our Armed Forces contribute to building relationships for the UK across the world. The world-class training delivered by Sandhurst and the Defence Academy at Shrivenham draws students from many countries, building lasting relationships. As we have heard, the British Army is engaged in activities around the world. In 2014, I believe that troops were deployed to over 300 tasks in around 50 countries. Last December, in my capacity as a member of the steering board of the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, I visited the Gurkhas in Mali, where they were training the Malian army, and watched them deliver a training session on human rights. Delivering military training to enable countries to deal with their own domestic insecurity is an extremely valuable contribution to world security.
I have spoken before in your Lordships’ House about the disproportionate impact of war on women, and how their participation is crucial in building peace and helping to create post-conflict stability. So it is particularly important that our military are trained to engage with women as well as men in conflict zones. This can be extremely challenging, especially where rape and sexual violence are used as weapons of war. In May, I visited Erbil and met some of our military who are training the Peshmerga. As well as delivering military training, they are also training on protection of civilians and on dealing with victims of sexual violence. This is ground-breaking work, which I hope will be rolled out more widely in training for the British Army and in other overseas training missions.
I know that there is concern about whether we will reach the target of 30,000 army reservists by 2018, and I wonder if there has been sufficient recognition of the challenges of being a reservist and how onerous trying to reconcile this role alongside family and work can be. Are the Government looking innovatively at what more can be done with regard to attracting and better supporting reservists, especially post-deployment, as well as to incentivise employers and companies to release employees, particularly from small and medium-sized enterprises, to encourage greater numbers to sign up?
First-class Armed Forces mean first-class leadership, and that means attracting and retaining the best. I suspect that the military will never be able to offer the same salaries as industry and the City, but it can offer other things. Being in the forces is a way of life as well as a job, and this impacts greatly on families. Unhappy families create pressure to leave. It must be very hard being a wife in the macho environment of the forces, having to move with the children over 20 times to accommodate your husband’s career choice, or being left looking after small children while your husband is away on a dangerous deployment. Modern families’ lifestyles must be properly considered and facilitated: the wife who has her own career, and the returning children who wish to live at home post-school and university. As more women enter the forces, consideration needs to be given to male partners, as well as to accommodating couples who are both in the forces.
Above all, we have a duty of care to all those who serve in our Armed Forces. My noble friend Lady Fookes raised the issue of the military covenant. Has there been any study of how effective that actually is? Although it says the right things, does having no penalties if it is ignored not make it somewhat toothless? Is there more that we can do to support the families of those killed in action, for whom life will never be the same again? We must provide the best care and welfare for those who are wounded, especially those who suffer life-changing injuries. We need to ensure that they can access the best care and facilities, wherever that may be, and receive support for the rest of their lives. This includes the invisible mental wounds too. Access to psychological help outside the chain of command is important, as is good support once they leave and are back in the community.
Much has been written about PTSD and the fact that it can occur years after operations. Many service charities provide support for this, and more must be done to signpost the help that they can give. However, there are also many myths about the levels of PTSD. Research by the King’s College military research unit has shown that the rate of PTSD in service men and women who have been deployed is 4%. This is equivalent to the rate seen in the general population, although the rate rises to 7% for those who are in a combat role. Inaccurate impressions can damage the military in terms of not only recruitment but their employability when they leave the forces.
Many of the service personnel I have talked to have said that they are trained to do a job and want to do it. There are concerns that the public have lost their appetite for our forces being deployed in combat situations, due to what are perceived as ill-considered judgments over the past few years. If we are to ask our young men and women to put themselves in the way of danger that they are trained and willing to face, it places an especially heavy burden of responsibility on leaders, both political and military, to ensure that the full implications of decisions are properly assessed.
Visiting our Armed Forces is a humbling experience. At times we ask them to do some very difficult and dangerous things. I pay tribute to them for their professionalism, courage and dedication. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. As Winston Churchill is sometimes thought to have said, we sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for initiating this debate. I am very glad that it is taking place in the period before we have the SDSR because that definitely did not happen in 2010. If lessons are to be learned, it is very important that there is as wide a consultation as possible on an SDSR before it is initiated. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth mentioned this. I have to declare an interest as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.
The Minister confirmed that the Government have not just begun work on the national security strategy and the defence review but that they are due to report by the end of the year. As I listened to the contributions of noble Lords around the Room today, I began to wonder whether that was not too rushed. The last defence review was to be financed by what was promised to be there in 2015. At the time, we said, “We are not quite certain that that finance is likely to be there”, as indeed has proved to be the case. I therefore wonder whether, as a result of the consultations by the various Select Committees, plus those in this House, the Government might wish to think again before rushing ahead with something that they may not have considered.
I am very glad that there are two words in the Motion which I want to say something about. First, on “capabilities”, I would add “sustainability” at that stage because, as the noble Lord, Lord King, will remember from the Options for Change exercise, our key concern—certainly in the Army—was whether what was to be produced would be sustainable. Sustainability includes the maintenance of operations over a period of time. For example, when we sent help to Rwanda, the only thing we could do was to send a composite administrative force for six months, which mended roads, repaired vehicles and provided communications and medical support. There simply were not the replacements in the order of battle for us to continue with an operation that we had started. I fear that sustainability has been absent from many of the reviews I have seen in the recent past. It is a word that should be there.
However, I am very glad that “domestic” is in the Motion because it is often forgotten just how much the Army, for instance, is doing to underpin the domestic life of this nation. When I was commanding my battalion, I sent my soldiers off to a dustmen’s strike in Glasgow. When I was commanding the brigade in Belfast, we had a tanker drivers’ strike. When I was Adjutant-General, we had an ambulance drivers’ strike. In recent times, the Army have not only had strike preparation but underpinned the floods, the foot and mouth disease outbreak and the security at the Olympic Games. They have also gone off because of Ebola. In fact, the Army is underpinning quite a lot of the life of the nation. If it is all to be deployed only on operations—if only operations are being thought of—something will be lost which we cannot afford to lose. As your Lordships will understand, that is a plea not to reduce the Army to anything below the 82,000 it has now been forced down to. I do not think we can afford to do without that domestic role.
What is the actual aim and role of the Armed Forces? It was put very clearly in NSS 2010: to protect the nation’s,
“security in an age of uncertainty”.
Uncertainty, as many noble Lords have said, is of course impossible to plan for. Above all, what is missing from a lot of the consideration that has been happening is what the military refer to as the critical mass needed to carry out the tasks identified or, as the noble Lord, Lord King, said, the minimum strength needed. It is exactly the same thing.
In the Ministry of Defence there used to be what was called a basket-weaving exercise, which happened every year. A White Paper or some other document would be produced which laid down what the services were to do. They then worked out how much it would cost to do what had to be done, and that was then compared with the money that had been made available. Inevitably, there would not be enough money. Then there would be a basket-weaving exercise where every aspect of what was required was costed and put into categories known as “essential”, “desirable” and “nice to have”. That basket was put to Ministers for them to make the decisions and say, “We know perfectly well that we are not going to get any more money, and we accept what you say, and therefore this is not to be done because we cannot afford it”. I do not think there is much evidence of basket weaving in some of the things that have happened. The equipment budget, which my noble friend Lord Dannatt particularly mentioned, raises questions about what should and should not be done, but I am not absolutely certain that that exercise has been carried out in full.
Mention has been made of the financial direction of all this and the role of the Treasury. Of course, since SDSR 2010 we have had Army 2020, which we all know was an entirely financially driven exercise. The Chief of the General Staff was told by the Permanent Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Defence how much money he could have, and therefore the Army as it is structured today is designed to fit a financial envelope. I do not believe that that is correct in terms of meeting the challenges of an emerging world. The role and the capabilities of the Armed Forces need to be looked at in relation to the challenges they are facing. If you end up with a financial envelope that results in 17 fewer major units, you have not necessarily got something which can meet what had been decided would be the minimum only two years previously. I am concerned about the financial direction of much of this, and I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord King, that the strategic defence and security review should not be just an MoD exercise. It must include all the other connected ministries.
I have not mentioned soft power, but we should remember that of the 0.7% of GDP spent on aid, much of that is actually included in the military budget, so why not look at what the military are contributing as part of that 0.7%? It means that DfID and others must be brought in.
I come to my conclusions about all this, and why I think that the question of timing is so important. My late boss, Field-Marshal Lord Carver, used to say that there were two definitions of the word “affordability”: can you afford it or can you afford to give up what you have to give up in order to afford it? I worry that a lot of things in the defence budget would benefit from scrupulous examination under the terms of the second question. My noble and gallant friend Lord Craig mentioned the nuclear deterrent. I am not going to say anything more—other than that, in order to satisfy the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord King, about the inadequacy of 2% of GDP, consideration ought possibly to be given to whether a political weapon should be removed from the defence budget so that defence planning can be done based on the critical mass needed to meet our challenges, which would produce a conventional element that is capable of underpinning the deterrent. It is, after all, a political weapon and there is no doubt that it is unhinging the defence budget.
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak for the first time in a defence debate. Notwithstanding having been a Member of your Lordships’ House for 17 years, I feel some trepidation, as other noble Lords speaking in this debate know so much more than I do. However, I feel that I should declare an interest. I now have a son, of whom I am very proud, who is about to start training as an observer in the Fleet Air Arm. However, he has no idea that I am speaking in this debate. I have not learnt anything from him that I will reference in this debate, and I have no intention of telling him about it afterwards.
I thank my noble friend for introducing this debate. It is timely. Among others here, I am also a member of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme. Surprise surprise, I am looking at the Navy. I want to focus my remarks on maritime security, given some issues that have been raised on various visits, which I would like to share this afternoon.
My immediate concern regards maritime security, particularly the security of our borders. These issues, while relevant to the next SDSR, actually need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. I say this given the clear and present increased threats from uncontrolled migration. My noble friend Lord King referred to the refugee crisis and the imminent threat of yet more failed states. In addition, there are the actions of small groups and individuals who are determined to cause maximum harm within our borders, including suicide bombers, coupled with ongoing and increased people smuggling and narcotics smuggling. My chief concern relates to our capabilities concerning air and sea surveillance of our shores—all 11,072 miles of shore, or 19,491 miles if you include the larger islands around our mainland shores.
As noble Lords know, maritime security requires a critical matrix of legislation, surveillance, intelligence fusion and co-ordination, interdiction, law and/or maritime enforcement. Effective surveillance is central to that matrix. There has long been a layered approach to UK surveillance, and the UK military used to have a fairly effective layered approach, developed to combat Russian submarines. The SDSR in 2010 removed the UK’s military marine patrol aircraft, a capability hitherto very effective for general surface surveillance and even search and rescue. The loss of maritime patrol aircraft has put greater pressure on other layers including the air surveillance contracted by a number of government departments and agencies that look for specific things such as illegal fishing, customs breaches, narcotics smuggling and people smuggling, on the surface rather than under.
Noble Lords will know that in 2012-13, a House of Commons Defence Committee study showed how, unlike Australia for example, the UK had a number of separate air surveillance contracts emanating from different departments. This current ad hoc approach means that economies of scale have been lost and that aircraft working to different departments operate in the same airspace and leave gaps. Scotland also has an entirely separate contract for fisheries. The House of Commons Defence Committee recommended consolidation, for obvious reasons.
This inefficient ad hoc approach that allows gaps as well as duplication in our surveillance is about to become much worse given the now imminent loss of one of the air surveillance contracts, thereby further undermining our layered approach. There is a solution—to have one overarching, consolidated contract to deal with maritime security as opposed to military or anti-submarine surveillance. That would help to alleviate some of the pressure on SDSR 15 decisions on maritime patrol aircraft.
A quick résumé of current contracts might add weight to my suggestion. Current contracts approximate as Border Force, the Marine Management Organisation, the National Crime Agency, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and Marine Scotland, which is entirely independent and operates only in Scotland. A single UK-wide contract is needed as soon as possible and, in the mean time, no diminution of the current capacity. Indeed, the contract that is due to expire in January 2016 should be extended to avoid a crucial gap in our air surveillance until a consolidated, more cost-efficient and effective contract can be executed.
Much of the work for a single contract was previously completed under the direction of the National Maritime Security Advisory Committee. To bring that about, we need central direction to direct departments and agencies to act as one. Noble Lords will know that a policy catalyst normally results from an incident or issue. For example, Australia got its act together in response to highly publicised boat migration. We now have a similar issue in our sights as well as the opportunity to gain efficiency for UK plc, especially if the SR and SDSR are putting individual departments under a huge squeeze.
There is a related issue in relation to surface ships surveillance—another important layer that presents a similar issue and requires consolidation and coherence that goes to interdiction as well as surveillance. Noble Lords will know that interdiction requires law or maritime enforcement and therefore competent enforcement officials—police and customs-empowered Border Force officers and marine management-empowered Royal Navy officers who have the right jurisdictional powers. Navy ships have weapons and sophisticated communications equipment and generally their own aircraft—helicopters—but currently, if required for a UK law enforcement mission, they have to embark customs, Border Force, police and so forth to make an arrest. That is extraordinarily inefficient. The only exception is fishing where Navy officers in our offshore patrol vessels—OPVs—have enforcement powers under UK legislation.
The other vessels for UK surveillance and interdiction are UK Border Force cutters. But unfortunately the UK Border Force is struggling to run them. Only three of five are available for at-sea work around the UK unless they are supported by Royal Navy staff. The obvious solution is to focus now on a trial undertaken by national maritime asset co-ordination which, as its name suggests, co-ordinates the activity of the Royal Navy’s OPVs and Border Force cutters to increase the capability of assets, expand geographical spread, increase the size of the area patrolled, deconflict activity to remove duplication and reduce response times.
A scientific study conducted in 2013 clearly demonstrated that currently UK surface ship coverage does not compare favourably with similar-sized countries such as France, Australia and Holland. The NMAC trial, however, places additional capabilities in different ships and the trial has already proved successful. More importantly, to assist in terms of practical solutions to the threats that we face and the task at hand, the Government have already committed to build three more offshore patrol vessels in Scotland in order to keep shipyards alive between finishing the two aircraft carriers and work on the next generation of Navy frigates—the Type 26. This surely presents the ideal, cost-efficient opportunity to use the Navy offshore patrol vessels to replace the Border Force cutters and thus have the capability to do UK-wide maritime surface patrol properly using OPVs with a maritime enforcement cadre embarked to cover all boarding requirements. That has been trialled and is achievable.
The SNP in Scotland often criticises Westminster for the lack of Navy and maritime patrol presence—particularly Border Force cutters—in Scottish waters, which this could address not least because Scotland spends more than £9 million per annum on its limited capability. In other words, they cannot do any other tasks. Rather shockingly, that is more than the Marine Management Organisation gives the Royal Navy towards the running of the offshore patrol vessels.
The nexus between the issues is that the current situation is a symptom of an ad hoc and inefficient approach thus far, which can only get worse. There has to be impetus to generate efficiency, better surveillance and better interdiction capability. The development of the National Strategy for Maritime Security plus governance mechanisms, ranging from ministerial oversight to an officials committee, has increased interagency coherence, but the bottom line is that each of those comes from a department where maritime security issues are only an element of the work and seldom core. So issues of funding are very difficult indeed, and cross-Whitehall savings or increased UK capacity do not register on departmental agendas. This is the context in which surveillance capacity, whether via an air or surface ship, needs to be considered. What is needed is a rationalisation of air and surface assets, and improved mechanisms to use the information and intelligence product to the benefit of all.
I want to touch on another issue, which came to my notice when I recently visited Portsmouth, where of course the two new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers are destined to arrive. Looking at a three-dimensional model of the dockyard, as well as driving through it, it struck me that there is a serious issue regarding planning for the necessary support services for the carriers, as well as all other ships, in what should become a 21st-century highly secure base.
My first concern is security. Since the terrible killing of Corporal Rigby at Woolwich, I would like to presume that high on the list of MoD priorities is the need to ensure that our Armed Forces personnel are as secure as possible. I suggest that the current layout of Portsmouth makes that difficult, given the presence of some listed buildings, a few of which currently have little or no function and which I suspect would cost a great deal to refurbish sufficiently to accommodate some ships and carrier stores. Whether they are empty or not, the Royal Navy is required to maintain those buildings out of the defence budget while looking for ways to improve access and flow across the base. In short—I have not shared this with any Royal Navy personnel, who may be horrified at the suggestion—I question whether it is sensible to ask the Royal Navy to accommodate the new carriers, and all the related equipment that that entails, coupled with the heightened need for personnel security in an area where currently it is something of a maze to navigate and, frankly, the historical value of a few of those buildings is quite questionable. Nowhere else in the world would the listing of a building, built hundreds of years ago to store goods and house staff, take precedence over national security.
Please be assured, I am not looking to wreck a wonderful historic shipyard; I am simply suggesting that the Navy should have the option to remove a few buildings in its midst to ensure we have a base to be proud of that is fit for purpose and which will protect our personnel and our very expensive assets in a less safe and secure world.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his usual brilliant introduction to the debate. Like the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, I too am double-hatted and was always going to speak in both debates. I listened carefully to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Burnett. I still have confidence in the court martial system, provided that we can put right any mistakes. Who is to say that a civilian court would not be even less sympathetic in all the circumstances pertaining at the time? I think that we should consider and study this matter very carefully in the coming weeks and then, if necessary, put all the pressure that we can on the Minister to reconsider the matter.
I have not been so active in defence in recent years because I have been heavily involved in other matters within your Lordships’ House. I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lord Astor of Hever, both for his time as Minister and now as Secretary of the Defence Study Group.
There is good news. Because the SDSR is to be a regular occurrence, we are getting better at doing it and can react in a more timely manner to changing circumstances, as the Minister explained. Even better, the budget for defence has been agreed, even though I still think that it falls way short of what we should be doing and we may yet regret not spending enough. Some might say that one should determine the requirement first and then provide the resources, but I have always felt that one should be honest and determine what funds are available first. That way, the SDSR is much more likely to provide a balanced capability. There is no point in spending large amounts of money on shiny jets and the latest AFEs if one has neglected ISTAR and does not have a clue where one’s opponent is or what he is doing. I do not think that UK defence gets enough credit in the media for getting this broadly right while other states can be appalling in this regard.
In the previous Parliament, the Conservative-led coalition got to grips with the black hole, however painful it was to do so. What assurances can the Minister give me that another black hole will not develop alongside the very expensive exercise of pushing programmes to the right—something that the Labour Government found themselves having to do because of the black hole?
I still believe that the concept for the reserves is completely flawed, as volunteer reserves are not a direct substitute for regulars. Here I declare an interest, as I am still commissioned in the REME reserves but am no longer posted anywhere. I have been in the reserves or TA ever since I was 17 and a half. Next month I will commence my final year before becoming 60 years old. There are some signs that the new policy is coming round but I am not holding my breath. I have some anxiety that some funding lines for the reserves have not materialised in order to meet budgetary restrictions. I take it that the SDSR will correct that by stating what is to be done with the reserves, what facilities they need and where capital expenditure needs to be made, and ensuring that funds are available.
Having smaller Armed Forces has the serious problem of increasing the proportion of resources allocated to the overhead—that is, the staff and civil servants. This is because a lot of functions still have to be undertaken irrespective of the size of the Armed Forces. This is especially so in the process of developing and procuring equipment, since every single piece of equipment has to be specified, developed and procured, whether it is a cooking utensil, a tent or a truck. This is an unpalatable thought and not one for this SDSR but, especially for the Army, would it not be better to draw everything that we can from US ordnance and use our own developed and procured equipment only when we absolutely have to? Of course, there would have to be a formal offset agreement with the US Government to ensure that UK industry still got its fair share of business. The logistical advantages in reduced stockholding and commonality, both at home and when deployed, are obvious. One could ask why we do not do this in Europe. No doubt we are trying to, but the fact is that within Europe there are too many moving parts. I am just suggesting that we draw the majority of our stores from US ordnance.
Much has been made of the fact that we have the fifth largest defence expenditure in the world, but other states have different cost bases. India, for instance, which we are close to but should be closer still to, spends less than us but has about 1 million men under arms and about 3,000 main battle tanks. Of course, they will not all be as good as a European army but, as Napoleon once said, “Size has a quality all of its own”.
As I have indicated, I do not think that our Army is big enough or has enough combat power. That is my perception, but if senior people in Washington get the same perception or worse, we will become militarily insignificant so far as the Americans are concerned. That is not a good position to be in. The recent statement about the 2% is helpful in that regard; it goes some way, but not as far as I would like.
Much attention is being paid to Special Forces and perhaps increasing their size, but, if you reduce the size of the regular army, you reduce the SF recruiting pool. If the ratio of SF to conventional goes the wrong way, there is also the risk of sucking out too many top-class people from the conventional forces. If you think about it, 2,000 out of 80,000 is becoming a significant percentage.
In the last SDSR, we reduced the number of main battle tanks by about 40%, along with the support that they needed. You need very considerable support to run a large fleet of main battle tanks. This is despite the fact that in all the recent major deployments we took main battle tanks. On Op Telic 1 we had 116 of them. Even on Herrick in Afghanistan we deployed T2; that is Trojan and Titan armoured engineer vehicles, which are variants of Challenger. We even had other nations support us with Leopard main battle tanks because, for very sensible reasons, we were not able to deploy Challenger in theatre. I sincerely hope that the capability managers have got that decision right and it was not more to do with the financial issues referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.
I doubt the wisdom of keeping in service a whole range of land platforms that came into service as an urgent operational requirement. The whole point of UOR equipment is that it is specific to the current operation. Because of this, any weakness in that equipment that is not relevant to the current operation does not matter and no attention is paid to its future sustainability.
I turn to the new Scout armoured fighting vehicle. I can understand the need to replace Bulldog and, at some point, Warrior. However, I understand that Scout is a 40-tonne behemoth. I recognise that the reconnaissance effect of CVRT can be achieved by other means, but CVRT was a very good platform for framework patrols on peacekeeping operations because it only weighed about 10 tonnes. It was not particularly aggressive, but it did still pack a reasonable punch. What will provide that capability in the future other than a few UOR platforms that I have already referred to? I hope that the Minister and his department can provide a comprehensive briefing so that we can better understand the benefits of this important programme.
Lord Boyce (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. I am also grateful to the Minister for initiating this debate.
So far as the global aspects of the Motion are concerned, I can infer from comments from the Prime Minister and the Government, reiterated by the Minister in his opening remarks, that there is an aspiration for the UK to continue to be a global force for good, and that that should be across a full range of activities: trade, diplomacy, aid, security and so on. That is only right and proper for a nation with our history, our dependence on overseas trade, our membership of such bodies as the P5 and G7 and our key leadership roles in a number of international organisations. To meet that aspiration in a world that is increasingly dangerous, or, to use the Minister’s words, “darker and more dangerous”, the Government rightly look to the Armed Forces as a key tool in their range of options. This tool must have credibility with important allies, especially the United States, it must be able to counter threats to our stability and security wherever they may arise—especially those that can materialise in our homeland—and it must have a reputation for professionalism that is a comfort to friends and a discomfort to potential opponents.
All this needs to be underpinned by a new set of defence planning assumptions that have relevance to today’s scenarios to replace those laid out in SDSR 2010, which so lamentably failed to predict any of the crises of the last five years, driven as it was to ignore anything that might interfere with the lust for cutting the defence budget. An example of this was the complacency of the national security strategy in categorising,
“A conventional attack by a state on another NATO or EU member to which the UK would have to respond”,
as being the lowest possible threat, a complacency that has been shattered by Russia’s behaviour over the last couple of years. I trust that will be rectified in the upcoming review.
To fulfil a role that can deliver all the Government’s aspirations, the Armed Forces must have the capability to deploy at range, which means having endurance, sustainability and the capability to operate through the full spectrum of warfare, from high-intensity conflict through peacekeeping and humanitarian tasks to defence diplomacy. In broad terms, such capabilities exist in most part today—albeit with one or two significant omissions—and in the forward defence programme will do so in future in terms of quality, but, as I have already implied, this quality must be of a nature that makes us a partner of choice when operating with allies, particularly the USA. We ignore the interoperability component of our capabilities at our peril and regrettably this is something we are sometimes guilty of doing.
If we are—or will be by 2020—in a relatively good place in terms of quality, the same cannot be said of quantity. It is conceivable that our Armed Forces may be able to go anywhere but they certainly cannot be everywhere, with their overall order of battle shrunk to a scale not seen since the 1920s; they are already unable to fulfil all the tasks that the Government would have them do. For example, we note some NATO commitments being capped, and the stretch on the armed services is seeing some important activities deemed to be of lower priority. I am thinking particularly of high-level training, which is so crucial to fighting effectiveness. Some of those important activities are being put aside because the capacity to undertake them and meet front-line commitments is insufficient.
There are many examples in the land, sea and air domains of where the knife of SDSR 2010 cut too deep, but let me give a couple of examples from the maritime area. Our destroyer frigate force, as I have said before in the House, is woefully depleted and it cannot deploy on a scale apposite to a country with global interests and aspirations in an uncertain world in which there are more national, NATO and allied active maritime operations running than 15 years ago when we had 30% more escorts. This situation is exacerbated by the workhorses of the fleet, the Type 23 class of frigates, approaching the ends of their lives, with their replacements, the Global Combat Ship, the Type 26—which looks to be the right answer for defence and the Navy—still over the horizon, with no promise of an increase in numbers from a bare 13. Furthermore, the postulated build delivery rate for the new ship is set at one ship every two years, which is difficult to understand. It makes no sense in shipbuilding terms. The drumbeat will be far too slow for efficient shipyard management. It will certainly not allow for the expeditious regeneration of a modern frigate capability and puts us in danger of seeing force levels drop while in transition, and the ageing Type 23s will also become increasingly expensive to keep running, assuming they are capable of doing so. The dearth of a fit-for-task national shipbuilding strategy is all too evident, and perhaps the Minister might comment on whether such a strategy, which of course has wider ramifications than just frigates, is going to be produced.
Secondly, our fleet submarine numbers, at seven rather than the originally planned 10, are equally too low—a serious strategic oversight, given what they can offer, particularly in special operations. Thirdly, our two carriers are currently planned to have far too few Joint Strike Fighters to allow what is promised by this transformation in our strategic posture to be fully exploitable. This undermines the credibility and utility of what should be a major strategic asset.
Finally, as many other noble Lords have mentioned, the lack of a maritime patrol aircraft capability, removed in the aforesaid lamentable 2010 defence review, is a major drawback in having a fully effective maritime defence, especially at a time of a burgeoning submarine threat—from Russia in particular, literally on our doorstep.
The signs that this situation might be rectified look pretty bleak. Much of our deficiency must be put down to the inadequate funding, including the 9% cut, that defence has received over the past five years, so the recent promise of not allowing the defence budget to drop below 2% is of course to be welcomed. We shall, of course, be watching carefully to see if there will be further creative accounting to deliver this 2%, such as occurred in the last Parliament. In that context, it would be good if the Minister could reassure the Committee that other aspects of security funding previously not in the defence budget will not be swept into it to make up the numbers.
To look on the more positive side, it would appear that if rebalancing of the defence budget across the services is achieved—and that is quite a large “if”—then the Armed Forces may in fact be in a healthier budgetary and capability state in 2019, perhaps even making Future Force 2020 realisable. Does the Minister agree with that? However, getting to 2019 is going to be more problematic. The in-year savings that have been imposed, which the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk of Douglas, mentioned, and the Cabinet’s planned efficiency drive seriously threaten the Armed Forces in the short term in both capability and morale terms. It may be sufficiently bad to derail Future Force 2020.
I mention morale because much of the brunt of these short-term cuts will fall on the quality of life of our soldiers, sailors and airmen, which in turn will affect recruitment and, more importantly, retention. Perhaps the Minister would comment on how much attention has been paid to the effect of individual savings measures and their aggregation on people and their dependants. People are of course the critical component of the capability of all three services, especially the Royal Navy at the moment. The imposed manpower ceiling on the Navy, combined with significant problems being experienced in certain categories, especially engineers, is putting at risk operational viability. The coming SDSR has to recognise this. It will be a material failure if it fails to do so.
I wish to make a couple of extra points before I conclude. First, I associate myself with the comments made by my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig on attrition and conventional deterrence. I hope that those two words will appear in the future SDSR. Secondly, I ought to mention our strategic deterrent. The Government have made absolutely clear their commitment to a like-for-like replacement of the Vanguard class submarines and continuous at-sea deterrence, and that is to be applauded. I just observe that it is a pity they did not get round to agreeing to this in principle in Parliament before the Summer Recess, as I mentioned in the debate that we had in the summer. I hope that the Government remain confident about getting this through the new-look other place when the time comes.
The role that the United Kingdom Armed Forces should play in the light of global and domestic threats to stability and security is clear. Their capability fully to discharge that role properly is questionable, and it will be interesting to see whether the Government, when they announce the 2015 SDSR in November, before the end of this year, first get right their appreciation of the worldwide situation, which so impacts on our domestic stability and security—something that they failed to do in 2010—and, secondly, whether they will demonstrate in the SDSR the courage to match aspirations with resources, if necessary, as the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, mentioned, increasing the 2%, if defence truly is the first duty of government. That always sounds very hollow to me when considering, for example, the ring-fencing of the aid budget.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, I add my thanks to those of other noble Lords to the Minister for bringing this debate to Grand Committee today. I too shall be posing some questions for the Minister and I am quite happy for him to write to me, otherwise I think that we shall be here for quite a long time listening to many interesting responses, which perhaps will turn into a pamphlet.
Really, this has been a Janus debate: we are reflecting backwards and best-guessing forwards, while of course looking at current and previous operations. For the most part, the role of our Armed Forces is determined by the SDSR, as are their capabilities. Much has changed since the last SDSR in 2010. That was an austerity review that cut 17,000 personnel and gave us Future Force 2020, with a programme to recruit reservists in their place. It reduced the surface fleet and, through the carrier programme being left in the air, has left the Royal Navy without a carrier strike capability until 2020. As many noble Lords have also said, it also axed the Nimrod programme.
Later this year, the Government will publish their long-awaited SDSR 2015 and it will tell us a lot about their thinking. It should indicate how the Government want to balance hard power with soft power. Our use of soft power has been very effective for many years and we need to ensure that we retain our links and influences with European, transatlantic and Commonwealth allies and partners. The SDSR should interweave policy on defence with policies on foreign affairs, home affairs and, indeed, international development. Back in 2010, the Arab spring looked optimistic. I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord, Lord King, about the use of the word “Daesh”. IS is not a state and so talk of “IS” gives it some sort of legitimacy; it has no legitimacy whatever. Daesh was on no one’s radar. Russia had not invaded Crimea, China had not started sabre rattling on its eastern seaboard, and few had heard of Ebola. The mass movement of refugees on the scale that we have seen in the past month or so had not happened since the 1940s. Cyber attacks and the use of drones have brought a new approach to warfare in the 21st century.
While I listened to the noble Lord, Lord King, I reflected with a certain amount of irony on the fact that we saw the Arab spring unveiling on social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and the great excitement that we all felt as we watched it almost 24 hours a day on television as well. The irony is that it was social media that brought the Arab spring to us but it is social media that has allowed Daesh to gain so much power. It is very important that we understand it, and we need to know how to use it ourselves.
We know that events will happen that we did not predict, as well as some that we might. I am concerned that the Chancellor may have been a zealous overseer of this review. My guess is that, but for some minute fine-tuning, it is almost finished. We cannot ignore the costs of defence, but neither should the Treasury totally dictate defence policy. There has to be a balance. It is true that in the Budget the Chancellor guaranteed defence spending at a welcome 2% of GDP, and he has also guaranteed an annual growth of 5% until the end of the Parliament. But what is not yet clear, and I join many noble Lords who have said this in the debate today, is how much he will use the NATO flexibilities within this envelope to spend outside the traditional defence spend. Will the Minister explain the Government’s thinking on what proportion of the 2% will be on MoD expenditure and what on pensions, DfID and other related areas?
As an aside, the defence budget is a very complex one to put together. There are noble Lords here who have far more experience and understanding of that than I, but I wonder whether a longer period for budget planning might be better—say, a 10-year budget rather than the current five years.
We will see in the 2015 SDSR whether the Government have taken the opportunity to define their approach to foreign policy, from which our defence policy and the future debate should flow. Will it devote sufficient attention to the UK’s place in the world? As my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham, said, without a clear vision of where we want to be, or of the role we aspire to play and with whom, the SDSR risks looking at tactics rather than strategy.
We have heard in the debate much despair about the reduction of our maritime patrol capacity. The Minister gave an assurance at Question Time during the summer that the current capacity is adequate for our search and rescue obligations, but is it sustainable? As we have already heard, our shoreline is more than 10,000 miles long and our search and rescue area covers 1 million square miles. Moreover, what about its other military and strategic roles and functions? Are the Government confident that we are not at risk? Might this be an area that will be revisited in the forthcoming SDSR?
All the fancy kit in the world is useless if we do not have people who are trained and ready to use it. I am particularly concerned about the national aversion to STEM subjects and the shortage of engineers at all levels and in all the services. That might impact on our capability and the effectiveness of our services. Is the Minister able to offer any reassurance on this?
Future Force 2020 proposed reductions in the regular force balanced by huge increases in the reserves. Recruitment to the reserves has been sluggish at best. Can the Minister confirm whether we now have the balance right? Are all the training programmes for reservists in place? Are large employers more involved and being more helpful than was the case a year or so ago? This strategy was not without risk and should be kept under regular review. I echo the call of the noble Baronesses, Lady Fookes and Lady Hodgson of Abinger: service personnel and their families need to be valued, as do our veterans. If we are asking fewer people to accept longer deployments, that can take a toll on their effectiveness and on the well-being of their loved ones. The Armed Forces covenant should ensure that no service personnel or their families are placed at a disadvantage as a result of them serving their country—and similarly for veterans. Will the Minister explain how the Government, which in the last Parliament ensured a wide take-up of the covenant, are now monitoring its implementation and effectiveness?
At the beginning of the Summer Recess, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, I was fortunate enough to spend a week in Portsmouth with the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme. It is worth noting that all the women Peers taking part in the debate today either have been or are currently members of the scheme, which means that we are serious. During our week we visited ships and training facilities, shared in strategic briefings from senior naval officers and spoke to junior ratings and all those in between. They were frank and optimistic about the next defence review. They want a period of stability and certainty because change is hard to manage and difficult to implement. Along with their colleagues in the Army and the RAF, they are willing to put their lives on the line for us, so we owe it to them to offer the support they deserve.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, this debate, which has been initiated by the Minister, is most appropriate, coming as it does shortly before the Government finalise their pending 2015 strategic defence and security review. Presumably it is designed to achieve the aims of the national security strategy. I hope that in his response the Minister will be saying rather more than he has so far about the national security strategy and the Government’s current thinking on the SDSR, and the extent to which it will or will not either repeat or add to what his party said in its recent election manifesto. I will also wait to see if the Minister takes up the challenge posed by my noble friend Lord Davies of Stamford over the alleged black hole, assuming of course he survives the ministerial cull advocated by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. I also await with interest his responses to the powerful contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, on the case of Sergeant Blackman, as well as the points about the intended increase in our reserves and what will happen if that increase is not achieved.
One important point for a coherent strategic defence and security review is that it should set out both the thinking and the actual and anticipated developments which have led to the conclusions reached and decisions made. Without that, there will inevitably be doubts and uncertainty over the factors or pressures which have driven whatever proves to be the content and conclusions of the review. The SDSR, as has been said on more than one occasion in the debate, must be strategically driven. While there may be considerations or developments both actual and anticipated of a highly sensitive security nature which it may not be possible to disclose, I hope that the Minister will be able to give a commitment that the SDSR will be as open and transparent as it possibly can be in setting out the thinking and considerations which will have driven the conclusions and decisions reached, including the nature, length and extent of operations which our Armed Forces can be expected to undertake—including at any one point in time—in the light of the resources allocated.
The House of Commons Defence Committee published a report, I think last March, outlining a number of developments spelt out by the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, that it considered meant that the national security strategy was no longer adequate, along with the Future Force 2020 structure. The committee also felt that there was a need for a rebuilt conventional military deterrent against states such as Russia and for continuing investment in what it described as next-generation warfare, including strategic communications, cyber warfare capabilities and intelligence.
The Royal United Services Institute, in drawing attention to the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 and the distribution of the Libyan Government’s stock of arms across North Africa and the Middle East, has referred to concerns about the security implications of the proliferation of advanced military capabilities in the hands of non-state actors. Others, including noble Lords in this debate, have raised concerns about the loss for an island nation such as ours of a maritime patrol aircraft capability and about our ability in the future to defend the Falkland Islands. Can the Minister say whether these issues are among those being considered as part of the SDSR and the national security strategy? It would be helpful if he could also say something more about the Government’s thinking on the way in which the nature of military involvement, not least our military involvement, may be changing. Considerable publicity was given to the announcement by the Prime Minister last week that two British jihadis fighting in Syria had been killed by an RAF drone strike, which was long-distance military involvement conducted, as I understand it, by Armed Forces personnel within our own country. Technology can and does change the nature of military involvement and action, but so too does political decision-making. The Government have been very specific recently that we are not going to be involved in the latest actual or likely areas of military involvement through putting boots on the ground. Does that continue to reflect the Government’s approach and is that approach—which we saw in relation to Libya and which now applies in relation to Iraq—likely to be reflected in the SDSR?
Is there a Government view that we should be less actively involved militarily in future in what some might describe as other people’s conflicts, or is it the Government’s view that that should not be our stance but instead that where there is British military involvement in other countries, it should not be by having British troops on the ground engaged directly in military action? If the latter approach is the Government’s position, does that in their view mean a change in the relationship within our Armed Forces of the roles of the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force, a change sufficient to have a significant impact on how total available resources should be allocated in future between the three services?
I believe the Minister said that our forces were involved in 21 joint operations in 19 nations. It would be helpful if, following this debate, the noble Earl could provide more information on where our Armed Forces are currently involved in joint operations, and the nature and objectives of that involvement.
One issue which has been the subject of discussion and debate in the Chamber on a number of occasions and again today is cyber security and the threat of cyber attacks. I remember going to one discussion on cyber security outside this House at which one of the experts said, in essence, that it was effectively impossible to guarantee yourself protection from such attacks. The maximum that you could and should do was to make it as difficult as possible for those seeking to make such attacks, so that they were much more likely to turn their attention away from you and towards potentially weaker targets. The extent to which that factor might come into play may be more questionable in the defence field, where cyber attacks are more likely to be state-organised and state-run or financed. There ought to be a requirement on every company working with the Ministry of Defence, regardless of its size or the scale of its work, to meet the terms of a cyber security charter in order to seek to reduce the risk of hackers using small suppliers to break into the systems of major defence companies or the department itself. There also needs to be a requirement for all private companies to report serious cyber attacks threatening our national infrastructure, and that obviously applies to defence as well.
I do not of course expect the Minister to start going into detail about our own capabilities, either offensive or defensive, in the field of cyber security and cyber attacks, but I hope that he will be able to say something in general terms on this issue when he responds, including on how the additional resources which the Government have previously said are being put into cyber security have been and are being used. One would like to think that those who seek to attack us in this way are as wary of what we can do to them as we may be of what they might be able to do to us.
The need for defence, security, foreign affairs and international development strategies to be co-ordinated and developed together rather than in separate silos has never been greater. We are faced with a Middle East where conflict increasingly seems to be the norm rather than the exception. With that comes the consequence of large and increasing numbers of refugees within the Middle East itself and those seeking to reach Europe in the quest for the basic human desire of safety and security, and a chance to lead lives free of fear. In the Middle East and beyond, we face the impact of extremist terror and intra-Islamist conflict. In Ukraine, we have the instability and uncertainty created by hostile military intervention from Russia, while in the Far East we see China flexing its military muscles and desire for domination and control, which will probably only intensify as it faces economic difficulties within its own boundaries. In some other countries we see the emergence of nationalist movements and populist parties with their associated calls for a more introverted approach rather than the internationalist approach which must surely continue to be the way forward. The emergence of such movements and parties is usually driven by domestic issues, whether economic or political, which are portrayed as putting at risk prosperity, stability and identity.
The wide interest in the forthcoming SDSR and national security strategy will be shared by our defence industry and all those whose jobs, either directly or indirectly, depend on that industry. What are the Government’s objectives under the forthcoming SDSR for maintaining or increasing levels of employment in this area and the need, if that is to be achieved and the skills base protected and developed, of providing a regular and steady workflow?
It is usual in debates such as these to take the opportunity to express gratitude and thanks to our Armed Forces for the vital work they do and the commitment they show and give, and this debate should be no exception; indeed, it has been no exception in that regard. In the last few years in particular, the commitment shown in protecting, defending and furthering the interests of our nation both at home and overseas has led on more than just a few occasions to loss of life, or life-changing or serious injuries, physical and mental, to members of our Armed Forces. The potential sacrifice they know they may have to make is not some remote possibility. It is real, and they deserve our respect and admiration for being prepared to accept that burden on our behalf. The noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, spoke forcefully on the need to support and help both those who make that sacrifice and their families.
The forthcoming SDSR and the national security review should set out what we require of our Armed Forces in the years immediately ahead. We need to be sure that they have the resources, including personnel, to meet those objectives. If we do that, we know that our Armed Forces will deliver in full.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I think we would all agree that we have had a very constructive debate. I am exceedingly grateful for the contributions from all sides of the Chamber. I will try to deal with some of the points raised by noble Lords and noble and gallant Lords but I am conscious that I will probably be kept very busy writing letters for the next week or two as I do not think that I can answer in my closing speech every single question that has been put to me today.
The title of this debate asked us to take note,
“of the role and capabilities of the UK Armed Forces, in the light of global and domestic threats to stability and security”.
As all noble Lords are aware, that is a rather large field. We live in a world where, to use that almost eloquent Americanism, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns. In looking at the ongoing strategic defence and security review, we are peering into a very dark glass indeed. However, we know for certain that this SDSR should be different from the last. Given the 2% commitment, it is certainly not about cuts. That enables me to start by addressing the defence budget.
My noble friends Lord King and Lady Fookes picked up on the sentence included in my opening speech which reinforced the Government’s recognition that defence must always be the Government’s number one priority. Lest there be any doubt on the matter, I re-emphasise that this is the view of government as a whole. The Summer Budget document published by the Treasury said:
“The first duty of government is to ensure the safety and security of the country and its people”.
That document formalised our commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence until 2020. My noble friend Lord King questioned whether that would be enough. However, I remind him that that same document also committed to raise the MoD budget by 0.5% per annum in real terms over this Parliament. There will also be an additional £1.5 billion a year by 2020-21 in a new joint security fund.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, took us to the issue of strategy and rightly challenged me on our thinking. The SDSR will be framed in the context of the national security strategy. The strategic context is fundamental to the work now under way. Our analysis suggests that the 2010 national security strategy judgment that we were entering an age of uncertainty, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned, has been thoroughly vindicated in the intervening period. We anticipated that international terrorism would remain a major challenge and expected to see a range of domestic resilience challenges. Our decision to configure our Armed Forces to be flexible and adaptable to evolving threats has been proven correct.
However, we recognise that we have moved beyond the era of uncertainty to a period characterised best by heightened competition, instability and insecurity. I can tell the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, that resilience is very much a principle that we are factoring into our deliberations. In general, procurement levels are set to allow for operational losses and sufficient reliance. I take his specific point about the need for credible, conventional combat power in addition to the deterrent. We are confident that the deterrent itself remains capable and effective and that we maintain sufficient and capable conventional forces.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and other noble Lords questioned whether it was the Government’s genuine aim for the UK to remain a major global player. We are clear that there will be no reduction in Britain’s influence overseas. Our military, security, diplomatic and development capabilities are respected globally. Our diplomatic network spans 268 posts in 168 countries and territories and nine multilateral organisations. The UK has world-leading intelligence agencies and Armed Forces, a strong police force and an impressive National Crime Agency. The UK led the EU’s response to the crises in Syria and Iraq, including responding to the threat from ISIL. The Government will continue to do more on forward defence, reducing the threats before they reach our borders.
The right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, raised the issue of the SDSR process itself. In developing the NSS and SDSR, the Ministry of Defence, alongside the Cabinet Office, the FCO, DfID and the Home Office, has engaged with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders. We have met groups of external experts; hosted academic engagement sessions across the UK; participated in meetings with NGOs and industry round tables; we have briefed Back-Bench MPs, the House of Commons Defence Committee, interested Peers and the devolved Administrations. In total, we have discussed the review with more than 100 experts from nearly 40 different organisations and institutions. I can tell my noble friend Lord Selkirk that we have also engaged with international allies and partners and welcomed the public to write in with their thoughts. The right reverend Prelate, in particular, will wish to take note of the online poll that was conducted recently. We are serious about open policy-making. We have sought comments over the summer, as this gives us the time to analyse the results and feed them into the review process in a meaningful way. The poll is only one of several ways of engagement and offers the public another avenue for comment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, my noble friend Lord Selkirk, the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords spoke about the capabilities that we are reviewing in the SDSR. The SDSR is clearly an opportunity to re-examine our capability choices. In 2010, we highlighted that we would return to some questions in this review. Maritime patrol aircraft, ballistic missile defence and future combat aircraft fit into that category and they will all be considered. We also committed to considering NATO’s capability shortfalls and which ones we could help to mitigate. I am afraid it is too early to discuss options and decisions in detail, although I will comment on particular questions that noble Lords have raised in a second. The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, asked whether defence engagement would become a formal military task. The framework by which defence activity is directed is currently being revised as part of the review. Defence engagement is clearly a very important defence function and is likely to be very prominent in the future framework for defence. I am afraid that is as far as I can go at the moment, but I hope he will take comfort from the fact that it is in our sights.
The noble Lord also asked me about army basing. The army basing programme enables the Army to reorganise into its new Army 2020 structures, and delivers the Government’s 2010 SDSR commitment to bring all UK military units back from Germany by 2020. The programme has been delivered jointly by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and the Army. Although some units have already withdrawn from Germany to the UK, the majority of the 30 moves or re-roles conducted in 2013-14 were inside the UK. In the summer of this year, some 5,200 service personnel and their families, totalling 10,000 people, will have returned from Germany to the UK.
The final phase of the army basing programme involves the remaining units in Germany, principally 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade based in Paderborn, and completes a number of residual internal UK moves. The whole programme is still scheduled to complete by 2020. There are sufficient funds to complete the programme and it is on track. We were considering bringing it forward but have decided instead to leave the plans in place. There are no plans to leave any units or force elements in Germany.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, posed the question of why we are in Iraq and whether it was just because we had been invited by that country to provide assistance. Let me make it clear: ISIL threatens the people of the Middle East and poses a threat to our own national security. Defeating ISIL will take time and patience but it is a fight that we must win. The UK is part of a global coalition of over 60 countries, including Iraq, Arab nations, European partners and the United States, united to defeat ISIL. The UK contribution to the coalition effort is significant. We provide capability across the full spectrum of air power, including niche and highly advanced intelligence surveillance, reconnaissance and airstrike capabilities, and in many other areas. ISIL, as has been said, cannot just be defeated by military action. The underlying causes must also be addressed, which is why we are supporting inclusive governance in Iraq and political transition in Syria.
My noble friend Lord King rightly emphasised the importance of maintaining NATO as a strong and credible alliance to deter and face down any possible aggression. As I am sure he knows, the UK has made a significant contribution to NATO’s reassurance exercises since they came into being in May last year. NATO’s readiness action plan provides a comprehensive package of measures, including the development of the very high readiness joint task force and assurance measures to respond to changes in the security environment on NATO’s borders, including challenges posed by Russia. In my opening speech I mentioned the contribution that we were making and will continue to make in future. However, it is fair to say that the NATO summit in Wales in September last year demonstrated alliance solidarity at a time of tension on NATO’s borders, a tension that continues. It saw agreement on a number of key objectives, including NATO’s readiness action plan, which seeks to increase the responsiveness of allies through the development of the very high readiness joint task force, and by conducting assurance measures, particularly exercises in the eastern and Baltic states. Those exercises of course provide valuable training opportunities as well as contributing to the reassurance of Eastern allies.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, took me somewhat to task on several matters, including the so-called funding black hole in the MoD budget. I have no wish to irritate the noble Lord in the slightest. First, I readily acknowledge that many of the programmes that we are currently pursuing were initiated by the previous Labour Government. Ministers in that Government would perhaps not have been exposed to the £38 billion number, as it became apparent only during SDSR 2010 costing. The Government reported to the House of Commons Defence Committee on the figure of £38 billion in 2012. I am happy to write to the noble Lord with the figures that we provided to the committee at that time.
My noble friend Lord Attlee asked how we would ensure that no black hole would occur in the future. It is the job of Ministers to ensure that the MoD budget is in balance with its spending programme. The public spending envelope across government is now so strict and disciplined that it cannot be otherwise. It is our duty to report regularly and transparently to the Treasury and to account for our spending and our spending plans. Of course, we receive the benefit of its close oversight.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, my noble friend Lord Selkirk of Douglas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, spoke about maritime patrol aircraft. We have acknowledged that we have a maritime surveillance capability gap following the decision not to bring the Nimrod MRA4 into service. However, we have also made it clear that it is one that we have chosen to accept. We have not sought to pretend otherwise. It is a gap that we have been able to mitigate through the employment of other assets, as noble Lords have mentioned, particularly also through co-operation with our allies who have deployed maritime patrol aircraft on several occasions.
We are conscious that this issue is in the sights of many people. It is very much in ours. It has been the subject of recent studies by the Ministry of Defence. We have received representations from a number of industrial organisations and those have allowed us to understand better the nature of the platforms currently in existence, as well as the timeframe in which novel technologies are likely to mature. I mentioned the support of our allies. Incidentally, that is not a one-way street. We supply support to our allies in return, such as air-to-air refuelling, surveillance and transport.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned the F35 joint strike fighter. That is the world’s largest single defence programme. We have played an important role in the system design and demonstration phase, as he knows, resulting in significant contracts and jobs for UK industry. To date, we have taken delivery of three F35B aircraft. A further five for the UK are in production and are scheduled to be delivered in 2016 and early 2017. UK F35 initial operating capability is scheduled for 2018 and remains on track.
Earl Howe
I am coming to that. The F35 programme has been established as an incremental acquisition programme with production contracts being led initially on an annual basis. We will order sufficient lightning aircraft to build up our initial carrier strike capability, but the overall number of joint strike fighter aircraft to be purchased will not be determined before the strategic defence and security review at the earliest.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, referred to the Type 26 global combat ship, which will progressively replace Type 23 frigates from 2022 onwards. We are implementing an incremental approach to approvals and commitment on the T26 global combat ship programme, with separate approvals covering demonstration and manufacture phases. On current planning and subject to a main gate decision, the manufacture phase will begin in 2016. He asked about the national shipbuilding strategy. The strategy announced by the Chancellor on 30 January this year is progressing well and its conclusions will form part of the forthcoming strategic defence and security review later this year. The aim of that strategy is to help deliver world-class ships for the Royal Navy while ensuring the best value for money for the taxpayer. It will also ensure that the Navy continues to have the capability that it needs to protect our nation’s interests and ensure continued investment in UK warship production.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred to cyber. I readily agree that, in defence, cyber is essential to preserve our freedom to operate despite cyber threats and to achieve military effects through and in cyberspace. The whole of the defence supply chain also faces cyber threats. In 2013, the Defence Cyber Protection Partnership was launched as a joint government/industry initiative to increase the resilience of the defence sector. Our Armed Forces depend on equipment and services provided by industry. In government we face similar challenges, and we believe that that partnership will be of considerable value; indeed, it is already proving to be.
I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, on the issues around industrial policy because they are very important. I would simply mention in particular the Defence Growth Partnership, which I believe will see us achieve a more thriving defence sector in the UK underpinned by work to improve international competitiveness and to target research investment more efficiently and effectively.
I cannot finish without referring to personnel issues, which my noble friend Lady Hodgson and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, among others, emphasised with considerable persuasiveness. The Armed Forces are changing to meet the Future Force 2020 structure, which requires reductions in some capabilities and the growth of others. They are actively recruiting to sustain manning balance across all skill sets, preserve future operational capability and support regular and reserve manning ratios. Recruitment continues to be supported by significant marketing activity in the current financial year. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, that we need to increase attraction rates for a number of key trades such as medics and cyber engineers, nuclear, maritime and aviation. These are a particular issue due to national skills shortages. The latter issue is being explored in collaboration with other government departments. A joint team with industry has now been established and is undertaking a pathfinder project to allow the movement of skilled people across the defence sector.
With regard to the reserves, the new employment model that emerged from the 2010 SDSR aims to produce a modernised offer that reflects modern society. This is a wide-ranging review of the terms and conditions of service for service personnel, both regular and reserves, covering four broad policy areas: pay and allowances, accommodation, training and education, and career structures and career management. I will write further on where we are on recruitment and retention but I believe, as a result of a short brief I received this morning, that we are heading in the right direction.
With time moving on, with the leave of noble Lords I will cover just a few more issues. The right reverend Prelate raised the matter of women in ground close combat roles. That is not strictly an SDSR issue, as I expect he knows, but, following a review of the exclusion of women from ground close combat roles, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence announced at the end of last year that defence welcomes the prospect of opening ground close combat roles to women subject to the outcome of further physiological research before a final decision is taken in 2016.
The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, referred to the much discussed case of Sergeant Alexander Blackman, and I listened carefully to all that he said. There is a proper limit to what I can say in my ministerial capacity, as I know he recognises. But it is common knowledge that Sergeant Blackman appealed to the Court Martial Appeal Court, which incidentally is a wholly civilian court made up of the same judges who sit in the civilian Court of Appeal. The fairness and objectivity of that process was reflected by the decision on 22 May last year by the Court Martial Appeal Court, chaired by the Lord Chief Justice himself, which decided not to overturn the conviction of a life sentence. The court did reduce the minimum term Mr Blackman must serve from 10 to eight years. The full reasoning behind that judgment was published on the Ministry of Justice website, and it was based on the consideration of a range of factors that I will not go into. The MoD has, and can have, no view on Sergeant Blackman’s guilt or innocence. It would be improper for us to express a view. There is a legal process to determine that question. The MoD will however of course fully co-operate with the judicial process.
The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, referred to the issue of Afghan interpreters and locally employed civilians. Our policy offers a redundancy relocation option that does not require local staff to prove that they are at risk. The policies of other NATO nations are largely based on asylum criteria. I would just say that the way that the Government’s policy and the implementation of that policy have been portrayed in the press has been wrong and misleading. We are the only nation with a permanent team of trained investigation officers in-country to investigate claims of intimidation. These experts have provided support to over 200 former local staff. A total of 500 local staff are eligible for relocation to the UK under the redundancy scheme, out of whom 170 have already moved to the UK along with their families, bringing the current total to 400. I am happy to write further to the noble Lord but I would add that the intimidation policy, which is quite separate from the ex gratia redundancy policy, allows for all current and former local staff members, regardless of dates or length of employment, whose safety has been threatened to approach us to consider relocation.
I have been advised that I have overshot my time. I will write to noble Lords about the other subjects that I have not been able to cover, notably the Armed Forces covenant. I listened very carefully to the comments from my noble friend Lady Buscombe on the Border Force command and listed buildings in Portsmouth.
I am conscious that I am in danger of exhausting the Committee’s patience, if I have not done so already, so I conclude by thanking all those noble Lords and noble and gallant Lords who have taken part in the debate. I look forward to writing to them over the next few days.