The Role and Capabilities of the UK Armed Forces, in the Light of Global and Domestic Threats to Stability and Security

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Grand Committee

[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.

Counter-ISIL Coalition Strategy

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I do agree and I am grateful to my noble friend for his comments. He is quite right: ISIL does not respect international boundaries. My Secretary of State has said publicly that he thinks it is logically incoherent that the United Kingdom is unable to engage in offensive operations over the border into Syria, whereas it is able to do so in Iraq. Nevertheless, we have been absolutely clear that we will return to Parliament for a separate decision if we propose to take military action against ISIL in Syria. Having said that, as the Prime Minister has made clear, if there were a critical British national interest at stake, or a need to act to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, we would act immediately in those circumstances and explain to Parliament afterwards.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, I have no particular brief to offer an explanation of what my noble and gallant friend Lord Richards said recently. However, if we take seriously the fact that ISIL must be defeated, the broad strategy of the coalition must be pursued with all vigour. I am sure that the noble Earl agrees with that. We need to do that to make sure that we do not, in extremis, ultimately have to put British soldiers and British units on the ground. Therefore, we must do everything short of doing that. Does the noble Earl agree that, although it is tremendous that there is now a coalition of 60 nations fighting ISIL, those myriad 60 countries can lead to confusion among those we are trying to help? A country such as the United Kingdom has great expertise in providing training teams, equipment and know-how to those fighting on the ground. Therefore, will the noble Earl bring to bear all the influence he can within the Ministry of Defence to ensure that we deploy our maximum efforts to send British training teams, so that our expertise is maximised and the confusion which a number of the recipient countries are experiencing is reduced?

[Earl Howe]

I agree with the thrust of the noble Lord’s points and questions. He is absolutely right that, to the extent that we are able to do so, we should use our strongest endeavours to contribute to the anti-ISIL effort. We will contribute around 85 military personnel to US-led training of the moderate Syrian opposition, training thousands of screened members of the opposition over the next three years in, for example, the use of small arms, infantry tactics and medical skills. More than 6,000 Syrians have volunteered for the train-and-equip programme and are in various stages of registration, pre-screening and vetting. It is imperative that we attract, recruit and retain the right candidates. We screen potential recruits thoroughly.

Our focus will initially be on helping the new Syrian forces defend communities against ISIL and eventually lead offences against its brutal attacks. Training will take place in Turkey and other countries in the region. I have already referred to the training we are undertaking in Iraq, which, as I have said, is welcomed by the Iraqi Government and is proving effective.

Defence: Budget

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, while congratulating the Conservative Party on winning a clear majority at the recent general election, but noting that senior members of that party were quoted in the election campaign as saying that there were “no votes in defence”, and noting furthermore that, unlike the position in some other political parties, there was, and still is, a steadfast resistance to committing to 2% of GDP being spent on defence other than in 2015-16, I do not think I am alone in being genuinely concerned that our new Government are not showing sufficient commitment to the security of our country or their citizens at home and abroad.

I know that the noble Earl—who we very much welcome to his position—will echo his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence in saying that all these issues are being addressed in the forthcoming strategic defence and security review, but I do not think that that is good enough. Will President Putin wait until our SDSR is completed before he decides his next move in eastern Ukraine or the Baltic? Are the leaders of the so-called Islamic State going to wait similarly before they decide their next moves? Of course not, but the danger of another six months of prevarication is that the UK’s position in the world will continue to look weak. The US will remain anxious that a once-reliable partner is now enfeebled, and other European states which look to the UK for a lead on defence matters will follow our limp lead and kick the issue of defence funding into the long grass.

The former Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said before the 2010 general election that he sensed no national appetite for strategic shrinkage. Appetite or not, the reality is that we have shrunk in terms of defence and security, while the world has become a less stable and more dangerous place. What I find so depressing about all this is that, if the Government were to show some determination and leadership in these matters and make the commitment to spending 2% of GDP on defence, we are talking about only a billion pounds here or there. That is the delta in all this. That is a comparatively small price to pay to secure our place in the eyes of our allies and be of note to our enemies. More worryingly, I have heard it quoted from a Minister in the other place that, even if we did commit to 2%, we would not know what to spend it on. That remark, if true, is as naive as it is dangerous.

Many noble and gallant Members of this House who have had senior responsibility for defence programming matters know that there is always a list of compelling new equipments and capabilities competing for funding in the defence programme. I name but one—the Army’s medium-weight vehicle replacement programme. Articulated in 2002 and effectively cancelled in 2007 with the exception of the Scout vehicle, our land forces, if committed today, would be woefully at risk in another conventional combat operation of any size. If we have learned anything from Iraq and Afghanistan, it is that we must send our young men and women into battle, on behalf of our nation, with the right equipment, right from the start.

Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill [HL]

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak with some diffidence, it being nearly 60 years since I completed my own national service—and I now speak as a superannuated judge. But this new power in the first amendment strikes me as a very remarkable and extreme power. It confers on the complainant an unlimited appeal right and on the ombudsman an unlimited power to hear an open appeal on the substance and merits of the complaint on a de novo basis. By definition, by this stage, the aggrieved complainant will have failed to establish and failed to persuade the various levels in the chain of command of the merits of his complaint on a number of occasions.

This new provision is strikingly different from the well known formula that appears in the TPIM Act 2011, which I take as an illustration, where review and appeal rights are thus constrained:

“the court must apply the principles applicable on an application for judicial review”.

I repeat: here there is an unlimited appeal. When promoting the Bill at Third Reading last October, the Government originally objected to any such provision on the basis that it undermined the military chain of command. It is true, as the Minister said today, that at the end of the process the ombudsman’s findings—and, if they are favourable to the complainant, recommended redress—go to the Defence Council. Frankly, the Defence Council will effectively be obliged to give effect to them, unless it chooses, as would be its right, to judicially review the ombudsman’s conclusions. If the Defence Council does not do that and does not give effect to them, it is highly likely that the complainant will judicially review the Defence Council.

For my part, I can do no more at this stage than offer such support as I can to the urging on the Government from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, to make sure that those who will exercise this radical new power in the ombudsman and entertain a service complaint not against the background of their own service experience, and despite its failure before the various levels of the military, will at the very least be trained so that they fully understand the exigencies of service life.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, I support the observations made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. It is somewhat disappointing that there is this residual difficulty in the main thrust of the Bill, which one very much supports—it is perhaps a regret that we have to have an ombudsman at all, but that is where we are.

I simply make two points. The first is in support of what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said: if this goes through, those who take part in this process must be properly trained so that they understand the circumstances and context in which the cases come. Secondly, I simply observe that the cause of a large number of the cases in the pipeline is excessive delay, often occasioned by complaints not being investigated at a low enough level in the chain of command process. In reading noble Lords’ comments in this short debate, I hope that every effort will continue to be made to streamline the process such that complaints can be dealt with speedily at a low level, so that we do not get the backlog of the size that we currently have. This will lead to much greater efficiency in the system, which will bring satisfaction and resolution through speedy agreement.

[Baroness Manzoor (LD)]

I congratulate my noble friend on the amendments that have been proposed. As a former Legal Services Ombudsman in England and Wales, I think it is right that one looks at the substance and merits of the complaint. Without that, you deal only with issues of delay. To take the point that the noble Lord made, any decent, transparent, effective and efficient ombudsman can take into consideration different complaints and the time that they will take. If you allow a draft report to the defence side or to the service side, will the complainant also get the option to comment on the draft report? After all, the role of an ombudsman is to be independent, transparent and fair in every way.

Defence Budget

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My noble friend mentioned the previous Government’s £30 billion defence budget. We now have a £34 billion defence budget and because it has been brought back into balance, we are able to invest in the latest military equipment in the coming decade.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I agree entirely with my noble friend. We need a strong economy to have strong Armed Forces.

[Lord Dannatt]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that however welcome his message is of a 1% increase in defence equipment expenditure, this does not address the whole defence budget? Does he furthermore agree that we should salute the bravery of Lance Corporal Leakey, who won the Victoria Cross recently? This underlines that it is our military manpower that makes the British Armed Forces what they are, not a 1% increase in expenditure, because when there has to be a cut, it comes in manpower. When I commanded the Army, it was 102,000 strong. Now, four or five years later, it is 82,000.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord and salute the recent recipient of the Victoria Cross. The Prime Minister has made it very clear that he does not want any reduction in the numbers of the Armed Forces below the level at which they are now, and he remains committed to growing the Reserves to 35,000.

Armed Forces: Baltic Defence

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, we are not unprepared. Our equipment programme represents a substantial investment: some £163 billion over 10 years on equipment and equipment support, ensuring that our Armed Forces retain a formidable range of cutting-edge capabilities, and the ability to project power across the globe, hence aircraft carriers. This investment is not only securing the best possible military capability; it is also helping to secure UK jobs and growth.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that there is in this House quite a mood of concern about the level of defence expenditure? We have also seen the concern expressed in the media. We are aware that there is a Bill currently going through your Lordships’ House to place 0.7% of GDP into the international development budget by law. Would the Minister consider a government amendment to that Bill, or an addition to that Bill, to link that to 2% of GDP for defence spending?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I note the concern, but the defence budget this year is £33.8 billion. We have the second largest defence budget in the alliance—behind the US—and certainly the largest in the European Union. The UK remains a global power, making the second biggest contribution to the campaign against ISIL and sending 750 military personnel into Sierra Leone to help fight Ebola.

Al-Sweady Inquiry Report

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his support. I agree very much with what he says. He is concerned about service men and women on operations. I have discussed this issue at some length with the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, who I know also has concerns on this. I have spoken to many service men and women in the Army and the Marines, and I think that we have got it right at the moment. We learnt a lot of lessons in Iraq and Afghanistan—lessons learnt by the previous Government—regarding detention, interrogation and the rules of engagement. The lawyers learnt a lot of lessons, too. A few years ago I had many complaints about lawyers from soldiers, but I have not had a single one since I have been a Minister. I feel quite comfortable—from talking to soldiers, especially to the Special Forces, although we cannot say too much about that—that we are in a good place at the moment.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, as a former Chief of the General Staff, and speaking on behalf of all those who have served, are serving and will serve in the Army, I can say that this report is extraordinarily welcome. It is no surprise because the allegations were so outrageous that they were always going to be found to be baseless. I say that because, as I am sure the noble Lord will agree, when we believe that things have gone wrong we are not backward in coming forward to launch an investigation. Baha Mousa, who has been mentioned several times in the Chamber this afternoon, is a clear case of that.

Does the Minister agree that what comes out of this report, among other things, is that there is a somewhat unhealthy predisposition to take the allegations sufficiently seriously when common sense and normal practice—and the normal values and standards of behaviour of the Army—fly in the face of those allegations? There has been a predisposition to take seriously allegations by a firm called Public Interest Lawyers, but in whose public interest it operates I really do not know. We took it so seriously that we were prepared to spend 10 years and £31 million investigating something that many people, after a preliminary investigation, would have thought was baseless, as it has turned out to be. The stress and strain placed on many worthy servicemen who were doing their duty in the most difficult circumstances is an outrage and a stain on a wider process. I hope we do not go down the same track again and enter into an investigative process where the likelihood of a conviction coming out of it is so extraordinarily low.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord and I pay tribute to all those service men and women who served in Iraq. I know that the noble Lord had a very distinguished service out there. Lessons have been learnt. Ministers are very concerned about the situation; we have discussed it at great length. I assure the noble Lord that lessons have been learnt. We do not want ever to have another inquiry like this. I make no criticism of the previous Government for calling this inquiry. There were very good reasons for doing it. However, we need to talk to the legal industry to see whether there is some way of avoiding going down this road ever again.

Armed Forces

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

At the outset I thank the Minister and ask him to pass on my thanks to the Leader of the House and the government Chief Whip for making time available for this important debate this afternoon and evening. During the Question for Short Debate in my name on defence manning on Monday 7 April, many noble Lords who spoke that evening asked for time to be made available to explore defence issues more widely. I am most grateful that that opportunity has been provided today.

What also makes this afternoon’s debate most timely is the general election next May and the quite proper defence and security review that will follow. I certainly welcome the current Government’s commitment to hold such a defence and security review once in every five-year Parliament. This is clearly a step forward and will prevent a repetition of the 12 or 13-year gap between the Labour Government’s SDR of 1997-98 and the coalition Government’s SDSR of 2010. So our eyes now should be on the review to come in 2015. That review will be conducted within the context of the international security environment within which we currently sit—an environment that has changed significantly since 2010.

Although I stress the importance of the strategic context of any defence review, it is inevitable that the allocation of resources by any Government will be a major constraining factor. Indeed, as we know, in the 2010 SDSR it was financial considerations that took a higher priority than strategic considerations, with the result that the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces were constrained to provide for the defence of the realm and the safety of our citizens at home and abroad from a defence budget that was, in effect, 17% less than before.

Why do I say 17% less? I use the figure of 17% because rebalancing the then defence budget and filling in the £35 billion black hole inherited by the coalition Government itself equated to about a 10% reduction in defence spending over 10 years, and the Chancellor, of course, wanted his cut in the headline defence budget of some 7% or 8%. Hence we were in the position where the MoD had to do what it needed to do on behalf of the nation with some 17% or so less resource than previously.

In those circumstances choices had to be made, and they were. The major policy decision was to prioritise spending on defence equipment at the expense of manpower, which translated into 30,000 posts being cut from the regular manpower of the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, the Army and the Royal Air Force. Such manpower reductions, even if to be mitigated by a planned and, let us hope it happens, increase in Reserve Forces, certainly in the case of the Army, could not be cut by the traditional practice of salami slicing.

The 2010 SDSR outcome required structural change and has produced Force 2020, within which Army 2020 has set out a 10-year migration plan to move from a Regular Army of 102,000 trained strength to 82,000. It is worth reflecting for a moment on the implications of that 10-year migration plan. First, it is a10-year migration plan with a large number of moving parts: withdrawing the Army from Germany; rebasing many units within the United Kingdom, in particular focusing our armoured units increasingly in the Salisbury Plain area; integrating reserve manpower with regular manpower to a greater extent than ever before; and implementing a redundancy programme while endeavouring to manage voluntary outflow in order to keep a sensible manning profile. In my view, the current Chief of the General Staff and his team have done a remarkable job in redesigning the Army in order to maintain a certain level of capability from a deck of cards dealt to them which had many twos and threes and not a sniff of a picture card.

From this, my second and third points on Army 2020 flow. Whereas in 2006 to 2009, when our land forces were heavily committed to major operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously, we were able to deploy as a nation nine Army brigades and the Royal Marine brigade in two five-brigade cycles, providing troops to both operational theatres. However, in future we will have only six Army brigades, some heavily dependent on mobilised reserves. Therefore, in future we could provide forces for only one operation on the scale of Iraq or Afghanistan, not two.

So, therefore, in headline terms, the potential output of our land forces is some 50% less than before, a reduction forced by an apparently modest 7% to the defence budget but one which, as I have already argued, is in reality a 17% cut. However, irrespective of whether you prefer to talk about a 7% or 17% cut, a 50% reduction in land forces capability is a fairly poor deal.

My third point on Army 2020 is that the scale of the structural reorganisation to deliver even this significantly reduced level of land force capability is such that the Army cannot implement the migration to Army 2020 should there be any further cuts to its budget. Any further cuts will inevitably lead to Army 2020 being torn up and a new plan devised, with a loss of credibility in the whole point of trying to plan sensibly for the future, not to mention the loss of morale among those serving and an unhealthy dose of cynicism about the whole government process.

Therefore, notwithstanding the Chancellor’s warning in his recent Budget speech that there will have to be further reductions in overall government spending, there is a widely held view that to remove further funding from defence will seriously call into question the Armed Forces’ ability to continue the migration towards Force 2020 and field even the reduced level of capability provided for by the SDSR.

My comments thus far have focused around the reductions to our Armed Forces which were necessitated in 2010 by the overall reduction in government spending, but the proper context for a discussion about defence issues should focus on our strategic goals within the current security environment. This should be the start point for any strategic defence and security review.

It is fair to say that we have little control over the wider security environment: events unfold, strategic shocks happen and we have to deal with the consequences. However, we do have control over our national ambition and therefore the setting of our national strategic goals. Being clear about this must be the start point for any defence and security review. However, is there an appetite to have that discussion? As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, has already alluded to, the Foreign Secretary is on the record as saying that he senses no appetite for strategic shrinkage, but is he right? If he is right, how is the UK to continue to maintain its position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, as a member of the G8 or G7 and the G20, as a firm ally of the United States, as the leading European military power within NATO and, of course, as the leader of the Commonwealth? We have managed to fulfil these responsibilities in the past by maintaining a good level of defence spending—yes, probably punching above our weight—taking risk where we need to and by recruiting high-quality people to our Armed Forces who see such service as an attractive career prospect.

What are the options for the future? I have already rehearsed the view that any further cuts to defence spending would be highly damaging as the Armed Forces migrate towards Force 2020. I have no sympathy with the view that the results of SDSR 2010 will produce smaller and more capable Armed Forces. As far as I am concerned, they will only produce smaller Armed Forces. Quantum has a quality of its own and smaller means smaller. I have already illustrated the reduction in our land forces’ capability. We are less capable now because we are smaller.

So do we spend more on defence? Looking at Syria, Iraq and Ukraine today, there is certainly a case that can be made for that. So should we spend more on defence if we want to maintain our current position in the world, or do we accept that the UK’s role is indeed diminished and therefore lower our national ambition accordingly, even if there is apparently no appetite for that?

Or perhaps, as we say at home in Norfolk, we should do different. There is an avenue of difference that we could embrace if we want to try to maintain our current level of influence and status on the world stage. I am not about to make the case for so-called soft power as an alternative to hard power, but I will make the case for better integration of our overall defence capability with our diplomatic skills and our determination to fund a high level of international development work. Embraced as a determined government policy, the integration of defence, diplomacy and development, plus an acknowledged role for the private sector, could retain the UK in an influential position. However, this will happen only if such an initiative is endorsed and led at the very top of government; if the strategy is agreed by the National Security Council; and if all the various government departments, at all levels, work closely with each other.

The challenge here is to get better at horizon scanning, to get better at spotting potentially failing states and engaging with them early to prevent them failing and falling prey to extremist or terrorist opportunists. It is a widely accepted truism that prevention is better than cure and our recent experiences of interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan followed by nation building under fire, which have proved so expensive in the expenditure of blood and treasure, should make the case for acting differently on the world stage and seeking to prevent conflict rather than dealing with the consequences of it.

The noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, made reference to the role of women in combat units. Before I draw my points to a conclusion, I shall offer my views on women in combat units. I would like to make it quite clear that within the Army, the Navy and the Air Force women have an enormous role to play and that what they bring to all aspects of our life is without equal. However, there is a question that needs to be addressed, and that is whether it is correct, appropriate or right for women to serve in our front-line combat units. It is important to understand that combat units—in the case of the Army these are the infantry or the armoured corps—are the units that we commit by design to offensive operations. The mission of that unit, that battalion, that company or that platoon is to go forward, under shot and fire, with fixed bayonet and close with extreme violence on an enemy. The question I ask is this: is it an appropriate task for a woman? Is it actually an appropriate task for anyone, but in particular, is it one for a woman?

I expressed these views in either a radio or a television programme a while ago, and received a certain amount of mail, as one might expect. One lady wrote to me and described the sort of the person she thought I was. I did not actually agree with her description. She also said, “Surely we can trust our commanding officers to know when it is appropriate to use their personnel”. I am afraid that that comment completely undermined her other point. That is because the basic fighting unit of an armoured regiment is a four-person tank crew. The basic fighting unit of an infantry battalion is a four-person fire team. How can a commanding officer be expected to say, “This task is appropriate for a fire team or tank crew that includes women, but that task is not”? Frankly, as Chiefs of Staff, former Chiefs of Staff and Members of this Parliament, we have a responsibility to take that decision and say what is appropriate for men and what is appropriate for women. I am afraid that I am implacable in my view that a woman in a four-person fire team or two women in a four-person tank crew is not appropriate. We have absolutely to own this unpopular decision and take it in the best interests of our overall capability.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Dannatt]

With that off my chest, I will draw to a conclusion.

The 2010 SDSR, in response to the national financial situation and in recognition of the inherited overdraft in defence, reduced defence spending and reduced our defence capability. It has produced smaller—not smaller and better, just smaller—Armed Forces. The international security situation as we approach the next defence review in 2015 looks considerably more challenging than it did in 2010. Cutting UK defence spending any further would send all the wrong messages to the Kremlin, to al-Qaeda and to those who do not share our British values. A modest increase in defence expenditure would signal that the UK still takes its international responsibilities seriously and would reassure both our NATO partners and our principal ally, the United States.

If no more money for defence can be found and we wish to maintain our historic level of international influence, then the alternative of better integrating our overall defence, diplomacy and development capability offers a different and potentially beneficial path. But we must remember that even if we go down that alternative path, what underpins our overall policy and our overall position in the world, and what guarantees the overall security of the British people, is a strong defence capability. SDSR 2010 weakened the UK and the world is now even more challenging, so SDSR 2015 will be a watershed. The next Government must remember first and last that their primary responsibility is the defence of the realm and the safety of our citizens, and they must not forget their duty to the well-being of the members of our Armed Forces—a relevant thought tonight as we enter Armed Forces week.

Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill [HL]

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, in approaching the Bill I have perhaps an unsurprising ambiguity towards it, wishing on the one hand that there was no need for it yet recognising on the other that that wish is not entirely realistic. My hope for the Bill is therefore that its implementation will be done well. Implementation will be the key to the Bill’s success. As the Minister said in introducing the Bill this afternoon, whatever happens must not prejudice the integrity of the chain of command. I am extraordinarily encouraged to hear that the Chiefs of Staff have been consulted closely for their views on this and that this particular, key point is recognised.

However, there is one lurking concern: that the ombudsman process provides an alternative route if the main complaints procedure is not followed. I would hope, first, that this route would be followed rarely and in extremis. Perhaps the existence of that alternative process might be an encouragement to the chain of command to make sure that it deals as properly as it can with complaints as they come up through that chain

Secondly, in terms of implementation, the new arrangements must be properly resourced. The current Service Complaints Commissioner has done an extraordinarily good job over the past six years and I wish to associate myself with the compliments and congratulations that have been offered towards her. However, there is no doubt that her work has been made more difficult by the very small team that she had to support her and the comparative lack of resources made available to her.

The main target for the successful implementation of the Bill is to attack delay. It is well known that in many circumstances justice delayed is justice denied, and in recent years delay has been the focus of much work within the chain of command. Many of the new powers within the Bill will allow delay to be tackled, particularly in dealing with cases at the most appropriate level. It has not been satisfactory in the past that cases could not be dealt with at what would seem to be the logical level and have been taken up higher up the chain of command than need have been.

Delay has been attacked vigorously over the past few years, and in theory has been reduced. It does not appear to be so in all circumstances, though, because the number of cases of complaint has increased. I think that is so for two reasons: first, the fact that awareness of the complaints process and procedure has increased, and therefore more people are aware of the ability to complain about something; and, secondly, the wider litigious environment in which we find ourselves. That said, delay must be tackled; that is the key to the success of the Bill and is the key point as far as implementation is concerned.

I also welcome the fourth clause in the Bill regarding financial assistance. Anything that can be done to improve the integration between the public, private and charitable sectors in the way in which we support our veterans and their families has to be welcome. People often say, “Surely the Government should do more”, to which my reply invariably has been, “The British way in looking after our veterans and their families has been for the public, private and charitable sectors to come together”. This is a recognition that the Government, the public sector, can do more in that triumvirate, that trinity of activity, and I therefore welcome the clause.

Armed Forces

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dannatt]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of whether they have sufficient manpower and the right balance of regular and reserve forces within the Armed Forces in order to meet the United Kingdom’s current national and international responsibilities and requirements.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, in opening this evening’s short debate, perhaps I may first thank those noble Lords who are taking part, albeit somewhat later than we had anticipated, and other noble Lords who have indicated their interest in this question but who are not able to be in their places. To me this level of participation underlines the importance of the matters we are considering.

I am also aware that this short debate comes hard on the heels of the Defence Reform Bill, which has now passed all its stages in your Lordships’ House, and that the question of manning the Army Reserve was the subject of some discussion. Indeed, I spoke on the subject during the Committee stage and was minded to table an amendment at the Report stage. However, I make no apology for returning to this key topic, and I do so in the context of both regular and reserve manning, not just for the Army but for the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines and the Royal Air Force, too.

I believe that this subject can be properly addressed only if it is done so in its full context. It seems to me that, when the coalition Government took their decisions on the size and shape of the Armed Forces at the time of their strategic defence and security review in 2010, they did so against the background of the way the world looked then and in the midst of the economic crisis; we were in the early days of the current age of austerity. In headline terms, a decision was taken to prioritise defence equipment over manpower—a not altogether unreasonable decision given the long lead times in defence procurement and the need to preserve British jobs in the defence industries. However, in order to balance the books, manpower reductions of 30,000 personnel across the three armed services were required, which inevitably would fall most heavily on the Army, but they also fell with considerable impact on the other services, in particular on our ability to man the fleet both now and in the future, especially when the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers and the new offshore patrol vessels come into service.

As regards the Army, the mitigation of the risks inherent in a 20,000 cut in Regular Army manpower would be the recruitment and training of an Army Reserve of 30,000, giving an overall integrated Army manpower strength of 112,000. Put like that, this looks to be a reasonable outcome, but doubt has remained as to whether the Regular Army component of just 82,000 of that overall total is sufficient for the nation’s needs, and whether the target of 30,000 trained reservists to round out Army 2020 is even achievable.

When this policy was announced, it was originally stated that the major draw-down of regular manpower would not occur until the strength of the reserves had risen to or near their projected target. However, after a reworking of the finances within the MoD, this policy was changed, and in the case of the Army the draw-down to 82,000 regulars has now been very nearly completed with little upward shift in reserve manning. Noble Lords have observed previously in this House that this shift of policy carries an acknowledged level of risk. Is the Minister confident that this risk is being managed and mitigated, both for now and in the foreseeable future?

I raise this question at this time because, with the planned culmination of our operations in Afghanistan—linked to a general feeling of war weariness and war wariness given our recent experiences in both Iraq and Afghanistan—it could be argued that concerns about the size of the Army today are theoretical rather than immediate. However, that view overlooks the current strategic landscape. While there is neither a logic nor an appetite for intervention in Syria, nor a treaty obligation requiring military intervention in Ukraine, both situations stand as stark examples of how the strategic landscape can change. Predicting the future is notoriously hard, and strategic shocks happen: the invasion of the Falkland Islands, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and 9/11 were all unpredicted events that had major consequences for our defence and security policies and capabilities. It is often said about predicting the future that the trick is not to be so far wrong that, when the future reveals itself, you cannot adapt quickly to the new circumstances. Circumstances have changed since 2010, and are changing at the present time. They are plain to see, provided that there is a willingness to look.

I believe that these strategic changes change our previous risk calculations. The Russian takeover of Crimea may not have been to President Putin’s timing, but it certainly suits his agenda and aspirations. Whether his ambition reaches into eastern Ukraine or elsewhere only he knows, but with a Russia resurgent both in confidence and military capability in many observers’ judgment this is a poor moment for the US-led West to be weak in both resolve and muscle. Diplomacy and economic sanctions may for now be the right response to President Putin over Ukraine, but he will look through those things to see from where the real check on his actions might come. Russia has long been the ally of Syria. Mr Putin will have seen the UN and the EU virtually powerless to impose their will on President Assad, and he will be further encouraged. Parallels with earlier periods of history might or might not be useful, but it can be argued that uncomfortable shadows of the 1930s are starting to become visible.

Meanwhile, with economies still struggling to recover from the epic downturn in 2008, there is a lurking temptation to curb public expenditure further, as trailed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his recent Budget speech. However, to remove further resources from defence would be sending exactly the wrong message at this time. On the contrary, there is a growing argument that the international landscape is more challenging than in 2010 and that we should consider making a statement that greater military capability must underpin our diplomacy and the other instruments of our foreign and security policy. The projected 1% uplift in defence equipment procurement spending from 2015, though welcome, will do nothing to improve regular defence manning levels, which, without a further uplift in spending, will in all probability face further contraction. Such a conclusion is mathematically almost inevitable.

Furthermore, there is genuine concern as to whether we can in fact recruit and train 30,000 members of the Army Reserve. Although we are only some six months into a five-year programme of recruitment, I am not alone in believing that current circumstances bring forward the need to alter the regular reserve balance within our Army and increase the size of the Regular Army, and probably the regular component of the Royal Navy as well. There is an increasingly strong case for increasing the manning of our regular Armed Forces by some 5,000 posts. Not only would that be a useful increase in capability in itself, but it would send a clear signal that the UK Government take their defence responsibilities seriously, not only on behalf of their own citizens but on behalf of our EU partners and NATO allies too.

Noble Lords will have read this morning’s comments by the Secretary-General of NATO calling for an increase in defence spending. Although our Government will argue that the United Kingdom still has the fourth—or is it now the fifth?—largest defence budget, it is proportionately down in terms of GDP from even five years ago, and represents a funding level that provides a lesser degree of defence capability than five years ago. Will the Minister confirm that, whereas in 2008 our land forces were able to deploy 10 combat brigades, going around two five-brigade cycles, conducting difficult operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously, that capability is no longer available and will not be under the plans for Army 2020? If the Minister does confirm this, will he further confirm that this is not because of equipment shortages but due to the lack of manpower, be it regular or reserve?

What is to be done? Much as I would like to see the 5,000 uplift in regular manpower across the three armed services that I am calling for, I am aware of the political calculation that there are no votes in defence, so I do not see this uplift happening before the next general election. However, talking widely with many people—within your Lordships’ House and without—that one meets, I wonder whether that calculation is correct. Are there no votes in defence? Indeed, are there no votes in providing adequately for our national security? I am not so sure.

At the very least, would the Minister use his good offices with the government Chief Whip to programme a full debate on defence and security issues in this House in the next Session of Parliament? Surely such a debate would be a major contribution to the strategic defence and security review that will follow the next election. Surely the people of this country deserve to hear the arguments set out clearly before them. At the end of the day, it is the votes of the people of this country that will determine the next Government, and it is the first duty of that Government to provide fully for the defence of the realm and the safety of our citizens, not forgetting the well-being of the members of the Armed Forces and their families, who provide that defence and our safety. The case for re-examining our previous assumptions on military manning and the levels of risk that we are taking is strong, and, if anything, getting stronger.