Flooding: Military Deployment
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Astor of Hever
Yes, I can assure my noble friend that that is the case. The average number of reservists employed in mid-February, at the peak of the crisis, was around 80 per day. In most cases reservists were employed on man training days—the payment method used for routine reservist activity—although there were a small number of formal mobilisations, namely of signallers and engineers. I managed to visit some of the reservists who helped with the flood work, both infantry and engineers, who told me that they were very well received by the public for the work that they did.
Lord Dannatt (CB)
My Lords, would the Minister like to say a little more about the issue of funding? We are aware that when the military is called out in support of the civil power, if it is to reduce the threat to life there is no charge, but very quickly the charging becomes extremely high. That could well have been the reason why local authorities were concerned about calling the military out. That would seem to be counterproductive when trained bodies of people are available to help in civil situations. Can the Minister say what the Government are thinking of doing about that?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, the noble Lord asks a good question. Certainly the perceived risk of a substantial full-costs bill at the end of an operation can be a concern to local authorities. We would like to do more to support the civil authorities, but we must ensure that the defence budget is not disadvantaged, nor indeed gains any inappropriate benefit, from so doing. The Secretary of State is currently in discussions with the Treasury, exploring the possibility of a full marginal costing recovery scheme, which would make the costing situation much clearer to all parties in advance.
Defence Reform Bill
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Dannatt (CB)
My Lords, I generally support the intention behind Amendments 18 and 18C but I draw attention to two underlying concerns that I have with regard to the overall policy that the amendments refer to.
The noble Lord, Lord Astor, in proposing Amendment 18, made reference to the fact that the Reserve Forces of the future will look very different from the Reserve Forces of the past, and that, by design, is absolutely right. However, we have to remember why we have deployed so many members of the Reserve Forces over the past 10 years. Following the defence review of 1997-98 led by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, a certain amount of work was allocated to the Army, Navy and Air Force. In the case of our land forces, we would be involved in one medium-scale ongoing operation and another medium-scale operation of six months’ duration. As we all know perfectly well, from 2003 to the present date, and particularly in that very intense period from about 2006 to 2009, we were committed to two considerable-sized—I do not use the words “large” or “medium” because the definition does not fit either—operations in Iraq and Afghanistan concurrently, well over and above the planning assumptions that were put in place in the defence review of 1997-98. Therefore, it was inevitable that we were going to have to draw heavily on our Reserve Forces in order just to be able to do what we were going to do. It was not by design; it was by consequence.
Now, in the consequences of the 2010 SDSR, we have decided to reduce significantly—and I speak particularly in terms of the land forces—the size of our Regular Army, and we are going to compensate for that loss of capability by having a large reserve training force. I understand that, and in theory I could see it working, but I have two concerns.
First—I have to choose my words carefully because I do not want to appear more critical than I intend—I challenge the transparency and perhaps honesty of some aspects of that policy. What the Ministry of Defence has done in its very constrained cash situation is effectively to move off balance sheet some of the liability of our land forces and put them back in the Treasury. We will deploy large numbers of these Reserve Forces only in a future considerable-sized operation such as that of Iraq or Afghanistan of the past 10 years. It is when we deploy those large numbers of reservists that they have to be paid for. They are not going to be paid for by the Ministry of Defence because they will come from the contingency fund held by the Treasury. So the Ministry of Defence has solved a large chunk of its problem but has not necessarily solved our national problem. I merely raise question marks about whether we are being completely transparent about its shift in policy.
My second concern, which we have already alluded to today, is to do with the provision of mental health support. We know that reservists when demobilised are in a more difficult situation than regulars when they return from operations—the facts prove that—and therefore we are taking measures to alleviate the potential situation that some of the demobilised reservists will find themselves in. I question the fundamental morality of taking a policy decision that we will use more reservists on difficult deployed operations knowing that it will place them in an adverse mental health position. I wonder whether that is right. I raise those two points as underlying concerns, albeit these amendments, at least in part, speak to them.
My third and final point, which has been mentioned already today by the noble Lord, Lord Astor, is that we know we will have a gap between 2015 and 2017-18, the regulars having been reduced and our not being able, according to current plans, to increase the number of reservists. As recently as 2011 it was still government policy that we would not reduce the Regular Forces until we had built up the reservists. We have changed that policy and so we are accepting risk. That risk could be reduced by slowing down the rundown of the Regular Forces at the moment, but I presume that the Government would say that, looking beyond Afghanistan, from the end of this year onwards they cannot see the prospect of another major operation and so it is a risk worth carrying.
Many noble Lords have mentioned the issue of risk in the past and I simply point to this as another risk that we are taking. We have Armed Forces that are less capable than they were and, certainly in terms of our land forces, they are smaller than they were, and we are willingly taking on additional risk. I raise those three points as concerns about the underlying policy, although I agree that Amendment 18C attends, at least in part, to the mental health issue.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, we, too, welcome the Minister’s Amendment 18. As he said, there was broad support for this when it was debated in the House of Commons. It is therefore appreciated that the Government have brought forward this amendment and accepted the principle of the new clause to be agreed in this House.
Amendment 18F calls for a report within one year of enactment. Its wording is too restrictive to reflect accurately issues as they may arise around viability and cost-effectiveness and we would not wish to support that proposed clause.
Providing an annual report to the Secretary of State, which must also be laid before Parliament, provides reassurance that the position will be kept under review for all three services. We have quite naturally concentrated more on the Army than the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, partly because of the numbers involved and partly because the Reserves are integrated already, in a different way, with the Royal Air Force. Obviously within the annual report it will be helpful to identify where there are differences between the three services and to identify examples of best practice which might cross-refer between them.
As the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, said in his remarks about mental health, there is a general agreement that this is an important issue. We agree with the Minister that this is covered within Amendment 18 and we do not see the need for additional medical detail, particularly in the Bill. There may well be a case for having guidance which sets this out more clearly, but not in the Bill.
It is timely that today sees the publication of the Veterans’ Transition Review of the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft. Almost certainly within that there will be recommendations which will help to influence the response to or implementation of what is happening to the reserves under this Bill. Will there be a government response to that review? It would be helpful to have a debate on it in the light of the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft.
In summary, we support Amendment 18, and while seeing value in the proposed two new clauses of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, we do not see them as essential to the Bill.
Defence Reform Bill
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Stirrup
First, one has to decide upon the reliability of the intelligence, because intelligence is not knowledge—there is no certainty about it. What degree of assuredness can we attach to the intelligence? What sort of cross-referencing is there? Then, everything else about the target—its structure, the things around it, the possibilities of collateral damage and all the issues properly raised under the law of armed conflict; that is, the military utility of attacking the target versus the possible risks of doing so—is gone into at great length. Certainly as far as the United Kingdom—and, in my experience, the United States—is concerned, it is done with a lawyer looking over one’s shoulder the whole time. When I was responsible for these sorts of targeting decisions in the five months after 9/11 when I was at United States Central Command, my lawyer and I were essentially joined at the hip. It had to be so and I welcomed it.
Lord Dannatt (CB)
My Lords, I identify with the comments of my noble and gallant friend. He made many of the points I would otherwise have made. I share his scepticism here. I understand the purpose behind these amendments but I have some concern about seeing them included in a Bill such as this at the present time. On the other hand, I very much welcome the debate on the wider subject.
I just amplify one of the points made by my noble and gallant friend. In the popular mind, so-called “drones”, or “unmanned aerial systems” or “unmanned aerial vehicles”—the name professionally and technically which we have used for many years—are large and operate over great distances. However, within the same overall category come small battlefield UAVs. Some are small enough to be able to look over a hill into a valley beyond and report back to a ground tactical commander. There are reconnaissance and weapons-deploying issues here, and issues of large and small size. Because of that complexity, the issue definitely merits further investigation and debate, with the formation of a wide-ranging piece of legislation dealing with definitions and bringing the whole into a proper regulatory format. For that reason alone, while I recognise the intent behind the amendments, this should be taken forward in a somewhat different way.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, I will be very brief indeed. Obviously, views have been expressed about keeping the law and its enforcement up to date with developments in the nature and conduct of warfare. Also, at the back of what has been said there is a desire to know what is going on in our name and what the outcomes have been in relation to the use of some of the unmanned systems to which reference has been made. Certainly I await with interest the Minister’s response.
There seems to have been a general acceptance that this is an issue which should be debated and discussed, although obviously doubts have been raised as to whether, as far as the amendment is concerned, how relevant it is to this Bill. The only comment I would make before concluding and leaving it to the Minister to give the Government’s response is that, of course, as far as concerns the provision of any additional information that there may be, or any developments in the law, whatever is done must be consistent with the national interest and national security.
Ministry of Defence: IT Systems
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point. When the previous Administration took office in 1997, the Territorial Army was more than 50,000 strong; by the time it left office in 2010, that figure had halved. That pattern of decline has now been arrested and the strength has been stabilised.
Lord Dannatt (CB)
My Lords, the regular Army is losing 20% of its strength, which means 20,000 trained soldiers over the next few years over and above the normal annual outflow of trained soldiers. The initiative to increase the strength of the Territorial Army, as it was previously called, is—to be generous about it—struggling. Can the Minister assure the House that the IT system that is in place is good enough to track the regular Reserve—that is, the soldiers who have served and have been recently discharged—and that, in extremis, there is the IT capability there to recall them to the colours as ex-trained regular soldiers?
Lord Astor of Hever
The noble Lord makes a very good point about officers and soldiers who have left whom we might need at some point in the future. The best of my understanding is that we can track them. If that is not the case I will write to the noble Lord.
Armed Forces: Territorial Army
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I reassure the noble Baroness that we welcome Commonwealth reservists. As announced on 11 July, to fulfil their reserves commitments they are required to have indefinite leave to remain in the UK prior to joining. However, I will look into the point that the noble Baroness raised.
Lord Dannatt (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree with me that the Chief of the General Staff is doing a very good job in trying to manage the process of reducing the Regular Army by 20% while building up the strength of the reserves against a very difficult financial background? We are only three or four months into a five-year programme. On the question asked by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, on small and medium-sized enterprises, has consideration been given to waiving national insurance charges for those enterprises as an incentive to employers to take on members of the reserves?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the Chief of the General Staff is doing a very good job. I have considerable briefing on the question that the noble and gallant Lord and the noble Lord raised on SMEs and national insurance. It will take me some time to find it—but I will write to the noble Lord. We have always expected there to be a dip in the level of the reserves before they increase as we are changing the fitness requirements and deployability of the force. To reassure the noble Lord, a target of 30,000 trained Army reservists is well within historical norms. We had 72,000 trained reservists as recently as 1990.
Defence: Aircraft Carriers and UK Shipbuilding
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I welcome my noble friend’s support for the fleet and for Vanguard’s successor. As regards manpower, the Royal Navy attaches a great deal of importance to this, in particular to get the right people with the right skills. The Navy will need an extra 2,000 people for its expanding fleet over the next five to 10 years. We are very grateful to the United States Navy and the US Marine Corps, which have been especially helpful in training our people preparing for the carriers; whether they are training pilots, deck crew, or on air direction or engineering, they have been very helpful. Finally, my noble friend asked about Appledore, on which I will write to him.
Lord Dannatt (CB)
My Lords, the last question was on the increase in the size of the fleet in manpower terms that would be required if both carriers come into service and the three OPVs are fully manned. I welcome that and I do not want to get into that argument at all. However, the previous Government and the present Government took major decisions which affected equipment and manpower in the Armed Forces, and priority in big handful terms has been given to equipment. Therefore where savings have had to be found they have had to be found in manpower. Most of those savings have been found within our land forces—noble Lords will recognise that I would say that, wouldn’t I?
I know that the Minister cannot give a guarantee or even half a guarantee in answering this question, but will he ensure that if there is to be an increase in the fleet in manpower terms, which I welcome, it will not be at the cost of further reductions in our land forces, given that our Army is striving very hard to meet the 20% reduction in its regular size by 2020? Will he also ensure that in future discussions with the Treasury, argument is made most fiercely for an uplift in the defence budget in order to pay for the extra people, and that it is not another opportunity cost of one service against another? We cannot do that and remain credible on the world stage.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point; the increase in numbers goes right the way across the Royal Navy—submarines, aircraft carriers and all the other ships—but we will not reduce the size of the Army just to provide extra personnel for the Royal Navy.
Armed Forces: Reserve Forces
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I remember well when my noble friend was a very distinguished Minister standing at this Dispatch Box, and I believe I lobbed the odd question at him. My noble friend mentioned the figure of 83,000. That is why we are very optimistic that we can get up to a figure of 30,000 by 2018.
Lord Dannatt
My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, was announcing the things he has just referred to, I was a mere Lieutenant Colonel working as a military assistant to the Minister of State for the Armed Forces. Therefore, we are all aware of the aspirations for our Reserve Forces and the way it has worked out. We are all committed to making this policy work in the interests of the security of the realm, the safety of our citizens, and the well-being of the Armed Forces. However, as this Government think about the next defence review, are they also thinking of an alternative if we are not able to recruit Reserve Forces of the size that we currently need? Might we think about increasing the size of our regular Army in particular?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, we are thinking optimistically. I quote General Monro, who is head of the Territorial Army, and who is very focused on its success. He said:
“There is a mission, and we have to achieve the mission. I am confident that we will get there.”
We intend to maintain appropriate force level to meet our planning assumptions. If necessary, mitigation strategies are in place to ensure that we can take early action to maintain an appropriate force level.
Armed Forces: Army Basing Plan
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I can confirm to the right reverend Prelate that our objective is to have units based in similar locations for a much longer period of time so that wives can be encouraged to get jobs and children will have continuity of education. We have set out in this basic plan, which I hope noble Lords have with copies of the Statement, all the different places where the units coming back from Germany are going to. I accept that there is a lot to digest in this and I am organising a briefing in the Ministry of Defence on 19 March. All the members of the Armed Forces and the civil servants who have been working on the plan will be there to explain everything to noble Lords. Indeed, noble Lords who do not normally come into the MoD are welcome to come along, and I would very much welcome the right reverend Prelate. We will be able to discuss the support that we are planning to give to all the local communities, in particular the smaller ones.
Lord Dannatt
My Lords, I welcome the Statement that the Minister has just repeated about the future basing of the Army and the answer he gave earlier that the money involved, the capital investment, will be ring-fenced. I assume that the Minister meant that the £1.8 billion should be ring-fenced, which I very much welcome. Army basing is one of the areas of doubt that now may well have been clarified. Of course, doubt is what reduces morale in the Armed Forces, but redundancy is another issue hanging over many members of the Army at present. While I accept that the basing policy now brings more clarity to where the Army is going to live, can the Minister tell us when the new employment model will be made known to members of the Army so that they know how they are going to live?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I was referring to the £1 billion which my noble friend asked me about; that is being spent on accommodation. The noble Lord mentioned morale and I quite agree about how important accommodation is to the morale of the members of our Armed Forces. I spend quite a lot of time looking at the accommodation for the three services and I do all I can to ensure that it is being upgraded. Likewise, the noble Lord mentioned basing. We are doing everything possible to pass messages on to members of the Armed Forces and their families so that they know exactly where they stand. The feedback I have been given suggests that it has been very well received by the Army.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, the noble Earl asks a very good question. The creation of independent Scottish armed forces would not be as simple as transferring existing Scottish-recruited or Scotland-based units. The UK Armed Forces are a totally integrated, pan-UK organisation and parts cannot simply be broken off like bits of a chocolate bar. Individual members of the UK Armed Forces could not simply be co-opted. They would have to be given a choice and it is far from clear that Scots in the UK Armed Forces, or members of units recruited or based in Scotland, would automatically choose to join the armed forces of an independent Scotland. The prospect of being part of smaller, less globally active armed forces might be seen as less rewarding for some.
Lord Dannatt
With the indulgence of the House and an eye on the clock, perhaps I may ask the Minister a second question, given that my earlier question about the new employment model still hangs. I raised the issue of morale a moment or two ago. The capability of the Army is obviously very critical and its future capability is based on the integration of the Reserve Forces with the Regular Forces, about which this basing report is concerned today. When will we know the Reserve Forces basing plan? Clearly, successful delivery of our Reserve Forces is absolutely critical to the future capability of the Army, given that the Regular Army is being cut by 20%, which is unprecedented in recent times.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I can confirm to the noble Lord that there is a lot of work going on at the moment on the Reserve Forces basing plan and how that ties in with the Regular Army. As I said earlier, there will be a White Paper quite soon and I hope very much to give a Statement on this very important subject before the Summer Recess.
Armed Forces: Redundancies
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, it is my understanding that the National Security Council meets on a very regular basis and considers every eventuality, but it is not for it to decide the cuts. They are a matter for the Treasury.
Lord Dannatt
My Lords, I know that Members on the Cross Benches would like to be associated with the message of condolence to the families who have lost loved ones in recent operations. With regard to the matter in hand, does the Minister accept that everything practical and affordable is being done to ease the transition of those who are going to be made redundant, either voluntarily or compulsorily, under this round?
Does he also accept that there is a need, to which other noble Lords have already alluded, to keep current world events under close review in the forthcoming comprehensive spending reviews and the work towards the next defence review? If the world does not looks as safe in the next five, 10 or 15 years as one might perhaps hope, is there not a need for the numbers in our Armed Forces, particularly in our land forces, to be kept under review? Must not the possibility of increased spending in defence, maybe from somewhere else across government, be a possibility and not always the downward effect that we seem to see?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, as I said earlier, the National Security Council is meeting at this moment. It will obviously be considering world events as they evolve. We are confident that we have the members of Armed Forces to deal with any situation. As the noble Lord knows, we are reducing the numbers next year, coming back from Afghanistan. We have plenty of members of the Armed Forces to deal with these eventualities.
Armed Forces: Reserve Forces
Lord Dannatt Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Dannatt
My Lords, I am conscious that I am echoing the comments of other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate before me when I acknowledge and pay tribute to the dedication and commitment of our Reserve Forces, without whom the Armed Forces could not have done what they have done over the past 10 years—principally, but not exclusively, in Iraq and Afghanistan. As is widely known, typically, 10% of every brigade group deployed, previously to Iraq and now in Afghanistan, have been mobilised reservists. In defence medical units, this percentage has often been much higher. So there is no doubt about the critical role that our Reserve Forces play, especially as part of our land forces, in which I include the Army, the Royal Marines and parts of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.
However, it is the future role of our Reserve Forces that your Lordships are debating today, but the role of the Reserve Forces can be debated properly only in the context of today’s strategic and financial environment and the policy choices and decisions that Her Majesty’s Government have made in the past two years. The consequences of some of those decisions have undoubtedly produced risk: risk to the defence of the realm; risk to the safety of our citizens; and risk to the well-being of the Armed Forces. Reducing the size of the regular Army from 102,000 to 82,000 is a significant risk. There is no other way to describe that. But risk itself is not a problem provided that it is identified, acknowledged and then well managed. Mitigating the risk of a too small full-time Army by significantly increasing the number of part-time soldiers is a perfectly reasonable risk management strategy, but one with its own inherent risks. We have heard about many of them already this evening. Will the Reserve Forces be able to attract a sufficient number of volunteers to fill the ranks? Will enough resource be made available to train those volunteers to a sufficiently high standard? Will the roles and training opportunities being made available to the volunteers be sufficiently challenging and satisfying to motivate and sustain them—here, I think especially of officers and senior non-commissioned officers? Will sufficient civilian employers be willing to let the volunteers—their employees—take significant periods of absence to be able to join units on major training or operational deployments?
These, and more, are all legitimate questions that are being asked and must be asked. For this initiative to succeed, the answer must be yes to all of them. There must also be an absolute determination to substantiate a positive answer; otherwise the risk identified will translate from being just a risk to our security to being an actual danger to our security.
Notwithstanding our withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 and apparent lack of appetite for further foreign interventions, a glance at the insecurity of the world in the past decade and the insecurity of the world today fills me with no great optimism that the decade to come will be any less demanding for our Armed Forces than the decade just past. We may think that we are better at predicting the future than past generations, but strategic shocks happen, as the Falklands and 9/11 testify.
Yet it would seem that the judgment has been made either that the world will be a more secure place in the next decade or that we wish to play a lesser role within the world in the next decade, because, unless these plans for the greater utilisation of our Reserve Forces come fully to fruition, there is no doubt that we will have less military capability than in the past and no option other than to play a lesser role in the world, which would constitute a policy change forced by circumstance and not decided by debate.
Do my comments constitute a precursor to an attack on the Government’s defence policy and priorities? The answer to my own question is no, or at least not now. Despite the significant risks about which I am concerned, I take some comfort from the stated government intention to hold a major defence and security review once in every Parliament. Clearly, this Government cannot guarantee what any future Government might do after the next general election but, frankly, no right-thinking person would wish to see a repeat of the 13-year gap between the formal defence reviews of 1997 and 2010.
I look forward to the next defence review, set properly against the strategic circumstances of two or three years’ time and, of course, mindful of financial issues, but only mindful of, not driven by, financial issues. If an open, honest and thorough analysis of our strategic circumstances is made, set against a similar debate about our national ambition, we will reach proper judgments about the military capabilities that we require and their quantum. Should my fears about the capabilities and quantum of our land forces as currently envisaged be substantiated, then the mechanism for remedy exists, even if that would mean a modest reprioritisation of spending across government and not just within defence.
For now, I support the plans to increase our Reserve Forces, and, with others, will do whatever I can to help those plans succeed, but should those plans not come to fruition, I take comfort in the context of the next defence review and the formal chance that it will provide to think again.