Defence

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

That question goes to the heart of everything we read from the all the various Select Committees and debates. It is the desire of all those Committees, of this Parliament and of all of us who take an interest in defence that we identify the strategic threats we face as a country, and then mould and adapt our armed forces and our security and intelligence services to meet those threats. I will say a little more about my hon. Friend’s point in a minute.

Only yesterday, General Sir Nick Carter, the head of the British Army, said on the “Today” programme that the threats had never been greater in his 40-year career. In evidence to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, Mark Sedwill, the National Security Adviser, confirmed that in the last two years we have seen an intensification of the threats we face. Indeed, the former Defence Secretary spoke at another evidence session of an intensification of the risks that our country faces.

We can all name those risks: we have seen the various adventures that Russia has been involved in; we have seen what has happened with China and North Korea; we have seen terrible terrorist incidents in our country; we have seen the identification of risks in respect of new technologies, cyber and artificial intelligence and where that may take us; and we have seen the undermining of the rules-based international order. Those are not made-up threats; they are very real assessments of what our country faces, alongside its allies and those who stand with us. Parliament has a responsibility and a duty to debate how we will meet those threats. That is, I believe, something that the public would expect us to do.

This has been added to, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, by Brexit, which has caused us, as a nation, to reflect on our place in the world. I say strongly to hon. Members—looking around, I think many will agree—that this Parliament should once again send a clear message to our allies and the rest of the world that as a senior member of NATO, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a leader of the Commonwealth, we will not turn inwards and we will not flinch from our historical role as a promoter of democracy and defender of human rights, while also ensuring that our own interests are fully protected.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned North Korea. Is it not the case that the actions of the North Korean regime are a massive threat to the international rules-based order, and does not that need to have higher priority in the thinking not only of our own Government but of our allies?

[Vernon Coaker]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. North Korea and China are threatening some of the rules-based international order—particularly, as he says, North Korea. We have to meet that threat, and this debate is partly about how we do that. We have to win the argument again with the British public on this. The British public have to be persuaded—or not, because they can say, “We don’t agree.” We as a Parliament have to make the case again for why it is sometimes important for us to be concerned about actions that are taking place thousands and thousands of miles away, and understand why they have an impact on our own interests and our own security here at home. It can no longer be enough just to assert a problem—we have to once again make the case as to why matters such as North Korea are important.

Just two years after the strategic defence and security review of 2015, here we are in the midst of another review, led by Mark Sedwill. I know—other Members have mentioned this to me—that the Defence Secretary is trying to pull away the defence part of the security capability to provide a longer time to reflect, and I hope he is successful in doing that. However, as it stands, we have a review that is shrouded in uncertainty and that we are now told is to be delayed. One particular thing that was said in the Committee is completely wrong and has to be changed by the Government. Mr Sedwill said that

“this exercise was commissioned by the Council as fiscally neutral.”

Fiscally neutral? How can we come to such a conclusion before all the strands of the review are finished? Surely this is about matching resources to threats, not the other way round. Let this be the line in the sand that ensures that this principle is at the heart of the decisions we take as we now move forward.

We see story after story appearing in the media, speculating on which capability may or may not be cut. Why does this speculation abound? Why are there not statements to Parliament? Why is there no explanation of what is actually going on? To be fair to the Minister, I know that he will be concerned about some of this, but it is not good enough for the Government to dismiss these potential capability cuts as mere speculation by saying, “We don’t comment on these” or “No decisions have been made”. I do not want—nor, I am sure, does any Member of this House—a statement to be made to this House in three months’ time telling us what is going to be done rather than this House having debated and discussed it and come to a view as to where we should go. I do not want, and I do not believe Parliament wants, to wait for a set of decisions to be presented to us as a fait accompli. That is not good enough. Our country deserves better. The public and Parliament need to be properly informed. I am certain that colleagues across this House believe that it is for Parliament to debate the issues, to inform the decisions, and to play our full part in the choices we make as to how we defend our country and its freedoms.

According to the permanent secretary at a hearing of the Defence Committee at the end of last year, it appears that the Secretary of State has, as yet, made no explicit request for additional funding from the Chancellor. Will the Minister tell us where the discussions that have been reported in the media have got to? Will he confirm what the Defence Secretary is now saying to the Chancellor? Has he demanded any additional funding? Where has the discussion got to, or not, as to whether there is to be any additional funding? Will the Minister also confirm whether the defence aspect of the capabilities review has been delayed?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lewis]

I am grateful to the Minister for making that point in that way, and nobody could be doing more than he is, within the constraints of his office, to make the case. We all know that.

The reality is that defence is always difficult to get funded in peacetime because it is analogous to paying the premiums on an insurance policy, and people are always reluctant to pay the premiums, although they are very glad to have paid them when the time comes to call in the policy because something adverse has occurred.

[John Spellar]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Committee for giving way, but surely this is the role of Ministers. It is the role of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Defence to be providing that leadership, setting out that strategic vision, and therefore the reason for that expenditure. That is where the leadership has to come from.

[Dr Lewis]

I agree, but I think it is something more important than that. They must have a proper strategic planning machine at their service; otherwise, they are just a bunch of individuals giving their personal opinions.

It may suit civil servants to sideline the military professionals—to reduce the uniformed contribution to strategic planning to the input of one individual, the Chief of the Defence Staff. It may suit them, too, to sideline the Ministry of Defence and reduce its contribution to a single strand of a so-called national security strategy, but it does not suit the national interest to have inadequate specialist military pushback against politicians with poor strategic grasp and a political bee in their bonnet. That is how disastrous own goals, like the Libya fiasco, come to be inflicted upon us, despite the warnings of the then Chief of the Defence Staff against overthrowing the Libyan regime.

A single military adviser, no matter how capable, cannot have the same impact as the combined contribution of a Joint Committee of the heads of the armed forces. So it is not enough just to set ourselves a 3% target for defence expenditure, as indeed we must; it is vital also to recognise that our tried and tested machinery for making military strategy has been vitiated and largely dismantled. The Chiefs of Staff must once again be more than budget managers, stuck on the sidelines while politicians and officials call the shots and, as often as not, call the shots incorrectly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

When it comes to defence, we have to accept that without the right personnel with the right expertise and in enough numbers, the military cannot function. All the most sophisticated technology imaginable is useless if we do not have the skilled individuals to operate it. The planes cannot fly, the ships cannot sail and the vehicles cannot move without the people with the expertise. In essence, without people there is no military capability, and yet it is the people that we keep cutting.

Following the strategic defence and security review in 2010, there was a restructuring of the Army through a plan dubbed Army 2020, along with Future Reserves 2020 for the Army Reserve. The plan was refined in 2015. It proposed to reduce the number of Regular Army, or full-time, personnel from 102,000 to 82,000 and to increase the rebranded and re-enrolled reserve forces, or part-time personnel, from around 15,000 to 35,000 to make up the shortfall. On paper, that looks great. In April 2017, the Regular Army numbered 83,560 personnel and the Army Reserve 29,940. However, we need to dig deeper.

Reserve soldiers work hard as reservists, but many also have full-time jobs. They are required to complete a minimum commitment of days and training with the Army Reserve each year to be fully up to date and able to deploy in support of the regular Army. The completion of this training is not mandatory, but those who do not complete it are not considered qualified to fulfil their function during that given training year. Those soldiers who complete the training are awarded a tax-free bounty or bonus. This bonus shows how many reservists each year are ready and able to deploy quickly to support the Regular Army.

Over the last few years the number of Army Reserve soldiers has increased dramatically, from 21,030 in April 2015 to 29,940 in April 2017. That is an increase of 42% in the space of a few years. Those figures have been obtained from the Ministry of Defence through parliamentary questions. Given such an impressive increase, one would expect to see a proportional increase in those achieving the annual bounty as more and more reserve soldiers achieve their annual training targets. In April 2015, 14,270 achieved their bounty. That was 67.85% of the total Army Reserve. However, in April 2017, 14,930 got their bounty, representing just short of 50% of the total. That represents a 17.98% fall in the proportion of the Army reservists achieving their annual training targets.

The bounty is broken down into five levels. Each year that a soldier achieves a bounty, the next level is paid until they get to year five. Of the bounties awarded in 2017, 1,980 were for year 1; 1,470 were for year 2; years 3 and 4 were grouped at 1,310; and the figure for year 5 was 10,160. That is not a weighting one might expect, given the increased numbers of recruits. The numbers imply that the number of reserve personnel able to complete the training required of them in order to be considered fully up to date and able to support their regular colleagues has been pretty stable but not growing. Despite the 42% growth, the number of reserve soldiers able to fulfil the minimum commitment set out by the Government is still at the same level. The growth in the Army Reserve is a paper growth, not a real growth.

The Government’s expectation is that people will be able to marry up having a full-time job with the capability to operate at the same level as a full-time member of our armed forces. That assumption is being made as a result of a cost-saving decision to cut the Regular Army, and it is simply unrealistic. We now have a Regular Army of about 78,000 and an effective reserve strength of roughly 15,000, with both barely able to fulfil their required duties, especially as the Regular Army was previously more than 100,000 strong.

There is a further problem with the Government’s approach. We are reliant on experts to operate in a sensible and effective manner equipment that is often at the cutting edge of technology. Those skills cannot be replaced overnight. The Government’s solution was to cut those experts from the Regular Army and attempt to re-recruit them as reservists with a £10,000 incentive scheme.

As of 1 October 2017, 4,350 ex-Regular Reserve soldiers had been recruited using the bonus incentive scheme since its inception in 2013. The £10,000 bonus is broken down into four instalments, called key milestones, that are paid out over four years provided that the soldier has completed a number of days of training and tests. Considering that it equates to almost a quarter of those cut from the Regular Army in a similar period, 4,350 is a good number. However, of those who have entered the scheme, 3,320 made it to key milestone 1, 2,370 made it to key milestone 2, only 1,280 made it to key milestone 3, and just 480 reached key milestone 4 —a drop-out rate of 88.97%. Therefore, despite the offer of a £10,000 bonus, these ex-regular soldiers are also unable to meet the requirements of a full-time job while being a fully trained reservist that is capable of deployment. We risk having an undermanned regular force that lacks the skills and knowledge that come from the experienced soldiers that we made redundant, and an overworked reserve force that is doing its best to make up the shortfall while its people also try to get on with a civilian career. Once again, the apparent cost saving is elusive.

Returning once again to the ex-regulars in the reserve forces, each ex-regular at the rank of private is on a basic rate of £50 a day. Many earn much more than that, but let us just go with the basic. The total amount spent since the inception of the scheme on just wages and bonus payments is roughly a minimum of £26.3 million. For that £26.3 million, we get an 88.97% drop-out rate and only 480 reserve soldiers. That is before any consideration of the cost of restructuring both the Regular Army and the Army Reserve. We are cutting full-time capable soldiers and replacing them with people of whom we expect too much.

The Government have created a personnel problem in our armed forces that threatens to spiral out of control. We all acknowledge that the men and women in our armed forces, whether regulars or reserves, are dedicated professionals who are asked to do a difficult and demanding job, but their numbers have been cut to dangerously low levels and we are losing vital expertise. To make up the shortfall, we have put in place increased, unrealistic and unfair burdens on the reserve forces, which are also made up of honest, hard-working people, in the name of a cost saving that appears to be nothing at all.

[John Spellar]

The immensely frustrating factor in all this is that the Ministry of Defence and the services seem to be replicating exactly the same mistakes that were made in the “Options for Change” White Paper at the end of the cold war. They are pushing regulars out and creating an atmosphere in which people think that the forces are not recruiting, and they are damaging morale. Then, during the Christmas period, they spend however much they did on blitzing the airwaves to try to attract people in an atmosphere in which people are seeing those who have been forced out of our services.

[Mrs Moon]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Some statistics released today show that 71% of businesses in the service sector are finding it difficult to recruit from the skilled workforce, and the figure for manufacturing is 76%. We are operating in a climate where skilled people are at a premium. The armed forces had skilled people, but they sacked them and, rightly enough, the business community has grabbed them. We then tried to bring them back into the armed forces by offering them a bonus, but that has not worked. We have managed to keep only 480 of them. It is shocking, irresponsible and downright dangerous. This is an unpredictable world, and we cannot afford to play games. We are not showing our friends and allies our willingness and ability to support them and to support our own interests around the globe if we are not retaining and training our full-time personnel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to go over the figures again. An Army sergeant with a salary of about £33,000 pays £1.44 a week more. I think that it is fair to ask them to pay a little more, and entirely fair to ask officers who are earning in excess of £65,000 to pay a little more. Let us bear in mind that the average salary in his seat is under £23,000.

[John Spellar]

Will the Army sergeant, or member of whichever rank, be paying these tax rates based on where he was born, where he was living when he joined the forces, or where he is based?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ellwood]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He asks an operational question about the amphibiosity of our capability. I stress to the House that we must maintain our amphibiosity, a capable Royal Marine presence and, dare I say it, a capable Para presence as well, so he can rest assured. I will not go any further than that because we are getting into the weeds of operational decisions, and more will become clear very soon.

[John Spellar]

Going back to the point made by the Chair of the Defence Committee, if the capability was vital last year, when we were given an end date, what has changed in the meantime to put that capability in any way in question?

[Mr Ellwood]

The right hon. Gentleman is trying to pre-empt the capability review and what will follow. All I can ask for is patience, because the answers will be forthcoming.

Turning to a couple of other contributions, this has been a tough time for recruitment and retention, and we should be honest about the challenges, something which my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) studied in detail in his report. Nevertheless, I am pleased to say that recruitment is moving forward. We do have to change our approach, and we need to recruit specialists as well, because the art of war is fundamentally changing. The requirements for what is needed on the battlefield mean that we should not necessarily have to train somebody from start to finish. It may be easier to have somebody with the technology, understanding or detailed knowledge instead. For example, a subject matter expert for a country in the middle east could be brought in and trained and then could join our armed forces to provide that intelligence detail. That is exactly what 77th Brigade does, and it provides huge value away from the teeth arms, with which the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) and I are more familiar.

We need to adapt and to reflect society as a whole. We have now opened up all roles to women, and our new campaign has led to a rise in applications of 20% since 2016-17. Reserves are also up by almost 5% on last year. The offering must also change, and some worries have been raised about accommodation, but we are looking at a new accommodation model, and I am concerned about what is happening with Carillion. We need to give individuals more opportunity. Do they want to stay in a garrison, do they want to rent, or do they want to own their own house? That is what other people aspire to, so why should somebody who joins the armed forces not be able to do the same? That is what our accommodation model is looking at. Many hon. Members have participated in the passage of the Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill, which will allow somebody to step back from what they are doing in the armed forces for a period of time, perhaps to spend more time with their family or possibly to have a child. That proposal is proving hugely popular.

The enterprise approach is about attracting people on sabbatical, such as someone with a senior engineering, cyber or linguistic capability whom it would not be cost-effective for us to train from the bottom ranks all the way through. The veterans’ package has been mentioned, and I am proud of this Government’s work in supporting the armed forces covenant, which over 2,000 companies have signed. We also have the Veterans’ Gateway which, if hon. Members are not familiar with it, is the online portal that allows any individual to comprehend the myriad military-facing charities that are there to support our brave armed forces as they make the transition into civilian life. It is an excellent bit of work, and I recommend that all hon. Members look at it. Finally on that front, through our mental health strategy we are trying to remove the stigma from someone stepping forward if they are suffering from any form of mental health issue.

A couple of comments were made about the public sector. Pay is obviously up to the Armed Forces Pay Review Body, but the cap has been lifted and there is the freedom to go above 1%. However, it is for the pay review body to make recommendations.

The last contribution that I want to comment on came from my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely). His pertinent point was that if the armed forces are not being used, they can be perceived as redundant. As Sun Tzu wrote in “The Art of War”:

“Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”

Having an armed force, a posture and a strong capability that backs up our soft power can do much to influence the world around us without our having to leave it to war fighting or military engagement.

I would like to give a couple of minutes to the hon. Member for Gedling, who moved the motion, so I conclude by thanking all Members for their contributions. I hope the House will agree that we are deeply indebted to all those who choose to wear the uniform and, if required, stand in harm’s way in defence of our country and values and in aid of those in need across the world.

The professionalism of our defence people forms the hard power that is respected by our allies and feared by our adversaries, and it is that hard power that sits behind the country’s soft power that allows us to continue playing such an influential role on the world stage.

As the world moves faster and becomes more dangerous, we must not be naive about the durability of the relative peace that the UK has enjoyed over the past few decades. Our country, our open international economy and our values are vulnerable to a range of growing world threats that have no respect for our borders. It is critical that Britain’s defence posture remains credible and that we maintain our military edge. That is exactly what the Secretary of State is working to achieve.

I end by reminding the House that President Reagan said:

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Let us not take our ability to fight and the security we have for granted. All of us in this House should make the case for strong and credible defence.