Strategic Defence and Security Review

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I apologise to the House for arriving slightly late for the Statement. I would not wish to have shown any disrespect to the House.

I thank the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made by the Prime Minister in the other place and join him in paying tribute to the men and women of our Armed Forces. I also pay tribute to their families, who sustain their loved ones as they prepare for, serve on and recover from operational service. We must always ensure that their interests are protected.

I thank the Leader of the House, and through him the Prime Minister and the Government, for advance notice of his Statement—advance notice in today’s papers, in yesterday’s papers, in Sunday’s papers and in Saturday’s papers. It almost did not matter that we in the Opposition got actual advance notice of the Prime Minister’s Statement a full 10 minutes before he made it. However, I must record my thanks to the Secretary of State for Defence for his oral briefing. I am extremely grateful. I have to say to the Leader that, as someone who takes Parliament seriously, I think that the process of announcement of this review and the way in which it has come out have been shambolic. I hope that the Government will learn lessons from this.

On issues of national defence, we will always seek to be constructive. I believe that the Government approach the challenge of national defence as all Governments have done—with the right intentions—and it does neither our politics nor our armed services any good to imply anything different. The cuts announced today clearly represent a significant reduction, but what matters is not only the amount we spend but what the spending does to help ensure the defence and security of our country. That is what I want to focus on today.

First, I remind the Leader of the House of the concern expressed by the Defence Secretary in the leaked letter to the Prime Minister, that,

“this process is looking less and less defensible as a proper SDSR (Strategic Defence and Security Review)”.

He will know very well that the Defence Secretary is not alone in expressing this concern. It was shared by the Select Committee in the other place and, I believe, by many Members of this House, including noble and gallant Members. I look forward to hearing from some of them this afternoon, because I share those concerns. Is it not instructive that the strategic defence review in 1998 was carried out over a much longer timescale, with much greater consultation and in-depth study? Can the Leader of the House respond to the widespread perception that this review was driven by the short-term cuts in tomorrow's spending review and that it would have been better to have a longer-term strategic defence review?

I ask the Leader of the House about the most immediate and pressing issue: Afghanistan. I reiterate that we support the mission in Afghanistan and will work in a bipartisan way with the Government to both stabilise the country and bring our troops home safely. Have the Government received specific assurances from the Chief of the Defence Staff that no decision announced today will undermine or disadvantage in any way our military operations there?

I also raise the issue of extra helicopters, which those on the Benches opposite highlighted repeatedly in the previous Parliament. Today, the Government are, I believe, announcing a cut in the number of additional helicopters. Why have the Government done that?

I am sure that the Leader of the House agrees that a key part of preparing for the challenges of the future is the targeting of limited national resources at the most pressing threats. Yesterday's national security strategy identified terrorism as a tier-1 threat. Given that today's announcement forms only a partial response, can he assure the House that nothing announced today or tomorrow in the changes to the Home Office budget will undermine or weaken our ability to counter terrorism in all its forms?

On the issue of preparing our Armed Forces for future challenges, we agree that there are some opportunities to make savings in capabilities that were better suited to the challenges of the Cold War, such as in the number of Challenger tanks and heavy artillery, but I seek reassurance from the Government that they are content that the decisions made today do not compromise our ability to support current operations and defend our interests around the world. In particular, what does the capability gap arising from the scrapping of our Harriers and the withdrawal of “Ark Royal” mean for our force projection, which was made much of in the national security strategy, and our ability to defend our overseas territories? In that context, can the noble Lord also reassure the House that it really is the case that the best strategic decision for the next decade is for Britain to have aircraft carriers without aircraft? I heard what the noble Lord said about aircraft carriers, and I am sure that some of my noble friends will want to set the record straight.

I ask the Leader of the House about two things that he did not mention in repeating the Prime Minister's Statement. Can he confirm what he did not tell your Lordships' House: that page 19 of the review sets out a one-third reduction in the number of troops that Britain can deploy on both a short-term and an enduring basis? Will he take this opportunity to respond to the huge disappointment that there will be in south Wales following the decision announced in a Written Ministerial Statement in relation to the defence training college at St Athan, which the Prime Minister personally promised would go ahead, and confirm that, notwithstanding that action, St Athan will still have a future as a training facility for our services?

There will be concerns that this review has failed to address strategically the important questions about the future of our nuclear deterrent. I believe that there is widespread agreement in this House on supporting the retention of a nuclear deterrent alongside progress in the multilateral disarmament talks. I must tell the Leader of the House that there will be concern that the Government have announced a whole range of decisions on Trident, despite telling us that it was not part of the strategic defence review. Will he confirm that by choosing delay, the Government have created an unfunded spending commitment in the defence budget in the next Parliament—precisely the problem that the Prime Minister told us he wants to get away from in procurement?

We will help the Leader of the House, the Prime Minister and their Government as they seek to do what is best for our country's security. But we on this side of the House do not have to tell him that many people will believe that this review is a profound missed opportunity. This is a spending review dressed up as a defence review—shambolically conducted, hastily prepared and not credible as a strategic blueprint for our future defence needs. On this side of the House we will support the Government where we can, but we will also give the Government's strategy serious scrutiny and, where necessary and appropriate, we will subject it to the principled and responsible opposition that it deserves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

It is, frankly, rich for noble Lords opposite to jeer about reading press briefings given not by members of the Government but by others. You only have to read the memoirs written by former distinguished Secretaries of State from the former Labour Government to understand just how much backbiting there was in the Government of whom the noble Baroness was a member.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

That is a very interesting point but it has no bearing on the questions that I asked the noble Lord. I would say to him that one of the most important strategies on the security of this country was published just yesterday, but the Government did not grace this Chamber with their presence so that we could hold them accountable. However, we did hear the Home Secretary on the “Today” programme, and we were fully briefed about it in the press.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I would not have mentioned leaks if the noble Baroness had not spent the first two minutes of her reply asking me questions on them.

As for the two reviews that we have published, yesterday we published the national security strategy, which I commend to your Lordships. It pointed the way for today's announcement on the strategic defence and security review, and the entire purpose was for the Prime Minister to make a comprehensive Statement today. Again I accuse noble Lords opposite. They never did a comprehensive review combining the strategic overview and the defence strategy in a single document. If they had done so in the round then we would not have been left in the mess that we now have.

The noble Baroness asks why we did it so quickly. I say to her: why did they take so long to repeat the exercise that they did in 1998? It was 12 years. Maybe they were concentrating on it but never came to a conclusion. This Government were pushed into action because of the appalling inheritance—the legacy—that we have discovered: the £38 billion overspend that will have to be paid for over the course of the next few years.

On an area which I think the noble Baroness and I will agree on—our role in Afghanistan—I can confirm that nothing in today’s announcement will have an impact on our efforts in Afghanistan. We believe that the helicopters that we have, building on the announcements that the previous Government made, are enough, and we have announced today that we will buy 12 additional heavy-lift Chinook helicopters which in the long term will make a substantial difference.

On the future of St Athan, as announced by the Secretary of State for Defence this morning, the defence training rationalisation programme has, regrettably, been terminated. However, given the significant investment in the area, St Athan remains ideally placed as a future site for defence training.

Let me turn to the capability gap, as it is called, on the carrier strike force. We may well not have been driven to the decisions that we have made about this if we had not found things as they were when we came into government in May 2010. We believe that there is a military case for a carrier strike capability, but not one that relies on the differently configured Joint Strike Fighters. That is why we have decided to invest even more money into making sure that there is a “cat and trap” capability on one of these aircraft carriers. That means that we will be able to co-operate with our allies in NATO and the EU and with the French and the Americans, who will be able to use our platform. In the short term, we believe that we have the overflying rights and the land-based runways to be able to continue to maintain air cover. In the long term, of course, none of us knows whether that will be possible: hence the reason why we have maintained the carrier programme.