Armed Forces Bill

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his explanation of the Bill and to our most excellent maiden speakers.

I believe that the constitutional arrangements whereby we expend the service discipline Act annually by order and five-yearly by Act of Parliament is the right arrangement. I remind the House that I have an interest as I am technically still a commissioned officer in the Reserves, but not for long, since I will have to hang my boots up on my 60th birthday. I have exercised summary jurisdiction under the Army Act 1955 and in my very early days I was on the receiving end of it, although in retrospect I realise that it was probably much more to do with accounting for a lost camp-bed than for anything I might have done wrong. In answer to my noble friend Lord Lyell, I was using the Army Act 1955 in 1998 and it was still being used until the 2006 Act came into force.

I do not have any problems with the provisions of the Bill, but I regard it as an opportunity to raise a number of G1, or rather J1, issues, and not just service discipline arrangements. The difficulty with defence legislation is that the needs of the majority in the Armed Forces have to be balanced with the rights of the individual. I agree with all that the noble Lord, Lord West, and other noble Lords have said about the Human Rights Act.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, raised the issue of the age of recruitment. Perhaps the Minister could not just put the correspondence in the Library but share it with all of us who have taken part in the debate, as that would be very helpful.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, talked about the statistics regarding “inappropriate behaviour”, if I may put it that way. I would be interested to see how those same questions and statistics compare with the experience in industry. It may be better or worse, but it would be useful to know what the difference is.

I will touch on “pay as you dine”. A few years ago, junior service people were charged for their food, whether they took it or not. This caused some resentment, and prior to the 1997 Parliament new arrangements were studied and were later put into place. In Committee, I will table some purely probing amendments to explore how the system is currently working.

I was very surprised that no noble Lords raised the issue of women in the front line. We already have women serving courageously in the front line and in harm’s way. They will engage the enemy as vigorously as their male colleagues. The issue is whether they should take on a role which is primarily to close with the enemy and kill him. Women are currently precluded from serving in the infantry or the Royal Armoured Corps operating armoured fighting vehicles. It is possible that, in respect of armoured fighting vehicles, women have advantages that outweigh the disadvantages. However, as regards the infantry, “closing with the enemy and killing him” is a brutal, bloody business. Physical strength is all-important. Since the average male is far stronger than almost all females, it follows that allowing women to serve in the infantry will reduce the combat effectiveness of the British Army and therefore I would strongly oppose it. There is of course an acid test for this issue. In the event of general war and conscription, would noble Lords be prepared to conscript women to serve in the front line? I very much doubt it.

We have talked a lot about the Government’s policy for the reserves, and while I have my misgivings I have a helpful suggestion; I will read very carefully what my noble friend Lord Freeman said. I believe that we should blur the distinction between regular and reserve service. This may be particularly relevant to cyber-reservists. Perhaps we should think of reserve service much more as being in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces but on a zero-hours contract. Rather than have me blunder around in the dark, it would be helpful if the Minister could arrange for me to be properly briefed on the current legal situation as soon as possible.

We have heard much about the military covenant, one of the principles of which is that no one who serves should be disadvantaged by that service. Over the last year or so, we have seen a retired officer of stratospheric seniority, who will have held the highest security classification, and who is also a Member of your Lordships’ House, having his public reputation traduced by a police investigation called Operation Midland. The public were told that the evidence was “credible and true”. As we know, parts of the operation were carried out in the full glare of publicity and not discreetly and sensitively. Of course, no one—but no one—is above the law and we need to give the police operational independence. However, I know that many noble Lords are deeply unhappy about this matter, which is fast moving, with developments even today. My main effort will have to wait for the next police and crime Bill, but I will table several amendments to address some of these concerns where they are relevant to the Armed Forces Bill. These might not necessarily be probing amendments, especially on Report.

I turn to the Blackman case. Several years ago, I told the House that service personnel deploying on operations have a secret dread fear, which is misconduct on operations. It is a sad fact that, if we are engaged in operations, sooner or later something will go wrong such as in this case. The House will recognise that the reason why we have a system of military discipline is so that our members of our Armed Forces, who are lawful combatants, will engage the enemy when required and, most importantly, they will adhere to the law of armed conflict and treat captured and injured enemies as they would want to be treated themselves. The fact that the enemy might not reciprocate is immaterial. We will not descend to the enemy’s level.

For years and years, during my annual training on the law of armed conflict I watched a video which covered some of the crucial points. I expect that the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, has watched the very same video. Among the points were the duty to protect vulnerable non-combatants and cultural items and, most importantly, that wounded enemy get medical treatment according to clinical priorities and not according to whose side they are on. The video also made it clear that you cannot kill the enemy once he is wounded and no longer able to fight. There was absolutely no doubt on these points and the current training is even more detailed and carefully delivered.

The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, knows very well that I hold both him and the Royal Marines in the very highest regard. However, I have to part company with him on this issue. I am very sorry for Blackman and his family. When he comes out of prison I would support him in seeking good employment.

[Lord Burnett]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving way. The thrust of Sergeant Blackman’s case is that he shot a man he thought was dead; we should all be careful about what we say about the case, because the papers are now with the Criminal Cases Review Commission, and we await what its judgment will be on the facts.

[Earl Attlee]

I am grateful for that. I was going to say that he is a good man but he has fouled up, and has been convicted in the courts of a serious military offence and has to be disciplined, however unpleasant that is for everyone.

The noble Lord called into question the court martial system and in particular the experience of the officers on the board. Those comments were rather adventurous. I have served on two or three court martials but only for much less serious matters, and certainly not involving the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. I can assure the House that, in my experience, the mindset of the board is to acquit if at all possible. Your Lordships will recall that the court martial acquitted Marines B and C, and I am bound to say that I would have been surprised if a civilian court had done so.

The noble Lord implied that the officers on the board would have difficulty in understanding the operational conditions at the time of the incident. That is not a fair criticism but, in any case, how much more difficult would it be for a jury in the Old Bailey? The reality is that of course Crown Court juries are forever deciding cases where they have no experience of the relevant environments, such as drug dealing, gang culture and organised crime.

In the past, I have intervened in support of service personnel who have been prosecuted when I believed that something had gone wrong. The Trooper Williams case comes to mind. I am very sorry, but nothing has gone wrong with the system and my counsel to the Minister is to do nothing. I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, who, as I have said, I have high regard for. Fortunately, there is much common ground between us. I look forward to Committee.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Earl Attlee]

That this House takes note of the United Kingdom’s role in supporting international security and stability in the light of the strategic defence and security review.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am honoured to lead this debate today, although I fear that I am probably the least experienced speaker. I do not believe that yesterday’s debates and vote in Parliament have pre-empted our discussions this afternoon. The issue yesterday was about current and imminent military operations. Today, the issue is the Government’s SDSR White Paper, which concerns creating international stability and security in order to avoid conflict or confrontation arising in the first place, and, failing that, ensuring that we have the appropriate military capabilities to deal with any foreseeable problems. Post Mumbai and other large-scale atrocities, the horrific events in Paris do not mean that the White Paper is already out of date. It clearly anticipates such events and seeks to avoid them. I am sure that many noble Lords will want to cover the security situation in MENA because it is so central to our situation.

Today, we can look forward to no less than four maiden and 27 other speakers. Even with the time I have available, I cannot hope to cover all the ground of the SDSR. However, in due course, I think that we need to have far more detail about what is proposed in order to measure progress in future years.

The White Paper makes much of the fact that a strong economy is a prerequisite of a successful security and defence policy. Noble Lords will be aware that we spend more on interest payments on the national debt than we do on defence, and we simply cannot go on running a budget deficit for ever. At some point we have to pay off the debt. In the 2010 SDSR the Government had to make some very painful decisions and we have to be clear that they took on some significant risks.

I welcome the general tone of the White Paper, although it is necessarily rather more robust and stern than some of its predecessors. It offers three national security objectives. Objective 1 is to protect our people by meeting the NATO 2% target and investing in agile, capable and globally deployable Armed Forces. Of course, I would like to see more than 2% but one has to be realistic.

We are to respond robustly to the re-emergence of state-based threats, including with the renewal of the nuclear deterrent. The fight against terrorism, radicalisation and extremism at home and overseas will be prioritised by a range of sensible measures.

Objective 2 is to protect our global influence primarily with soft power. We will be spending 0.7 % of GNI on official development assistance—in other words, overseas aid with a slightly more relaxed definition, although still within OECD guidelines. I will return to this later. I was particularly pleased to hear about the increased resources to be allocated to the BBC World Service and the British Council. In the future we will be developing alliances, building new, stronger partnerships and seeking to persuade potential adversaries of the benefits of co-operation.

Finally, objective 3 is to promote our prosperity. We will do this by promoting a rules-based international order. Interestingly, we will be maximising prosperity opportunities from our defence, security, diplomatic and development activities. However, I hope that this does not mean that we will be relaxing our defence export control regime.

Some in my party question the wisdom of spending 0.7 % of GNI on ODA and protecting the aid budget, even in the difficult conditions of 2010. My background is military—that is, hard power—although I have also run an overseas aid operation. Nevertheless, I am sure that this is the right approach. When you look at the cake of government expenditure, the biggest slices, in order, are welfare, health, education, state pensions, interest payments, then defence at around £35 billion, and then, after several other ever-thinner slices, the DfID budget. Even with no aid budget at all, the cake would look no different and defence’s slice would look no bigger. For the reasons described in the White Paper, we need to have both soft and hard power. Of course, it is essential to spend ODA wisely and Command Paper 9163 describes how that will be achieved.

Paragraph 3.18 of the national security strategy covers the resurgence of state-based threats and, in particular, Russia’s behaviour. I approve of the tone and the drafting, especially where it is made clear that we want to co-operate. I think that we need to be very careful to make sure that we understand the Russian viewpoint. I suspect that their map of the world looks rather different from ours. That is one reason why I welcome the return to your Lordships’ House of my noble friend Lord Cameron of Fairfax as an elected hereditary Peer. He has much experience of Russia. I hope that after making his interests clear, he will not hesitate to regularly give us his insight.

I will leave cyber and technology to others, apart from welcoming what the White Paper says and making three of my own points. It is becoming apparent that, apart from the UK and France, EU states are poor at exchanging data, and we do not know who is in the UK at any time.

The White Paper mentions Galileo, which, as a satellite system, is just as vulnerable as GPS. Can the Minister say where we are with the terrestrial eLoran system, which might be much harder to interfere with?

I welcome the Government’s decision to renew the deterrent and have a vote in the House of Commons. I wonder how much time and money was wasted by the coalition Government due to the Lib Dems insisting on studying alternatives to a submarine-launched ballistic missile system when most of us are clear that there are not any. Can the Minister confirm that it is now necessary to run the Vanguard class of SSBN longer than was intended by the last Labour Government, even if it can be done safely?

I am sure that many noble Lords will talk about the maritime patrol aircraft. I was first briefed on the RMPA project before the 1997 election. It seemed even then to be an extraordinary project. The plan was to take an existing aircraft and give it new wings, engines and avionics but save the fuselage. Why not just buy a new aircraft and system, which would be far less risky? I was very surprised that the party opposite, in government, persisted with the project.

For SDSR 2010, I think it was better to cut a capability completely than degrade a lot of other capabilities by the traditional salami-slicing technique—but yes, of course it made it more difficult to ensure that the deterrent remained undetected, as I am sure many noble Lords will remind us today. It may be very inconvenient and challenging to get the necessary help from our allies in the current relatively benign strategic threat environment. However, no one is going to plan a strategic attack on the basis that there is a possibility that they might fleetingly know the location of one NATO SSBN. The beauty of having three closely aligned states with SSBN is that there is just too much uncertainty for a potential aggressor. It works.

I turn to other hard-power issues. The Royal Navy is just not big enough, but I strongly support the concept of the aircraft carriers because they can provide vigorous and independent air support to our forces deployed ashore. The White Paper talks about extending the role of the Type 45 to include ballistic missile defence. Presumably, that would be in a theatre or area role with interception in the terminal phase. Perhaps the Minister can tell us a bit more about that.

By the 2030s, the Royal Navy will have some new general purpose frigates. Can the Minister confirm that these will be proper warships and will carry and operate a helicopter? Although the offshore patrol vessels are not warships, but will be armed, I think that they will have much utility. I have seen the Irish OPVs being built at the Appledore shipyard, and I hope that the forthcoming shipbuilding strategy will secure a future for warship building, and not just in Scotland.

I am very concerned about the state of the Army. I recognise that I am not a capability manager. However, I think that we have too great a proliferation of armoured and protected mobility platforms, with too many UOR vehicles being taken into general service. These vehicles were designed for one particular operation, with no account being taken of long-term sustainability or other military requirements.

Currently, we have only three regular Challenger tank armoured regiments. Since we will only have two armoured infantry brigades, if I am correct, does that mean that we will be down to only two armoured regiments?

The White Paper indicates that two infantry battalions are to be reconfigured for defence engagement. It sounds to me as though a more accurate description is “downgraded and reduced”. Presumably, these battalions will not have the capability of even a light-role battalion. Can the Minister confirm that I am right in my thinking and what the headcount of these battalions will be?

Apparently there are to be 10,000 military personnel available to assist the civil authorities at short notice. Can the Minister confirm that this is MAC A, military assistance to the civil authority, and not MAC P, military assistance to the civil power, and that MAC P in the UK is normally only provided by Special Forces when military primacy takes place for only a short time? I think that it would be helpful if the Minister could explain exactly what this policy means.

Regarding air power and the RAF, I welcome the enhancements outlined in the White Paper. We also now have a much-improved and modern transport fleet that is well-placed to support future operations.

Finally, I turn to personnel. I think that this will be the biggest challenge in delivering the SDSR in future years, in particular nuclear and other highly skilled technical people, both in and out of uniform. I think that some very senior officers have a touching faith in what can be achieved with contractors, especially in theatre. Interestingly, the White Paper has almost nothing to say about reserves. Perhaps we will see a paper on that later.

I am a little worried about what might be behind some of the White Paper’s comments regarding accommodation, pay and allowances. Personally, I would like to see the Armed Forces pay review body take a rather more proactive role in ensuring that the Armed Forces are able to attract the right quality of recruit.

I look forward to hearing the views of other noble Lords. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, especially the Minister for answering it. I agreed with almost all noble Lords, although I think that some of them need to research the existence of the Fleet Air Arm. I remembered during the debate that I had forgotten to raise one particularly obvious point but, fortunately, no other noble Lords raised it, so I can keep it for another event. In the mean time, I beg to move.

Motion agreed.

House of Lords: Questions

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I agree that we have a problem. About 10 years ago, if I had got fed up with a Minister regarding his Written Answers, I would roll into the Minute Room and say: “Starred Question—next available slot to ask Her Majesty’s Government about it”. We cannot do that now, so we have a problem.

I think that the Opposition Front Bench should be able to ask supplementary questions at Question Time on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition, but not necessarily all the time. We did try five Questions in 35 minutes a few years ago but it was a failure because your Lordships got bored with it. I think that four Questions in 30 minutes is right. It is long enough to expose the Minister’s difficulty, or for the Minister to convince the House.

I have two observations. The first one is that asking an Oral Question is perhaps the most challenging procedure in your Lordships’ House, especially when you are on the opposition Benches, because the Minister holds all the cards. The Minister knows what his response will be but the person asking the Question does not know what he will say and has only milliseconds to decide which supplementary to use. It is a very difficult procedure. That may be why some noble Lords are reluctant to table Oral Questions.

My second observation is in answer to my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, and I would like to boast a little bit, because I am told that I hold the record for the number of supplementary questions answered by a Minister—I think it is at least 12 and may even be 13. I told my officials that I would answer very briefly because noble Lords want to be able to say at a dinner party, “I asked the supplementary question about that”; they do not want to say, “I listened to a long Answer from the Minister”.

Armed Forces: Reserves

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Grand Committee

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Freeman for introducing this Question for Short Debate. I have a couple of interests to declare. First, General Brims was my divisional commander in Iraq in 2003, so of course I have to say nice things about him, but there are plenty of nice things to say. Secondly, I am still commissioned in the TA, but this is my last year of service and I am no longer training.

I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, to his position as opposition spokesman. He has of course been a Defence Minister in the past, so I suspect that he will be able to give my noble friend Lord Howe a run for his money.

I still think that the plan for volunteer reserves is deeply flawed—in particular, in trying to suggest that volunteer reservists will be identical to their regular counterparts. They cannot be. They may be interchangeable and they can certainly be interoperable, but they are never going to be the same. There is simply not enough time for training to get to that level of proficiency. The problem is not with the actual role but with their wider experience. For instance, before I was commissioned I was a recovery mechanic and I operated a heavy recovery vehicle. In fact, because of my civilian experience and knowledge and everything else, I knew far more about that recovery vehicle than my regular counterparts. I had deep engineering experience and understanding of the vehicle. However, if I was asked to reliably identify a Soviet armoured fighting vehicle, I would not be able to do so. A regular would be able to, because on a wet Thursday afternoon he would not be able to go home until he could identify to his staff sergeant every single Soviet armoured fighting vehicle. Those in the TA do not have the time to do that.

My noble friend Lord Freeman talked about the problem of officers. It is a big problem, especially given that the average age of an Army Reserve officer is about 44. That is far too old. Given contemporary employment patterns, I am not sure how the Minister will be able to increase recruitment of the direct entry junior officers. Late entry officers are very good but, as soldiers put it, you need a proper Rupert.

We need to be careful about the term “trained strength” when we look at the recruiting and strength figures, because they can be misleading. “Trained” presumably means that the serviceman—the volunteer reservist—has passed their basic training and their basic trade course. In the case of a simple trade such as a driver or the logistics corps, that is not much of a problem. A REME vehicle mechanic in my own corps has an “A” trade, which requires much more training, but there is only the same amount of training time available—a few weekends and a two-week trade course. It is not possible to make a proper vehicle mechanic in two weeks. A lot of work has been done in the REME to address this problem, and there is a need to be careful, as far as possible, to recruit civilians with appropriate experience. Being trained or not trained is not a binary condition.

We have better news on recruiting. There is time to meet the targets, but the problem will be retention. When I had what I must say was a very small command, I concentrated relentlessly on retention and I did not worry about recruiting. In fact, I hated it when I was told to run an open day because my soldiers did not want to take part in an open day; they wanted to go and do something. I always concentrated on retention and at some points in my TA career I got in trouble because I was over establishment. I had more people than I was supposed to have. I was told to reduce the numbers and I said, “Which ones am I supposed to get rid of, because they all turn up?”.

We will have to concentrate on retention so that we do not lose the recruits we have. During the Cold War days in BAOR, every so often there were massive exercises. In the run-up to those exercises no one would leave the TA because we knew we had a fabulously interesting exercise to go on, but those days are gone. There are other ways in which we can damage retention, including by not funding accommodation improvements. I have some helpful questions for the Minister that I know he will try to answer.

My final plea is about the scale of Exercise Saif Sareea. We need to have brigade deployment, not a battle group, and we need to make sure that there are a lot of opportunities for the TA in that exercise.

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

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Grand Committee

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his usual brilliant introduction to the debate. Like the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, I too am double-hatted and was always going to speak in both debates. I listened carefully to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Burnett. I still have confidence in the court martial system, provided that we can put right any mistakes. Who is to say that a civilian court would not be even less sympathetic in all the circumstances pertaining at the time? I think that we should consider and study this matter very carefully in the coming weeks and then, if necessary, put all the pressure that we can on the Minister to reconsider the matter.

I have not been so active in defence in recent years because I have been heavily involved in other matters within your Lordships’ House. I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lord Astor of Hever, both for his time as Minister and now as Secretary of the Defence Study Group.

There is good news. Because the SDSR is to be a regular occurrence, we are getting better at doing it and can react in a more timely manner to changing circumstances, as the Minister explained. Even better, the budget for defence has been agreed, even though I still think that it falls way short of what we should be doing and we may yet regret not spending enough. Some might say that one should determine the requirement first and then provide the resources, but I have always felt that one should be honest and determine what funds are available first. That way, the SDSR is much more likely to provide a balanced capability. There is no point in spending large amounts of money on shiny jets and the latest AFEs if one has neglected ISTAR and does not have a clue where one’s opponent is or what he is doing. I do not think that UK defence gets enough credit in the media for getting this broadly right while other states can be appalling in this regard.

In the previous Parliament, the Conservative-led coalition got to grips with the black hole, however painful it was to do so. What assurances can the Minister give me that another black hole will not develop alongside the very expensive exercise of pushing programmes to the right—something that the Labour Government found themselves having to do because of the black hole?

I still believe that the concept for the reserves is completely flawed, as volunteer reserves are not a direct substitute for regulars. Here I declare an interest, as I am still commissioned in the REME reserves but am no longer posted anywhere. I have been in the reserves or TA ever since I was 17 and a half. Next month I will commence my final year before becoming 60 years old. There are some signs that the new policy is coming round but I am not holding my breath. I have some anxiety that some funding lines for the reserves have not materialised in order to meet budgetary restrictions. I take it that the SDSR will correct that by stating what is to be done with the reserves, what facilities they need and where capital expenditure needs to be made, and ensuring that funds are available.

Having smaller Armed Forces has the serious problem of increasing the proportion of resources allocated to the overhead—that is, the staff and civil servants. This is because a lot of functions still have to be undertaken irrespective of the size of the Armed Forces. This is especially so in the process of developing and procuring equipment, since every single piece of equipment has to be specified, developed and procured, whether it is a cooking utensil, a tent or a truck. This is an unpalatable thought and not one for this SDSR but, especially for the Army, would it not be better to draw everything that we can from US ordnance and use our own developed and procured equipment only when we absolutely have to? Of course, there would have to be a formal offset agreement with the US Government to ensure that UK industry still got its fair share of business. The logistical advantages in reduced stockholding and commonality, both at home and when deployed, are obvious. One could ask why we do not do this in Europe. No doubt we are trying to, but the fact is that within Europe there are too many moving parts. I am just suggesting that we draw the majority of our stores from US ordnance.

Much has been made of the fact that we have the fifth largest defence expenditure in the world, but other states have different cost bases. India, for instance, which we are close to but should be closer still to, spends less than us but has about 1 million men under arms and about 3,000 main battle tanks. Of course, they will not all be as good as a European army but, as Napoleon once said, “Size has a quality all of its own”.

As I have indicated, I do not think that our Army is big enough or has enough combat power. That is my perception, but if senior people in Washington get the same perception or worse, we will become militarily insignificant so far as the Americans are concerned. That is not a good position to be in. The recent statement about the 2% is helpful in that regard; it goes some way, but not as far as I would like.

Much attention is being paid to Special Forces and perhaps increasing their size, but, if you reduce the size of the regular army, you reduce the SF recruiting pool. If the ratio of SF to conventional goes the wrong way, there is also the risk of sucking out too many top-class people from the conventional forces. If you think about it, 2,000 out of 80,000 is becoming a significant percentage.

In the last SDSR, we reduced the number of main battle tanks by about 40%, along with the support that they needed. You need very considerable support to run a large fleet of main battle tanks. This is despite the fact that in all the recent major deployments we took main battle tanks. On Op Telic 1 we had 116 of them. Even on Herrick in Afghanistan we deployed T2; that is Trojan and Titan armoured engineer vehicles, which are variants of Challenger. We even had other nations support us with Leopard main battle tanks because, for very sensible reasons, we were not able to deploy Challenger in theatre. I sincerely hope that the capability managers have got that decision right and it was not more to do with the financial issues referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

I doubt the wisdom of keeping in service a whole range of land platforms that came into service as an urgent operational requirement. The whole point of UOR equipment is that it is specific to the current operation. Because of this, any weakness in that equipment that is not relevant to the current operation does not matter and no attention is paid to its future sustainability.

I turn to the new Scout armoured fighting vehicle. I can understand the need to replace Bulldog and, at some point, Warrior. However, I understand that Scout is a 40-tonne behemoth. I recognise that the reconnaissance effect of CVRT can be achieved by other means, but CVRT was a very good platform for framework patrols on peacekeeping operations because it only weighed about 10 tonnes. It was not particularly aggressive, but it did still pack a reasonable punch. What will provide that capability in the future other than a few UOR platforms that I have already referred to? I hope that the Minister and his department can provide a comprehensive briefing so that we can better understand the benefits of this important programme.

Defence: Budget

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, when I arrived in your Lordships’ House in the early 1990s, there were many in both Houses who had fought in the Second World War—to name a few, Lord Whitelaw, Lord Callaghan, the noble Lord, Lord Healey, Lord Jellicoe, Lord Jenkin, Lord Mowbray, Lord Mackie of Benshie, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and of course, Lord Runcie. There were also some in your Lordships’ House who served in the First World War, and I will never forget Lord Houghton of Sowerby banging on about dangerous dogs with such skill and perseverance.

The problem today is that, so far as I know, none of our political leaders has ever been hungry or tasted defeat. Indeed, very few, if any, at the very top have any sort of military experience. Having been a special adviser is seen as being much more important. Opinion polls and focus groups tell us that the people are more interested in health, education and welfare than defence. However, I will wager anything you like that our people in 1940 bitterly regretted not having spent enough on defence, especially on the Army, when the Nazi regime was doing almost exactly what President Putin is doing now. The world paid dearly and the parallels with the present are uncanny.

The Minister will tell us that we have one of the largest defence budgets in the world. However, that includes the cost of the nuclear deterrent that we certainly need but will never use, provided we have enough conventional forces. We also have a relatively high cost of labour in the defence industry. If we maintain our current trajectory, I have no doubt that we will get our posterior kicked hard, and we will deserve it. Even if we do not have either to acquiesce to something unpalatable or to suffer a military disaster, so far as the Americans are concerned we will become militarily irrelevant.

Defence Budget

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

Order. I am sorry to have to get to my feet, but if we are taking it in turns, it is the turn of the Labour Benches.

Armed Forces: Aircraft Carrier

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am told that there are always technical issues during the test phase of an aircraft programme, so what is happening is not uncommon. With regard to the numbers, the UK has received three of 35 to date. Another is being built, and the MoD recently approved the purchase of 14 additional aircraft, the first four of which were ordered at the end of last year. Total F35 aircraft numbers will be examined within SDSR 15.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister join me in paying tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for getting UK industry fully involved in the F35 programme?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend.

UK Armed Forces in Iraq

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I probably can tell my noble friend that, but I fear that I may get into trouble if I say too much. I do have some figures. They are official-sensitive and I am probably unable to tell my noble friend that.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, are we providing training on our own or are we co-operating with other states? Perhaps my noble friend could say which other states are providing training missions. Are we training Iraqi regular forces or irregular forces?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend who of course knows Iraq very well, having himself served on Telic 1. As for help from other coalition members, there have been significant offers of support in principle from coalition partners. For example, I understand that the Australians have offered up to 400, New Zealand up to 100, the Danes 120, the Germans around 100 and Italy 280. The US has authorised up to 3,100 personnel to be in Iraq.

Asylum: Afghanistan Interpreters

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. Applications are being processed, and I assure the noble Lord that this is well advanced. It is a very complicated process requiring health and security checks. Apart from the need to verify immediate family members, we also have to find local authorities that will agree to take individuals. However, we recognise the commitment that we have given to these people, and we are committed to achieving relocation as quickly as possible.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, when we are engaged in military operations overseas, such as Bosnia and Afghanistan, do we offer financial inducements to members of the Armed Forces to acquire capability in the relevant language?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I did not quite understand my noble friend’s question, but I shall read it and write to him.