Offensive Weapons Bill

Earl of Cork and Orrery Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th February 2019 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Cork and Orrery (CB)]

I object to some parts of the amendment. There are two or three areas where there is insufficient attention to detail for it to supersede the original Bill. For a start, there is a question about MARS and lever action which, as has just been raised, is used by target shooters in international competition. This is an important aspect of Paralympic competition and normal shooting competitions, so we do not want to catch those weapons in the amendment. Another item left out from the amendment, I suspect by mistake, relates to a prohibition on the use of .22 rimfire semi-automatic rifles, which are widely used for vermin control and the like. That certainly should be in the amendment. Another point is that although the amendment refers to,

“a calibre greater than .45 inches”,

there are quite large numbers of rifles out there—

[The Earl of Shrewsbury]

My Lords, I do not think that .22 calibres are caught. I think the noble Earl is incorrect there.

[The Earl of Cork and Orrery]

As I read it, the amendment does not refer to the .22 calibre whereas a similar paragraph in the Bill does.

[The Earl of Shrewsbury]

My Lords, I think that may be a typographic error. It should refer to the .22.

[The Earl of Cork and Orrery]

Typographic error or no, it is not in there. Going back to large-calibre rifles, quite a lot of people get much fun out of remarkable things such as black-powder, muzzle-loader and Snider .577 rifles, which are far larger but have very low effects. Again, more detail is required to ensure that these sort of things can be legally held.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendments 80A to 80D in this group. If the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, had not tabled his Amendment 79 concerning .50 calibre rifles, he would have been best described as asleep at the wheel. I think the Committee will be grateful for the opportunity to discuss this matter and, hopefully, identify a solution. Other noble Lords have discussed the genesis of this matter. A .50 calibre rifle is clearly in a class of its own. However, I have some concerns about the quality of briefings given to Ministers and to Members of the House of Commons. It is therefore not surprising that the Government had to drop their provisions on .50 calibre rifles in the House of Commons.

While .50 calibre target rifles have some extraordinary characteristics, they are entirely dependent on the skill of the user. It is tempting to believe that all one has to do to hit the V-bull centre of the target is to line up the cross-hairs of a telescopic sight and squeeze the trigger. The reality is rather more complex. It is a great sport simply because it is so difficult, and therefore not surprising that target shooting is an Olympic sport. First, the rifle has to be held correctly and in exactly the same way for every shot. The shooter’s breathing has to be controlled perfectly. If I was trying to shoot at 1,000 yards I doubt that I could keep the cross-hairs on the target, let alone the bull. Trigger action is also all-important. For instance, snatching the trigger is the cause of a lot of inaccuracy. Frankly, due to the recoil, if I tried to fire a .50 calibre target rifle I would be terrified—a 7.62 target rifle is bad enough. For all these reasons, an applicant for a firearms certificate for a .50 calibre target rifle will not be successful unless considerable skill can be demonstrated with lighter but full-bore target rifles.

It is of course exceptionally unlikely that a terrorist would have the necessary skill to use a .50 calibre rifle in the way feared by some. My noble friend Lord Lucas said that these rifles had never been used in crime.

I do not have a philosophical objection to private ownership of a .50 calibre target rifle. However, two mischiefs remain. The first is that if one was stolen it could for a while give rise to major security concerns. This might result in certain events being cancelled. The second is this. I do not have the skill to use a .50 calibre rifle effectively. However, I have the skill to incorporate one into a remote-controlled weapon system and it would have none of the marksmanship weaknesses that I have. The good news is that it is very unusual for someone with this level of engineering skill to use it for such evil and illegal purposes. It is even less likely in the case of today’s radicalised terrorists, who usually have very limited skills.

In the UK, we suffer mercifully few disasters with legally held firearms. This is because we get the balance right. Ministers generally make the right decisions, taking into account advice from Home Office officials. There is one particular official who has done sterling work over many years and has briefed or worked with many of us in this Committee. I am sure that noble Lords know who I am talking about and we should be grateful for his efforts.

My Amendment 80A would build on my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 74 and provide that special storage and transport conditions on a firearms certificate were mandatory in the case of a high muzzle energy rifle; that is, one with more than 13,600 joules of energy.

My Amendment 80B would give the Secretary of State an order-making power to specify the special storage and transport conditions to be included on the certificate. Of course, we could go for guidance rather than an order. I have made no provision for parliamentary scrutiny because I do not believe it to be sensible to make the security details public.

So far as I can see, the current standard gun cabinets are designed to prevent unauthorised access or opportunistic theft and they appear to do so. However, they are not designed to resist a determined attack using specialist equipment. My noble friend Lord Lucas proposes a much higher level of security and I support this. While my noble friend’s amendment is clear on what is proposed, I think that there are drafting issues and I suspect that the same applies to my amendment.

I understand that some owners of .50 calibre target rifles already have the requisite secure facilities. However, some might not be so lucky and there is also a vulnerability when these guns are in transit. Currently, it is illegal to possess any of the key components of a firearm without a certificate and this includes the bolt. My Amendment 80C would allow another person to be in possession of a bolt if this was in connection with a special storage and transport condition. I would expect there to be documentary conditions involved. This provision could be useful in allowing club officials to hold the bolts for the owners of a .50 calibre rifle. It could also allow the rifle to be transported without the bolt being present with the rifle. Therefore, if a rifle is stolen but the bolt can still be accounted for, there is no security problem and no risk.

I have made no special provision about the ammunition because I do not believe that it is necessary or beneficial. This is because dealing with the rifle solves the problem and it is not particularly difficult to acquire or reload a few rounds of .50 calibre ammunition for some terrible purpose.

I am not fixed on whether we solve this problem by storage conditions or by disassembling the rifle, thus rendering it harmless except when in use on a range, or a combination of the two. It may be best to have a range of options available to suit the circumstances, and this could be provided for in the proposed order or guidance. If we want to have a disassembly option available, we need my Amendment 80C, or something similar on the face of the Bill.

If the sense of the Grand Committee is that something along the lines of my suggestion is acceptable, the Minister may be more tempted to take the opportunity to come up with a properly drafted government amendment. The consultation could then go forward as planned and, with benefit of the consultation, the Government could implement the necessary changes by whatever means is provided in the Bill.

My final amendment in this group is Amendment 80D. The Firearms Act 1968 does not define a rifle, other than to say that the term includes a carbine. This is because there was no need. I was concerned that the prohibition of high muzzle energy rifles might catch preserved artillery and tank guns, which are currently licensed by an ordinary firearms certificate if they have not already been deactivated. I have been assured by officials that the term “rifle” would exclude artillery pieces, and this makes sense. However, if we do make the changes regarding HME rifles, an individual police officer might want to make a name for himself by claiming that an artillery piece is caught by any legislation we eventually pass. He could claim that the term “rifle” means a firearm that has been rifled. Indeed, one noble and gallant Lord has asked me to look at and raise this point. I have previously been involved with a problem arising in this way, concerning the Vehicle Excise Act, concrete pumping machines and mobile cranes— don’t ask.

It would be best to define a rifle in the 1968 Act, but I would be happy if the Minister gave a categorical “Pepper v Hart” assurance that the term “rifle” does not include larger pieces of ordnance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a brief intervention in this debate. I declare an interest as a holder of a firearms certificate and the owner of a number of rifles, none of which would come anywhere near the type of muzzle energy we are talking about.

I support the description of our firearms licensing regime given by my noble friend Lord Lucas. It is generally accepted internationally that the UK has one of the most rigorous and best informed firearms licensing regimes in the world. It is also generally accepted that the shooting community respects and understands that the holding of a firearms certificate is a privilege that can be removed. Because of that, they are a very law-abiding section of the community. They are acutely aware that their sport and activity can be curtailed should they be involved in criminal activity entirely unrelated to the use of their firearms.

With that in mind, we have to be a bit careful of banning things because they are an easy target—forgive the pun. It is easy to work out where a particular category of firearm is and remove it from circulation. I hold no particular candle for the .50 calibre rifle and I am open to arguments about where the line should be drawn, because one indeed has to be drawn somewhere. We have acted in the past regarding handguns, fully automatic weapons and a number of other eventualities, but I very much support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s contention that before we ban something we have to have a closely argued, coherent case that is evidence based. Just banning something because we feel like it or because it is easy to do should not be a proper course of action.

Debate on the Bill has, on the one hand, largely been about very large numbers of people carrying knives, often using them and being closely tied up with the criminal fraternity, particularly drug dealers. On the other hand, the Bill talks about banning the use of a piece of equipment that is legally held when no recorded crime has ever been committed using a legally held rifle of such high-muzzle energy, as far as I understand it. I am open to correction by my noble friend and other Members of the Committee. We have to be very careful about that. Where do we draw the line?

I quite accept what the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, said: these are weapons of very high power and very high destructive capability. That is absolutely correct. On the other hand, their utility for criminals is much lower than that of many other sniper rifles. He described them as sniper rifles, and indeed they are. But they are not the typical sniper rifles used by the British Army, which are in calibres much closer to sporting rifles and are much smaller pieces of equipment. We have to put this in perspective and look at the actual threat.

When the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, referred to what was worrying the Home Secretary about these rifles, it occurred to me to question whether he was worried about the theft of these 130 or so rifles, a tiny number, or about one of those firearm certificate holders turning bad. Or was it really about someone purchasing one of these—in America, for example—and turning it into a small number of machinery components, putting them in a container and smuggling them in, as a vast number of illegally held pistols arrive in this country. The real danger faced on the streets is from illegally held weapons, not legally held weapons.

[The Earl of Cork and Orrery]

My Lords, I will add a couple of points. It is very instructive to look up “sniper rifles” on Google because you get a huge list of them, the vast majority at 7.62 calibre not .50 calibre. It is also interesting to see that three of the most popular .50 calibre rifles are made in this country and well known globally as some of the most popular sniper rifles. There are currently believed to be 200 large- calibre rifles in the UK, which is not a very substantial number. The cost of acquiring one of these .50 calibre target rifles is also not cheap—about £20,000 for the whole package, so there are never going to be very many of them.

Another point, which has already been made, is that only one of these rifles has ever been stolen in this country and it was found shortly afterwards, dumped by the opportunist thief, who realised that there was absolutely nothing he could do with it. They weigh about 36 pounds, which means they are not exactly the easiest things to carry around, and are very substantial in length—a length from here to the end of the desk. So we are talking about a rare beast indeed.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, I hate guns, so I have no interest in promoting any cause. I do not want to trivialise firearms offences because they can be very serious, but they are relatively small in number compared with the number of knife crime offences, for example. Only 1% of non-air weapon firearms offences involve rifles. Bearing in mind the very low number of offences committed using rifles, can the Minister tell the Committee why the Government have set these hares running?

Royal Navy: Warships

Earl of Cork and Orrery Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

No, my Lords. The Ministry of Defence will continue to take decisions in parallel with the programme that is now in train. Where significant decisions need to be taken, their impact on the modernising defence programme and their relationship with it will of course be considered.

[The Earl of Cork and Orrery (CB)]

My Lords, the Navy is in the process of taking delivery of five Batch 2 offshore patrol vessels. These will displace four earlier vessels, one of which, HMS “Severn”, has already been decommissioned. She is only 15 years old. Will the Minister undertake to examine future uses for these versatile vessels, which might include Border Force or Royal Naval Reserve duties to augment our coastal and fisheries protection?

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for those suggestions, which I am sure will be noted by the department. But the modernising defence programme that is now in train is the body of work that will settle the specifics of what we require to meet our defence needs. As I have said, its aim is to ensure that we have defence that is sustainable, affordable and configured to address all the threats that we face.

UK Defence Forces

Earl of Cork and Orrery Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Cork and Orrery (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Soley, on his excellent speech and on procuring this debate. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, on his incisive analysis of the situation.

Discussion has focused largely on equipment, preparedness and procurement but the other main area, the nature of the threat—what is a sufficient level and what is needed overall to make the contribution suggested?—has been defined by SDSR 2015, which, for better or worse, is the road map in use until the current quasi-review reports. Indeed, while it is clearly evident that procurement has been far slower than expected, it has to be accepted that thus far SDSR 2015, in naval terms at least, is our only set of directions, unless some of the darker rumours reported in the press about the axing of the LPDs “Albion” and “Bulwark”, and the consequent loss of an amphibious capability, turn out to be true.

However, I wish to look at a more immediate and pressing problem—namely, the people who will be required to man and fight these systems. Recent statistics indicate major shortfalls in personnel, which are not being made up by recruitment. It is clear that service morale and recruitment have suffered badly from a combination of factors: the reduction in conflict operations in the Middle East, with the consequent lack of a sense of purpose and direction; stagnation of pay and conditions; failure to incentivise enough young men and women to join the reserves; and regular and prolonged separations. This all leads to low morale among serving personnel, and further leads to retention rates being below recruitment rates.

The Royal Navy has a target of 30,450 personnel and is currently 1,000 short of that. Of this total, some 8,000 are Royal Marines. The Royal Marines is the only European marine force currently capable of conducting amphibious operations at brigade level. Therefore, the naval personnel available to man the new aircraft carriers and the other assets expected to come into service amount to fewer than 20,000. This is a shockingly low figure given the requirements of training, rotations, family life and so on, and must be the main impetus behind the proposals now being voiced to remove the Royal Marines’ capability to land a brigade-sized force anywhere in the world. This was a major plank of SDSR 2015 and Joint Force 2025 and, at the very least, should be maintained. Vague talk about giving one of the carriers an amphibious capability should be dismissed for what it is: a red herring. However, if there is no alternative to withdrawing “Ocean”, “Albion” and “Bulwark”, has consideration been given to laying them up in maintained reserve until such time as the recruitment situation has improved or we suddenly have a pressing need for their services? These are highly specialised vessels with much service life left, and selling them off to a foreign navy or, worse, to a scrapyard, will go down very badly in the public prints and with the public at large.

There is no simple way to increase recruitment at a time of pay restraint and lack of challenging service, but there are plenty of arguments for improvements in the X factor component of service pay. A five-yearly review of the X factor is currently under way, and it would be an admirable moment to use it to improve service pay and conditions after so many years of being shackled to minimum pay increments by an austerity-obsessed Treasury. Indeed, I note that the Chief Secretary has recently written to the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body outlining her guidance that a 1% pay award would be appropriate. Will the Minister undertake to investigate this avenue?

Finally, to return to a question I raised in this House a year ago, the naval reserve figures are dreadful, at a total strength, including some 750 Royal Marines reservists, of 2,400 against an establishment of 3,100; that is, 23% below target. This clearly has a lot to do with lack of opportunities for naval reserve personnel. Will the Minister undertake to consider the handover to the Royal Naval Reserve of the older River-class offshore patrol vessels when the new deliveries arrive, to provide an incentive for seagoing training and promotion, as well as a means of providing fishery protection and Border Force support after Brexit?

Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Earl of Cork and Orrery Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Cork and Orrery (CB)]

My Lords, in contrast to the large number of qualifications and interests which many noble Lords have professed, I can only profess to having been a Cold War submarine commander, but I have the interests of the senior service very much at heart. I thank the Minister for this debate, which has given us the opportunity to revisit and examine the entire defence area. We have heard the challenges to the rules-based order listed by many. They include, among others that have perhaps not been listed, famine of both food and water, nuclear proliferation and, perhaps we should say, even the new US regime.

In times of peace, military expenditure tends to be the Cinderella of government spending. Large parts of the population see it as neither necessary nor desirable, and it falls to Parliament to persuade the voting public to accept spending on defence when so many other areas command their attention. History tells us that although we are seldom fully prepared for conflict when it arises, we occasionally get it right. Henry VIII regularly ran out of money to maintain his forces; indeed, he began wars only when he had received a new injection of cash. Elizabeth I’s expenditure on warfare was remarkably modest, but it cost the King of Spain two-thirds of the entire revenues of the Spanish Empire in 1585 to build the Spanish Armada. Note that he started three years before the date on which the fleet was to set sail.

Between 1690 and 1815 Britain was involved in a semi-continuous global struggle, generally against France and Spain. In this period, spending on the Royal Navy consumed the largest share of government revenues, with the results that we all learned about in school. I am of course assuming that most of us come from an era when such matters as Napoleonic history and the Industrial Revolution still formed a part of the history curriculum. In 1814, the last year of the Napoleonic wars, the British national budget stood at £66 million, of which £50 million was spent on the war. The Navy spent £10 million, but Trafalgar was behind it; the Army, pre-Waterloo, spent £40 million; and another £10 million was spent on mercenaries from Austria and Prussia.

Post 1815, and during the 100 years or so of the Pax Britannica, we were probably the most confident country on the planet—confidence has been mentioned in several contexts. The peace was substantially maintained by the large but increasingly outdated Royal Navy. Defence expenditure fell steadily as a percentage of GDP, partly because of the vast rise in GDP itself during the 19th century, but by 1900 it stood at just under 4%. The arrival of Admiral Jackie Fisher as First Sea Lord in 1904 saw a complete change in defence thinking. Fisher was convinced that war with Germany was inevitable, and set about modernising the Navy and preparing it for war with enormous enthusiasm. He retired for the first time in 1911, with the job done so effectively that defence spending, at 3% of GDP, was lower than when he had arrived, due to the massive efficiencies and savings that he had been able to make while completely renewing the battleship fleet.

Fisher had the public on his side. He was such a popular figure that, as he bullied Parliament into supporting his new building programmes, the public coined the phrase, “We want eight, and we won’t wait”, referring to yet another class of Dreadnoughts. As a result, the Royal Navy entered the First World War as probably the only military arm in Europe ready for the conflict, and defence spending at 3.15% of GDP. There is a magic quality to this figure of three; it crops up time and again. From 1920 to 1935 it remained fairly steady at around 3%, before rearmament began in 1936. The arguments of Churchill and others surrounding that process do not need rehearsing in your Lordships’ House; suffice to say that they were highly controversial at the time. I apologise to your Lordships for reciting all this history, but I hope my point is clear: we ignore the lessons of the past at our peril. The visionary Fisher managed to revitalise the Navy within 10 years—but it took him 10 years, in an age far less technologically advanced than today. The equally visionary Churchill managed to get the ball rolling in 1936, although we were far from ready when the war started.

In more recent times, we entered the Cold War in the 1950s with defence expenditure at 6% of GDP, and it was still at 4% by the early 1990s. Since then, the so-called Cold War dividend has had the psychological effect of lulling the country into a false sense of security, which is now, 25 years on, starkly apparent. Other speakers have detailed, and no doubt still more will do so, the effects of the obvious lack of “mass”—that is, numbers—manpower shortages, the reduction in the procurement for stocks of weapons and equipment, and the scrapping of useful equipment because its maintenance or manning cannot be funded.

My principal point is that we must start to think the hitherto unthinkable of casting aside some of the shibboleths of 21st-century expectations and politics. Today, real spending as a percentage of GDP, in figures that are not widely understood by the public, includes the following figures: pensions at 8%, health at 7.4% and welfare at 6%. Add all those together and you get one-quarter of our entire GDP. Education gets 4.4% but defence gets 1.76% for pure defence spending and 0.25% for other things that have been creatively accounted into the defence calculation.

We simply do not have 10 years, or even three, to prepare for the next conflict that may be forced upon us. Despite the rapid advance of technologies, development times have lengthened. Fisher built “Dreadnought”, the first of a new type of battleship, in a year. The latest “Dreadnought”, the first of the successor class submarines, will probably take 15 years. It took 10 years from project start to launch of the first Daring class destroyer. The Type 26 frigate project began in 2010 and the first vessel has yet to be ordered. The numbers of both these projects have been halved since inception. The Type 31 frigate—perhaps you could call it the other half of the Type 26—is still a figment of the collective imagination. I could start on the Astute class submarine programme, but embarrassment for my old service forbids further comment.

The elephant in the room is clearly social spending in all its forms. While most would agree that such spending is only right and proper, I argue that the balance has been dangerously upset by the post-Cold War lull in military need. I also argue that the 2015 SDSR has quite possibly already reached its sell-by date, and that another serious look needs to be taken at our defence needs rather than looking through the other end of the telescope—or periscope—at what we can afford when all the other budgetary pressures have been contained. The SDSR addresses development but fails to address personnel recruitment and retention to any great extent. To quote the Secretary of State for Defence:

“Nothing is more important than defending our country and protecting our people”.


I offer another quotation, which I think came from the Prime Minister:

“The first duty of the Government is the defence of the people”.


In conclusion, I point out that while we aim to spend 2% of GDP on defence, Russia spends 5.4%, the US only 2.3%—but of course from a vastly higher GDP base—China 1.9% and Saudi Arabia a huge 13.7%. I have a final question for the Minister, which has already been asked: what consideration has been given to removing the costs of building, maintaining and operating the strategic deterrent from the defence budget to its own separate vote?

Other than all of that, the main issue that seems to come across from noble Lords’ speeches is morale and recruitment—the hollowing-out of services personnel. Equipment can and will be built and budgets will provide for that, but we have to create an attractive enough platform for recruitment to bring enough people into the services and benefit them in order to create the kind of task forces and numbers that we have been talking about.

Brexit: Armed Forces and Diplomatic Service

Earl of Cork and Orrery Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Cork and Orrery (CB) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, who I remember as a young Royal Marine officer in the Far East very many years ago. Equally very many years ago, as youngsters leaving primary school, a kindly headmaster gathered us together and made the point that, although we had reached the top of our first school, our destiny was to start again at the bottom next term and, having worked our way to the top again, to leave, and recommence at the bottom. “In fact”, he said, “that will be your destiny throughout your life”. In joining your Lordships’ House, I feel like that small boy, with the principal difference that, instead of the usual treatment meted out to new boys at secondary schools, I was greeted here with the utmost warmth and kindness. There were only a few frightening adults, and I could find no obvious sneaks and bullies, despite Black Rod’s warnings—only myriad corridors and staircases, guaranteed to leave you feeling very foolish when trying to find someone or something. My sincere and grateful thanks are due to all of those who have assisted me in this fascinating learning process, from doorkeepers and House staff to mentors and colleagues. No names, as they say, and no pack drill, but thank you all.

The long and winding road to these hallowed portals has taken me via 15 years in the Royal Navy, 10 of which were in submarines, where I came across the Special Boat Service, including command during the Cold War of the 1970s. This was followed by 30 years in the City in a global trade house, where I spent many years as a member of the Baltic Exchange. I followed that with a period of cathedral custodianship, which is not a bad precursor to coming to this place, in many ways.

I wish to concentrate today on a relatively narrow aspect of the effects of leaving the European Union—the effect on our coastal and border defences. The new UK economic exclusion zone, or 200-mile limit, did not even exist as such in 1973, when we joined the EEC. It will consist of some 770,000 square kilometres of sea when we leave the EU, and many nations will cast covetous eyes on our riches, both fishy and oily. At the same time, we are faced with myriad considerations in defence of the border, many of which will be exacerbated by our newly independent status. We have to contend not only with serious organised crime, including drug-, people- and firearms-smuggling, but also with modern slavery, terrorism, immigration and, last but not least, fisheries protection and anti-poaching activities. There is a very large Spanish fishing fleet that will be very discomforted by the lack of access—in theory at least—to our parts of the north Atlantic.

The Government’s aim is to secure our borders while still allowing legitimate trade to continue unhindered. This is, of course, an admirable objective, but we do need better funded and co-ordinated command and control facilities. Our border is a unique point of intervention and a critical line of defence, where the UK can, and does, identify and disrupt threats to our security. Brexit will throw our existing facilities and organisation into stark relief, and we need to be prepared for it. Without close and continuing liaison with our closest maritime collaborators and neighbours—Spain, France and the Netherlands—we will struggle to remain masters of our space, so we must maintain this at least as a part of our divorce settlement with the EU.

The National Maritime Information Centre, or NMIC, formed at Northwood in 2010, I believe under the aegis of the noble Lord, Lord West, is an essential tool in the garnering of information, but it is neither funded nor equipped to act as the national command and control centre for the maritime assets committed to border defence, which we urgently need. This funding, which would normally come from Home Office resources, is badly needed—I know this is another rant on the subject of funding our forces—and could transform the capabilities of NMIC. Of the many force elements which go make up NMIC, some are volunteer charities, such as the RNLI, but the majority could contribute, in addition to the Home Office.

The asset base that we have for dealing with all this is minimal and will require reinforcement if we are to be successful in defending our borders against such threats. We currently have a situation where the Border Force has three coastal cutters operating on our 11,000-mile coastline. It owns two more but budget constraints mean that it cannot operate them, so they have been lent temporarily to DfID and are currently in the Mediterranean in support of the refugee effort. The Border Force has also ordered eight high-end RIBs for coastal and riverine patrolling. However, the same constraints will allow it to take delivery of only four of them at this time. It does not currently own or operate any aircraft in a maritime patrol role—partially because of the aforementioned budgetary constraints—although the RAF is eventually due to receive nine new Poseidon long-range maritime patrol aircraft.

The Royal Navy has four larger offshore patrol vessels, suitable for fishery protection in the north Atlantic, although one is permanently stationed in the Falkland Islands, which leaves us with three. The new series of OPVs—called the Batch 2 River class—are under construction and five have been ordered. The fate of the first four, once the new vessels come into service, depends on who you ask, but the 2015 SDSR implies that they may be offered to the Border Force.

The Royal Navy also has a total of 15 mine countermeasures vessels, all of them minehunters. Most of these, as your Lordships are aware, are deployed either in the Clyde—which has seven—to protect the deterrent, or in the Iranian Gulf, which has four. That leaves four, which is clearly inadequate to protect our harbours from mine attack, let alone to assist in the defence of our inshore waters, which has historically been one of the primary roles of MCMVs.

The main objection to providing more assets for the defence of our border, apart from finance, appears to be that we cannot man more vessels, given present low rates of recruitment and retention. However, one asset that seems to be largely overlooked is the Royal Naval Reserve. This force has been allowed to wither on the vine, in contrast to the Army Reserve. Currently, the target is to have 3,000 members of the Royal Navy Reserve. In 1993, the RNR’s squadron of 12 MCMVs was disbanded and sold to foreign buyers. This squadron, based in 11 separate operating bases around our coasts, provided an excellent focal point for volunteer mariners to train and develop their skills and produced some superb seamen. The vessels were used for a multitude of tasks, which included coastal patrolling and defence. Instead of selling or scrapping the four Batch 1 River class OPVs when the Batch 2 vessels become available, why not transfer them to a revitalised Royal Naval Reserve, which could provide much needed back-up to the Border Force, and provide the Royal Navy with a ready source of trained personnel to supplement its very stretched manpower resources? The appeal of joining the current RNR and being trained to act, at most, as an armed guard on board an RN ship is low, but give them their own vessels and the chance to develop as a team and watch recruitment take off, especially among those trained by the RN but leaving for other reasons.