Armed Forces: Redundancies

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, unfortunately I cannot give the noble Lord that assurance. One of these matters is for the Army and one is for the Royal Air Force. They are conducting internal inquiries, and we will make a decision depending on what they come up with. The investigation into the Army leak will report very quickly—within a maximum of two weeks, and, I hope, within a matter of days.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

My Lords, it is not necessary to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that somehow or another the armed services could have been excused from the cuts that unfortunately the Government had to tackle with urgency as a result of the economic situation that we were in. Nevertheless, it can be accepted, as I hope the Minister will, that there is something in what the noble Lord said: that this was symptomatic of a deeper problem. Is not that deeper problem, frankly, that the MoD is no longer fit for purpose? It is not fit for purpose because the previous Government failed simply, consistently and over many years to deal with deep dysfunctionalities in that organisation. Does that not place on this Government the urgent need substantially to review the whole Ministry of Defence in order to solve what is basically a broken organisation?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I assure my noble friend that that is exactly what we are doing. I have sat through interminable meetings to try to get on top of this situation, and I assure him that the new PUS is determined to get on top of our financial problems as quickly as possible.