Strategic Defence Review

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, the Government launched the strategic defence review on 16 July 2024. It is expected to report in the first half of 2025, which is an important date to note. The SDR has been described as a root and branch review of the whole of the UK defence enterprise, pointing the way to a new era for defence, but can a different approach taken this time around produce significantly better results than the other recent reviews? The worst one in history was SDSR 2010, under the leadership of Defence Minister Fox; it was hopeless, and it decimated our Armed Forces. This time, we are very lucky that the SDR is being led by my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson —chair of Ditchley, where I was a governor—and General Sir Richard Barrons. He and I were fellow commissioners at Royal Hospital Chelsea together.

With the ongoing war in Europe, the conflicts in the Middle East and global and regional instability, this review is all about the values and interests of the United Kingdom, including the threats posed by terrorist groups, hybrid warfare, the instabilities intensified by climate change, the UK’s defence structure, recruitment, training, the modernisation of the defence systems and the trajectory to reach 2.5% of GDP. In 2019, in the debate on NATO’s 70th anniversary, I said that we should spend 3% of GDP on defence, and I have been like a stuck record ever since. The MoD faces funding challenges. Our budget today is £54.2 billion for defence, and I will come back to that. We know the inefficiencies in our MoD procurement processes, evidenced by the delays in programmes such as Ajax and the Type 26. They will undermine our capability to respond to emerging and unexpected threats.

We are meant to be investing more in innovative technologies such as AI and cyber, and maintaining a competitive edge, and we are also meant to prioritise effective recruitment. I plead with the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, to make sure that this review gets rids of outsourcing recruitment. How can we outsource the esprit de corps of the finest Armed Forces in the world to recruiters who are not part of the defence forces themselves? That is a stupid idea—we have to stop it right now.

Other factors are our commitment to the UK’s nuclear deterrence, reinforcing NATO as a foundation of the UK’s defence strategy and a comprehensive approach to modernisation. The terms of reference have clear parameters: a commitment to the UK nuclear deterrent, a NATO-first approach, reinforcing homeland security, continuing support for Ukraine, maintaining defence ties with the Indo-Pacific region, the Gulf and the Middle East, and delivering AUKUS. But RUSI has said that the scale and immediacy of the threats and risks to UK national security grow. We will need to consider both pressing threats in Europe and longer-term challenges—for example, from China. The conflict and instability in the Middle East could escalate into a major war. The contingencies with respect to Taiwan and the Korean peninsula; the growing risk of hybrid attacks; the challenges in the new domains of space and cyberspace; and the potential and recurrence of international terrorism—all need to be on the menu of the SDR.

This is an important point: the post-Cold War reviews have focused on threats and risks that are immediate, occupying our minds and devising headline policies right now. But then things change quickly. Look at the example of the refreshment of the integrated review and defence Command Paper—within two years of publication—which happened after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We have to bear in mind that we need long-term thinking but also to be ready to adapt.

The UK and other western Governments have struggled to find the right balance of co-operation, competition and confrontation with regard to China. Then you have the balance between the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific sides of things, as well as striking the right balance between short term and long term. Space is a strong candidate; we need additional expenditure on space in the SDR. We need collaboration with India, which is doing great initiatives in space. There is the scope of the Global Combat Air Programme, given that Typhoon should serve well, perhaps for another two decades, as long it has the latest weapons and sensors. The lessons learned from Ukraine and the Middle East should inform the judgment for our wider capabilities.

I am a proud member, as an honorary group captain, of the RAF 601 Squadron. I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on India. It is very important that the SDR looks at how we are to work more closely with India, the fastest-growing major economy in the world. I predict that it will be the largest economy in the world by 2060. Are we doing enough joint exercises? Last year I was delighted that the RAF and the IAF had Exercise Cobra Warrior, a very good joint exercise.

My late father, General Bilimoria, was commandant of the staff college in India. There was exchange of officers, and exchanges through the RCDS and the NDC in India. We used to have an Indian Army liaison officer posted in the UK within the British Army. My father held that post as a lieutenant colonel; that post no longer exists. That trust needs to be rebuilt.

The UK should join the Quad, the Indo-Pacific alliance between the USA, Japan, Australia and India, to make it Quad Plus. We are at the top table of the world. We are a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the second-biggest power in NATO, and a member of AUKUS, Five Eyes, the G7 and the G8, though sadly not the EU any more. We have the finest, most respected Armed Forces in the world, something that we as a nation should be immensely proud of.

But here is the “but”: as has been pointed out earlier, our spending on defence was higher in real terms in 2010 at £57 billion than it is today at £54 billion. Then, in 2010, there was a golden era with China, no threat in Ukraine, and not the confrontation in the Middle East that we have today. We are spending too little. Our full-time Armed Forces number 192,760 in total, Army, Navy and Air Force combined. My father’s army, the central army in India, was 350,000. There are 29,000 reserves. This is not good enough.

My final point is that the trajectory of this review should not be assumed. We are going to have a Budget in October, and a new American President soon after. What is the new American President’s approach to Ukraine or NATO going to be? What is the central planning scenario? What if the war in Ukraine continues and we need to spend substantially more? We need to be flexible and think of that; it will be too late by the time we report in spring next year.

Finally, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said that we have a shrinking and hollowing out of our Armed Forces. The noble Lord, Lord West, said that money is the elephant in the room. The price of freedom is not free.