Defence: Budget
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, last week, when I asked the chief of the Indian army, General Dalbir Singh Suhag—from my late father Lieutenant General Bilimoria’s regiment, the 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles—what is the strength of the Indian Army today, he said 1.3 million. Yet today we have cut the British Army to 80,000—not even enough to fill Wembley Stadium. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, for initiating this debate. As he said, the Chancellor has now asked for a further £500 million cut in defence spending even before SDSR 2015.
The US Defense Secretary, the head of the US army and the US President have warned Britain about the impact of defence cuts in no uncertain terms. In the debate I was privileged to lead on the 200th anniversary of the Gurkhas last week, I asked the Minister to confirm that there would be no more cuts to the Gurkhas. They are now down to 3,000. Even when pressed, the Minister could not tell us that they would be protected. I find this deeply worrying.
It has also just been revealed how out of tune the Government are with the public when it comes to defence. PwC has just prepared a report entitled Forces for Change after surveying the public’s views on defence. I declare my interest: PwC is the auditor of the Cobra Beer Partnership, my joint venture with Molson Coors. The PwC report says that 53% of the public want defence spending to be increased beyond the current £37.4 billion. Only 16% want the defence budget cut. Some 37% believe the cost of funding the military helps strengthen the economy. Frighteningly, 53% feel the Armed Forces are weaker than 20 years ago.
Words from the public that recurred throughout the survey were alarming: “underfunded”, “overstretched” and “unequipped”. The strategy of compensating for cuts in the numbers of full-time soldiers with reserves, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, is an oxymoron. Reserves are meant to be reserves and we have seen the challenge of recruiting high-quality reserves. Will the Minister confirm this? The PwC report said that 72% of the public had a positive view of the Armed Forces, and 69% rate the Armed Forces as trustworthy versus only 23% when it comes to Parliament. Some 65% also felt that modern threats are the biggest threats to the UK: terrorist groups, cyberattacks, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. No one predicted 9/11. No one predicted the Arab spring. No one predicted Libya. No one predicted Syria. Barely a year ago no one had heard of Islamic State.
As we have heard before, Britain has amazing soft power: the BBC, our universities—I could go on. But soft power alone, without hard power, is useless. As Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University said, a combination of hard power and soft power gives you smart power. SDSR 2010 was the opposite of smart. Quite frankly, it was negligent. We have no carriers, no Harriers, no maritime reconnaissance, cuts to our troops—means before ends. I urge the Government to be in tune with the British public, to listen to our steadfast ally, the United States, which has spoken out at the highest level, and to commit to the NATO 2% of GDP defence spending.
To conclude, this debate is on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. The Duke of Wellington’s motto was, “Fortune favours the brave”. One word the public mentioned above any other in the PwC report about our wonderful, best of the best, cherished Armed Forces—the best in the world—was the word “brave”. I challenge the Government to be brave.
Gurkhas: Anniversary
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what activities have taken place relating to the 200th anniversary of the Gurkhas’ service to the Crown and the Government’s support of the Gurkha Welfare Trust, particularly in the light of the recent earthquakes in Nepal.
Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, yesterday I was privileged to attend the Gurkha pageant held at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, where I was proud to be a commissioner for six years.
Throughout the pageant, my eyes welled up with childhood memories of being brought up among the Gurkhas—it all came flooding back. My late father, Lieutenant-General Faridoon Bilimoria, was commissioned into the 2/5th Royal Gurkha Rifles, Frontier Force, and commanded his battalion in the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh. His battalion suffered heavy losses and casualties, including officers I had known and grown up with as a child. How ironic that a couple of decades later I would found a brand, Cobra beer, which we supply to thousands of Indian restaurants in the UK, the vast majority of them run and owned by Bangladeshis.
I am on the commemoration committee of the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill and was chairman of the committee for six years. These gates exist because of the amazing tenacity of one individual, my noble friend Lady Flather. The Memorial Gates commemorate the contribution of the 5 million volunteers from the Indian subcontinent, Africa and the Caribbean. Inscribed on the ceiling of the pavilion next to the gates are the names of the Victoria Cross and George Cross holders, three of whom were from my father’s battalion, the 2/5th Gurkhas—one posthumous.
Gaje Ghale VC and Agansing Rai VC were living legends, who I was fortunate to have grown up with and have been inspired by for the rest of my life. Agansing Rai VC was subedar-major when my father was commanding his battalion. Legend has it that when my father, as a young captain in a remote area in north-east India, received the telegram of my birth, Gaje Ghale was next to him and jumped for joy. The ground shook, because he was such a large man.
What I learned about the Gurkhas really quickly is that they are the kindest, most caring and most gentle people. For example, when I took my South African possible future wife on her first visit to India, my father’s retired driver, Bombahadur, who continued to serve with my father at retirement, took me aside and said, “Baba, you should marry her!”. My father’s beloved Gurkha had given his approval, and of course then there was no question but that I was marrying Heather.
However, these kind gentle people in peacetime are the fiercest warriors mankind has known. Just reading the citations of the Gurkha VCs makes your jaw drop with feats that are, quite frankly, superhuman. Sir Ralph Turner, a former officer of the 3rd Gurkhas, had written:
“Bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had country more faithful friends than you”.
We are celebrating the Battle of Waterloo and the 200th anniversary of the Gurkhas’ service in the same year. I visited the site of the Battle of Waterloo earlier this year. If the Duke of Wellington had had Gurkhas among his troops, the Battle of Waterloo would not have been won on the playing fields of Eton or because Blücher came to the rescue; it would have been won because Napoleon’s troops, including his beloved Imperial Guard, would have been running in fear back towards Paris, fleeing from the fierce Gurkhas, just as the Argentinians did in the Falklands.
It was disheartening when I first spoke about the Gurkhas in this House in 2008 to start the fight for the Gurkhas who had served in Britain for four years to have the right to stay on in the UK if they wished to do so. It seems so unfair that a person could work for a company for four years and have the right to stay indefinitely, and yet someone who was willing to commit the ultimate sacrifice was not, at that time, allowed to. After that debate—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lee, who initiated the Bill—Joanna Lumley, whose father had served in the 6th Gurkhas, came to the fore and spearheaded a public battle that generated an outcry among the British public, who were overwhelmingly appalled at this injustice and unfairness. I will never forget in one television interview how Joanna Lumley humiliated the then Home Office Minister, Phil Woolas. Of course, we won the day and justice was delivered.
We should never take for granted what these amazing men have done in the past 200 years for Britain and India. I have been very outspoken in my criticism of the SDSR in 2010, when cuts were made to the Army that I believe were negligent, cutting the number of Army troops to 80,000—not even enough to fill Wembley Stadium. Today, there are barely 3,000 Gurkhas in the British Army, with the Gurkha regiments amalgamated into one, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, with just two battalions, and some in the Queen’s Gurkha Signals, the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers and the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment.
However, in India, the Gurkha regiments left with the Indian army after India’s independence have flourished, with six battalions per regiment, an additional regiment formed—the 11th Gurkhas—and Gurkhas serving in all other arms of the army as well. There are approaching 100,000 Gurkhas serving in the Indian army, recruited from Nepal and India, who, after they retire, settle in both India and Nepal. They are a vital backbone of the Indian army. Will the Minister agree that the 200th anniversary celebrations of the Gurkhas are for the British and for India? It was a privilege today to show General Dalbir Singh Suhag, Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian army, around Parliament—all the more for me because he is also from the 5th Gurkhas. When my father was commander-in-chief of the central Indian army, an army of 350,000 strong, I always felt it meant more to him to be president of the Brigade of Gurkhas and colonel of his regiment.
Could the Minister commit, where the Prime Minister is unwilling to in this dangerous world that we live in, to the NATO commitment of 2% of GDP spent on defence? Could the Minister also reassure us and confirm that there will be no further cuts to the Gurkhas? I look forward to the forthcoming SDSR report and hope that this time it is not about means before ends but about looking carefully at the needs first. It is our duty to look after the veterans, and I commend the work of the Gurkha Welfare Trust and all that it does for Gurkhas to live out their lives with dignity. Can the Minister confirm the commitment for future support of the Gurkha Welfare Trust to continue the wonderful work that it does? Will the Government reassure us?
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who was present at the pageant, said:
“The Brigade of Gurkhas is more than just a fighting force, it is also—in every sense of the word—a family”.
Particularly at this time, with the devastating earthquakes by which so many Gurkhas have been affected so tragically, does the noble Earl feel that we are doing enough to support the Gurkhas in Nepal? Will the Minister confirm that? Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected in the two disastrous, tragic earthquakes. Major-General Ashok Mehta, my father’s second-in-command, said:
“Two hundred years of distinguished soldiering have put a halo around the Gorkha in the hall of fame. In this hour of national calamity it is the Gorkha-ness of the Nepalis that will be the greatest enabler to confront the monumental tragedy”.
In my own company, Cobra Beer, I sent out 200 letters to our Nepalese restaurant customers straight after the first earthquake to offer our support to raise funds, and I am delighted to say the restaurants have raised almost £200,000. That is the wonderful spirit of giving in our country.
A fellow Zoroastrian Parsee, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw—popularly nicknamed by the Gurkhas as “Sam Bahadur”—said:
“If a man says he is not afraid of dying he is either lying or is a Gurkha”.
Prince Harry, who was also present at the pageant yesterday, said that,
“there was no safer place than by the side of a Gurkha”.
This is the Ayo Gorkhali, or “Here come the Gurkhas”, the cry of the Gurkhas—the finest fighting force the world has ever known. The Gurkha motto is:
“It is better to die than be a coward”.
On the 150th anniversary of the regiment of the 5th Gurkhas in 2008, which took place at Sandhurst—I am proud to be a member of the regimental association— I heard a prayer written by the Reverend Guy Cornwall-Jones, whose father served in the 5th Gurkhas. That prayer said:
“Oh God, who in the Gurkhas has given us a people exceptional in courage and devotion, resplendent in their cheerfulness, we who owe them so much ask your special blessing on them, their families and their land. Grant us thy grace to be faithful to them as they have been faithful to others”.
As a nation, we can never thank the Gurkhas enough. We will be eternally grateful to them.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, like so many people across the country and on all sides of this House, I have a huge admiration and respect for the Gurkhas. As has been said by all speakers, for 200 years Gurkhas have fought loyally for this country and they rightly deserve their reputation as being among the bravest and most fearless of soldiers. Gurkhas hold a special place in the heart of the British people, and evidence of this can be seen in the generous support given by the British public following the recent devastating earthquake in Nepal.
Before I speak about that disaster, I would like to emphasise the Gurkhas’ primary role, that of soldiers. The Brigade of Gurkhas remains a vital part of the British Army’s military capability. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, summarised very well their role in our history. Both battalions of the Royal Gurkha Rifles and subunits of the three main corps units all deployed on operations in Afghanistan under Operation Herrick, where they have demonstrated their outstanding war-fighting skills and cultural adaptability. I am proud to have two Queen’s Gurkha orderly officers with me here this evening.
Moving on to recent events in Nepal, the major earthquake tragically led to significant loss of life and destruction to property, and our thoughts are with the people and Government of Nepal at this difficult time. The United Kingdom’s disaster relief response has been led by the Department for International Development, which has provided over £33 million in direct and indirect aid, as was rightly pointed out by my noble friend Lord Sheikh. This aid included the provision of search and rescue teams, trauma medics and logistic supplies. I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, that the Ministry of Defence supported these efforts with an airlift and by deploying over 100 additional Gurkha personnel. We offered the services of our Chinooks, but the Government of Nepal did not consider that they were necessary. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Development has visited to inspect and assess the damage and speak to those delivering aid.
The additional Gurkha personnel went into Nepal under the auspices of British Gurkhas Nepal, which is the unit based in Nepal looking after recruitment and welfare matters for the brigade. British Gurkhas Nepal and the Gurkha welfare scheme, which is the field arm of the Gurkha Welfare Trust, are working together to ensure that our pensioners and families are looked after alongside all needy persons in villages affected by the earthquake. It is important to state that we are not discriminating as to who gets the help. Instead, we are providing to the neediest first with the aim of everyone being under cover with access to water before the monsoon rains arrive.
Reconstruction efforts are to focus in the short term on protecting isolated Gurkha communities through the approaching monsoon season. This will include the construction of temporary shelters, the provision of clean water supplies and basic sanitation, and the delivery of aid and basic medical supplies. A squadron from the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers is currently deployed on this task. Subject to Government of Nepal approval, work priorities will primarily be driven by humanitarian need within the Gurkha communities, rather than uniquely supporting the families of serving Gurkhas and Gurkha veterans. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, we believe that the museum at Pokhara was not badly damaged.
The Gurkha Welfare Trust is the principal Gurkha charity and it maintains through its field arm, the Gurkha Welfare Scheme, a network of welfare centres in Nepal to look after Gurkha veterans in need. The Government provide financial support to the Gurkha Welfare Trust by means of an annual grant in aid of over £1.5 million which pays for the majority of the costs of the Gurkha Welfare Scheme in Nepal. In addition, the Government announced in January that they were giving the trust £5 million from the LIBOR fines to assist its work in Nepal, so I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, that this is a clear statement of the commitment to and recognition of the work done by the trust in support of Gurkha veterans.
This year we celebrate 200 years of Gurkha service to the Crown. This milestone is a further opportunity to thank the Gurkhas for all that they have done to preserve our freedom and security in many conflicts around the world, most recently in Afghanistan. To celebrate the Gurkhas’ unique service, there are over 100 events of varying size taking place, both in the United Kingdom and around the world, reflecting the brigade’s previous service. These events are being conducted by the serving brigade, the Gurkha Brigade Association and the Gurkha Welfare Trust.
Major events have already taken place. In late March, a gathering of over 3,000 people attended a celebration in Kathmandu, before the earthquake struck. On 30 April, contingents from the four major Gurkha units, with the Band of the Brigade of Gurkhas and the Queen’s Truncheon, marched from Wellington Barracks down the Mall to the Gurkha statue outside the Ministry of Defence. This was followed by a short service to commemorate those from the brigade who have given their lives in the service of the Crown.
Most recently, throughout May, each of the four major Gurkha units has conducted public duties, providing the guards at Buckingham Palace, St James’ Palace and the Tower of London. And as we have heard, a major event, the Gurkha 200 pageant, took place last night at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in aid of the Gurkha Welfare Trust. Her Majesty the Queen attended, along with other members of the Royal Family. I am delighted to note that at least two noble Lords here this evening were able to attend.
I shall answer a few of the questions that were put to me. I turn first to the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, who asked whether the Gurkha battalion would remain in Brunei. The answer to that is yes, because a new agreement was recently signed with the Sultan. He also talked about jungle warfare training. As he knows, this is carried out in Brunei by the Gurkha battalion and other British Army units. In addition, the British Army Jungle Warfare Training School is based in Brunei and is supported by the Gurkhas.
Questions were asked by the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, and others about recruitment. No decisions have been taken about increasing the number of Gurkhas at present, but equally no decisions at all have been taken about reducing their numbers. I can say to the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, that the Brigade of Gurkhas has been wholehearted in its support for its kith and kin in Nepal. Its members are all very keen to deploy in order to support and assist if they can. The brigade has been incredibly active in fundraising and has generated in excess of £300,000 to help the relief effort, which is a commendable achievement.
I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, for raising this important subject for debate. I will write to noble Lords on questions that I have not been able to cover this evening, but I am pleased to have had the opportunity to explain the Government’s position on both the support we are providing for the Gurkha Welfare Trust in Nepal following the tragic events of the earthquake and the celebrations behind 200 years of Gurkha service to the Crown.
Lord Bilimoria
I thank the noble Earl for his response, but there was one very specific question: can the Government assure us that there will be no further cuts to the Gurkhas, regardless of the SDSR?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord knows that I cannot separate the Gurkhas out from the SDSR. It would be as impossible to do that for the Gurkhas as for any other part of the British Army. However, I note the strength of feeling that the noble Lord has expressed, and I am sure that that will be conveyed back to those who are in the throes of preparing the initial stages of the SDSR.
Defence: UK Territorial Waters
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, again, I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord; I cannot discuss this issue, but I can tell him that defence is a reserved issue and is not the business of the Scottish Government. We will not compromise on the defence of the United Kingdom.
Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, the Minister mentioned the SDSR. Under SDSR 2010, brutal cuts were made and Nimrods were physically destroyed. Would he now say that the Government regret the decision to destroy that amazing capability, which we could use right now?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, the severe pressure on the public finances in 2010 and the urgent need to bring the defence programme into balance meant that we could not retain all our existing programmes and that we had to prioritise between capabilities. The aircraft’s future high support costs were a clear factor in that decision. It is also well known that the MRA4 project suffered from repeated delays and cost overruns, and was still suffering from technical problems in 2010.
Armed Forces
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, in his 2007 book The Black Swan Taleb was at pains to point out that the trick in dealing with black swans was not predicting them—as outliers, they frankly defy prediction of any sort—but rather with ensuring that you can cope with them and have the resilience to do so. Last year, would anyone really have assumed that we would have been looking at the invasion of a large eastern European country by a resurgent Russia? The answer is almost certainly not.
As the outgoing secretary-general of NATO has said,
“every ally needs to invest the necessary resources in the right capabilities … In the long run, a lack of security would be more costly than investing now and we owe it to our forces, and to broader society”.
The noble Lord, Lord Lee, referred to General Sir Richard Shirreff, who said:
“I wouldn’t want to let anybody think that I think that Army 2020 is good news, it’s not … The sort of defence cuts we have seen … have really hollowed out the British armed forces and I think that people need to sit up and recognise that”.
The number of troops is going down. The Army’s strength was 102,000 and by 2020 it will be 82,000, so we will not even be able to fill Wembley stadium. As Professor Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute, said:
“With 82,000 we’ve got a ‘one-shot’ Army. If we don’t get it right the first time, there probably won’t be a second chance”.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, for initiating this debate. He himself has said:
“When the Coalition took its decisions on the size and shape of the Armed Forces at the time of its Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2010, it did so in the midst of an economic crisis … but doubt has remained as to whether a regular Army of just 82,000 is sufficient for our needs, and whether the target of 30,000 trained reservists is achievable”.
The Armed Forces are undergoing a huge reduction. There will be a reduction by 33,000, or 19%, by 2020: 5,500 from the Royal Navy, 8,000 from the Royal Air Force and 19,500 from the Army. In a scathing assessment, General Sir Richard Shirreff has also said that Britain is now the only NATO state not to commit any of its naval forces to maritime operations. What I find shocking—the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, referred to this—is that when asked yesterday about Sir Richard’s comments, Mr Hammond said:
“Much of what I’m hearing is nonsense”.
This is our great military expert—our Defence Secretary. He dismissed calls from the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army, to halt the withdrawal of British troops from Germany in order to send a military statement to Putin, saying that tank regiments are more effective based in Britain. That was the great general, Secretary of State Hammond.
The head of the defence committee, James Arbuthnot, said that he thought Ministers should rethink the cuts to the Army’s permanent staff in the light of Crimea. He said:
“The sheer number of the armed forces are much lower now than they should be in order to protect our interests”.
The Financial Times said that:
“A leaked report from the Ministry of Defence last year suggested the plans to restructure the army were in ‘chaos’ because potential reservists were being put off by a sense of gloom surrounding the armed forces”.
Can the Minister confirm this? It also said that Robert Gates, the former US Defence Secretary, has warned Britain that it would not have,
“‘the ability to be a full partner’ after the cuts because it would lack the full spectrum of military capabilities”,
and that:
“The defence committee report also criticised a lack of clarity from ministers in how to deal with cyber attacks, warning that ‘emphasis needs to be placed on ensuring that critical systems are resilient to attack and contingency plans for recovery are in place’”.
Can the Minister also confirm this?
The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, mentioned clearly that when the cuts were announced, it was in a time of economic crisis. He has said that the international landscape is much more challenging now than in 2010 and referred to making a statement that greater military capability must underpin our diplomatic forces. The current Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Houghton, warned last year that Britain’s military could become a “hollow force”, with state-of-the-art equipment but no one to operate it. Even the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Peter Wall, has added:
“Ultimately history tells us that in some circumstances committed land forces may be the only way to achieve decisive outcomes in support of our strategic objectives”.
Will the Minister confirm that the cuts have all been about means before ends? We will have the smallest Army in 200 years. In 2010, the SDSR got rid of our Harriers, our carriers and our Nimrods. We have been fighting in Afghanistan and we have had one black swan after another: the Arab spring, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Crimea. What next? Can the Minister confirm that the morale of our Armed Forces is in a very sorry state and needs to be addressed? What about the esprit de corps? Could he confirm the state of esprit de corps, which is the essence of our Armed Forces? We are at the top table of the world. We have tremendous soft power, but we need the hard power and we need the critical mass. To conclude, as General Sir Richard Shirreff said:
“We all support the efforts to get the deficit down, but it is all about priorities. What really matters? Well, the first duty of government is to protect the nation … And the electorate need to understand there is no point in having hospitals and schools and welfare unless the country is safe”.
Armed Forces
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, on 22 October, in the third presidential debate, Mitt Romney said:
“Our Navy is old—excuse me, our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917 … That’s unacceptable to me. I want to make sure that we have the ships that are required by our Navy. Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since it was founded in”—
he got the date wrong—
“1947 … we’ve always had the strategy of saying we could fight in two conflicts at once. Now we’re changing to one conflict. Look, this, in my view, is the highest responsibility of the President of the United States, which is to maintain the safety of the American people. And I will not cut our military budget by a trillion dollars … That, in my view is making our future less certain and less secure”.
President Obama responded:
“I think Governor Romney maybe hasn’t spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military has changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers”—
we do not—
“where planes land on them. We have these ships that go under water, nuclear submarines”.
Long may they exist. We need them. He continued:
“And so the question is … what are our capabilities? And so when I sit down with the Secretary of the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we determine how are we going to be best able to meet all of our defense needs in a way that also keeps faith with our troops, that also makes sure that our veterans have the kind of support that they need when they come home”.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, have said, morale in our Armed Forces is very low. There is no running away from that. I have heard it first hand from all the services. I am glad the Government have made the military covenant a priority, but are we honouring it? With the cuts that we are making, are we diminishing esprit de corps? The services are called the “services” because they serve and continue to serve us.
Peace in our time is a utopian dream that has never existed and, sadly, probably never will. As we have heard, we have been in Afghanistan since 2001, which is now longer than the First and Second World Wars combined. In his brilliant speech, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, spoke about the whole debate of why we are there. Why are we there? What is achieved? What will people say about us when we leave? Are we leaving too early? Did we get the job done? We are meant to be securing the UK that is why we went there in the first place. We were right to go there in the first place, but were we right to stay there all this time and are we right to leave when we are going to leave? Are they going to laugh and say, “Oh well, the Russians were here and they left and look what happened. Now they have come, they are going, look at what is going to happen”? It is tough.
What is the role of the Armed Forces? We are a wonderful, caring nation. I have been privileged to support and be involved with institutions such as the Army Benevolent Fund, a soldiers’ charity that does amazing work; I have been a commissioner of the Royal Hospital; we have got Help for Heroes, we have got the Gurkha Welfare Trust—we are fantastic. We have Remembrance Sunday coming up where we remember not only the fallen but those who have served and sacrificed and those who continue to serve and sacrifice today. I was president of the commemoration committee of the memorial gates at Constitution Hill, and I continue to serve on its committee, founded by the noble Baroness, Lady Flather. The gates commemorate the sacrifice and service of the 5 million volunteers from the Indian sub-continent, Africa and the Caribbean. Without those 5 million individuals, we would not be sitting here doing what we are doing today; we would not be a free world.
In my tiny community of Zoroastrian Parsees, which now numbers fewer than 70,000 in India, my late father, Lieutenant-General Bilimoria, was commissioned into the Indian Army. His father, my grandfather, Brigadier Bilimoria, was commissioned from Sandhurst. My father’s cousin, Lieutenant-General Jungoo Satarawalla, from my father’s regiment, the 5th Gurkha Rifles (Frontier Force), was awarded the Military Cross in the Second World War, as was India’s first Field Marshal, Sam Manekshaw, also a Zoroastrian. My maternal grandfather, J D Italia, served as a squadron leader in the Royal Indian Air Force during the Second World War. I could on with a long list of Zoroastrian Parsees from this tiny community who have served in the British Armed Forces.
As to the Gurkhas, what an amazing contribution they have made to Britain over centuries. My father’s battalion, 2nd Battalion 5th Gurkha Rifles (Frontier Force), was awarded three Victoria Crosses in the Second World War—and those three names are inscribed in the roof of the pavilion at the memorial gates on Constitution Hill. I am so happy that the previous Government eventually recognised the contribution of the Gurkhas, allowing Gurkhas who wished to settle in this country after they retired to do so.
We now have Future Force 2020 and we had the SDSR in 2010—but the SDSR was all about means and not about ends. We have heard passionately from the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that we do not have any aircraft carriers. We got rid of our Harriers for a song and we do not have our Nimrods. What happened straight after that? In autumn 2010, I spoke in the debate on the SDSR and said that we are short-sighted. We did not predict the Falklands. No one predicted 9/11. We do not know what is going to happen or what is around the corner. What happened around the corner? We had the Arab spring and Libya. What we needed was our aircraft carriers. We were sending Typhoons all the way from Coningsby in Lincolnshire. When are we going to learn that we need these aircraft carriers?
Now, two years later, what do we have? We have troop cuts. When my father commanded the central Indian Army, he had 350,000 troops under his command. When he commanded a corps before he became an army commander, his corps was comprised of over 100,000 troops. We announced the troop cuts, and what happened? There was a problem with G4S and the security of the Olympic Games. As we have heard in the debate, who stepped in? Our wonderful troops stepped in. When I went to the Olympics and saw our troops, I thanked every one of them personally because they saved the day. We are now to have a British Army of fewer than 80,000 troops.
This country is famous for its soft power. We are so lucky because we have the BBC, the Royal Family, our history, London, which is the greatest of the world’s great cities, our tourism and the Olympics. We publish the Economist and the FT; we have the City of London, and we have Oxford and Cambridge. I could go on. We are one of the top 10 economies in the world, but soft power is useless without hard power. In terms of population, we rank 22nd in the world, and yet however we are ranked as an economy or a defence power, we are in the top 10 in the world. We punch above our weight the whole time, and yet today we are devoting half the percentage of our GDP spending on defence than we did 30 years ago, in 1982—the time of the Falklands war. You could argue that there was the Cold War back then, but we are in a war that is far more uncertain. We do not know what is around the corner. We did not know how long we would spend in Afghanistan when we went there. No one, however much we debate Afghanistan, should ever say that even one of our troops has made that sacrifice in vain. The troops have been doing their duty. They have been attempting to help a nation and to help our security over here. We should always be grateful for that and inspired by what they have done for us.
I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, to the Front Bench, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Astor, who is a true champion of the armed services; I have seen that for myself. His heart is in the right place and we always appreciate what the noble Lord does.
Our Armed Forces are the best of the best in every way. Our regiments are the elite, and their history is phenomenal. I asked one of our legendary sergeant-majors at the Royal Hospital Chelsea what he felt about all these cuts. He was dismayed and said, “What people do not know is the term ‘espirit de corps’. Yes, we fight for our country, but we also fight for our regiment and for the comrade who is right next to us. We fight for each other”. When you amalgamate regiments, cut out battalions and then lump them all together, you are cutting away history and espirit de corps. Backing for the Armed Forces in this country is almost at an all-time high; it is fantastic. Yet in many ways I feel that the Government’s support for the forces is low. That is both frightening and disappointing when we look at the sacrifices that are made.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said, it is not just the soldiers and service people who make a sacrifice, it is also their families. I remember as a 10 year-old that when my father went to fight for the liberation of Bangladesh, I would read the papers every single day, terrified that my father’s name would be in them. That is how I remember being a child in an army family; I know what it is like. I also know what my mother felt like. Do we really look after the families well? The noble Baroness spoke passionately and stressed that what leads to low morale and problems is the uncertainty. It was the word she used most often. What are the Government doing about it? Putting our hand on our heart, are we fulfilling our side of the military covenant?
In his excellent speech, the noble Lord, Lord King, said that nowadays we talk about wars of necessity and wars of choice. We had to go to war in the Falklands, and we had to go to war in Kuwait. We had to go to Afghanistan in 2001. With hindsight, Iraq in 2003 was a huge mistake, but let us think of the practicalities. The United States, our biggest ally, went to Iraq. We regret having gone, but did we have that much of a choice? The bottom line is that we have to be prepared for the unexpected. The noble Lord, Lord King, also talked about conventional wars and unconventional wars. When my father took over command of the central Indian Army just over 20 years ago, one of the first things he did was to go to Sri Lanka, where there were a lot of his troops, and in his view that was resulting in conflict. Within two weeks of returning from his visit, the Indian troops were withdrawn. It has taken more than two decades for the issue to be resolved by the Sri Lankans themselves.
In many cases, we do not know what is going to happen. We might intervene, but then we do not know how long it is going to last. The noble Lord, Lord King, also talked about defence being the number one priority, yet we have had five defence Secretaries in five years. I am sorry to say that under this Government, we have had two in just over two years. You cannot say that you are taking defence seriously if you do that. It is one of the most important jobs in government. Cutting is easy, but training up troops again is difficult. I have full respect for the Territorial Army, but should we rely on it? The Territorial Army should be there as a support, not as something to be relied on. We have to rely on our main Armed Forces for the security of this nation.
Let us take a look at international comparisons just within NATO. I am using the 2010 figures, from before the cuts. In 2010, France had 234,000 service people, while Germany had 246,000. We had 198,000, while the Italians had 193,000. Soon the Italians will have more service people than us. The Americans have 1.4 million service people, and we are never going to compete with them. I think that we are cutting too much and that is not right for the safety of this country.
I am going to conclude by quoting from a poem sent by my mother’s cousin in honour of my father. There is no name for the author, so I shall just quote an extract from it. It is called “The Final Inspection”:
“The soldier stood and faced God,
which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.
The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
I’ve had to work most Sundays,
and at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I’ve been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I’ve wept unmanly tears.
If you’ve a place for me here, Lord,
It needn’t be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don’t, I’ll understand.
There was a silence all around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
‘Step forward now, you soldier,
You’ve borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven’s streets,
You’ve done your time in Hell’.”
We can never thank our troops enough for their service and sacrifice or show them enough gratitude for what they do for us every day. All we can say is thank you, thank you, thank you.
Defence Transformation
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his support. Service personnel, the Veterans Agency and the single services are working together to simplify their business processes and ensure that their advice and guidance help to improve transfer between commitments; that is, to make it easier for transfer between the regulars and the reserves. A service-terms and conditions-of-service subject-matter expert has been appointed for each service to advise and educate those involved. Work continues to look at ways of streamlining the processes. My noble friend makes a very important point: we want to get as many former regulars into the reserves as possible.
Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, the Minister has outlined some very welcome news about the reserves in particular and the increase in spending by 1 per cent in real terms. When I speak to senior people in government, the answer to my first question about defence is, “There’s no money”. When I speak to senior service officers, they talk about “mitigating” and “removing capability”. This Statement shows that the Government are willing to listen. With Libya, we have seen that we could have done with an aircraft carrier, that we could have done with Harriers and that we could have done with the Nimrod, yet the Nimrod was just dismantled. Was it really worth doing that? Was it not short-sighted? What if something happens in the Falklands? What about our nuclear submarines having AWACS cover? Have we not learnt? Have we been penny-wise and pound-foolish? Have we put means before ends?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his support. We inherited a very difficult situation; it was not perfect. We tried to do the very best we could under the circumstances. I did not feel comfortable with a lot of the cuts, but under the financial circumstances, we had no alternative.
Armed Forces Bill
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, let us imagine a dream scenario; one in which the public are 100 per cent behind the Armed Forces, combined with a public who are 100 per cent behind the Government, who themselves are 100 per cent behind the Armed Forces and finally, a public who are 100 per cent behind the way in which the Government deploy the Armed Forces. In Iraq in 2003 the public may have been 100 per cent behind the Armed Forces, but they certainly were not 100 per cent behind the deployment. This would apply equally to Afghanistan—sadly, it has been 10 years and we are still there. There are announcements of troop withdrawals and senior people have been saying that the timings of those withdrawals are linked to political timings here and in the United States.
The military covenant is a two-sided coin: the Armed Forces are unquestionably willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, whether or not they agree with where and why they are deployed. We know that they are doing this time after time and day after day. The amazing esprit de corps present in the Armed Forces is something that every business in this country could learn from. It is this spirit that inspires such incredible loyalty, commitment, and sacrifice; a spirit that is upheld unilaterally, a spirit that we, as a nation, are always grateful for. To be accused of taking the Armed Forces’ side of the military covenant for granted is an awful thing, and yet the sacrifices are made time and again by our Armed Forces without question.
My late father, Lieutenant-General Faridoon Bilimoria, was commissioned into the Gurkhas, commanded his Gurkha battalion in war, was colonel of his regiment, the 5th Gurkhas and was president of the Gurkha Brigade in India—the Gurkhas were his life. I will never forget that whenever my father asked one of his Gurkha soldiers to do something, the answer that came back from Gurkha soldiers was not, “I will try”, or, “I will do my best”, it was always two words, “Honcha hazoor”. Translated, that is, “It will be done, sir”. No ifs, no buts: it will be done. That is the spirit of the Armed Forces.
To continue with my dream scenario, I see fully financed Armed Forces with the best and most appropriate equipment for known and unknown requirements. A stark example of our falling short is the SDSR being rushed through in three months when it took a year last time; an SDSR that, many say, looked at the means and not the ends; an SDSR that, in my view, has clearly not thought through Britain’s foreign policy strategy and defence strategy.
As a country, we want to intervene when we are needed. Nobody predicted the Arab spring even as we in this House were debating the SDSR last autumn. We were not prepared and now we are in a ridiculous situation, with no aircraft carriers and no Harriers, conducting our Libya operation with Tornados from Italy and Typhoons from Britain. We do not have the Nimrod AWACS cover that is desperately needed. We have been caught off guard.
I am delighted that the military covenant is being included for the first time in an Armed Forces Bill. This is wonderful news. I believe that it is very important to have a report on the state of the military covenant every year and I believe that to have the covenant written into law would lead to incredibly complex circumstances with endless court cases and laws which would be very difficult to apply in the conditions in which the Armed Forces operate. Could we not, though, come up with a better name than the external reference group, or the covenant reference group? The covenant is too precious to be referred to thus: it is at the heart of the Bill, so, please, may I ask the Government to change the name?
Constant scrutiny of whether the military covenant is being honoured is needed and we often fall short. What about accommodation? I hope that it is reported very specifically that we are still falling far short of the mark, particularly when it comes to the Army. Are we going to do our best to attract the brightest and the best? Will the Government commit to maintaining the boarding school scheme? Where healthcare is concerned, I know we have a high-quality unit in Birmingham and we have Headley Court, but is there adequate priority for all our serving officers, veterans and their families? My father passed away in a military hospital. We do not have those any more, but India does. My mother will benefit from military care for the rest of her life.
There is no question that our Armed Forces, particularly at the low end, do not get paid enough to justify the work and sacrifice they are willing to make. Will the Government address this? This is very much part of the covenant.
Most importantly, the military covenant is about trust and confidence: trust that the Government will always put the defence of the realm first, as its top priority, and trust that they will never let our brave troops down in any aspect. We know that we have the trust and the faith of our troops: we know that they hold their side of the bargain, in spite of breaches, I believe, in our side of the covenant over many years, but our troops need the confidence that they will always have the support of the people, that they will always feel they are fighting for a cause that is appreciated.
I have another word: morale. That is the key word that esprit de corps is linked to. It will exist only if there is an alignment between public backing of the Government’s decisions, financial support in welfare and equipment and the treatment of our troops and their families, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, said. This is before, during and after their deployment in conflict zones. If there is no alignment, we put the covenant at risk, and we have been pushing the boundaries of this alignment for years. Regardless of technology, robot warfare and drones, there will always be a bare minimum number of troops needed. No amount of technology can make up for feet on the ground, and morale is being affected by the thousands of our service personnel being cut in each of the services today. How can anyone serving feel secure with all these cuts around them every day? How can there be good morale? It takes the stroke of a pen to cut thousands of troops. It takes years to train them and to rebuild those numbers should we ever require them. We are being so short-sighted here, quite apart from the constant pipeline that needs to be filled, even with the cuts. We need to attract the best quality recruits possible to what they see as a secure career.
I remember when my father was General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Central Indian Amy with 350,000 troops under his command over an area several times the size of Britain. Whenever I visited him I saw that everyone had a smile and I said, “Dad, what’s the secret of this?” He said, “The secret, my son, is that it is no good just to have an efficient army; you need to have a happy and efficient army”. That is how important morale is.
Our defence spending is now half, as a percentage of GDP, what it was 25 years ago. We must ask ourselves, are we providing enough support? The service chiefs have been speaking out individually about the lack of resources. Historically, this is highly unusual. Just imagine the lengths to which these individuals have been pushed in order to feel the need to speak out. The Prime Minister’s response to the service chiefs was, “You do the fighting, I’ll do the talking”. Everyone I have spoken to thought these words were unwise and insensitive. This Government have been accused of being a Government of U-turns. I would prefer to think of them as a Government who are willing to listen, to analyse different views and not simply bulldoze through policy, and to change plans if necessary. The Minister holds regular meetings to listen, which I genuinely appreciate. I know that the Prime Minister’s heart is in the right place when it comes to the Armed Forces, but when he says that, for the Armed Forces, he will do the talking, is he walking the talk?
To conclude, we may be a tiny nation, but we are still one of the seven largest economies in the world. We still have one of highest defence budgets, in absolute terms, in the world, despite the current cuts. We have influence and the ability to intervene when we require it and feel it is necessary. Our first line of response should always be soft power, but that soft power is hopeless without the hard power if we want to maintain the capability to defend our realm and to intervene where there is little or no choice and where we feel we need to.
Libya has provided us with a harsh warning. If we are to be ready for the unexpected, then the military covenant must be implemented in every way. Then, and only then, will it be a true covenant, a true two-sided coin based on mutual trust and confidence. Then my dream scenario will become reality and, where the military covenant is concerned, we will truly be able to walk the talk.
Great War: Centenary Commemoration
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I understand that the Imperial War Museum is prepared to lead the national commemoration of the centenary and has already appointed a programme manager. We are keen to work with it to develop a co-ordinated approach. It is hugely important that we continue to remember the sacrifices made in the Great War. I agree with my noble friend that our children, and their children, need to be taught how the freedoms they take for granted were won, and at such heavy cost. The Government commend any initiative to maintain a memorial that honoured those who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country.
Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, for six years I chaired the commemoration committee for the memorial gates on Constitution Hill that are in memory of the 5 million volunteers from the Indian sub-continent, Africa and the Caribbean who served in the First and Second World Wars. More than 130,000 gave their lives and 42 were awarded the Victoria Cross. In the First World War alone, more than 1 million of those volunteers were Indian. Will the Minister reassure us that the Government will ensure that the service of those individuals and their sacrifice will be acknowledged during the commemorations from 2014 onwards?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, of course I can give the noble Lord that assurance. I was very honoured to lay a wreath at the gate about 10 days ago in memory of all those brave people who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars.
Defence: Military Covenant
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, when he was Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister David Cameron made this assertion:
“Everyone should know what an enormous priority the Conservative Party attaches to our Armed Forces and to keeping Britain safe, and we will always make the spending necessary to deliver that”.
I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield for initiating this crucial debate at this time.
All jobs are important, but the military are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, so they are always a special case. There has to be a special arrangement to compensate for that sacrifice. I always thought that the special arrangement ought to be delivered through government. I always thought that it was through government that the gratitude of the people could be expressed, and servicemen and their families looked after and remunerated well, and their equipment, clothes, weaponry, accommodation at home and abroad and trauma care supplied and subsidised at the best possible level by a nation that is committed for a lifetime. This is where we as a country have gone down a slippery slope. In India, my father was General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Central Army Command. There I know a soldier’s family is cared for for life, well after the death of the serviceman, as my grandmother and my mother have experienced. There is a commitment, a strong bond, that holds the soldier to his country, and the soldier’s family is born into the military family, as I was. This trust and care encourages camaraderie, morale and esprit de corps, which you cannot buy.
The previous Government got the balance between the public and private sectors completely wrong. I have said this before a number of times. Public spending went up to nearly 50 per cent of GDP when it should be nearly 40 per cent. As for the Armed Forces, we have got it the wrong way round. Public pay is not high enough, and we are making further cuts, as we have heard. Cuts worth £250 million are being made to servicemen’s allowances. Surely these are the people who should suffer last at a time of economic austerity, given what they are sacrificing. We must view the NATO level of 2 per cent of GDP on defence expenditure as a base, not a ceiling. While defence expenditure is set to go up over the spending review period in cash terms, as a percentage of GDP it is actually going to go down. Over the past three decades, our defence expenditure as a percentage of GDP has halved from 5 per cent. In 2009, it was 2.5 per cent. We are at war at the moment and, if you do the sums, you could argue that we are already at 1.5 per cent of GDP.
Our Armed Forces are spread too thinly. The SDSR is all about means, it is not about ends. We have aircraft carriers without aircraft and nuclear submarines without AWACS, and I fear that that is where the covenant is heading. It is now written in law for the first time in the Armed Forces Bill, but there is little action to justify those words. I just heard first hand a story from my son at boarding school. His friend’s uncle is a commanding officer and has recently had to use his own money to buy clothing and boots for his troops. Are we really stooping to this level? This parsimony reaches well beyond equipment. I am sure that most of us remember that in June 2008 the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Dannatt, who is in his place, pointed out that the starting salary of a new recruit was, on average, £16,000 compared, at that time, with the basic salary of a traffic warden of over £20,000. The pay scale has risen, but in line with inflation. It has not risen in line with the level of sacrifice that these men and women are making.
This SDSR has been drafted in wartime. We have to keep in mind the future. People’s memories can be short, especially when we enter a peacetime period. Our Armed Forces need to know that the covenant will be honoured in peace and in war. To protect the needs and interests of our Armed Forces, including our reserve forces, at home and abroad is not a choice the Government must make. It is compulsory. It is required because the Government are not just making good on their own commitment, they are holding true to the promise of the people. I do not think that any of us can question the strength and emotion of the people of this country. We see it expressed time and again. Just look at the support garnered through charities and the private sector. This is the big society at work. We have Help the Heroes, the Army Benevolent Fund, the Soldiers’ Charity and the Royal British Legion. I could go on.
It is very good to hear that the Government plan to start to right the discrepancy between compensation for physical injuries and for mental illnesses. For too long, the mental stresses and strains of our servicemen have had to be endured. They have not been recognised and have been undercompensated. Just this month, a professor at the Department of Psychology, Harvard University, told me the harrowing fact that in January 2009, for example, more United States soldiers committed suicide after returning from the battlefield than were killed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
It is the people’s promise to repay the tremendous debt of gratitude that this nation owes to its Armed Forces. We know that soldiers attempt to fulfil their duties, whatever the circumstances; it is the commitment that they have made. But soldiers’ confidence and morale reaches much higher levels when they know that they have the support of the people back home, and the trust and support of the Government. They must know that the country can trust that the Government will take care of them while they are fighting, that they will take care of their families, that that is a priority, and that they will always show that commitment.
How can they feel that it is a priority when they see the way in which so many veterans are treated and some of the appalling accommodation that is available during peacetime and wartime? How can they feel that it is a priority when they are worried about the well-being of their families? In India, after my father died, my mother was, and still is, given the utmost level of care, affection and respect by the Indian Army. It is a lifetime commitment. We need to guarantee that veterans never feel as though their sacrifices have been forgotten.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, suggested that we should have an independent commissioner. I believe that we should have an independent veterans’ commission. A veterans' commissioner would co-ordinate outside the MoD and look at pensions, social security, prisons, health and charities to ensure that our veterans are protected and cared for because of the incredible contribution that they have made. There needs to be a balance between the MoD and the Armed Forces. The NHS has scared me greatly because doctors and nurses are often overshadowed by NHS managerial staff. In the MoD and the Armed Forces, is the tail wagging the dog?
In conclusion, the services are called the services because they serve our country. The right reverend Prelate spoke about leadership. Last week, this was explained to me by Professor Ranjay Gulati at Harvard Business School as a tripos: logos—the knowledge and experience needed to garner trust and respect from those who follow you; pathos—the emotional intelligence and understanding needed to form bonds with those who follow you; and ethos—the possession and adherence to a set of moral and ethical values that are important to those who follow you. The Armed Forces epitomise service leadership.
At Sandhurst, where my grandfather was commissioned, the motto was “Serve to Lead”. At the Indian Military Academy, where my father was commissioned, the motto was:
“The safety, honour and welfare of your country, come first, always and every time. The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command comes next. Your own ease, comfort and safety comes last, always and every time”.
The Army is keeping its side of the covenant. I know that the Minister believes in the covenant. Unfortunately, the Government do not, and we as a nation should be ashamed of this.
Strategic Defence and Security Review
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, in June this year, General Patraeus spoke to us in Parliament at the invitation of the Henry Jackson Society. At the time, he was the US Central Army Commander. My father, the late Lieutenant-General Faridoon Bilimoria, was Commander-in-Chief of Central Army Command, with 350,000 troops under his command. When I asked General Petraeus about winning the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan, his explanation was that to do that, you have to be talking from a position of strength—in other words, hard power enables soft power. The two are not opposites but actually two sides of the same coin.
We know that Britain is no longer the biggest empire the world has ever known but, whichever way you look at it, we are a powerful force in this world. We may not be a superpower, but we are one of the six largest economies in the world. As my noble friend Lord Hannay said yesterday, Britain punches above its weight. When it comes to defence spending, we have the third highest military expenditure in the world, after the United States and China. How can we be termed a medium-ranking power? By any reckoning, we are a power to be reckoned with. Humility, self-effacement and understatement may be our hallmarks, but let us get real; with all our problems we are still very much a force of influence in this world.
The Government’s strategic defence and security review is an impressive document that attempts comprehensively to address all the aspects of the defence of our realm. However, there is criticism, as we have heard from the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Lee, that it has been rushed through in five months when the previous review took a year. Would the Minister agree that this has been the case?
We understand the nation’s scale of debt and deficit and the Government’s desire to address it. I am really relieved that defence expenditure will not be cut but will actually go up in cash terms; however, as a percentage of GDP, it will go down. Over the past three decades, our defence expenditure as a percentage of GDP has halved. At the time of the Falklands war, it was 5 per cent of GDP; in 2009 it was 2.5 per cent of GDP; now we are talking about getting to the NATO threshold of 2 per cent. At the time of the Falklands War there was a cold war, and let us not forget that in those days, Russia was spending 16 per cent of its GDP on defence. We must not forget that in the past two decades we have had the first Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq. In all that time our Armed Forces have been shrinking and shrinking. There are now 250,000 personnel, including our reserve voluntary forces. Our Armed Forces are stretched to the limit.
When it comes to United Nations peacekeeping forces—a real force for good, with which my father served with his Gurkha battalion as part of the UN forces in the Congo in the 1960s—Britain is the third highest contributor financially, but what are we doing to contribute personnel on the ground? No amount of technology can replace men and women on the ground. My father commanded a mountain division on the Chinese border, where India had serious defences in place after the Chinese war in 1962, which took India completely by surprise. He said that you could defend positions in mountainous terrain with a ratio of one defender to 10 attackers. But in the engagements in which the British Armed Forces have been involved over the past two decades, we have invariably been attacking, not defending. There comes a stage when the size of your Armed Forces does not have the de minimis critical mass. The Army is shrinking to below 100,000 personnel. That will be smaller than the strength of the corps that my father commanded in the Punjab.
We know that we can never compete with the giants; China has 2.2 million, the United States has 1.5 million and India has 1.3 million. These armies will be the largest in the world for years to come, but the Government can cut the numbers of our troops with one stroke of a pen. It is harsh and it is swift, but rebuilding these numbers cannot be done overnight. It takes years to train our service personnel, who are considered the best of the best in their professionalism, capabilities and expertise. There is no short cut to achieving this excellence, and I dread to think of the awful possibility of being caught short in the future, desperately needing trained service professionals when realistically it would take years for us to rebuild that capability. Surely the Government are concerned about the numbers shrinking too low. However, I do not think that any of us would argue about cutting the size of the defence ministry when we know there have been huge inefficiencies. I found it quite shocking when I did my research that the ratio of active troops to civil servants in the Ministry of Defence is 2:1. All the other 27 western alliance countries employ proportionately fewer civil servants in their defence ministries: France has five troops per civil servant, while in Spain the ratio is 8:1.
Our brave troops are making the ultimate sacrifice. The whole nation is proud of and grateful to them, but do we show our gratitude enough? As my friend General Sir Richard Dannatt, whom I admire greatly and who had the guts to stick up for his troops, said two years ago, one of the most cited reasons given by the 20,000 personnel who left the forces in 2007 was poor salary. He pointed out that the lowest paid soldiers at that time were on a mere £12,500, less than a traffic warden on a basic salary of £17,000. On top of this, soldiers' accommodation has also been described as “appalling”. Has the SDSR addressed these concerns enough?
I am relieved that the SDSR has rightly recognised the importance of our nuclear deterrent and will not compromise on this in the long run. On the other hand, the scrapping of the Harriers, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Lee, and leaving our aircraft carriers without aircraft, seems completely illogical. Surely they could have been phased out once our new aircraft were operational. This leaves a big hole in our capability.
I am delighted that the Eurofighter Typhoon is going to play a major role in the future. I have witnessed at first hand the amazing capabilities of this aircraft, and I hope that the Indian air force will choose to procure the Typhoons to add to their existing range of British aircraft, including the Hawk Advanced Jet Trainer, which is considered one of the best training aircraft in the world.
The recently signed defence collaboration with France, which has been spoken about, was not covered in the review but shows how quickly things can move, and we must seize these opportunities. However, the review does not do enough justice to the significant bridges we have built through our staff college and the Royal College of Defence Studies, international officers coming here and officers going aboard to places such as the National Defence College and the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, India, where my father was commandant. There is no better person to speak about this than our very own Yeoman Usher, Lieutenant Colonel Ted Lloyd-Jukes, who, as a major, attended the staff college in Wellington when my father was commandant. On this note, does the review place enough emphasis on the potential for closer collaboration with other countries and armed forces, including joint exercises with countries such as India?
The SDSR has correctly addressed the multitude of threats facing us today, well beyond conventional warfare, but are we doing enough to support military intelligence? As the noble Lord, Lord Lee, said, after phasing out Nimrod, what are our Government’s plans for our AWAC capability? Could they clarify their plans here?
In conclusion, during the financial crisis, Her Majesty the Queen asked:
“Why did nobody notice it?”.
Similarly, nobody predicted 9/11 and nobody predicted the Falklands War; they both happened. Sadly, no one knows what is going to happen next. We have to be prepared for the unexpected.
Without doubt, the biggest factor for us is the economy at the moment, but the most important role of government is the defence of the realm, both internally through the police force and intelligence services, and externally through our Armed Forces and intelligence services. We are a tiny island, with just 1 per cent of the population of the world. Yet thanks to the hard power that having one of the most powerful defence forces in the world gives us, we have the soft power. This is so powerful because the world knows that this hard power and soft power emanate from a country that is respected for, and has fought for, freedom, fairness, justice and liberty for centuries.