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

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. I am also grateful to the Minister for initiating this debate.

So far as the global aspects of the Motion are concerned, I can infer from comments from the Prime Minister and the Government, reiterated by the Minister in his opening remarks, that there is an aspiration for the UK to continue to be a global force for good, and that that should be across a full range of activities: trade, diplomacy, aid, security and so on. That is only right and proper for a nation with our history, our dependence on overseas trade, our membership of such bodies as the P5 and G7 and our key leadership roles in a number of international organisations. To meet that aspiration in a world that is increasingly dangerous, or, to use the Minister’s words, “darker and more dangerous”, the Government rightly look to the Armed Forces as a key tool in their range of options. This tool must have credibility with important allies, especially the United States, it must be able to counter threats to our stability and security wherever they may arise—especially those that can materialise in our homeland—and it must have a reputation for professionalism that is a comfort to friends and a discomfort to potential opponents.

All this needs to be underpinned by a new set of defence planning assumptions that have relevance to today’s scenarios to replace those laid out in SDSR 2010, which so lamentably failed to predict any of the crises of the last five years, driven as it was to ignore anything that might interfere with the lust for cutting the defence budget. An example of this was the complacency of the national security strategy in categorising,

“A conventional attack by a state on another NATO or EU member to which the UK would have to respond”,

as being the lowest possible threat, a complacency that has been shattered by Russia’s behaviour over the last couple of years. I trust that will be rectified in the upcoming review.

To fulfil a role that can deliver all the Government’s aspirations, the Armed Forces must have the capability to deploy at range, which means having endurance, sustainability and the capability to operate through the full spectrum of warfare, from high-intensity conflict through peacekeeping and humanitarian tasks to defence diplomacy. In broad terms, such capabilities exist in most part today—albeit with one or two significant omissions—and in the forward defence programme will do so in future in terms of quality, but, as I have already implied, this quality must be of a nature that makes us a partner of choice when operating with allies, particularly the USA. We ignore the interoperability component of our capabilities at our peril and regrettably this is something we are sometimes guilty of doing.

If we are—or will be by 2020—in a relatively good place in terms of quality, the same cannot be said of quantity. It is conceivable that our Armed Forces may be able to go anywhere but they certainly cannot be everywhere, with their overall order of battle shrunk to a scale not seen since the 1920s; they are already unable to fulfil all the tasks that the Government would have them do. For example, we note some NATO commitments being capped, and the stretch on the armed services is seeing some important activities deemed to be of lower priority. I am thinking particularly of high-level training, which is so crucial to fighting effectiveness. Some of those important activities are being put aside because the capacity to undertake them and meet front-line commitments is insufficient.

There are many examples in the land, sea and air domains of where the knife of SDSR 2010 cut too deep, but let me give a couple of examples from the maritime area. Our destroyer frigate force, as I have said before in the House, is woefully depleted and it cannot deploy on a scale apposite to a country with global interests and aspirations in an uncertain world in which there are more national, NATO and allied active maritime operations running than 15 years ago when we had 30% more escorts. This situation is exacerbated by the workhorses of the fleet, the Type 23 class of frigates, approaching the ends of their lives, with their replacements, the Global Combat Ship, the Type 26—which looks to be the right answer for defence and the Navy—still over the horizon, with no promise of an increase in numbers from a bare 13. Furthermore, the postulated build delivery rate for the new ship is set at one ship every two years, which is difficult to understand. It makes no sense in shipbuilding terms. The drumbeat will be far too slow for efficient shipyard management. It will certainly not allow for the expeditious regeneration of a modern frigate capability and puts us in danger of seeing force levels drop while in transition, and the ageing Type 23s will also become increasingly expensive to keep running, assuming they are capable of doing so. The dearth of a fit-for-task national shipbuilding strategy is all too evident, and perhaps the Minister might comment on whether such a strategy, which of course has wider ramifications than just frigates, is going to be produced.

Secondly, our fleet submarine numbers, at seven rather than the originally planned 10, are equally too low—a serious strategic oversight, given what they can offer, particularly in special operations. Thirdly, our two carriers are currently planned to have far too few Joint Strike Fighters to allow what is promised by this transformation in our strategic posture to be fully exploitable. This undermines the credibility and utility of what should be a major strategic asset.

Finally, as many other noble Lords have mentioned, the lack of a maritime patrol aircraft capability, removed in the aforesaid lamentable 2010 defence review, is a major drawback in having a fully effective maritime defence, especially at a time of a burgeoning submarine threat—from Russia in particular, literally on our doorstep.

The signs that this situation might be rectified look pretty bleak. Much of our deficiency must be put down to the inadequate funding, including the 9% cut, that defence has received over the past five years, so the recent promise of not allowing the defence budget to drop below 2% is of course to be welcomed. We shall, of course, be watching carefully to see if there will be further creative accounting to deliver this 2%, such as occurred in the last Parliament. In that context, it would be good if the Minister could reassure the Committee that other aspects of security funding previously not in the defence budget will not be swept into it to make up the numbers.

To look on the more positive side, it would appear that if rebalancing of the defence budget across the services is achieved—and that is quite a large “if”—then the Armed Forces may in fact be in a healthier budgetary and capability state in 2019, perhaps even making Future Force 2020 realisable. Does the Minister agree with that? However, getting to 2019 is going to be more problematic. The in-year savings that have been imposed, which the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk of Douglas, mentioned, and the Cabinet’s planned efficiency drive seriously threaten the Armed Forces in the short term in both capability and morale terms. It may be sufficiently bad to derail Future Force 2020.

I mention morale because much of the brunt of these short-term cuts will fall on the quality of life of our soldiers, sailors and airmen, which in turn will affect recruitment and, more importantly, retention. Perhaps the Minister would comment on how much attention has been paid to the effect of individual savings measures and their aggregation on people and their dependants. People are of course the critical component of the capability of all three services, especially the Royal Navy at the moment. The imposed manpower ceiling on the Navy, combined with significant problems being experienced in certain categories, especially engineers, is putting at risk operational viability. The coming SDSR has to recognise this. It will be a material failure if it fails to do so.

I wish to make a couple of extra points before I conclude. First, I associate myself with the comments made by my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig on attrition and conventional deterrence. I hope that those two words will appear in the future SDSR. Secondly, I ought to mention our strategic deterrent. The Government have made absolutely clear their commitment to a like-for-like replacement of the Vanguard class submarines and continuous at-sea deterrence, and that is to be applauded. I just observe that it is a pity they did not get round to agreeing to this in principle in Parliament before the Summer Recess, as I mentioned in the debate that we had in the summer. I hope that the Government remain confident about getting this through the new-look other place when the time comes.

The role that the United Kingdom Armed Forces should play in the light of global and domestic threats to stability and security is clear. Their capability fully to discharge that role properly is questionable, and it will be interesting to see whether the Government, when they announce the 2015 SDSR in November, before the end of this year, first get right their appreciation of the worldwide situation, which so impacts on our domestic stability and security—something that they failed to do in 2010—and, secondly, whether they will demonstrate in the SDSR the courage to match aspirations with resources, if necessary, as the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, mentioned, increasing the 2%, if defence truly is the first duty of government. That always sounds very hollow to me when considering, for example, the ring-fencing of the aid budget.