Royal Navy: Deployment

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, it is still the Government’s intention to order eight Type 26 frigates, but also, as the noble Lord knows, to order several of the new Type 31e frigates, which we believe will fulfil a multipurpose role. Indeed, they could fit this country for export orders well into the 2040s. While I take the noble Lord’s point about wanting a larger Navy—I am sure we would all like to see that—I believe the Government are on track to see that happen over the medium to long term.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that if the Government are to continue to have global aspirations and global influence, the Royal Navy must train where, in the final analysis, it might have to fight? The oceanographic and climatic conditions in the Atlantic are not the same as in the South China Sea and the Pacific.

[Earl Howe]

The noble and gallant Lord is quite right. I am sure that that point will not be lost on the high command of the Royal Navy.

Defence Modernisation Programme

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I guess we welcome this quasi-defence review, although it would probably not have been needed if SDSR15 had been properly funded in the first place. If the NSCR is to be a benchmark for this review but will not be published until the spring, and noting that the Secretary of State for Defence in his Statement is encouraging contributions and consultation, how can sensible contributions and consultation take place without knowing what the benchmark is until the spring?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the NSCR and the modernising defence programme that flows from it are intended to act a means of implementing the 2015 SDSR. It is the SDSR that we should take as the baseline for the work we are doing because we still believe that many of the headline findings of the SDSR are as valid today as they were then. We can have a sensible discussion about our defence needs but clearly, as the work proceeds, the Ministry of Defence will wish to consult closely with other government departments that have an interest in what we do.

Armed Forces: Investment

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is absolutely right. However, it is precisely for that reason that the recent speculation, in the press and elsewhere, is unhelpful, because it is inherently unsettling to the men and women of the Armed Forces.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, setting aside potential cuts, there is no speculation about the cuts in train now, particularly those affecting the training of our Armed Forces. Will the Minister comment on this, which is affecting our fighting efficiency and morale?

[Earl Howe]

The noble and gallant Lord is correct. Some decisions have been taken for the current financial year to decrease the amount of training that certain parts of the Armed Forces will be able to avail themselves of. I emphasise that this is a temporary measure.

Defence Review

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. The 2015 defence review set out our strategic priorities and a vision for how defence should contribute to our country’s global ambitions. That review was under-resourced to the tune of half a billion pounds and that, added to the current adverse pound/dollar exchange rate, defence equipment inflation versus headline inflation and the failure of some efficiencies measures, results in today’s serious underfunding of the defence budget. Thus cuts are under way now. Incidentally, I take issue with the Minister in saying in our November debate that I was “completely wrong” regarding cuts having to be found to compensate for efficiencies not properly delivered. I am not wrong on that.

In addition to today’s cuts, further drastic savings measures are being considered. The Minister will say that this is all speculation and that no decisions have been made, but I suggest that he cannot deny that some very serious capability measures are being costed. If they are taken, that will have a dramatic effect on our ability to meet our SDSR 2015 mission requirements, and the Armed Forces will certainly not be able to deliver properly on contributing to the Government’s aspirations to be a global player, aspirations frequently articulated by the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Defence and, indeed, the noble Earl himself.

We cannot continue gaffer-taping up our disintegrating defence. We must either fund properly the capabilities set out in SDSR 2015, or we should have a proper defence review to recalibrate our country’s requirement for defence. If that suggests that our defence capability should be largely as now, let us see it resourced properly. If there is not the will to do that, cut cloth and recognise that the Government’s global ambitions are a wish too far.

Royal Navy: Operational Capability

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord has immense experience in this area and I acknowledge that immediately. He is of course quite right about the need for a steady drumbeat of shipbuilding. That was one of the themes in the national shipbuilding strategy that we published recently. I do not think we should underplay the cutting-edge capability of the Type 23 frigates, of which we already have 13. However, as the noble Lord will know, defence uses a variety of assets and means to monitor potentially hostile maritime activity in the UK area of interest and beyond. For example, the Royal Navy routinely escorts non-NATO vessels transiting through the UK area of interest. However, I can tell him that this whole area is a central consideration in the national security capability review, which is currently under way.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, the training budgets of all three services have been heavily reduced by savings measures, imperilling operational capability across our Armed Forces. Anti-submarine warfare is an art form as much as it is a science, and sufficient training is absolutely critical. Will the Minister say whether anti-submarine warfare training has been affected by the cuts I have just mentioned and by the lack of manpower that is keeping some of our ASW specialist ships alongside?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my understanding is that the quality of our training in anti-submarine warfare has not suffered, but the noble and gallant Lord is right to draw attention to shortages of skills in key technical areas such as nuclear and other types of engineering. The Royal Navy has this agenda very much in hand but it is a challenge—the Royal Navy is competing with industry for those skills. However, the picture is steadily improving.

UK Defence Forces

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, for this debate and for his speech. Being this far down the speakers list, I make no apology for a certain repetition of what has been said: I agree with just about everything that every speaker has said.

As we have heard, the defence budget is not in a good place and soothing words from the Government that all is in order run counter to every single other commentator on defence—academics, journalists, experienced ex-servicepeople and so forth. The extra money that is being promised is having to be found from efficiency savings, and since this has been the case for some years, proper efficiencies can no longer be identified; therefore, savings measures are being run that are not efficiencies at all but capability cuts. Meanwhile, cuts in running costs, especially in the supply chain, are already hollowing out the services, where, additionally, the manpower situation is dire, a casualty of inept decisions in SDSR 2010 that remained largely uncorrected in SDSR 2015. In the case of the Royal Navy, for example, ships are constrained from going to sea because they cannot be properly manned.

As for the subject of today’s debate, the UK, as a member of P5, G8 and so on, has a significant responsibility to step up to the plate and assume some obligation for world order by contributing to global peace, stability and security. Indeed, when the Prime Minister met HMS “Queen Elizabeth” on her first arrival into Portsmouth in August this year, she said,

“as Britain forges a new, positive, confident role for ourselves on the world stage in the years ahead, we are determined to remain a fully engaged global power ... Britain has an enduring responsibility to help sustain the international rules-based order and to defend the liberal values which underpin it”.

Noble Lords may say, “Well spoken”, and, indeed, this should be deliverable, most likely through maritime, since the problems of getting overflying, basing rights and so on can be avoided by operating from the high seas. The three key maritime pillars to enable this are theoretically in place: continuous at-sea deterrence, carrier strike and amphibiosity, all supported by a force of destroyers, frigates, nuclear attack submarines and suitable fleet support ships. Continuous at-sea deterrence seems assured, with steel having been cut for our new class of SSBNs, the Dreadnought class, although it seems irresponsible to put the costs of this political capability into the defence budget, where those costs of build are gravely distorting the conventional programme. The 2007 defence White Paper on this subject sensibly made it clear that this should not happen and the Government should reconsider this. I would be grateful if the Minister would say something about it.

On the second pillar, carrier capability is rolling but threatened, in particular, by undermanning and an insufficient number of F-35B aircraft. The other key capability, amphibiosity, by which theatre entry can be achieved from the sea at a time and place of our choosing, is under threat. The Minister will no doubt say that this is speculation and no decisions have been taken; but is he prepared to deny that cutting the Royal Marines by 1,000 and disposing of HMS “Albion” and HMS “Bulwark” are not being contemplated? Were this to happen, we would lose a crucial global capability and an important leg on our stool of pillars for defence.

The supporting force of destroyers and frigates for these three pillars is also in a fragile state. That fragility and lack of resilience could not be better demonstrated than by today’s news of the withdrawal of HMS “Diamond” from the Gulf with a mechanical problem and the fact that she cannot be replaced. The numbers of our destroyers and frigates are too low in any case. We should be concerned, additionally, that the ageing Type 23 frigates will not be able to hang on long enough to be relieved by the new Type 26 and Type 31 ships. Will the Minister assure the House that we will not at any time drop below a force of 19 destroyers and frigates? Does he agree that this number is too low in any case to meet a proper global deployment capability? I recognise that the new ships will be more capable, but they cannot be in two places at one time.

The land and air environments are equally assailed. The fact is that the defence budget is not fit for the purpose of delivering our global aspirations. As has been said, it must be increased. It is not sufficient, for example, for the Minister to vaunt that we spend more on defence than our European allies: they do not flaunt a global role.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Lord Boyce Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, when the noble Earl responded to my Amendment 3 on Report, he began with a frank and gracious apology to the House and to me for saying in his letter of 29 September that it would not be possible to remove the word “part-time” from the Long Title of the Bill. As he said, this was incorrect but given in good faith. To my embarrassment and regret, I failed, when I spoke again, to thank him for his apology—which of course I fully accept. I have spoken and written to the noble Earl to apologise for this discourtesy but would like to put the record straight.

In the same letter the noble Earl sought to allay concern by saying that the use of “part-time” was not unprecedented: it had been, he said, in previous Armed Forces legislation. So far, it has been found but once in all such Acts, going back over 60 years—and that once was in a 1955 Act, long repealed, and with a totally different meaning from contemporary usage. Both of these were weak—and, indeed, inaccurate—claims. The noble Earl would have done better to note that our objection to introducing “part-time” into the Bill was not that it would be unprecedented but that it should be there at all. The noble Earl said that he did not agree with my analysis, but a dozen speakers sympathised and agreed with the noble and gallant Lords and myself. More than 50 unwhipped Peers supported us in the Lobby.

The noble Earl said that the purpose of this novel type of flexible working was to enable individuals to take breaks from their 24/7/52 commitment to their service. Both in Grand Committee and on Report, our amendments were aimed at providing for just that, with appropriate subordinate legislation. We were being direct, not devious, as the noble Earl chided us. The Government’s approach—that the individual must first commit to serving on a part-time basis before becoming eligible to apply for breaks—is far less straightforward.

The arrangements for time away are all to be set out in subordinate legislation—but, we are told, cannot be guaranteed unless individuals are formally released from full-time duty to the Crown. But are they released? They are still beholden to the Crown because they remain under the Armed Forces Act. Would the military or civil police be responsible for investigating a crime committed by an individual while on a break? As a law tutor might say to his class of students, “discuss”.

I hope that the Government noted that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, strongly suggested that phraseology other than “part-time” could be adapted for the armed services in legislation—as did the police, with detail in subordinate legislation to guarantee arrangements. However, the noble Earl said that what was intended was,

“distinctly different … and therefore the way we describe it needs to be very clear”.—[Official Report, 11/10/17; col. 249.]

I have since seen the noble Earl’s response to criticism by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. He wrote:

“There is no intention at present to enable part-time service for all enlisted regulars”.


“No intention at present” really does make it distinctly different from just providing compassionate flexibility. Is this the intended direction of travel? Do the Government want this primary legislation to spawn part-time service in further and wider applications than those proposed now?

A statutory door is being primed to spring open—a far cry from the assurance given by the noble Earl in that letter of 29 September in which he wrote:

“The amendments to primary legislation simply provide us with the power to make regulations to enable these particular forms of flexible working”.


The Bill will enable far greater powers than that. There is no place in the Armed Forces Act 2006 for such an untrammelled, undefined, catch-all “part-time basis” phrase, unless Governments want a broad statutory power to recruit and re-muster our armed services little by little into becoming a force of part-timers. Perhaps, having reviewed all that has been said during the passage of the Bill in your Lordships’ House, wiser counsel will prevail in the other place. I certainly hope so.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I remain to be convinced about the need for the Bill. The services already have an ability to operate flexible working. I lament, and certainly remain dismayed by, the continued use of the expression “part-time” to characterise the nature of what the Bill entails.

I recognise the amendment on this point was defeated on Report, but it required a Government three-line Whip to defeat the many excellent arguments by protagonists in favour. It was hardly a moral victory for the Government. Since Report, the senior and junior servicepeople I have spoken to have been equally appalled. Dislike for the expression “part-time” will be felt in particular by those who have requested no geographic separation yet who continue to work full-time. They will also be called “part-time” people even though they are working full-time. How does the Minister explain that? I really believe that a mistake has been made here and I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that the Chiefs of Staff explicitly support the use of the expression “part-time”.

On a separate subject, I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on whether the ceilings for manpower numbers will take into account the provisions of the Bill. In other words, if the full scope and feasibility of flexible working for serving members of the Armed Forces is to be realised, there must presumably come a point where the current mechanism for accounting for liability—headcount—gives way to full-time equivalence.

The Bill’s implementation will have to be handled very carefully if the expectations of service men and women are not to be falsely raised. As the Minister said on Report:

“We are not talking about large numbers: we expect only a modest number of our people to either work part-time or restrict their absence from their home bases”.—[Official Report, 11/10/17; col. 250.]


In the case of the Royal Navy—which is extremely tautly manned and, constrained by the government-imposed headcount, short of people anyway—that is likely to be very modest indeed. For example, we need to bear in mind that 80% of junior ranks are in seagoing billets. It is difficult to see many applications for time away being approved. I therefore urge the Minister to ensure that the Bill is launched most carefully, and without fanfare and overpromising.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I fully support all that has been said by the two noble and gallant Lords. Indeed, I cannot add anything more to the eloquence of how they put this across. The Bill is extremely worrying. I did not believe that it was necessary and I certainly do not like the phrases used. It is extraordinary; on the 167th anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade, perhaps Tennyson’s words are rather pertinent:

“Was there a man dismay’d?

Not tho’ the soldier knew

Some one had blunder’d”.

That is absolutely appropriate when one looks at this legislation.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig.

I remain to be convinced of the necessity of the Bill, as the Armed Forces are already empowered to allow flexible working. Some might argue that the Bill will allow the Armed Forces to be brought in step with modern working practices, which will be an important improvement to quality of life and hopefully will improve retention. Retention would be markedly improved if the men and women of our services were not profoundly depressed by a defence budget that is totally inadequate to meet the aspirations of SDR 2015, and when our service men and women are seeing major savings measures being contemplated that will impose major savage surgery on present and future equipment capability, and which have already dramatically curtailed training overseas—which, apart from causing us to become an embarrassment in the eyes of our allies, will have a concomitant downward effect on operational capability and morale. This is all on top of the fact that our service men and women are suffering from a number of deeply hurtful efficiency measures in train that are making their quality of life woeful.

Aside from that, I do not envisage that the Bill can be stopped. But if it is to go through, a key to its subsequent success from an Armed Forces perspective would be its attractiveness to the limited number of those—certainly very limited in the case of the Royal Navy—who would be allowed to take time away from their duties.

There is no way that labelling this “part-time” will be remotely attractive. It may be that such an expression is viewed with equanimity, if not honour, in civilian life, but I am astonished that there are those in this House who consider that being in civilian life is the same as serving in the Armed Forces. In the Armed Forces this will be viewed as an unpleasant epithet and will be used as such by the media and others ill-disposed towards us who desire to be insulting. When our allies, especially the United States, which is already deeply concerned about our potential capability cuts, hear that we are to have a part-time Army, Navy and Air Force—which is how it will be characterised—they will think we have lost the plot.

Apart from that, part-time in civilian life does not require a person to be instantly recallable at any time of the day or night, weekday or weekend. Some may think that this provision in the Bill is unlikely to be realised—but what happens if a strategic submarine cannot sail because of a lack of a nuclear propulsion watchkeeper? That is a national emergency.

In other words, to characterise these arrangements as “part-time working” as seen through civilian eyes is to obscure the fact that this will be a temporary arrangement between a service person and their chain of command which can be ended at the wish of either party with notice or terminated without notice in the event of emerging operational imperatives—for example, my nuclear operator analogy.

Also, there are policy limits on how long and on how many occasions through a career a service person may apply to serve under reduced-commitment terms and there will be practical limitations on who may be considered eligible for such arrangements, and when. As I have already said, there will be many limitations in the case of the Navy.

Given these circumstances, resorting to language where one will be called a part-time sailor, soldier or airman will be deemed among those who matter—and I have spoken to a lot of service men and women, rank and file, in the past few weeks—derogatory and belittling of their contribution. The expression is flawed in definitional terms.

Thus, my contention is that this expression—“part-time”—will do nothing to enhance the attractiveness of this sort of flexible working, which has its advantages, as my noble and gallant friend pointed out. In fact it will do quite the opposite. It will be retention negative and will add to the challenges facing the chain of command, who are charged with overseeing a shift in the culture underpinning working patterns on which the success of this initiative rests.

I totally endorse the amendment, and particularly my noble and gallant friend’s words in it, which are a far better definition for people wanting to take breaks.

NATO: Eastern Flank

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that the first duty of any Government is the safety and security of the British people at home and abroad. That is why we have committed to spending at least 2% of our GDP on defence every year of this decade. Not only that, in addition the MoD budget will rise by 0.5% a year in real terms to 2020-21 and we have access to up an additional £1.5 billion a year by 2020-21 through the new joint security fund. This is an appropriate response to the complex and challenging international and domestic security threats that we face.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that part of the NATO eastern flank includes maritime and the eastern Mediterranean? Will he say whether we are contributing our Royal Navy to NATO in that area, and if not whether we would have the capacity to do so if we were so asked?

[Earl Howe]

The noble and gallant Lord will know that there is a NATO operation currently in train in the Aegean in which the UK is playing a leading role. As to a wider involvement in the eastern Mediterranean, I will write to him if I can find out any more plans which can be disclosed. What I can say is that we are conscious of the need to defend NATO’s southern border as well as its eastern borders, and that is why we are deploying RAF aircraft for southern air policing later this year.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the key question is whether the Army is configured with enough strength to deliver the demands that we place upon it. We are clear that it is. The noble Lord is absolutely right that we have a way to go on recruitment, but the figures are heading in the right direction—that is, the inflow figures are looking encouraging. The change in definition of “trained strength” is simply a reversion to previous methods, which included phase 1 trained personnel as part of the trained strength, with their ability to engage in homeland resilience and in basic tasks that we place upon them within the UK.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, Russia is growing in intent and capability. We are not only not matching either but we are shrinking in both. We do not have enough numbers in the RN and the RAF to man properly the equipment we have today. Brexit will surely demand that we be prepared to operate more autonomously. Surely the Government must realise that SDSR 2015 is not fit for purpose.