Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the Bill. It is legislation for which the Government have a direct mandate, meeting their manifesto commitment to introduce an independent Armed Forces commissioner to improve the well-being and conditions of service for those who serve in our Armed Forces, for whom I have the greatest respect.

I join the congratulations for the noble Baroness, Lady Carberry of Muswell Hill, on her excellent, well-informed and therefore wholly relevant speech. The noble Baroness delivered it in a strong voice, with just the right amount of self-deprecation, and delivered some humorous remarks very well, entertaining your Lordships too. The highest praise that I can give her is that, in seven minutes before your Lordships’ House, she has already established that she has the ear of everyone and that we are all waiting to hear her next and many more contributions. It was an excellent maiden speech.

I also thank my noble friend the Minister of State for the clarity of his opening speech. It was clear to us all when he was on the Front Bench in opposition that he would make an excellent Minister, and he has made an excellent Minister. He is well respected in all parts of your Lordships’ House, and part of the reason for that is his characteristic openness and willingness to consult all who have a contribution to make to the work of your Lordships’ House, and I thank him for that on behalf of those who have experienced it already in relation to this legislation.

I believe that this legislation does what it claims: to reform the existing system, the failures of which have been manifest for several years, by replacing it with something more proactive and able to take the initiative in tackling systemic injustices. This is about not merely improving welfare, critical though that is, but arresting the dissatisfaction that has contributed to a recruitment crisis in our services. Given today’s geopolitical context and the breadth of expertise and experience represented in today’s proceedings, your Lordships’ House needs no reminder from me about the importance of reversing the decline in the number and overall resilience of our Armed Forces. I believe that this legislation will, if properly implemented, make a real contribution to effecting a cultural change that will do exactly that.

Introducing this Bill in the other place, my right honourable friend the Defence Secretary, in words echoed by my noble friend the Minister today, acknowledged the important precedent of the German armed forces commissioner in shaping this legislation and shared his hope that, as in Germany, a wide-ranging debate on the UK Armed Forces commissioner’s annual report would become

“a regular part of the parliamentary calendar each ... year”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/24; col. 75.]

In preparing for today’s debate, I had occasion to examine both the remit of the German armed forces commissioner and her most recent annual reports. The latter are wide-ranging, searching and forensic, touching on matters including personnel retention and shortfalls, inadequacies in matériel and issues relating to procurement as well as issues more explicitly related to welfare, discrimination, equity and justice. I would be interested to know whether my noble friend the Minister anticipates that the reports of the UK Armed Forces commissioner will be of similar scope. After all, if the commissioner believes that, for instance, personnel shortfalls or ineffective procurement processes have impinged upon the general welfare of service personnel, would this be a matter that would properly lie within the commissioner’s jurisdiction? The German commissioner’s annual reports suggest it would be, but it would be helpful to know whether this is also something Ministers believe should lie within the remit of her UK equivalent.

As a corollary to that question, it may also be useful if my noble friend the Minister could share any thoughts or discussions he may have had relating to the profile of the candidate the Government have in mind for this post once the legislation receives Royal Assent. Schedule 1 dictates that the commissioner must not be a member of the Armed Forces or a civil servant, but, in forming an idea of the scope of the commissioner’s duties, any further clarity as to the professional experience Ministers believe necessary adequately to perform the functions of this role would be helpful.

As we have heard, subsections (2) and (3) of the new section inserted by Clause 1 abolish the Service Complaints Ombudsman and replace it with the new Armed Forces commissioner. I do not propose to enumerate any of the terrible cases relating to service welfare we have seen emerge in recent years, but it is clear that the existing system has proved inadequate, to say the least, and that a more proactive and independent system is necessary. The principal issue with the Service Complaints Ombudsman has been that, in common with all ombudsmen, it has been able only to identify procedural issues, and then only reactively, rather than engage specific injustices and remedy them. Indeed, successive Service Complaints Ombudsmen have identified their inability to initiate investigations as an impediment to the successful exercise of their office.

I have now lost the order of my speech. I think I will probably have to conclude with this remark. Few things can be more important than improving the welfare—ah, I have found the page. On that point, I welcome the broadened powers conferred upon the Armed Forces commissioner to investigate specific concerns and wider thematic issues.

I turn now to a question that the Minister raised, which was developed succinctly by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. This is the real question, one that in a conversation that I had that the noble and gallant Lord was involved in was described as the “so what” question. It is: what follows from that investigation? When the commissioner identifies an injustice, what process is then set in train that remedies it? I ask this question in a supportive spirit because I know that the Government understand that a more effective diagnostic exercise is not all that is required and that for the welfare and contentment of our service personnel to be improved they must feel that the commissioner has the power not merely to investigate their welfare but to contribute to its improvement.

My stumbles mean that I am out of time. I will sit down.

Air Defence Capabilities

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for raising the incredibly important subject of air defence. She is quite right to point out the impact on Ukraine; 12,000 missiles have been fired at Ukraine by Russia, showing the importance of air defence now. It has been raised in report after report. I will of course write to her and put a copy in the Library, as a current stocktake of where we are, but we are already taking action. We are seeing the development of ORCUS and anti-drone technology to protect airfields; the enhancement of Sea Viper, which is the T45 missile that allows us to defend against ballistic missiles; and developments such as the DIAMOND initiative, which is bringing European countries together to get a ground-based air missile defence system. A number of initiatives are already being taken, but I agree with the noble Baroness. I will write to her so that we have a stocktake of that and so that the information is available to all Members of this House.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, members of the International Relations and Defence Committee—those in the last Parliament and those members of the committee as reformed in this Parliament—will be aware that on 8 May 2024, two months before the general election, as part of its inquiry designed to learn lessons from the conflict in Ukraine, the committee published evidence from Northrop Grumman, arguably the key MoD defence contractor on missile and air defence capability, which was persuasive to the committee and to others who will read it. It suggested that the UK’s air and missile defence capability was

“limited, to the point of being negligible”

because of persistent underinvestment. The inquiry had to report without the benefit of ministerial wisdom about how this legacy black hole was going to be filled because the Secretary of State, Grant Shapps, refused clearance for Ministers and officials to testify. Will the Minister join me in encouraging Members of your Lordships’ House to read the response of this Government to that report, because it deals with this issue in significant detail?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. Of course I will encourage Members to read the Government’s response to that report. I say to him, all Members of this House and others that the report was an important wake-up call to us about the importance of air defence in the future. Let us remember where we were. This country assumed that we needed to defend ourselves against the Soviet Union and bombers. We are now in a totally different situation where we face a 360-degree threat. The launch of missiles could come from a variety of launch systems, and we need to protect ourselves against not only missiles but drones, as we have seen with what may or may not have happened with respect to various bases. It is an important wake-up call not only for us but for Europe that air defence will become one of the critical systems that we will need to make available to ourselves and our country. Our population need to understand that homeland defence is also now of crucial importance to us all.

Afghan Special Forces Relocation Review

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The short answer is that, if I were my noble friend, I would write to me, and I will pass it on to the appropriate Minister and ensure that it is properly looked at. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, if noble Lords write to me on individual cases, I will ensure that, if neither I nor the appropriate Minister in the Ministry of Defence is dealing with it, it goes to the appropriate Minister to ensure that there is a proper response.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I too welcome this Statement and am pleased that the right thing has been done for a significant number of these brave men who supported us in Afghanistan. However, I cannot help but reflect that, had the previous Government had their way, some of them may not have been in a position to take advantage of this because they would have been in Rwanda.

On this specific issue about evidence of employment, on 12 December 2023, in the context of a repeat of a UQ from the other place, I asked the following question, which I will read in short, in the interest of time:

“My Lords, in responding to a question about specific individuals in the other place, the Armed Forces Minister told the House that His Majesty’s Government ‘do not have the employment records of the Afghan special forces’”—


that was a quotation from the Commons Official Report. I went on to say:

“Today, I was informed by a very reliable source that, until at least August 2021, our embassy in Kabul held nominal records for members of CF333 and ATF444, for the purposes of … pay”. —[Official Report, 12/12/23; col. 1817.]

In response, the then Minister undertook to search for these records that he said he had no knowledge existed. When were these records recovered? If these are not the records that have caused this dramatic development in the ability of these reviews to produce the sort of results that we have, where in this Government were the records that justify the refusal of the relocation of these brave men until they were discovered? When were they discovered, and why were they kept back? There could not have been any part of the Government that did not know that they needed to be brought forward to a review that was announced two months later.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his interesting question. On the basis of the information I have and the briefings we have had, I can tell him that the information became available after the start of the review on 1 February 2024. In the context of the weeks and months after that review, that was when the evidence of direct employment records became available. There was a failure of different government systems in different government departments to share information —the digital records were not shared, and different government departments were not talking to each other. I do not have the exact date for when that was discovered, but it was after 1 February. If further information should be made available to my noble friend in consequence of his question, I will write to him and place a copy in the Library.

Artificial Intelligence in Weapon Systems Committee Report

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Friday 19th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. Like him, I congratulate the committee’s chair, the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, and thank him for securing an early debate on the report, for his comprehensive and powerful opening speech and for his adroit and inclusive chairing of the committee. It is most important in these circumstances to have a chair who is inclusive. It was a pleasure to serve under his chairmanship and it is an equal pleasure to recognise and thank the clerks, the staff and advisers for their exemplary support.

The report and the record of its proceedings contain a great deal that is of value, including testimony from a range of experts which would repay concerted attention from Ministers and officials. Mindful of the time constraint, I wish to focus on one specific area: our working definition of AWS, or rather, the absence of one, which presents very real difficulties, both domestic and international.

The gateway through which I entered this somewhat Kafkaesque debate was a sentence from the Ministry of Defence which purported to explain why this country does not have an agreed definition of AWS. Cited on page 4 of the report and intermittently thereafter, it suggests that we do not have a working definition of AWS because, as the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, has quoted more broadly than I will, such terms

“have acquired a meaning beyond their literal interpretation”.

The floor of your Lordships’ House is not an appropriate forum for a detailed textual exegesis, although I do enjoy that. However, that sentence recalled Hazlitt’s criticism of the oratory of William Pitt, which he stigmatised as combining

“evasive dexterity, and perplexing formality”.

This impression reflects the conclusion of the committee that this explanation is plainly insufficient. How can we actively seek to engage with policy in regulating AWS if we cannot find even provisional words with which to define it? It is like attempting to make a suit for a man whose measurements are shrouded in secrecy and whose very existence is merely a rumour. These are, of course, enormously complex questions but in making good policy, complexity should not be a refuge but a rebuke. It is the job of Governments of any political stripe to be able to articulate their approach and have it tested by experts and dissenting voices.

In advising the Government to adopt a definition, the committee was careful. While it suggested that a future-proofed definition would be desirable, the report makes it clear that even a more provisional operational definition would be useful. We understand that this could change as the technology dictates, but it would at least have the advantage of reflecting the Government’s contemporary thinking. In lieu of that, we are forced to make a series of inferential leaps in guessing details of the Government’s approach to this question. We are given to understand that the Government use the NATO definition of “autonomous”, which takes us a small step forward, although as the report makes clear, that leaves terms such as “desired”, “goals”, “unpredictable” and, extraordinarily, “parameters”, entirely undefined.

Questions about an agreed definition have vexed policymakers in other domestic and international fora, but we should at least be working towards a definition that would bring some measure of clarity to our regulatory and developmental efforts. I would urge, therefore, the Minister to reconsider the question of an operational definition.

In so doing, I remind the Minister of the evidence of Professor Stuart Russell, who noted that the lack of specificity was creating damaging ambiguity in intergovernmental co-operation, and of Professor Taddeo’s concern that the current definitional latitude allows unscrupulous states to develop AWS without ever describing them as such, and her further exhortation upon this Government to develop

“a definition that is realistic, that is technologically and scientifically grounded, and on which we can find agreement in international fora to start thinking about how to regulate these weapons”.

Royal Navy: Climate Change Training

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall ask the Minister a question that is within his brief. The respected Institute for Economics and Peace has identified 27 countries with over 700 million people who already face catastrophic ecological threats but at the same time have the lowest levels of societal resilience. This is a recipe for conflict. The list includes countries where we are likely to deploy our Armed Forces and other humanitarian and emergency responders if requested so to do. The Minister and I have had cause to discuss the complications and consequences of the manifestation of an unanticipated risk that caused the accidental death of a member of our armed services deployed with our allies in a foreign jurisdiction in a post-conflict environment. With that in mind, since we have identified the countries where we will need them, should we not be working on appropriate and comprehensive status of forces agreements now in anticipation of this situation arising again?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord. However, I make two points. First, we will not and cannot compromise military capability solely for a sustainable solution. A key principle here is to safeguard the national defence, and that is paramount. Secondly, having said that, the UK is world-leading in this area, and we should be proud of our Armed Forces’ efforts to gain an edge on the threats and challenges posed by climate change. Each service is making significant improvements.

UK Armed Forces

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, I can do no more than take that message back, and take the tone of the House back, to the Secretary of State. He will not be surprised, but I will certainly undertake to do that.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will remember that, last year, a senior US general remarked that the British Army was no longer regarded as a top-level fighting force. Some short time thereafter—I cannot remember exactly when it was—at Defence Questions, the then chair of the Defence Select Committee invited the Secretary of State to comment on these remarks as he said they tallied with his committee’s own findings that the conflict in Ukraine had exposed serious shortfalls in the war-fighting capability of the British Army. I have no way of judging whether any of that is correct, but what interested me was the Minister’s response. The Minister, Mr Heappey, responded that

“underinvestment in the Army … has led to the point where the Army is in urgent need of recapitalisation”.

That was the word he used: “recapitalisation”. He went on to say:

“The Chancellor and Prime Minister get that, and there is a Budget coming”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/1/23; col. 5.]


We have now had two Budgets. There was no recapitalisation in the first. There certainly was no recapitalisation, for the reasons that my noble friend pointed out, in the second. So, when is this recapitalisation going to happen? This, out of the mouths of Ministers, is in direct contrast to the description the Minister gives this House. Why is that?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, one can look at the recapitalisation—and I understand it is a very strong word—and the environment we find ourselves in at the moment. Let us think about the orders we have placed at the moment. There are 22 ships and submarines either on order or under construction, and I have seen some of them; we have got 1,200 armoured vehicles on order; we support, in this country, over 400,000 jobs across the union. We spend £25 billion with the UK defence industry, including £5.5 billion on shipbuilding and repair, close to £2 billion on aircraft and spacecraft, and over £2 billion on weapons and ammunition. We continue to support the defence industry and our Armed Forces as best we can. On the absolute amount of money, I completely understand the level of concern.

AUKUS

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, while the events in Ukraine and the Middle East have understandably engrossed the world’s attention, we have seen developments in the Indo-Pacific that signal its increasing geopolitical centrality: in 2022, China struck a security pact with the Solomon Islands; in January, Nauru switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China; and, a month ago, Papua New Guinea confirmed early-stage talks with Beijing on a security and policing agreement. Post AUKUS, Chinese-driven media activity across several Pacific island nations demonstrates that China regards the agreement as a major impediment to its geopolitical ambitions, as does its concerted diplomatic pressure on smaller nations across the region.

I do not question the aims of AUKUS, but I have three questions about our approach to realising those aims and our capacity so to do. The first is about the future of submarine warfare. The last two years have seen advances in uncrewed submarine capabilities by our allies and our strategic adversaries. In Russia, the K-329 Belgorod submarines emerged—unmanned nuclear-powered submarines that purportedly offer nuclear-strike capabilities, as well as deterrence support. Last year, North Korea unveiled its first nuclear-armed unmanned submarine.

While encouraged by our own Project Cetus, I ask whether any assessment has been made of the extent, if any, that crewed, nuclear-strike submarines will have been superseded by the time Australia is building SSN-AUKUS boats. Given the rapidity of relevant technology advances, it would be useful to know if any such work has been or is likely to be commissioned.

Secondly, on our industrial capacity, can we meet our obligations under the AUKUS agreement’s optimal pathway? Each of the last Astute-class submarines under commission took around 130 months to complete. We are told that HMS “Agincourt” will commission after a 99-month build. Why does the MoD believe that we will be able to complete work on HMS “Agincourt” 31 months more rapidly than we did for the previous four submarines in the class and 13 months faster than BAE Systems has ever built an Astute?

Lastly, on the reliability of the MoD’s financial estimates, on 7 December I asked why the three services have different approaches to cost forecasting, with the Navy and RAF including predicted costs for the capabilities planned while the Army includes only what it can afford. The noble Earl the Minister said that he was in “entire agreement” on the question of consistency and conceded that in 40 years of looking at budgets he had

“never seen a budget that resembles anything like this one”.—[Official Report, 7/12/23; col. 1570.]

On top of this supervening inconsistency, we have seen the NAO describe the MoD’s equipment plan to 2033 as “unaffordable”; the MoD’s own worst-case forecast concedes a funding gap of almost £30 billion. What financial contingencies has the Minister’s department instituted or considered to ensure that we meet all our pillar 1 and 2 AUKUS obligations? Any assurance in the Minister’s answers to these questions would be extremely welcome.

Iran: Military Power

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what recent assessment they have made of Iran’s capacity to project military power beyond its borders.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (The Earl of Minto) (Con)]

My Lords, the Ministry of Defence regularly makes assessments of our adversaries’ ability to project military power beyond their borders and how this may affect UK interests. We continue to monitor developments in the Middle East, including Iran’s destabilising actions in the region. The UK has long condemned Iran’s reckless and dangerous activity in the Middle East. Iran’s support to militant groups directly counters UK interests. The Government are committed to working with international partners to deter Iran’s destabilising activity, including by holding Iran to account at the UN and maintaining our permanent defence presence in the region.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, Iran arms—including by supplying Shahed drones—trains and funds militias and political movements in at least six countries: Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Syria and Yemen. This is because it is a revisionist state seeking to change the regional order. Possession of a nuclear weapon would magnify its ability so to do. This would embolden not only Iran but its proxies, which is why preventing that must continue to be a foreign policy priority. What measures are we taking with allies and regional partners to ensure that Iran is not able to achieve nuclear weapon status? If we are to adopt a more stringent policy to frustrate Iran’s objectives, deepening engagement with regional partners will be critical. What is His Majesty’s Government’s assessment of the state of our alliances in the region? How are we seeking to enhance these relationships and to bolster our partners’ resistance to Iran’s proxies?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very thorough and important point. We remain committed to a diplomatic solution and are prepared to use all diplomatic options to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapon, including, if necessary, triggering the JCPOA snapback mechanism, which allows for the rapid reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran. Along with partners, including the US, France, the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UK is leading international efforts to deter Iran. This includes keeping international focus on Iran to dissuade it from proliferating, stopping the supply of weapons components into Iran, and deterring potential purchasers of all Iranian weapons.

Conventional Weapon Stocks: Expenditure

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, a lot of orders are outstanding, as I have just said, with an enormous amount coming through in the next 12 months. We are replacing everything that we have gifted to Ukraine as expeditiously as we can. As I think I have described once before, this is a holistic view. We are not just replacing like for like; we are taking advantage of improvements in technology to ensure that we have the correct weapons to meet the threat that defence faces.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, Russian shell production—not shell orders—next year is assessed to run at 4 million per year. The Secretary-General last week asked member states to increase arms production. In response, arms manufacturers, including Norway’s Nammo, suggested that this would be possible only if Governments shared risks with manufacturers, given the scale of the capital investment needed. Therefore, what discussions are we having with our NATO partners about formal mechanisms through which this can be achieved?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an extremely important and valid point. Noble Lords will know that NATO placed an order for 155 mm artillery shells on 23 January worth $1.2 billion. We have also placed two orders with BAE Systems and invested in its production capacity to ensure that we can also take delivery of the right amount of 155 mm shells. I understand that it has increased the production rate by eight times.

Royal Navy: Drone Attacks in the Red Sea

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. The French are extremely supportive, but of course it is each sovereign nation’s decision whether or not to become lethally involved.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, given the importance of Sea Viper—the missile that was used to shoot down these drones—to our operational capacity, what plans do we have to follow the example of the United States and prioritise work on a transportable rearming mechanism? This is a technological advance that would allow HMS “Diamond” and other vessels to reload vertical launch missiles at sea, rather than putting into port as they presently have to do.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, that is a very good point. Sea Viper is extremely effective, and there is a new version, which I think is called Sea Viper Evolution. A very substantial amount of money—about £400 million— is being spent to upgrade that. Rearming at sea is something I am not particularly knowledgeable about, so I will find out and write to the noble Lord.