Armed Forces

Lord Burnett Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Burnett]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I believe that I was still serving when he was Navy Minister, and I assure him that he made a great contribution. He was an excellent Minister. However, I dissent from his views about the Trident replacement, which I hope will happen in the near future. Steps are being taken along those lines as we speak. I do not think that my comments are necessarily always welcomed by my own side.

I wish to pay tribute to Sir Nicholas Harvey who, unfortunately, in the recent reshuffle, has been moved from his role as Minister of State for the Armed Forces. He was an excellent Minister according to those who dealt with him in the Ministry of Defence. His move out of that department was and remains incomprehensible to me. We are, however, very fortunate to have my noble friend Lady Garden to take on the defence portfolio in this House. She is experienced, able and committed to defence, and I welcome her in this role. I join the Minister and other noble Lords in paying tribute to our Armed Forces. This is a particularly appropriate time of year to remember the sacrifices that our Armed Forces have made and continue to make for us.

In a typically powerful speech, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, voiced the fears of many. We and our allies have taken terrible casualties in Afghanistan. The Afghans have endured years of tumult, misery and chaos, but thanks to the bravery, discipline and commitment of our forces, those of our allies and the Afghans, considerable progress is being made to bring peace and stability to that country. I hope that our Prime Minister will seek to persuade whoever wins the next presidential election in the United States to stay the course in Afghanistan for the benefit of this country, our allies and the Afghan people themselves. The prospect, for example, of Afghan women having to revert to a cruelly discriminatory regime should fill us all with horror.

I want to say a few words about manpower and equipment. The Minister in his opening remarks spoke about global power and said that we must be able to fight and win in different terrains and on different operations. Quite rightly, much of the burden of fulfilling these roles will fall on our expeditionary or amphibious forces. My question to my noble friend is this: will full Army support for 3 Commando Brigade, Royal Marines, be secured? I refer to our Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers and logistic support. My noble friend will be aware that there is no shortage of individuals who wish to be seconded to the Commando Brigade, which is good for Army recruiting. It is an interesting confidential statistic that the level of success of individuals who pass the commando course—and have, as it were, the Lympstone DNA—and then go on for Special Forces selection is surprising. It would be interesting if the Minister could find out what that statistic is.

On the matter of our expeditionary capability, did I hear the Minister tell us that the first aircraft carrier, “Queen Elizabeth”, will come into deployable service within the next five years? In this context, will the aircraft then be ready and deployable as well?

Like many, I am concerned at the level of cuts in the Army. I note that there will be a Green Paper on the reserves published later this week. There will have to be a major culture change in this country if this policy is to be successful. If an individual is to sign up for the reserves, that individual and his or her employer will, I hope, be entering into an irrevocable contract. There must be no resiling from the training and active service commitments, which are to be at the demand and absolute discretion of the Government of the day. We cannot have reservists marching out when they have made these commitments, and we cannot have employers discriminating against them, in any way, shape or form, if they take on the responsibility of joining our great reserve forces.

The Armed Forces have taken cuts over the past years, and the reasons for them have been explained. However, the first duty of every Government is to defend this country and its people wherever they happen to be. We owe it to our Armed Forces to ensure that they are properly manned and equipped and that they and their families are decently looked after and housed. I am pleased that we have a military covenant; it is now up to our Government to live up to it.