Armed Forces

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister has set out how the Government seek to create a smaller but very well trained Army, a Royal Air Force equipped with a smaller number of very expensive aircraft, highly effective through the use of leading advanced technology, and a Royal Navy centred around a single carrier group and a submarine fleet with the Trident nuclear deterrent at its head.

What does this actually mean in terms of the United Kingdom’s military capacity? How will we contribute to future demands from NATO? How will we respond to calls to engage in further conflict in, for example, Iraq, Libya or anywhere in that region, or in the Balkans? In the first Gulf War, I understand that we had to strip the 3rd Armoured Division, based in Germany, of all its tanks in order to send the 1st Armoured Division into action in the desert. I am advised that we only just got away with it. Given that the new carrier—or, I hope, carriers—is expected to be in service with the Royal Navy for many decades, what assessment have the Government made of its vulnerability to attack from the new generation of anti-ship ballistic missiles, the ASBMs, of which the Chinese DF-21D “carrier killer” is believed to be the first in production?

Will the cost in blood and treasure of the Afghan war prove to have been a prohibitive price to pay for any similar future actions? Did the Falklands War depend on a fleet of warships that we no longer have and on requisitioned merchant ships that are no longer available? For how long can the safety of the Falkland Islanders be guaranteed by, as I understand, four ageing fast-jet fighters? This thinking has now developed to such an extent—and such a low point—that Professor Chris Brown, an international relations specialist at the LSE, believes that the UK’s lack of ability to act independently or even anything like an equal partner is something that government and politicians need to be seen to accept. He believes that they should advise the public accordingly: that the UK’s position and influence in the world will from now on rest firmly on soft rather than hard power. That is a vision that I really do not want to accept.

We are about to go into another round of sell-offs predicated on projected savings rather than service delivery. The projected buyout of the Defence Support Group land forces “green fleet” support and maintenance function by a private, potentially foreign, buyer is another case in point of an exercise almost bound to prove less effective and more costly than government advisers imagine. According to the National Audit Office, the decision to restructure the Army’s Regular and Reserve Forces was taken without “appropriate testing of feasibility”. As my noble friend Lord Palmer of Childs Hill has already mentioned, the plan to raise the number of reservists from the current 19,400 to 30,000 by 2018 may not in fact be achieved until 2025. The head of the National Audit Office, Amyas Morse, said that these measures,

“could significantly affect the Army’s ability to achieve its objectives and value for money”.

He added that the MoD,

“must get a better understanding of significant risks to Army 2020—notably, the extent to which it is dependent on other major programmes and the risk that the shortfall in recruitment of new reserves will up the pressure on regular units”.

Recruitment will need to increase substantially over the next five years if the plans are to be met. Meanwhile, the risks continue to mount. For example, what are the contingency plans for integrating Regular and Reserve Forces within a single force structure? When will we have some clarity on how employers will be persuaded to release soldiers for long periods of time, or on how the required levels of training and fitness to fight will be achieved and maintained among the reservists?

In another cost-saving plan, part of the Defence Support Group is to be sold off, apparently to realise some £200 million to £300 million in savings. The DSG’s main customer is the Army. It operates from eight main sites in the United Kingdom as an arm’s-length organisation from the MoD, servicing and upgrading the UK’s armoured vehicle fleets. Nine pre-qualified organisations have been invited to negotiate, at least half of which are foreign-owned, and the Government are clearly anxious to complete the sale before the general election.

The Royal Aeronautical Society has recently published an overview of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation by a Mr Howard Wheeldon, a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, which is a sharply focused wake-up call. The DIO was formed in 2011 as a product of the Levene defence review. The intention was to bring together all property and infrastructure development management under a single organisation, designed to optimise investment in and the strategic management of our vast defence estate—so far so good. Here I declare an interest: as a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a companion of the Royal Aeronautical Society, I was at one time engaged as a consulting engineer to the MoD’s direct works services, providing engineering management support on more than a dozen military bases throughout Hampshire, including the then Royal Naval Hospital Haslar and the Aircraft Research Establishment at Farnborough.

The DIO is the largest landowner in Britain. Worth about £25 billion, it is larger than either the National Trust or the Forestry Commission in terms of land, property and infrastructure. It has an annual budget of £3.3 billion. Yet concerns are already being raised about DIO’s performance on the ground and its inability to respond to some of the more immediate priorities of the military. For example, impacting on the Royal Air Force is the slow progress in adapting RAF Marham to accommodate the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. As we know, the arrival date is planned for 2018, at which time 617 Squadron will be stood up as the primary operational unit for Lightning II. Given the large amount of infrastructure work required, clearly time is of the essence, but apart from the announcement of the intention to spend £7.5 million to build three new landing pads alongside the existing runway, there is no news of plans to provide extensive new infrastructure. This will be needed to maintain and operate the multi-role strike fighter in what only last month the Secretary of State for Defence described as likely to be the largest fleet of new jets in Europe. What progress is being made on this essential infrastructure?

A second concern is the work to adapt the Royal Navy dockyard at Portsmouth to accommodate the—I hope—two new “Queen Elizabeth” class carriers that are going to be based there. When the announcement was first made in 2002, it was acknowledged that their size would create problems in entering the base except at unusually high tides. In 2003 a scheme was announced to improve Portsmouth Naval Base in order to ease the access in and out for both the Type 45 destroyers and the carriers. It is unclear how much work has been carried out so far. I would be grateful if my noble friend could shed some light on it. In 2012, the DIO released a scope of work document setting out what would be required at Portsmouth to accommodate the carriers. It included a tidal berth and the upgrading of an existing jetty to withstand berthing, mooring and operational forces. It also included increased industrial electrical supply and navigational aids on independent marine structures. In all, it was estimated to cost in excess of £60 million and take 22 months to supply. The first of the carriers is due to be launched in Rosyth in a couple of weeks and it appears that the work in Portsmouth has yet to begin. Again, I would be grateful if my noble friend could clarify this situation.

Finally, and to echo points made by so many other learned and gallant speakers, it is generally accepted that the first duty of government is to maintain the security of its citizens and to protect them from external aggressors. Looking back over the issues that we have discussed today and that confront our nation, it seems to me that there is still some serious catching up to do.