Army Restructuring: Future Soldier

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement. In particular, I associate myself with the remarks she made about the return of our Armed Forces to Parliament yesterday.

It was the Government’s defence Command Paper, published only this year, which outlined a significant restructuring of the Army, including an overall reduction in troop numbers from 82,000 to 73,000 by 2025. This broke an election promise from the Prime Minister, and RUSI stated soon after that these cuts ended an era in which the UK could describe itself as a full-spectrum military power.

Today’s Statement confirms that the Army will be reorganised into a “leaner Army”, as the Secretary of State for Defence calls it, under four new administrative divisions of infantry. He said that numbers are reducing everywhere, but we must wait for a full breakdown online. It is welcome that the Government are responding to new threats of technology, cyber and hybrid warfare, but this should not be at the expense of other needed capabilities. Can the Minister reassure us that this is not the case? Can she reveal the impact on base closures to this Chamber now? Can she confirm that not one member of the Armed Forces will receive a redundancy package? Can she also explain what this Army restructuring means for European restructuring, our NATO commitments and global Britain?

We believe that, while our Armed Forces are highly respected worldwide for their professionalism and all-round excellence, numbers still matter. Our full-time forces are already nearly 10,000 below the strength that Ministers said in 2015 was needed to meet the threats that Britain faces. Can the Minister confirm the actual and final number for troop reduction and any timeline for that?

These cuts to Army personnel come at a time when the threats to the UK and our allies are growing and diversifying, especially if we consider various developments —for example, in Ukraine. Deeper cuts now could limit our forces’ capability and capacity to deploy overseas, support allies, maintain strong national defences and reinforce domestic resilience. Therefore, we believe that these reductions to the Army should be paused, pending a review, and reversed if necessary.

The procurement and delivery of armoured vehicles, which are vital to the protection of infantry on the ground, are also in disarray. The number of Challenger main battle tanks due to be upgraded has been reduced, the Warrior capability sustainment programme has been axed, and its replacement, Boxer, is unproven. Notwithstanding the remarks the Minister made in the Statement, can she give a further update to the Chamber on how these various programmes and their replacements are progressing? The £5.5 billion Ajax programme is more than four years late on its in-service date and has been beset by noise and excessive vibration problems, resulting in injured personnel. So far, just 14 have been delivered, at a cost of approximately £3.5 billion. Could the Minister give us an update on the current situation with Ajax?

Today’s Statement also comes at a time when Ministers are becoming increasingly reliant on troops to fix problems at home. There were 359 instances of civilian aid last year and 237 in the year to date. That is up from 120 or so in the four previous years. In Written Answers published just a few weeks ago, the Minister revealed that around 560 military personnel are currently deployed on supporting the NHS, 500 personnel are helping to supply fuel around the country, and 4,000 troops are on standby to help with Covid support. Can the Minister give us any update on how this restructuring may impact the support that the Army gives to the many emergency services around the country and on the various emergencies that occur?

Finally, change is always needed, but we seem to keep changing the changes. Is this the last time that we can expect there to be a major Command Paper or Statement changing things that were seen only a few years ago as essential for the defence and security of our nation? I finish by saying again how proud we all were to welcome our Armed Forces to Parliament yesterday. This Statement gives all of us an opportunity to mark that memorable occasion.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement and am glad we have gone back to having Statements repeated, rather than them being assumed to have been read. I have just come straight from the debate on genocide, led by the noble Lord, Lord Alton; I was trying to read the Statement during that debate, but it was such an important debate that it was quite difficult to read anything. It has been very helpful to hear the Minister, but this is also important to get a sense of the Chamber. When something is read out, you can see reactions.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I pay tribute to our Armed Forces. Sadly, I was not in Westminster yesterday, so was not able to help welcome back those from Op Pitting, but obviously the whole nation pays tribute to our Armed Forces, everything they have done in that operation, and the many things done in the 18 months to two years in which we have been dealing with Covid.

As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, pointed out, we are now using our Armed Forces very extensively, yet we seem to think we can have them ever reducing in size. I am a bit worried about this idea of the “future soldier”; I am hoping there will be more than one of them and that this is not a Matchbox idea of an identikit soldier, but rather a strange, generic name meaning the 73,000 personnel that I think we will have as full-time regulars.

I found the Statement extremely confusing, and I do not think it was the way the Minister read it or my inability to read the statistics at short notice. As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, pointed out, we had a headline goal of 82,000 personnel, which was going to be reduced; at the moment, we are on only about 76,000 anyway. We are now told that another 500 soldiers means an increase to 73,000, but that is still fewer than we have at the moment, so will we see cuts or increases and is this anything more than hypothetical?

At one point, we were given the figure of over 100,000 personnel, including the reserves. Could the Minister clarify what assessment the Government have made about the actual number of personnel needed in an integrated force of regulars and reserves? What will the total target number be and is 500 actually an addition or not?

The second area where there is something a little misleading is the fact that one of the five points we are supposed to take away from this Statement is that there are benefits for the

“whole of our union, with an increased proportion of the Army based in each of the devolved nations”.

That sounds wonderful, but then you look at the detail and realise that that means a larger proportion of a smaller force, so that, with the exception of Wales, the devolved nations will have not actually more personnel serving but just a larger proportion. I am not sure that will feel like a real bonus in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Could the Minister explain how the devolved nations will actually benefit, in a tangible way?

Finally, on capabilities—sorry, it is not finally, I have two more points. On capabilities, the Statement says:

“We are resolving development issues with the, nonetheless technically capable, Ajax armoured reconnaissance vehicle.”


Can the Minister reassure us that this vehicle will ever come into service? Is it really fit for purpose?

My final point is that we have had the Armed Forces Bill going through this place. We are almost at the final stages, but we have talked a lot about AI. That is touched on in the report. Will there be enhanced training for our future soldiers in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and how will that be brought it into the reduced size of the Armed Forces?