Queen’s Speech

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I join in welcoming—indeed, in rewelcoming—the noble Earl to his portfolio of responsibilities. Off and on he has spoken on defence issues since I first entered your Lordships’ House in 1991. He surely deserves the descriptors “strong and stable”, to which I would add “enduring and likeable”.

I welcome the information about ongoing defence issues outlined by the noble Earl. I had hoped to welcome the intention to legislate on combat immunity, a topic dear to my heart, and on some form of time out—a statute of limitations—for bringing historic cases that have arisen during operations. Maybe when the current clouds of uncertainty disperse, these may yet be considered as they surely ought to be. I welcome his references to a flexible employment scheme for the Armed Forces. This deserves strong interest and support.

I turn to whether we should have a further defence and security review. I, for one, would not press for it now. Maximum effort is called for in dealing with the complexities and ramifications of Brexit. The MoD will surely be involved as well. If a defence and security review were to be done thoroughly, it would need the most serious attention and consideration. Would that really be available at this time? I would further argue that the 2015 review was a well-considered effort pointing the way ahead, in particular for the three armed services. I would not consider that any less capability is now called for, rather the opposite. Indeed where there is failure, it is in achieving the aspirations and output of that review in a comprehensive and timely manner. Criticism—serious and informed criticism—has been voiced in recent months and weeks by the Defence Select Committee, for example about Army and Navy shortcomings. For all three services, the critical issue is weakness in equipment strengths and so little resilience if engaged against a well-armed foe.

There are many historic examples of economies and savings assumed to be achievable in defence spending but proving unrealistic and undeliverable. Even the assurances that the UK was meeting the NATO minimum of 2% of GDP are based on challenged and dubious attributions to that budget. The adverse move in the exchange rate for the pound has compounded the problem. Surely it is the output achieved that needs to be measured, not merely the 2% or whatever input, nor the putative efficiency savings assumed.

For those with long experience of defence reviews and their outcomes, I fear it is no real surprise that intentions and aspirations are underfunded. Personally, I go back to the reviews of Duncan Sandys in the 1950s and Denis Healey in the 1960s. This time appears no different: a reluctant Treasury agrees a future programme for defence, but only if underpinned by a massive and demanding programme of efficiencies and economies elsewhere in the defence budget. The MoD, desperate to get its future major equipment programmes sanctioned, feels it has to offer overly ambitious savings to attempt to balance the books to the Treasury’s satisfaction. Inevitably, aspiration and achievement are not realised. As we have seen on previous occasions, programmes have to be adjusted, slowed down or modified to attempt to balance the books year on year. Not only does the defence programme suffer, it costs the taxpayer more overall to achieve some if not all of the requirements. Surely, faced with the problems and dangers of the present world, which were well outlined by the noble Earl, this is no time to continue with this pattern of false and fanciful accounting. Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, there are real and justifiable concerns that current front-line strengths are far from adequate were we to become involved in hostilities with an enemy that had better defence and combat capability than any we have faced since the early 1990s.

Examples of what might happen are our considerable losses at sea and in the air against the Argentinians in 1982. We lost, to their air attacks, half a dozen fighting ships, with as many badly damaged, more than one-third of our deployed fighter aircraft and numerous helicopters, but we had sufficient strength in numbers to ride out those considerable setbacks in battle and in the immediate future thereafter. That added strength had been procured many years previously and was operationally capable. Against the Iraqis in the first Gulf War six Tornados were lost, five in a single week. Losses today, from a very much smaller ORBAT than that of the 1980s, on a scale or rate such as those would all too rapidly decimate our combat power, our resilience and our stamina. Surely, too, the credibility of the deterrent lacks realism unless there is a sustainable conventional hard power capability to underwrite it.

We will continue to remain weak unless decisions on increasing numbers and funding are taken to reduce these most serious shortfalls. A step in the right direction is the commitment of extra procurement funds over the life of this Parliament, which was mentioned by the noble Earl. I hope that, for once, this will prove to be an Administration who hold their nerve and live up to this fiscal promise.