Armed Forces: Redundancies

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, it is my understanding that the National Security Council meets on a very regular basis and considers every eventuality, but it is not for it to decide the cuts. They are a matter for the Treasury.

[Lord Dannatt]

My Lords, I know that Members on the Cross Benches would like to be associated with the message of condolence to the families who have lost loved ones in recent operations. With regard to the matter in hand, does the Minister accept that everything practical and affordable is being done to ease the transition of those who are going to be made redundant, either voluntarily or compulsorily, under this round?

Does he also accept that there is a need, to which other noble Lords have already alluded, to keep current world events under close review in the forthcoming comprehensive spending reviews and the work towards the next defence review? If the world does not looks as safe in the next five, 10 or 15 years as one might perhaps hope, is there not a need for the numbers in our Armed Forces, particularly in our land forces, to be kept under review? Must not the possibility of increased spending in defence, maybe from somewhere else across government, be a possibility and not always the downward effect that we seem to see?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, as I said earlier, the National Security Council is meeting at this moment. It will obviously be considering world events as they evolve. We are confident that we have the members of Armed Forces to deal with any situation. As the noble Lord knows, we are reducing the numbers next year, coming back from Afghanistan. We have plenty of members of the Armed Forces to deal with these eventualities.