The Role and Capabilities of the UK Armed Forces, in the Light of Global and Domestic Threats to Stability and Security

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, I start off with an apology: I am trying to speak also in the other debate in the Chamber, so I will be coming and going in the course of this afternoon. I am delighted, as I think everybody here is, at the initiative of the Minister. I am very grateful for this opportunity to talk about such an important subject today.

There is no point in having Armed Forces unless we can use and deploy them when there is a real need to do so. The great thing about our forces is that, thank God—I touch wood when I say this—they never let us down; they always carry out their missions with superb professionalism and accuracy. That was the case the other day with the RAF taking out those two terrorists in Syria. I was delighted, as I think was the whole country, to see that we were prepared to use our means of defence against the murderous army of ISIL. If anybody ever needed to use their defence forces and had a right to do so, it must be in the face of that kind of threat, so I have no inhibition at all in saying that I congratulate them. I believe that I will be supported by a great many people in this country when I say that. I also congratulate all those who took part in the intelligence inputs that will have been so central to the success of that operation.

Before I come to my main remarks, I want to say a word or two about the Minister. The noble Earl is a man of great ability; the whole House knows that. I believe that he is genuinely committed to defence; for that matter, I believe that I am as well. However, I wish that when he comes to make statements before the House he would raise his game a little and distinguish between facile and disingenuous PR and a fair description of the facts. He said two things today that have led me to make that remark. One was that he said that the Government were now able to go ahead with a whole list of programmes that he then listed, such as Astute, carriers, Scout vehicles, the F35 and so on. In fact someone who did not know much about defence—that does not apply to anyone in this Room today, of course, but applies to an awful lot of our citizens in the country as a whole—would have assumed that the Government themselves had conceived and launched all those programmes. In fact, they were all inherited from the previous Labour Administration, and there is continuity. Indeed, some of them have been held up or reduced, and he did not say that either. So there was something very disingenuous about the way that he presented that.

He also once again raised the issue of the so-called £38 billion black hole. I have had this disagreement with him in the past and we really must resolve it. I think that the Government get to the figure of £38 billion if they use the assumption that we were not going to increase defence spending in real terms, or indeed nominal terms, which would have meant a considerable real-terms reaction—which of course is exactly what the Government did. We were actually committed to a 1.5% annual real-terms increase in defence spending. If he looks at the figures based on that assumption, which is the assumption that I was working on when I was Defence Procurement Minister, he will find that there is no such thing as a £38 billion black hole. I challenge him to ask the OBR to examine the figures, and if it comes back and says, “Yes, there was a £38 billion black hole”, I will formally apologise to the House and eat my words. If it does not come back and justify this figure, I hope that equally he will apologise to the House and eat his words.

We are at a critical moment. The Government are a purely Conservative Administration. They have a majority. They are about to come out with their own defence review. We have had a period of five years of devastating reductions in numbers and capability and programmes have been cancelled or cut—we all know that story—but the Government have now turned over a new leaf. They are going to increase procurement spending by 1% per annum and are committed to the NATO target of 2% of GDP. That is all splendid and I have already congratulated them on that in the House. So this is a good moment to look at matters. I shall focus today on the equipment programme and ask the Minister a number of questions about it. I do not expect detailed answers today but I would be grateful if he would write me a letter following today’s debate and place a copy of it in the Library of the House so that we can see where we are on some of these very important equipment programmes.

First, I will start with a rather sad story, the Nimrod programme. When the coalition Government came to power, within a few weeks—if I recall correctly—they literally cut up the MRA4 Nimrods when every penny of their capital cost had already been incurred. They were not even mothballed so that a future Government could use them. They were simply destroyed. That left a tremendous capability gap and the Government, again, have been less than straightforward about this. They often come to the House and say, “It’s all right. We are covering the gap with the use of other assets”. I have heard that phrase so many times and it is complete nonsense. You cannot cover the gap with the use of other assets. No helicopter has the range or endurance required to do that job and we do not have any other fixed-wing aircraft in the British Armed Forces capable of dropping buoys, let alone with the electronic equipment required to handle the output from those buoys. So there is a very serious capability gap.

I gather that there have been occasions when, because there has been an intrusion into NATO waters—not territorial waters but NATO waters—of an Akula class submarine or other sinister intruder, we have had to call upon the French and the Americans to help us out and to deploy a P3 or something of that kind to locate the submarine. I do not think any great damage has been done, as a result of the co-operation that we have been able to call upon. I ask the Government to state this afternoon or subsequently in a letter where we stand with filling this important capability gap. I do not want to hear that it is the sort of matter that will be considered in the defence review. It is a very urgent issue. I particularly want to know how many times we have had to call on French or American allies. I pay tribute to them—of course, the whole country should be grateful to them for coming to our aid. We cannot really call our independent deterrent “independent” if it requires another country such as France or America to carry out the necessary maritime surveillance to uphold the integrity of that deterrent.

Secondly, I come to the carriers. I thank God for this and take personal pleasure and pride in it because when the Government came to power, they wanted to cancel the carriers but found that it was practically impossible to do so. I am glad to say that they have now made a virtue of necessity and have moved away from their idea of not commissioning the “Prince of Wales”, and we are going to have two carriers. That is extremely good news and I am grateful to the Government for that. I genuinely congratulate them on that very encouraging turnaround.

A carrier is merely a platform—albeit a very impressive one—and it is as much use in defence terms as the systems or aircraft that are carried on it. Can I ask therefore how many F35s we are going to procure? This is an essential question. The number of Force Elements at Readiness that we were planning was confidential under the previous Labour Government and perhaps I should not mention the figure now, but what is known is that each of these carriers has a maximum capacity of 18 F35s. That means 36 F35s could be theoretically deployed. If we cannot deploy as many as 36, what we are doing is reducing the return on capital and on investment in the building of the carriers, which is unfortunate. If we put ourselves in the position where we can sustain the deployment of 36 F35s, how many F35s do we require in inventory to provide that? I suspect that, taking account of the need to recycle machines as well as men in operations, the need to maintain training so that the aircraft can have a flow of pilots—otherwise we run out of pilots—and taking account of attrition and so forth, we are talking about something like 120 F35s. Is that the order of magnitude that the Government are looking at or is it something much less than that? It is time that we as a country should be quite clear where we stand on that and on what kind of capability we are going to get from the massive investment we have made, correctly in my view, in the carrier programme.

I want to come on to other future combat aircraft. In my time in the MoD, we realised that the F35 and the Typhoon were probably going to be the last manned combat aircraft that the RAF would have. I do not think that other NATO countries have made a very different assessment of the prospect of the continuation of manned combat aircraft in the future, but I know that the matter is controversial in certain areas. However, we were determined to make sure that the British aircraft industry maintained its capability to produce UCAVs and UAVs and continued with its effective project management, with research in new materials, new stealth techniques and the essential techniques of aerodynamic design, so that we had the capability to provide the generation of unmanned combat aircraft to replace the Typhoon and the F35 in due course in 20 or 30 years’ time.

We were working on two projects. They were of course not aircraft. One of them we called Mantis, which was an air superiority capability, and the other we called Taranis, which was a deep-penetration bomber. Can the Minister let the Committee and therefore the public know exactly where we stand with those two programmes? Have they been continued, perhaps under different names or with different objectives, and what changes have been made? I brought the French into the Mantis programme, which seemed sensible to get the benefit of their skills and particularly to make sure that if we went ahead with the programme, we had a larger potential market for the resulting vehicles than we would otherwise have had. I would be interested to know how that co-operation has fared.

I want to ask the Minister about a sensitive matter but I think I can remain within the rules of confidentiality when I mention it. It is about tactical anti-ballistic missile capability. There is of course no suggestion of producing strategic anti-ballistic capability in this country. The Americans have been working on that for 25 years, and sometimes parking the project for a long time. That is a different story but a tactical capability is technically feasible and seems essential in the medium term. If we engage in concentrated operations such as amphibious landings or deploying extremely expensive major assets such as carriers, we want to make sure that they cannot be taken out by a ballistic missile. We know that the technologies of this world are such that they not only exist in one or two other countries—anybody can guess where I am referring to—but sometimes leak out of the countries which have developed them, so this is a matter to be taken seriously. There again, I initiated a dialogue with the French on that matter but I would be interested to know what the Government can tell us in public about their thinking on tactical anti-ballistic missile theatre or capabilities.

I will just mention the Scout vehicles—another of the vehicles which you would have thought from listening to the Minister, if you did not know about it, had been launched by this Government, but where almost the exact reverse occurred. I was determined that we should get it through in time before the election, in case that produced some hold-up. It would have been held up anyway because of purdah; we would not have been able to place contracts for the month or so before polling day. Thanks to the two teams in the DE&S working literally through the night and at weekends, we got the development contract through just a few weeks before the election.

I see that the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, is speaking immediately after me in this debate. He may recall a conversation we had about a range of potential armoured vehicles—fighting vehicles, communication vehicles, command and control vehicles and so forth—under what was called at the time the FRES programme. I said to him: “Look, let’s be serious about this. Which do you really want most?”. He said, “What we need most is a reconnaissance vehicle to replace CVRT, which has been there for a very long time”. It was about 40 years, as I recall. I said to him, “Richard, you will get it”, and I think I was as good as my word. So we launched that programme and we were afraid that it would not continue, but I am delighted that it has. However, I would very much like to know the potential in-service delivery date of the Scout armoured vehicle programme.

I repeat that I am not expecting the Minister to give me detailed answers this afternoon. I would not like him to try to do so because it would be impossible to cover those subjects in sufficient detail in his wind-up speech, where he has to deal with remarks made by a great many noble Lords. However, I would be deeply grateful for a letter setting out systematically the progress on these and any other capability equipment programmes which he thinks might be relevant, so that the House can see the position in black and white.

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the debate this afternoon, which is very timely in the context of the work being done on the current SDSR. As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, outlined at the start, we are all conscious of the current security situation in which we are operating. Quite rightly, the noble Earl pointed out the wide range of operations and activities that UK Armed Forces are superbly carrying out at present.

I also welcome the commitment made before the Summer Recess to 2% of GDP being spent on defence because that is a considerable help to defence planners as they do their work within the SDSR. I made a side note to myself as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, was speaking. I do not want to step into the word-eating competition between himself and the Minister, but I would observe that in 1997 when the then new Labour Government began their strategic defence review, I was the director of the defence programme staff, which in simple terms meant that I had some staff responsibility for the allocation of funds. It was actually an extraordinarily good SDR with a good series of policy outcomes which were widely recognised at the time. The sadness about that otherwise excellent SDR was its underfunding almost from the start. Over the next 13 years as I progressed from being a brigadier as the director of the defence programme staff until I retired as Chief of the General Staff in 2009, I watched the cumulative effect of the underfunding of the defence programme. I do not know whether the figure was £10 billion short in the defence equipment programme, or whether it was £35 billion or £38 billion short, but a shortage of funds in that programme undoubtedly accumulated as a result of the underfunding of the otherwise excellent SDR of 1997 through to the culmination of the then Government and the election in 2010 and the SDSR of that year. I shall watch with interest to see what the OBR says about the size of that underspend, but I am in no doubt from my own observation of 13 years in and out of the Ministry of Defence that underspend in equipment there undoubtedly was.

A useful and constructive point to make today is that the commitment to 2% of GDP being spent on defence undoubtedly gives the planners, in the context of this SDSR, a confirmed budget and a firm baseline from which to operate and to counter the wide-ranging challenges we know we are experiencing both at home and abroad. We must make sure that we have the right set of capabilities to deal with them.

Without rehearsing the many positives of the UK Armed Forces, I would like to raise a number of points in areas where I think we could and should do better. One of the principal lessons we learnt from our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is that we handicapped ourselves at the outset with our poor level of understanding of the culture, history and background of those countries. The current initiative for greater emphasis being placed on defence engagement is hugely to be welcomed: to use some of our existing resources more robustly when exercising in those parts of the world we think we want to understand better and where there is a possibility that we might find ourselves operating in the future. This seems to be an extremely effective and worthwhile use of military capability. The question I would be grateful if the noble Earl would consider answering either today or at another time is whether defence engagement will formally become a military task. It seems eminently sensible to me—it is not expensive and it would authorise the use of much of our existing capability.

A subset of defence engagement is our ability to communicate with the people in the countries in which we are operating. I am talking about language skills and the need for us to use interpreters. I am mindful of the current criticism of the present Government’s policy on Afghan interpreters and whether we are looking after them adequately. I am grateful to the Minister for his recent letter explaining what the Government’s policy is. I regret that I have not yet written to the noble Earl to thank him, but this is advance notice of my thanks. However, I would point out that there is a perception that our policy is ungenerous and mean in some regards. Whether that is true, I am not entirely sure; I discussed it with the Minister for the Armed Forces last week. If it is not mean and ungenerous, there is a perception that that is the case. In my view, I think that it would be sensible of Her Majesty’s Government to mount a proactive campaign pointing out that we are looking after our interpreters properly rather than to allow the alternative narrative to gain credence. If it is thought that when the UK needs language assistants and interpreters in faraway places where we do not have native skills ourselves, then in the global world in which we live, people in other countries will be very wary of taking on employment with us if they think that when we have departed, we will have no further interest in their welfare or well-being. There is a problem. It must be addressed. If it is only a problem of perception, it still has to be addressed.

Also in this further subject of defence engagement on the softer side of defence, I would be interested to hear whether the Minister believes that sufficient effort is being made in terms of co-operation between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, DfID and the Ministry of Defence in working together to prevent conflict through better integration of our defence, diplomatic and development capabilities. We have talked about this a lot in recent years. I am not convinced that I have sufficient evidence that we are putting substance into the words and there is a lot to be achieved in preventing conflict by better integration of our capabilities in those three areas.

This debate is essentially about capabilities to meet the current security threats that we face. One of those threats is from a resurgent Russia under its current President Vladimir Putin. I have raised before that although back in 2010 and prior to that I was one of those who very much favoured the complete withdrawal of the Army from Germany—in 2010 it seemed to be the right thing and I welcomed that within the context of the SDSR—I believe that we would send a useful and quite significant message if we were to leave an element, perhaps a brigade-sized element, of our Army in Germany. In this regard, is the Minister confident that we will have the funds to complete the withdrawal from Germany in the timeframe predicated in the 2010 SDSR? If, as I suspect, we do not have those funds, it is a consideration that we could turn a necessity into a virtue by deciding to leave an armoured brigade in Paderborn and Sennelagar. That would show solidarity with our NATO allies on the continent of Europe and contribute to sending a message that the UK does indeed take seriously its defence responsibilities in mainland Europe. That would not be an expensive thing to do, but it may be a necessity and I would strongly urge Her Majesty’s Government to consider turning that necessity into a virtue.

Another point that I remain concerned about that I have raised in your Lordships’ House before is the issue of protected mobility. Whether we remain with an element still in Germany or not, our battlefield manoeuvre capability remains compromised by the effective cancellation in 2007 of the Army’s medium-weight vehicle replacement programme. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, recalled a conversation with me at about that time when he asked me about my priority for the FRES programme, which is the unfortunate acronym for that particular programme. My priority was and is the Scout vehicle, mostly because the vehicle that it was due to replace, the CVRT vehicle, was designed in the 1970s and very light. The concept of its design was to be small enough to go between two rubber trees in Malaya. Clearly, that concept was outdated by the time we got to Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, I said that my priority was that we should have the Scout vehicle. But it was only my priority in a whole range of vehicles that we required at medium weight. The only survivor of that medium-weight vehicle replacement programme is the Scout vehicle, now called Ajax.

Now that we have withdrawn from Afghanistan and the Army is reconfiguring to Army 2020 around several brigades but three armoured infantry brigades, there are battalions within those armoured infantry brigades that do not have the vehicles that were originally intended in the 2001-02 endorsed medium-weight vehicle replacement programme. Those battalions are now equipped with what we salvaged from Afghanistan under the UOR programme—the Mastiffs and the Ridgebacks. Those vehicles have no place on a modern-manoeuvre battlefield. I cannot see where we will fight a modern-manoeuvre battle, but a lot of us cannot see much about the future and at some point we will be required to put one or more armoured infantry brigades into the field, probably in a division, and those battalions and combat support, and combat service support units, do not have suitable battlefield mobility. That remains a major failing.

It comes back to this issue of: was there a deficit in the defence budget building up towards 2009-10? Yes, there was. The competition in the Defence Board in 2007 was between two major programmes, of which there was money only for one. One was the carrier strike programme and the other was the Army’s medium-weight replacement vehicle programme. A debate was had, a decision was taken and the carrier strike programme was funded. It would be churlish of me to be anything other than welcoming of the two new large aircraft carriers, in which we can all take pride in the future. However, I am in no doubt that the casualty of that success was the Army’s medium-weight vehicle replacement programme, which leaves our Army hobbled in the future. I have a question for the Minister.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I do not think there is much difference between us on this issue. I am prepared to agree with the noble Lord; I am sure it is still correct that we could have, and probably should have, spent even more money implementing the 1998 White Paper, which, as he said, was an excellent White Paper. That, however, is not what is referred to when the black hole myth is mentioned. The black hole myth implies not that we did not contract for enough military equipment—you can always usefully buy more military equipment and, of course, there are other things we could and would have liked to have done if we had had the money to do it—but that we could not pay for the equipment that we had contracted for. The programmes the noble Lord is talking about—the rest of the FRES programme, apart from Scout and so forth—was not something we ever contracted for or pretended that we had contracted for. There is a real distinction here and I do not think there is any difference between my perception of that period of our history and that of the noble Lord.

[Lord Dannatt]

I am very grateful for that information. I do not want to extend this debate unduly other than to observe that at the time when the Army endorsed the requirement for what became the FRES programme in 2001-02, the money for that programme was available because we had cancelled two other programmes, TRACER and MRAV, and the production money sat in the budget for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009. We could have paid for it if the money had not been reallocated by the Defence Board to the otherwise very welcome carrier strike programme. However, I do not want to go any further down that track other than to observe, without being unduly lengthy, that I attended the Welcome to Norfolk party for the Queen’s Dragoon Guards last week—a reconnaissance regiment which previously had been equipped with CVRT and might have been expected to be equipped with something like Scout, but discovered that they have four-wheeled unarmed Jackals and their combat boots in which to conduct their reconnaissance. They have less capability than they have had over the last 30 or 40 years and this, I am afraid, illuminates the fact that, if we had more money, we would have done more things that we needed to do. We did not have that money: therefore, we have gaps in our capability.

I am conscious that I have taken far too much time, for which I apologise. However, I have a wider concern about our national defence industrial capability. It is something that we are right to worry about. We are told that European collaborative ventures, while superficially attractive, are the way forward, but experience has shown that many of them are costly and slow. We often do not get what we want when we want it and in a manner that we want. The alternative is that our national industrial capability is protected and preserved. That, of course, is good for jobs and apprenticeships in this country, and is good for giving youngsters coming out of education hope for decent employment in the future. However, I accept that bolstering, if you like, the national industrial capability is more expensive. Perhaps less expensive is not to go down the multilateral European route but to adopt some bilateral options. Some very good examples exist of bilateral arrangements between the French and the United Kingdom at the present time and, indeed, of course, with our well-known partner, the United States.

There is a current debate about Apache attack helicopter replacement: should we buy Boeing off the shelf or Westland, as we did last time? It does not have to be an either/or debate: we could buy the aircraft from Boeing and Westland could undertake to do the maintenance and upgrade. However, I worry that if we go too much further down the European collaborative track we will not get what we want when we want it and it will cost an awful lot more.

Finally, I am suspicious—maybe overly so—that those who are keen proponents of European defence industrial integration see it as a stepping stone to European armed forces integration, ultimately providing a unified set of European armed forces, which is an essential element for those who wish to see full European political integration. I may be overworrying here, and there is a wider issue at stake, but I would not want to see defence used as a Trojan horse in a wider political argument.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I think we would all agree that we have had a very constructive debate. I am exceedingly grateful for the contributions from all sides of the Chamber. I will try to deal with some of the points raised by noble Lords and noble and gallant Lords but I am conscious that I will probably be kept very busy writing letters for the next week or two as I do not think that I can answer in my closing speech every single question that has been put to me today.

The title of this debate asked us to take note,

“of the role and capabilities of the UK Armed Forces, in the light of global and domestic threats to stability and security”.

As all noble Lords are aware, that is a rather large field. We live in a world where, to use that almost eloquent Americanism, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns. In looking at the ongoing strategic defence and security review, we are peering into a very dark glass indeed. However, we know for certain that this SDSR should be different from the last. Given the 2% commitment, it is certainly not about cuts. That enables me to start by addressing the defence budget.

My noble friends Lord King and Lady Fookes picked up on the sentence included in my opening speech which reinforced the Government’s recognition that defence must always be the Government’s number one priority. Lest there be any doubt on the matter, I re-emphasise that this is the view of government as a whole. The Summer Budget document published by the Treasury said:

“The first duty of government is to ensure the safety and security of the country and its people”.

That document formalised our commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence until 2020. My noble friend Lord King questioned whether that would be enough. However, I remind him that that same document also committed to raise the MoD budget by 0.5% per annum in real terms over this Parliament. There will also be an additional £1.5 billion a year by 2020-21 in a new joint security fund.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, took us to the issue of strategy and rightly challenged me on our thinking. The SDSR will be framed in the context of the national security strategy. The strategic context is fundamental to the work now under way. Our analysis suggests that the 2010 national security strategy judgment that we were entering an age of uncertainty, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned, has been thoroughly vindicated in the intervening period. We anticipated that international terrorism would remain a major challenge and expected to see a range of domestic resilience challenges. Our decision to configure our Armed Forces to be flexible and adaptable to evolving threats has been proven correct.

However, we recognise that we have moved beyond the era of uncertainty to a period characterised best by heightened competition, instability and insecurity. I can tell the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, that resilience is very much a principle that we are factoring into our deliberations. In general, procurement levels are set to allow for operational losses and sufficient reliance. I take his specific point about the need for credible, conventional combat power in addition to the deterrent. We are confident that the deterrent itself remains capable and effective and that we maintain sufficient and capable conventional forces.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and other noble Lords questioned whether it was the Government’s genuine aim for the UK to remain a major global player. We are clear that there will be no reduction in Britain’s influence overseas. Our military, security, diplomatic and development capabilities are respected globally. Our diplomatic network spans 268 posts in 168 countries and territories and nine multilateral organisations. The UK has world-leading intelligence agencies and Armed Forces, a strong police force and an impressive National Crime Agency. The UK led the EU’s response to the crises in Syria and Iraq, including responding to the threat from ISIL. The Government will continue to do more on forward defence, reducing the threats before they reach our borders.

The right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, raised the issue of the SDSR process itself. In developing the NSS and SDSR, the Ministry of Defence, alongside the Cabinet Office, the FCO, DfID and the Home Office, has engaged with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders. We have met groups of external experts; hosted academic engagement sessions across the UK; participated in meetings with NGOs and industry round tables; we have briefed Back-Bench MPs, the House of Commons Defence Committee, interested Peers and the devolved Administrations. In total, we have discussed the review with more than 100 experts from nearly 40 different organisations and institutions. I can tell my noble friend Lord Selkirk that we have also engaged with international allies and partners and welcomed the public to write in with their thoughts. The right reverend Prelate, in particular, will wish to take note of the online poll that was conducted recently. We are serious about open policy-making. We have sought comments over the summer, as this gives us the time to analyse the results and feed them into the review process in a meaningful way. The poll is only one of several ways of engagement and offers the public another avenue for comment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, my noble friend Lord Selkirk, the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords spoke about the capabilities that we are reviewing in the SDSR. The SDSR is clearly an opportunity to re-examine our capability choices. In 2010, we highlighted that we would return to some questions in this review. Maritime patrol aircraft, ballistic missile defence and future combat aircraft fit into that category and they will all be considered. We also committed to considering NATO’s capability shortfalls and which ones we could help to mitigate. I am afraid it is too early to discuss options and decisions in detail, although I will comment on particular questions that noble Lords have raised in a second. The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, asked whether defence engagement would become a formal military task. The framework by which defence activity is directed is currently being revised as part of the review. Defence engagement is clearly a very important defence function and is likely to be very prominent in the future framework for defence. I am afraid that is as far as I can go at the moment, but I hope he will take comfort from the fact that it is in our sights.

The noble Lord also asked me about army basing. The army basing programme enables the Army to reorganise into its new Army 2020 structures, and delivers the Government’s 2010 SDSR commitment to bring all UK military units back from Germany by 2020. The programme has been delivered jointly by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and the Army. Although some units have already withdrawn from Germany to the UK, the majority of the 30 moves or re-roles conducted in 2013-14 were inside the UK. In the summer of this year, some 5,200 service personnel and their families, totalling 10,000 people, will have returned from Germany to the UK.

The final phase of the army basing programme involves the remaining units in Germany, principally 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade based in Paderborn, and completes a number of residual internal UK moves. The whole programme is still scheduled to complete by 2020. There are sufficient funds to complete the programme and it is on track. We were considering bringing it forward but have decided instead to leave the plans in place. There are no plans to leave any units or force elements in Germany.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, posed the question of why we are in Iraq and whether it was just because we had been invited by that country to provide assistance. Let me make it clear: ISIL threatens the people of the Middle East and poses a threat to our own national security. Defeating ISIL will take time and patience but it is a fight that we must win. The UK is part of a global coalition of over 60 countries, including Iraq, Arab nations, European partners and the United States, united to defeat ISIL. The UK contribution to the coalition effort is significant. We provide capability across the full spectrum of air power, including niche and highly advanced intelligence surveillance, reconnaissance and airstrike capabilities, and in many other areas. ISIL, as has been said, cannot just be defeated by military action. The underlying causes must also be addressed, which is why we are supporting inclusive governance in Iraq and political transition in Syria.

My noble friend Lord King rightly emphasised the importance of maintaining NATO as a strong and credible alliance to deter and face down any possible aggression. As I am sure he knows, the UK has made a significant contribution to NATO’s reassurance exercises since they came into being in May last year. NATO’s readiness action plan provides a comprehensive package of measures, including the development of the very high readiness joint task force and assurance measures to respond to changes in the security environment on NATO’s borders, including challenges posed by Russia. In my opening speech I mentioned the contribution that we were making and will continue to make in future. However, it is fair to say that the NATO summit in Wales in September last year demonstrated alliance solidarity at a time of tension on NATO’s borders, a tension that continues. It saw agreement on a number of key objectives, including NATO’s readiness action plan, which seeks to increase the responsiveness of allies through the development of the very high readiness joint task force, and by conducting assurance measures, particularly exercises in the eastern and Baltic states. Those exercises of course provide valuable training opportunities as well as contributing to the reassurance of Eastern allies.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, took me somewhat to task on several matters, including the so-called funding black hole in the MoD budget. I have no wish to irritate the noble Lord in the slightest. First, I readily acknowledge that many of the programmes that we are currently pursuing were initiated by the previous Labour Government. Ministers in that Government would perhaps not have been exposed to the £38 billion number, as it became apparent only during SDSR 2010 costing. The Government reported to the House of Commons Defence Committee on the figure of £38 billion in 2012. I am happy to write to the noble Lord with the figures that we provided to the committee at that time.

My noble friend Lord Attlee asked how we would ensure that no black hole would occur in the future. It is the job of Ministers to ensure that the MoD budget is in balance with its spending programme. The public spending envelope across government is now so strict and disciplined that it cannot be otherwise. It is our duty to report regularly and transparently to the Treasury and to account for our spending and our spending plans. Of course, we receive the benefit of its close oversight.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, my noble friend Lord Selkirk of Douglas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, spoke about maritime patrol aircraft. We have acknowledged that we have a maritime surveillance capability gap following the decision not to bring the Nimrod MRA4 into service. However, we have also made it clear that it is one that we have chosen to accept. We have not sought to pretend otherwise. It is a gap that we have been able to mitigate through the employment of other assets, as noble Lords have mentioned, particularly also through co-operation with our allies who have deployed maritime patrol aircraft on several occasions.

We are conscious that this issue is in the sights of many people. It is very much in ours. It has been the subject of recent studies by the Ministry of Defence. We have received representations from a number of industrial organisations and those have allowed us to understand better the nature of the platforms currently in existence, as well as the timeframe in which novel technologies are likely to mature. I mentioned the support of our allies. Incidentally, that is not a one-way street. We supply support to our allies in return, such as air-to-air refuelling, surveillance and transport.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned the F35 joint strike fighter. That is the world’s largest single defence programme. We have played an important role in the system design and demonstration phase, as he knows, resulting in significant contracts and jobs for UK industry. To date, we have taken delivery of three F35B aircraft. A further five for the UK are in production and are scheduled to be delivered in 2016 and early 2017. UK F35 initial operating capability is scheduled for 2018 and remains on track.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

How many?

[Earl Howe]

I am coming to that. The F35 programme has been established as an incremental acquisition programme with production contracts being led initially on an annual basis. We will order sufficient lightning aircraft to build up our initial carrier strike capability, but the overall number of joint strike fighter aircraft to be purchased will not be determined before the strategic defence and security review at the earliest.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, referred to the Type 26 global combat ship, which will progressively replace Type 23 frigates from 2022 onwards. We are implementing an incremental approach to approvals and commitment on the T26 global combat ship programme, with separate approvals covering demonstration and manufacture phases. On current planning and subject to a main gate decision, the manufacture phase will begin in 2016. He asked about the national shipbuilding strategy. The strategy announced by the Chancellor on 30 January this year is progressing well and its conclusions will form part of the forthcoming strategic defence and security review later this year. The aim of that strategy is to help deliver world-class ships for the Royal Navy while ensuring the best value for money for the taxpayer. It will also ensure that the Navy continues to have the capability that it needs to protect our nation’s interests and ensure continued investment in UK warship production.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred to cyber. I readily agree that, in defence, cyber is essential to preserve our freedom to operate despite cyber threats and to achieve military effects through and in cyberspace. The whole of the defence supply chain also faces cyber threats. In 2013, the Defence Cyber Protection Partnership was launched as a joint government/industry initiative to increase the resilience of the defence sector. Our Armed Forces depend on equipment and services provided by industry. In government we face similar challenges, and we believe that that partnership will be of considerable value; indeed, it is already proving to be.

I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, on the issues around industrial policy because they are very important. I would simply mention in particular the Defence Growth Partnership, which I believe will see us achieve a more thriving defence sector in the UK underpinned by work to improve international competitiveness and to target research investment more efficiently and effectively.

I cannot finish without referring to personnel issues, which my noble friend Lady Hodgson and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, among others, emphasised with considerable persuasiveness. The Armed Forces are changing to meet the Future Force 2020 structure, which requires reductions in some capabilities and the growth of others. They are actively recruiting to sustain manning balance across all skill sets, preserve future operational capability and support regular and reserve manning ratios. Recruitment continues to be supported by significant marketing activity in the current financial year. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, that we need to increase attraction rates for a number of key trades such as medics and cyber engineers, nuclear, maritime and aviation. These are a particular issue due to national skills shortages. The latter issue is being explored in collaboration with other government departments. A joint team with industry has now been established and is undertaking a pathfinder project to allow the movement of skilled people across the defence sector.

With regard to the reserves, the new employment model that emerged from the 2010 SDSR aims to produce a modernised offer that reflects modern society. This is a wide-ranging review of the terms and conditions of service for service personnel, both regular and reserves, covering four broad policy areas: pay and allowances, accommodation, training and education, and career structures and career management. I will write further on where we are on recruitment and retention but I believe, as a result of a short brief I received this morning, that we are heading in the right direction.

With time moving on, with the leave of noble Lords I will cover just a few more issues. The right reverend Prelate raised the matter of women in ground close combat roles. That is not strictly an SDSR issue, as I expect he knows, but, following a review of the exclusion of women from ground close combat roles, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence announced at the end of last year that defence welcomes the prospect of opening ground close combat roles to women subject to the outcome of further physiological research before a final decision is taken in 2016.

The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, referred to the much discussed case of Sergeant Alexander Blackman, and I listened carefully to all that he said. There is a proper limit to what I can say in my ministerial capacity, as I know he recognises. But it is common knowledge that Sergeant Blackman appealed to the Court Martial Appeal Court, which incidentally is a wholly civilian court made up of the same judges who sit in the civilian Court of Appeal. The fairness and objectivity of that process was reflected by the decision on 22 May last year by the Court Martial Appeal Court, chaired by the Lord Chief Justice himself, which decided not to overturn the conviction of a life sentence. The court did reduce the minimum term Mr Blackman must serve from 10 to eight years. The full reasoning behind that judgment was published on the Ministry of Justice website, and it was based on the consideration of a range of factors that I will not go into. The MoD has, and can have, no view on Sergeant Blackman’s guilt or innocence. It would be improper for us to express a view. There is a legal process to determine that question. The MoD will however of course fully co-operate with the judicial process.

The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, referred to the issue of Afghan interpreters and locally employed civilians. Our policy offers a redundancy relocation option that does not require local staff to prove that they are at risk. The policies of other NATO nations are largely based on asylum criteria. I would just say that the way that the Government’s policy and the implementation of that policy have been portrayed in the press has been wrong and misleading. We are the only nation with a permanent team of trained investigation officers in-country to investigate claims of intimidation. These experts have provided support to over 200 former local staff. A total of 500 local staff are eligible for relocation to the UK under the redundancy scheme, out of whom 170 have already moved to the UK along with their families, bringing the current total to 400. I am happy to write further to the noble Lord but I would add that the intimidation policy, which is quite separate from the ex gratia redundancy policy, allows for all current and former local staff members, regardless of dates or length of employment, whose safety has been threatened to approach us to consider relocation.

I have been advised that I have overshot my time. I will write to noble Lords about the other subjects that I have not been able to cover, notably the Armed Forces covenant. I listened very carefully to the comments from my noble friend Lady Buscombe on the Border Force command and listed buildings in Portsmouth.

I am conscious that I am in danger of exhausting the Committee’s patience, if I have not done so already, so I conclude by thanking all those noble Lords and noble and gallant Lords who have taken part in the debate. I look forward to writing to them over the next few days.