Defence Reform Bill

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I very much echo the sentiments of my noble friend Lord King. I think there is a general feeling that in the latest cutbacks in the forces the Army seems to have taken a rather greater cut than the other two services. Considering that the Army has been deployed almost continuously since the Troubles began in Northern Ireland in 1969, one has slightly to question the wisdom of the Army seemingly taking rather more punishment than the other two services.

However, I do think that the Opposition have a bit of nerve in tabling this amendment, which somewhat echoes the amendment withdrawn by the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, because, at the end of the day, we are paying now for the legacy that this Government inherited when they took power at the beginning of this Parliament. If you have £40 billion of procurement that has not been funded, you obviously at that stage have a serious problem. Something went badly wrong. When the aircraft carriers were ordered by the previous Government the roof had fallen in on the economy and there was clearly no money to pay for them. It does not matter whether they were a good idea, the money was not there and the Defence Council went ahead and ordered them. For some extraordinary reason, there was no ministerial override from the Permanent Secretary saying that the money was not there. That strikes me as a very serious shortcoming in the way in which our affairs are being run. Let us face it, there is always a temptation for politicians to order things that they cannot afford. On the other hand, we look to our civil servants to preserve the integrity of the finances of the department, and that did not seem to happen. I consider that the Army is suffering from some very bad decisions that were taken in the previous Parliament and the legacy of an overhang of unfunded procurement. Savings had to be found somewhere; and it is the Army. It is extremely regrettable that the Army has to take the punishment in this way.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, I was not intending to intervene in this debate but feel that I must, in order to correct some of the myths—which is a polite way of putting it—just purveyed by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. I was of course the Minister responsible for defence reform in the last three years of the last Government and, indeed, possibly the Minister to whom the noble Lord was referring when he talked about ministerial responsibility. I must tell him that during that time we always stayed within our annual cash limits. So far as the longer-term financing programme was concerned, we were fully and adequately funded on the basis of a 1.5% real terms increase in the defence budget, which was our policy at the time. It was a correct policy and I wish that it had been continued. It was very regrettable that this Government came in and made excessive cuts in public spending, which drove the economy down. The economy was reviving before we left office. The House will recall that in the first half of 2010 the economy grew, at first, by 0.3% and then by 0.7%. When this Government came in with their excessive spending cuts, the growth fell away again. The economy has been in the doldrums, more or less, ever since. That was a mistake made entirely by this Government.

In my view, the decisions of the previous Government on defence procurement were thoroughly responsible. It was very necessary to provide for two carriers; it is an essential arm in our ability to intervene around the world, irrespective of whether we have friendly powers that are willing to provide us with airfields a suitably close distance to where our troops might be deployed or where we need to bring influence or physical power—kinetic power, if necessary—to bear. That was a right decision.

It was a crazy decision to cancel those aircraft carriers—or, at least, to cancel the carrier strike capability of the nation for 10 years. Of course we need two aircraft carriers, because otherwise we cannot be absolutely certain that when we need an aircraft carrier it will be available and will not be in refit. The decisions of the last Government on defence procurement were thoroughly responsible. They were certainly funded. I am sorry to see that, after all the denials that have been made over the last few years by everybody who actually knows the facts, the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, should still be purveying a completely untrue account of events.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, let me add very briefly my weight to the comments of my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham and my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig, with whom I agree. It may be worth the House reflecting, first, on the fact that the current Chief of the Defence Staff has given his view that his top concern in terms of personnel pressures actually lies with the Navy. Secondly, a few moments ago we were debating the consequences of Russia’s action in Ukraine and the importance of NATO preparedness in the face of that. NATO’s greatest weakness—and, indeed, our own—and Russia’s most likely avenue of attack, should anything go awry, is likely to be in cyberspace. Noble Lords might like to reflect on whether this country is investing enough in that area.

It is clear that this country was previously not investing enough in the defence of the realm and that, in the light of the current situation, it is not investing enough now. As my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham has said, if the Government—whoever forms the Government in 2015 and beyond—do not live up to the requirement to increase defence expenditure in real terms in that year and in each year beyond, our situation will only get worse.

Defence: Nuclear Submarines

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, it will take place at Devonport in Plymouth, yes. There is no risk, I can assure the noble Lord, to the workers or the local community up at Dounreay. The naval reactor test establishment remains a very safe and low-risk site. Workers remain safe and the local community and environment is not at risk. There has been a very small increase in the radioactivity of the coolant in the sealed reactor circuit. This has not gone outside the sealed unit and it has certainly not gone into the atmosphere. This refuelling is a prudent, pre-emptive and purely precautionary measure and it has been carried out to manage risk to the operational submarine programme and not to mitigate any safety issue.

As far as any risk to the submarine crews is concerned, the safety of our nuclear submarines is not in doubt and we have not identified any issues with our operational submarines. The refuelling of HMS “Vanguard” will begin in late 2015 as a precautionary measure during her scheduled deep maintenance period. If a leak occurred on a submarine, it would be detected immediately.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, I endorse the words of my noble friend Lord West about the importance of having four SSBMs rather than three, which has been brought out by this incident. Had we only three boats, as people more out of ignorance of the situation than anything else have sometimes urged upon Governments of both parties, and were we then faced—which we have not been on this occasion, mercifully although we might have been—with a need for an emergency refuelling, continuous at-sea deterrent would almost certainly have been threatened.

I would have had the ministerial responsibility for this matter had it arisen in my time in office and, on the basis of the facts set out in the Statement this afternoon—the House will be grateful for the fullness of the explanations given by the noble Lord—I think that the Government have done absolutely the right thing. However, I am mystified by why the decision has been taken now rather than two years ago. Surely, once it was clear that the prototype had this important fault, it should have been clear at that point that when the first opportunity arose to do a deep refit of the oldest submarine HMS “Vanguard” it would have been sensible to have taken the opportunity to refuel. That has been done now. But surely that could have been seen to be the right solution two years ago, or 18 months ago when matters had been thoroughly worked through in terms of the conclusions from the leak that has been established in the prototype. Why the delay? That is the one thing that mystifies me about this whole incident.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, taking the first part of the noble Lord’s question, nuclear deterrent remains the ultimate guarantor of our nation’s security. The Government’s policy is clear: we will maintain a continuous at-sea deterrent and proceed with plans to build a new fleet of submarines. Final decisions on successive submarines and the numbers, which the noble Lord mentioned, will be taken in 2016.

The noble Lord asked why there was a delay. I set out an answer in some detail to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser.

Defence Reform Bill

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

I would like to say a few words in relation to some of the more general issues concerned here. I return to the question I asked about SDSR 2015 because it concerns me that we might be going through exactly the same kind of exercise as we did for the SDSR that was done previously in six months. I do not want to draw any comparisons with the one that I supervised in 1998; it lasted a lot longer than it should have. It still managed to do so but it was affected by the circumstances which came after it, as the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, said. However, it did not become outdated as quickly as the SDSR that the new Government brought in, which quickly came face to face with the reality of Libya after it was put in place. It focused on 2020 but was then faced with the situation in Libya as well.

Importantly, the defence review that we did in 1998 established a consensus. Perhaps for the first time in military history, the review was accepted by all the defence chiefs both in public, as one might have expected, and in private because it represented a view that was consensual. After the new Government came into place, we embarked upon a consultation exercise that made sure that all the stakeholders had an opportunity to express a view. The Ministers, Robin Cook and myself, and the Permanent Secretaries in the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development did a roadshow that went round the country, and which also embraced pretty much every stakeholder in the business. When it came out, it was therefore a genuine security and defence review.

The failure of the last SDSR was, essentially, that it was a Treasury-led exercise, done far too quickly and involving far too few elements. I fear that that is precisely what is happening at this stage. I have consulted the Opposition to see whether anybody has bothered to ask them about the initial preparation or any of the discussions taking place at present, and the shadow Defence Secretary assures me that no such approaches have been made. We look as though we are again getting ourselves into the trap of something being prepared at or around the next election campaign, which will essentially be based on a Treasury view about what the country can afford and how the rest of it fits into that.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My noble friend is saying some important things but does he agree that if the Government are serious about producing or drafting an SDSR, they ought at an early stage to be consulting not merely with the list of people who he quite rightly set out—the academics, think tanks and other stakeholders in this country—but with our allies, particularly the United States and our EU allies? If they do not consult them, the review that comes out may be inconsistent with the strategic intentions and plans of our key allies. Opportunities for fruitful collaboration or for the division of labour will be lost and it may well be that unfortunate misunderstandings will be sown.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

Indeed, my noble friend makes an extremely good point. In many ways, it goes without saying. It may well be that there are some discussions going on with our allies and inside NATO about it. I would hope so, although I am a bit pessimistic about most of these things since it becomes opaque. Part of the dispiriting nature of the way in which the British political system works is that you go from everything to zero quickly, as my noble friend will know only too well from being in government. In government, you know everything and then when you are in opposition you are allowed access to pretty much nothing at all. Therefore, having been Secretary-General of NATO and knowing everything that was going on inside that organisation, it was a grim experience to then dredge the newspapers and the occasional website to try to find out what was actually going on. The point that is being made is that the widest possible consultation is required, so that, at the end of the day, the review is fixed, has traction and makes sense in the light of the international circumstances as well as of domestic public opinion. Without that, it will fall apart, and fall apart quite quickly.

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[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister made a full and comprehensive speech under Amendment 18. It was a very good speech and set off a kind of Second Reading debate, which was quite interesting. I broadly agree with him. As he knows, I utterly deprecate the reduction in our Regular Forces and our equipment capability, which this Government have brought in, but it is even more vital in that light that we make a success of our campaign to recruit more reservists and to train and equip them properly. Nobody on this side of the House in any way disagrees with the Government in that respect or does not want to do everything possible to make sure that that effort is a success.

However, I want to make one comment. There is a lack of clarity and frankness still about how we are planning to deploy our reserves under the new system. I am very glad that the Minister did not say, although I have heard it—and, evidently, from his speech the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, has also heard—from government Ministers in the past few years that, “We’re reducing the regulars but we’re compensating by increasing the reserves”. That would be utterly irresponsible. There is no doubt at all that in certain areas such as those the Minister mentioned, including medics and signals experts, reservists may well play the majority part in future combat operations. But when it comes to the infantry it is extremely difficult—with the best will in the world and with motivation and discipline and morale being entirely equivalent, which is the most that one can hope for—to train up reservists to exactly the same level of confidence and alertness that the regulars have. It is therefore very difficult to avoid feeling that, if you deploy large numbers of reservists on combat operations, you will not have a higher casualty rate, which would be very irresponsible.

We have successfully deployed on an embedded basis individuals who have been chosen for that in Iraq and Iran, with front-line troops going on patrol and so forth and fighting intensive warfare. The Government need to be clear about this because reservists need to know whether under the new regime they still have a chance of that kind of experience. As I have said to the Minister privately, if they do not you may not succeed in attracting the same calibre of people into the reserves. On the other hand, with the numbers going in both directions—the decline in the regulars and increase in the reserves—it is not going to be possible to deploy large numbers of reservists, because the success of employing them on an embedded basis depends on selecting individuals and making sure that the number of reservists is relatively small in relation to the regulars, who are committed to a particular intensive operation.

I want the Government to be absolutely clear about this. There should be no beating about the bush at all. It is perfectly respectable to say that those with medical and signal skills will not be needed the whole time on a contingency basis in the regular forces but we will need to draw on them—and, in any case, we need those people to be able to exercise their own professional activities and gain skills in the civilian sector when they are not being deployed on operations, so they will be deployed on the front line, as they have been up to now. We have to be absolutely clear about our intentions for reservists, and it is really that they should not be deployed in high-intensity warfare. When the Minister said—slightly vaguely, I thought, avoiding this issue—that they would be in supporting roles, which essentially means that they would be behind the wire rather than outside it. We should be clear about that, but it is probably the right solution in all the circumstances. We need clarity, and we have not had it on that point.

Apart from that, I agreed very much with the Minister’s speech, which I thought was good. This Bill is rightly generous—I do not complain about that—to employers and reservists in the financial incentives and protections that it sets out. However, my reason for speaking on this clause is that I am slightly worried. This is not a vastly or historically momentous point—far from it—and it is not one on which I have put an amendment down, although I suppose I could table one at Report, if needed.

A potential loophole is provided by Clause 47—almost a manhole in our path that some people might fall down. Therefore, I want to raise this whole matter, and I hope that I get some reassurance. The object of Clause 47 is to provide protection for reservists who have been less than two years in employment and who then face the sack wholly or partially because of their membership of the reserve. Beyond two years, they have the protections that everyone has under the Employment Rights Act and a section—I cannot remember the number—of the Reserve Forces Act that makes it clear that people cannot be sacked when they are deployed, at risk of being deployed or about to be deployed.

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[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord for the length of my speech on the last clause. It contains important issues and I wanted to cover them in some detail.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, I must have given the wrong impression. In no sense was I complaining about the length of the Minister’s speech. I thought I had congratulated him on a comprehensive speech, which had started an interesting debate.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I apologise. Perhaps I misunderstood when the noble Lord referred to Second Reading speeches. Anyway, I hope that I answered all the important points.

The noble Lord referred to the lack of clarity in deploying the reserves, especially the infantry. The pairing of regulars and reserves on high-intensity combat will include individuals and up to sub-unit level. We are changing the mobilisation limits to 12 months to enable greater pre-deployment training. I mentioned earlier—I am sure the noble Lord will welcome this—that we must get more of the niche skills in the cyber field and in the medics, who we do not need the whole time.

On talking to the reserves—I am sure the noble Lord has also done so—I found that a number of them want to deploy. When the noble Lord was a Defence Minister, I went to Afghanistan on a couple of occasions and I met a number of reserves, who were very well trained. All the regulars to whom I spoke were very impressed by the reserves and how well they trained and fitted into the Regular Army. I do not think that there is any pressure on them being embedded with the regulars, and it is our plan that they train together and use the same equipment. I should like to organise for noble and gallant Lords a visit to a reserve unit paired with a regular unit to talk to the soldiers.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I thank the noble Lord and totally agree about this. The reserves have done a wonderful job. I pay tribute to them. We have all paid tribute to them. I used to go to Afghanistan and Iraq every six months when I was in the MoD, and I saw them on the front line in exactly the way the Minister describes. As he knows, reservists take it as a matter of enormous professional pride—it is a thing they really want—when their regular colleagues forget that they are reservists. That does happen. You hear that from both sides. That is a tremendously high standard to achieve. People go into the Reserve Forces because they are prepared to put themselves through the hell of training up to that level and to risk their lives when they are deployed. That is the military experience they want. If they are going to have that on offer in future, they must be honestly told that. If they are just going to be deployed behind the wire or on UN peace-keeping operations, they need to be told that too.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. I will take away the points he made earlier about Clause 47 and write to him on them. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, mentioned the Ashcroft report. If there is an appetite for it, I am very happy to organise a Peers’ brief on it. Perhaps noble Lords will get back to me on that.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I have considerable sympathy for the spirit of the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. There was a deal of concern expressed at Second Reading over the impact on civilian employment of the additional levels of readiness and the additional time involved in the new recruit programme. Trying to safeguard both sides was discussed then.

I picked up a leaflet at the MoD a few days ago which under “The Employer Proposition” states:

“We will develop an open and predictable relationship by: ensuring that reservists notify employers of their reserve status”,

with a rider that it is “subject to security considerations”. That part of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is already being dealt with. Another paragraph of the leaflet states:

“We will introduce a new National Relationship Management scheme to establish strategic personnel relationships with major employer organisations, relevant trade bodies and the largest employers”.

It is essential for the success of this scheme that the Government have an ongoing dialogue with employers to make quite sure that their concerns are met, as well as making sure that the rights of reservists in connection with their employment are met. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that the concerns which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has raised are already being dealt with and considered, and that safeguards have been put in place by the Government.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My noble friend’s amendment is testimony to what I spoke about earlier—the complete commitment on this side of the Committee to try to ensure that we successfully recruit and train the projected number of reservists. It would be intolerable if people who had signed up to fight for their country were subject in some way to discrimination in the employment and labour markets. Discrimination because of their sex, colour and so on is now regarded as utterly intolerable. My noble friend’s amendment is therefore absolutely appropriate.

I should make one final point. I think that I am right—the Minister will know the details—in saying that similar protections are available to members of the National Guard in the United States. We all know that the National Guard is extremely successful at recruiting and that it has enormous public support, including among employers, so I do not see any difficulty of the kind suggested by the noble Baroness whereby employers might reasonably resent such a provision. We all know that the National Guard in the United States plays a key role in the defence capability of that nation and is regularly deployed on operations. We should be encouraged by the experience of the United States to pursue the line adopted in my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, we recognise and value the contribution of reservists and need to be sure that their interests are properly protected. Part of this is making sure that their reserve service does not negatively affect their employment prospects. That is why Clause 47 amends the Employment Rights Act 1996 to remove the current two-year qualifying period for claims of unfair dismissal where the reason for dismissal is, or is primarily because, the individual is a reservist.

I should emphasise that protection is already in place to ensure that reservists are not dismissed as a result of any duties or liabilities that they have to undertake, for example as a result of being mobilised. This protection is provided by the Reserve Forces (Safeguard of Employment) Act 1985, Section 1 of which gives a reservist who is called out for reserve service the right to apply to his or her former employer to be reinstated after they return from mobilised service. In addition, Section 17 of the 1985 Act makes it a criminal offence for an employer to dismiss an employee solely or mainly by reason of any duties or liabilities that may arise as a result of being called out.

One key strand of the White Paper was to foster an open and honest relationship with employers. Employers of reservists make a greater contribution to national security than others. We understand and value the commitment that employers make. We have seen from some of the evidence submitted—I am thinking particularly of that from the Confederation of British Industry—that employers are wary of the introduction of discrimination-type legislation, and that such an approach would run counter to the partnership approach that is needed between employers and defence. CBI members were particularly concerned that such an approach could strain working relationships between employers and reservists.

As part of this partnership approach we will: provide employers with greater awareness and predictability of training and mobilisation commitments; streamline the administrative arrangements to receive financial assistance when a reservist is mobilised; introduce additional financial incentive payments to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises; and provide appropriate recognition of the contribution that these employers make by enhancing our existing recognition schemes.

Subsection (1) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 18B would mean that Section 39(4) of the Equality Act 2010 would apply “as if membership” of the Reserve Forces “were a protected characteristic”. Surely, membership either is or is not a protected characteristic. The advice from the Government Equalities Office is that being a reservist would not count as a protected characteristic as defined in the 2010 Act—in other words, age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, and sex or sexual orientation.

There have been occasional calls for various characteristics to be given protected status, particularly during the preparations for the Equality Act. These were mostly in relation to some form of physical appearance, ranging from extremes in individuals’ height and weight to the way in which people may choose to dress. However, after full consideration, the list of protected characteristics was set as already outlined. Including reserves as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act would be a disproportionate tool to tackle the problem and could give rise to the same argument being deployed successfully in relation to a number of the physical characteristics that I mentioned. This could have the result of doubling the number of characteristics, which would have an increased on-cost to businesses, public authorities and the courts.

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I thank my noble friend Lady Garden for her support, and I hope that I have satisfied the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Would the noble Lord be kind enough to address my point about the National Guard in relation to Amendment 18B? We should bear in mind that any employers’ organisation—like any other trade association or representative body—is always likely, when a new idea is put to it, to adopt a defensive, cautious position and focus on the difficulties. Good government surely does not consist of abandoning a good idea at the first hurdle. Has the MoD explored the experience of the National Guard in this context in the United States and, if so, could the Minister let us know the conclusions of that study?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

The noble Lord makes a very good point about the National Guard, and I apologise if I did not refer to it in my response. This is quite a detailed subject. I will write to the noble Lord and copy my letter to the other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate.

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[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister will include in his reply what instances there have been of confusion about what a “service person” should be. I would have thought that under existing legislation “service person” would include all the things that are included in proposed new subsection (7) in the amendment. Has there been any experience that “service person” has not been taken to include the people mentioned here? It seems a rather worthy thing to protect people even more and make sure that they are included in the criminal justice legislation, but I wonder whether there is reason to believe that any of this has been necessary in the past.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, when in 2007 I chaired the national inquiry into the national recognition of the Armed Forces, this was one of the recommendations that we made. We made 40 recommendations, 38 of which, including Armed Forces Day, automatic parades for units returning from combat missions and so forth, were accepted. Two were not, and this was one of them. The other one was having an officer of the Armed Forces permanently available in the House of Commons, probably in the Library, to inform people about any military matters that they might have questions about. In that report, to which I refer the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, we cited a number of cases of grievous assaults perpetrated on members of the Armed Forces, and I am afraid that the problem has not gone away. Over the past six years or so, there have been other incidents which the Committee will know about. I retain my support for this amendment.

It has one curious feature but I think I know the explanation. It is that the protection seems to be designed merely for members of the Reserve Forces but does not currently exist for members of the Regular Forces. I imagine that it is because including all members of the Armed Forces could have been outside the scope of the Bill. I therefore imagine that my noble friend, with whom I have not discussed this matter, had this in mind as a probing amendment to try to push the way forward to achieve what we really need, which is the kind of legal protection for all members of the Armed Forces—all those who wear the Queen’s uniform—who are prepared to lay down their lives for the rest of us. The least we can do is to make sure that they do not suffer discrimination or, in this case, violence, potentially, when they are in their home country.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask for some elucidation. I accept all the points that the noble Lord has made about his time in the MoD and his knowledge of this subject. Obviously these incidents have happened, but do we need legislation such as this to identify it or were the perpetrators of these actions against the service people he mentioned dealt with by the law at the time?

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, I do not know that I should get into the habit of answering questions across the Floor. I would love to be a Minister again but that has not happened to me so far. I shall have to wait a bit longer. However, I shall of course respond to the noble Lord. There are the normal legal protections against assault from which he and I and every other citizen benefit. Clearly, it is a criminal offence. However, the purpose of this amendment, as I understand my noble friend, is to make it an exacerbating factor if the reason for the assault is that the victim is a member of the Armed Forces. That provides a special protection for those who might otherwise be especially vulnerable to this kind of attack. It is similar to the exacerbating factor that we already have of the motive, or part of the motive, for an assault being racial. We introduced that for a section of the community whose members might be innocent victims of gratuitous attacks which otherwise would not occur. Therefore, there is a complete analogy there and I think it was the analogy which, rightly, inspired my noble friend—if I may be so bold as to presume to answer for him—to conceive this amendment.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am sure that I speak for all of us in saying that we hold the same view about discrimination against members of the Armed Forces. It is a completely unacceptable form of behaviour towards the men and women who have committed themselves to defending this country, its people and its way of life, and to making sacrifices that others perhaps sometimes take for granted. Those who discriminate against service personnel, or against the wider Armed Forces community, succeed only in diminishing themselves.

Discrimination can take many forms. Some of it is thoughtless or uninformed—for example, when public services fail to take account of the special circumstances in which Armed Forces personnel find themselves. Some of it is based on myth and prejudice—a view that soldiers create trouble or are unreliable customers is a misperception that we must challenge. However, some discrimination or abuse stems from genuine hostility to members of the Armed Forces, motivated by politics or perhaps by some unfortunate personal experience. It is on that narrow part of the spectrum that this amendment focuses.

The amendment would have the effect of amending Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which lays down circumstances in which the seriousness of a criminal offence, and thus the severity of the resulting sentence, is increased. It provides for increased sentences where an offender demonstrated hostility based on the victim’s sexual orientation, disability or transgender status, or where the offence was motivated by hostility towards persons of a particular sexual orientation, persons who have a disability or persons who are transgender. Section 145 of that Act makes similar provision in respect of “racially or religiously aggravated” offences.

The amendment would provide for increased sentences where an offender demonstrated hostility based on the victim being a,

“member of the reserve forces”,

or indeed,

“any relative of a member of the reserve forces”.

It would also provide for increased sentences where an offence was motivated by hostility towards members of the Reserve Forces.

It is important that we are clear about what the amendment would not do. It would not cover situations such as a refusal to admit members of the Armed Forces to a hotel or bar. Such situations have led to widespread public indignation but they generally do not involve a criminal offence.

The Government’s view is that there is no need for a change in the law on these lines. The courts already have a wide power in sentencing to take into account factors that make conduct more serious. Criminal acts based on irrational hostility to a person because he or she is in the Reserve Forces may lead to a higher sentence in any event. I am not aware of any evidence of courts finding that they have insufficient powers to give an appropriate sentence to an offender in such circumstances, or that we have received representations from the courts asking us to amend the law in this way.

In contrast, converting the flexibility that the courts currently have into a mandatory requirement, as the amendment proposes, may present practical difficulties. For example, demonstrating to a court that the aggravating factor was present and should be taken into consideration could be relatively straightforward in some cases, such as where a victim was in uniform, but far from straightforward in other cases, such as those in which the victim was a relative of a member of the Reserve Forces. How are the courts to deal with a situation where an offence is motivated by excessive rivalry between different sections of the Armed Forces or, perhaps, a domestic dispute? A mandatory requirement for a higher sentence reduces the court’s ability to take a sensible, common-sense approach to what is really going on in the circumstances it is examining.

There is a fundamental difference between offences provoked by hostility to the work of the victim and offences motivated by prejudice against inherent characteristics, such as homophobic crime. Section 146 of the 2003 Act is designed to help to change deep-rooted prejudices. It would be quite wrong to suggest that such provisions were necessary in relation to the Armed Forces. However, the most telling argument against this amendment is the views of the intended beneficiaries. I am not aware of any general desire in the Armed Forces community for legislation of this type. The service men and women who wear their uniforms with pride want to be respected in and considered part of their communities, and rightly so. We should not put them in a position where they are forced to explain why they require protection in law in a way not enjoyed by, for example, firemen or ambulance staff. Indeed, the amendment deals only with members of the Reserve Forces, as the noble Lord pointed out. It would not extend to members of the Regular Forces, meaning that rather than helping create the whole force which we seek the amendment would separate out members of the Reserve Forces for different treatment in law. I am not sure whether they would wish to see that in this context.

None of this means that the Government are complacent about discrimination against service personnel: quite the opposite. The Armed Forces covenant has a high profile across the whole of Whitehall and beyond. The first principle, that members of the Armed Forces community should not suffer disadvantage as a result of that membership, has given rise to many initiatives which are making a real, practical difference. In the first statutory annual report on the Armed Forces covenant, published in December 2012, we described what we were doing to make these principles a reality. We are working to remove the disadvantage that the children of service personnel can face in the schools system as a result of their mobility through the admissions code and the service pupil premium. We are ensuring that service personnel and leavers encounter a level playing field in access to social housing or Government-funded home ownership schemes.

At the same time, we are working to build the links between the Armed Forces community and the wider community to improve the knowledge and understanding that must be at the centre of that relationship. From knowledge flows the esteem for our service men and women that is ultimately the most powerful way to counter discrimination. The community covenant has now been signed in nearly 400 local authority areas, from Cornwall to the north of Scotland, and around 60 companies have signed up to the new corporate covenant, signifying a real determination to strengthen ties with the Armed Forces. I am confident that it will continue to gain further support. The grant scheme linked to the community covenant has allowed us to back a range of schemes that will help to put these declarations into practice. To that, we can now add the £35 million fund created as a result of the LIBOR fines, which will support charities with projects to help the Armed Forces and their families.

This is not an entirely new proposal. Thomas Docherty MP previously raised this issue in a Private Member’s Bill and has another for consideration this year, with its Second Reading having been scheduled for 24 January. The debate was adjourned and is expected to resume on 28 February. The previous Government, in response to a similar recommendation in the 2008 report from the then Member for Grantham and Stamford, now the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, said,

“we do not think that a change in the law is necessary or appropriate.”

As a result of the Armed Forces Act 2011, we have a new vehicle at our disposal in the form of an annual report to Parliament—effectively a report on the state of the Armed Forces covenant. In February of last year, my right honourable friend, the member for Rayleigh and Wickford, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, indicated that the question of discrimination would be a legitimate issue for the next report at the end of 2013. The report, published on 16 December 2013, said:

“Our view is that, in the last year or so, the extent of public knowledge and sympathy for the Armed Forces has continued to grow—aided by the Community Covenant and the new Corporate Covenant. We therefore continue to believe that education, rather than legislation, is the key to eradicating the kind of behaviour that we all abhor”.

In answer to the question from my noble friend Lord Palmer about what instances there have been of service personnel not taken to include those in the amendment, we recognise a service person as a regular or reserve member of the Armed Forces. Proposed subsection (7) in the amendment seems to be drafted to enable debate in this Committee otherwise it would be out of scope, as it was judged to be in the House of Commons. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, asked about legal protection. Legal protection for all Armed Forces personnel would be out of scope of this Bill.

I hope that I have answered all the noble Lord’s concerns and I urge him to withdraw his amendment.

Defence Reform Bill

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to the amendments. I look at the matter from the point of view of the user, the Armed Forces, and what is in it for them.

Nowadays, the Armed Forces will have much more say over the amount of money that may be spent on their equipment, and therefore they may take more of an interest in the detail of the procurement side than was true in my day. Nevertheless, it is important that they have confidence that whatever system is going to procure their equipment has general support throughout the country and throughout government. At the moment we have two propositions, neither of which seems to be making good headway. The GOCO has certainly made no headway and it remains to be seen how well the DE&S+ will go—I even have doubts about that—but, of the two, I prefer it the GOCO.

However, dealing with the amendments, I find a good deal of attraction in Amendment 25. It brings the super-affirmative approach to the issue and is the one that I would favour.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, I was the last defence procurement Minister in the previous Government. It is too early to make definitive judgments about how well-based were the projects for which I was responsible because some of them were quite long term. As far as I know, most of them are doing well and are on track and on time. They include the A400M, the Typhoon Tranche 3, the Chinook contract—where the Government, sadly, cut the numbers from 22 to 12 —the Puma upgrade, the Scout vehicle and so on.

However, I inherited a number of contracts which were the subject of substantial cost and time overruns. They were originally signed in the late 1990s. I will not make party-political points by saying exactly when they were signed now because otherwise you will think that I am making a party-political speech, which I certainly do not intend to do. Those errors were based on a fundamental mistake, which is to think that there is one simple formula for defence procurement. There have been arguments for many years, for generations, about whether you should have cost plus, competition or fixed-price contracts. The answer is that all these formulas are appropriate in certain circumstances. However, the great mistakes were made on projects such as Astute and Nimrod, which involved new technology and new developments—a new generation of reconnaissance aircraft in one case and hunter-killer submarines in the other.

It was a fundamental mistake to think that those procurements could be conducted on a fixed price because, when you are at the frontiers of technology—I said this on Second Reading—by definition you do not know what problems you are going to encounter and how much time and money will be needed to resolve them. If you ask a contractor to come up with a fixed price it will either be crazily high to cover all possible risks to himself or, more likely, if he thinks that being a national provider he is going to get the contract anyway, he will come up with an unrealistically low price, knowing that he can renegotiate more favourable terms once the Government and the MOD are committed to that contract because ultimately the Government have to have that capability delivered.

That is the phenomenon we suffered from with those two disastrously-conceived projects, although the capability was absolutely necessary. It was a great mistake for the Government to get rid of the MRA4 when they came into power. The Astute programme has continued and is delivering results, and I am very glad about that. The MRA4, however, was a great error. If you have a first of class of a major aircraft or naval vessel—a major platform—an absolute rule is that that is inevitably going to be a prototype. You cannot actually call it a prototype because you cannot build a combat aircraft for £100 million, or a Type 45 destroyer for £1 billion, or an Astute class submarine for £1.2 billion or £1.5 billion and then throw it away. So it is not going to be a prototype.

You are going to make some mistakes in building it the first time round. You will need to make amendments and changes which you had not originally foreseen and these will all add to costs and time. The only solution is to have a version of cost plus during that period for the first of class. Subsequently, when you have an idea of the technical issues and have resolved them, you can refine the thing down and ask for a fixed price. It must be a sophisticated version of cost plus and the formula that I found most useful—we have got it now for the Astute programme—is a target price with an incentive for coming in under the target price; a share of the over-run if it is above the target price; and a completely open book policy so that there is a genuine sense of teamwork between customer and supplier. Those formulas can work. One has to be quite flexible about this and not believe that there is some perfect, platonic solution to defence procurement.

Defence Reform Bill

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not want to take up too much time, so will address only Part 1 and reserve my comments on Parts 2 and 3 for later stages in the Bill’s progress.

If anything can be said about the Government and defence—quite modestly and unexceptionably, because the points are so blatantly obvious—it is that this Government do not care much about defence and that their judgment in defence matters is pretty poor. In the course of three and a half years, they are well on their way to running the Army down from 100,000 to 82,000, they have abolished our carrier strike capability, they have abolished entirely our long-range maritime surveillance capability and they have reduced our capability in helicopters, in naval escorts— I think we are now down to 13 naval escorts from 22 when the previous Government left office—and in many other areas.

We are told all the time that that is due to a shortage of funds, but in fact the Government had a surplus in 2011-12, which was then entirely lost to the Treasury. There was then an extraordinary surplus of £2 billion, more or less, in the last financial year, ending in April 2013, some of which has been lost to the Treasury. The Government complacently say that a lot of it has been rolled over, but even this Government must realise that if you do that, at the very best you are delivering equipment a year later than it should have been delivered, and because of the time value of money, your money does not buy as much as it otherwise would do. That has been a disaster for defence—a completely self-made disaster.

On top of all that, we have had this extraordinary, monumental shambles today—something that in future years we will look back on as a memorable shambles—in which the Government, on the very day that they are introducing an important Bill at Second Reading, make a Statement a couple of hours beforehand saying that the first part of the Bill is inoperable and that they do not intend to take it forward in the foreseeable future. The Government have ended up with the worst of all possible worlds. That is the absolute obverse of good leadership and good management.

The Government are keeping both their feet on both sides of the fence. They are not taking a clear decision. Of course that will be damaging to the morale and momentum of DE&S-plus and of course it will be damaging to recruitment, particularly at higher levels. People going in at the higher level are precisely the sort of people who will be displaced in the event that, a few years down the line, the Government switch to the GOCO course and Bechtel or Boeing or Serco or someone comes in and puts its own staff in these senior decision-making posts. It is utterly naive not to suppose that there will be real damage from this continued indecision by the Government. We have had too much indecision already; we might at least have expected and been entitled to a clear decision at this stage.

The decision should be quite clear: we should junk the idea of the GOCO altogether. I totally agree with the points that have been made about GOCO by a lot of people whom I know well and who know an awful lot about defence: the noble Lord, Lord Levene, and the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Stirrup and Lord Craig, and others who have spoken in this debate.

Of course, the Government have run into a lot of problems with industry over the GOCO proposal, mostly about conflicts of interest and treatment of intellectual property. However, there are two much more fundamental reasons why the whole idea was completely misconceived from the beginning. The first is that defence procurement is and ought to be and ought always to be core business for the Ministry of Defence. It is exactly like recruitment or training; what we are talking about is producing the essential inputs into defence capability. The MoD must be in charge of that and must understand that.

What is more, if the Government give up that capability and that knowledge, they will not get it back. There are all sorts of people now in the MoD and DE&S—I know them well—who can negotiate a contract with a GOCO partner if you want one. But if you actually sign that contract and give up your role running defence procurement to some private sector partner, in five years’ time or whenever you renew the contract, you will be at a very considerable disadvantage, and in 10 years’ time you will not be able at all to have an intelligent or effective negotiation or to monitor intelligently what is going on. It is very important that this should remain a core function and a core expertise of any Ministry of Defence worthy of the name. That is true in this country and elsewhere; it always has been and I believe it always should be.

The second fundamental reason why the GOCO proposal was misconceived and a mistake in principle from the beginning is that an essential part of defence procurement is flexibility. The enemy has a vote in this. You have to take the enemy into account. The enemy may change; the enemy may change his tactics and you have to change your procurement policy accordingly.

When I was defence procurement Minister, I held a meeting in my office every month on counter-IED policy. I had the experts there from DE&S and of course our own capability people and people from PJHQ, and the absolute experts from the various research institutes that we have at Fort Halstead and so forth. They are brilliant; I want to pay tribute to them now. I am full of admiration, and always will be for the rest of my life, for their expertise and dedication. They get no public recognition at all for their role.

We also had the Americans there. I had negotiated an open-eyes agreement with my American counterpart, Ash Carter, on counter-IED. We had an American colonel and she always contributed very usefully to our meetings. In those meetings we quite frequently decided then and there, that afternoon, to change our procurement of some particular technology or item of equipment and switch it to something else, usually in the UOR programme but it sometimes involved adjusting a core programme as well. You needed to do that because the enemy was changing and the enemy’s tactics were changing, and we wanted to save lives and win operations. Those are the fundamental obligations of any Defence Minister, which must override any other consideration.

It is quite wrong to give up that flexibility. You need flexibility for other reasons. I made it a principle—I have no idea whether the Government continue with it, but I hope that they do—that before I authorised any major programme, I always investigated whether we could do it in collaboration with an ally. If you do that, not only do you share the research and development costs and the risks but you get longer production runs, and the very considerable fixed overheads then spread over a greater production run, which is highly desirable. I had a lot of successes in that, particularly with the French, where we did a lot of things. One example was in underwater programmes. I invited them into the Mantis UAV programme. We did the new turret for the Warrior and the Scout vehicle together. These were successful examples of international collaboration requiring great flexibility.

If you had an annual, biannual or five-year contract with a GOCO to procure things on your behalf, you would have to hold up the whole process. You would have to talk to them; you would have to negotiate with them; and it would take time. What is more, it would take money. Money is what motivates the private sector—quite rightly and understandably so—and it knows perfectly well that the way in which it makes the real money out of government is when the Government change their mind, change their specification and want to do something differently. That is always the great moment, when you get penalties and you can increase your prices. That is exactly the situation which we must not find ourselves in and why we must not go down the GOCO route. I hope that we hear no more about the GOCO. However, I am extremely disappointed: it is a fundamental failure of government not to reach a clear decision and to let the country and everybody involved in defence procurement, in industry and within the MoD, know exactly where we stand, and to maintain this uncertainty which they have created, quite gratuitously, in the coming months and years.

What is the solution? I do not want ever to be accused in this House of criticising without saying what I would like to do and what I believe is the right solution. I think that we should proceed with the DE&S as it currently is and make steady, incremental improvements to it. Any human institution, of course, can be improved, and that is true of the DE&S. The DE&S contains wonderful people of enormous ability and enormous dedication, enthusiasm and commitment. When I was putting together the Scout programme, I remember there being a big time factor there. We succeeded in getting the whole process, which would normally take about two years, done in about 13 weeks. People were working through the night and through the weekends. They are superb people. Of course, they do not have quite enough of certain types of expertise—some in the financial area and some in the project engineering area—and that must be remedied, as Kevin O’Donoghue and I were trying to do. We did so often by secondments from the private sector. You cannot bring in people to deal with contracts of their own companies, of course, but you can put them in other parts of the DE&S and they will learn a lot about government procurement and you will learn a lot from their particular expertise during those secondments.

You can also do something which I did not have the occasion to do but thought of doing on several occasions. Where you have a particularly complicated and difficult project, you could perhaps bring in a private sector partner to be alongside you in the negotiations. I would have done that on the future tanker programme, which had gone on for eight or nine years when I took over. Luckily, the people concerned came to a conclusion rather rapidly after I came on board and avoided that particular fate. That is something that we should look at.

Above all, I do not believe that the DE&S needs a new corporate structure. That creates barriers, inflexibilities and some of the problems to which I have already referred. I totally agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. He was quite right in what he just said about the international position. Of course, we have had big problems with cost and time overruns—you always have those in defence procurement if you are at the cutting edge of technology. By definition, nobody can predict exactly the time and costs involved in solving technical problems at the cutting edge—at the coal face. That is absolutely inevitable. If you look at how the French and the Americans do it—those are the only comparisons really worth making because other people are not normally at the cutting edge of technology—you will see that the position is very similar there. The Americans have far worse cost overruns. Their time overruns are not quite so bad because they throw enormous amounts of money at something when they run into a problem.

However, that is not a reason for complacency. There is enormous scope for improving the DE&S, and it should be steadily improved in the way that I have described, but we should in no circumstances destroy any of its enormous qualities. We should in no circumstances throw over this particular institution lightly and set up something else which we would live to regret.

Finally, I want to ask some specific questions of the Minister. If he does not have answers for me now, I ask him to write to me and place a copy of the letter in the House. First, was it by accident or design that the approximately £2 billion surplus was accumulated in the MoD in the last financial year? Secondly, are the Government providing for or expecting to make compensation to Bechtel for withdrawing the competition in which it was engaged and on which it would have spent a lot of money? Thirdly, what is the total cost of this GOCO exercise, including any compensation to contractors if that arises? Fourthly, what is the pay or total remuneration package for Bernard Gray in his new role? Fifthly—the matter has been raised this afternoon but nobody seems to have any clue to the answer—why was it that, extraordinarily in this case, the normal processes for open, public recruitment were overridden and a special deal was done with one particular nominated individual?

Reserve Forces

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I can confirm both points. We consider the footprint absolutely vital. Where we have had to close places it is because there has been a very small uptake in recruitment. We have managed to close fewer than we planned. I agree with my noble friend’s point about employers, and in particular small companies. In finishing, I pay tribute to my noble friend for the important work that he did.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The noble Lord was characteristically thorough and conscientious in informing the House and in answering my noble friend’s questions. However, I think that he left out one point. Will the £5,000 joining-up bonus be repayable if the officer does not do a minimum amount of service? I would be interested in the answer to that. I think that it will be quite a challenge to get to 35,000 but an ever greater challenge to get to a point where the reservists are on the same footing as the regulars and do not suffer a higher rate of casualties on active deployment. In that context, it is very important that we should put everything behind them in terms of equipment and training, and the noble Lord gave us some assurances on that point. Equally valuable is the promise by the Government to strengthen the defence of reservists against dismissal. However, would it not be a good idea for the Government to go further and to protect reservists not just against the danger of unfair dismissal but against discrimination in terms of remuneration or promotion? The American national guard has that kind of protection. Surely it is very important that reservists, or those who are planning to join the reserves, are confident that they will not suffer discrimination of that kind in the job market.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, as regards the noble Lord’s first question about the £5,000, I do not change my answer. The reservists who join up are free to leave whenever they want. We are very confident that those regulars who become reservists will stay and will not leave the minute they get their money. We are also very confident that by 2018 we will get up to the figures that we need. I have spent a lot of time being briefed and our recruiting figures are going better than we expected. Noble Lords will see in the White Paper all the inducements that we are giving to the reservists and their families, and the encouragement that we are giving to employers. We realise that we have to work much more closely with employers than has happened in the past and we will endeavour to do that.

Armed Forces: Redundancies

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, all personnel who have been graded permanently below the minimum medical retention standard were exempt from redundancy and, where appropriate, will be medically discharged in due course. Every case of wounded, injured or sick will be assessed individually. No one will leave the Armed Forces through redundancy or otherwise until they have reached a point in their recovery where leaving is the right decision, however long it takes.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, is it not disingenuous and absurd to suggest that you can reduce the Army from 102,000 to 82,000 with no reduction in the nation’s defence capability? Will the noble Lord set out the figures clearly and frankly? What was the maximum military force that we were able to sustain over a number of years—for example in Iraq or Afghanistan—with an Army of 102,000, and what will be the maximum military force that we can deploy on a sustainable basis under the new arrangements for an Army of 82,000?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, this was not being disingenuous. This level of capability was agreed by the SDSR and the National Security Council.

Defence: Procurement

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for instigating the debate. We are obviously not the popular debate in this and the other House today. I thank in advance my noble friend the Minister who, as the noble Baroness has said, gives us such good briefings. I am also grateful for the briefings that we get when we have such eminent speakers, which have always been incredibly useful.

The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, has covered a wide area in her 10 minutes. I will try to add a few things, having made notes as I have listened. The sad fact is that defence procurement has for far too long been a drag on our forces’ expenditure and national expenditure. Purchases have proved sluggish and inflexible, delivering equipment and resources late and over budget. That is not only the case now; it has been in the past as well. That is why the coalition Government have been right to challenge the way in which defence procurement has operated. As the noble Baroness has just said, the Government have a full battery of reviews to consider. She mentioned a couple: the Levene review, Bernard Gray’s materiel strategy work and the procurement review of the noble Lord, Lord Currie.

The Government have also had the benefit of what is described as the,

“large number of responses with a wide variety of views”,

to their own Green Paper, Equipment, Support, and Technology. As has been mentioned, there comes a point when decisions must be made, improvements found and efficiencies delivered. One example is the question of the future of defence equipment and security examined in detail by Bernard Gray, as the noble Baroness has just said. His proposals for government-owned contractor- operated procurement created wide ripples, and the Government need to be clear, as the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said, how they intend to take that forward. That is obviously very important.

How will the Government respond to the broader concerns about the skills required to reform our process of defence procurement: finance, engineering and project management? Above all, the skills of estimating cost, both on expenditure and available resources, must be strengthened. We are pretty weak in estimating the cost of the final bill. Overall, procurement for our forces must meet our responsibilities both to our service personnel under the Armed Forces covenant and to the British taxpayer in securing value for money. The coalition Government have much overdue work to do on both fronts.

How much value, or cost, do we have in store on the shelves, and how often are these stores called upon? Does the MoD just order from suppliers rather than look around the shelves on some stock control system to see what we have? Very often it is easier to ring up your supplier rather than take it off the shelf. What of value do we have on our shelves and would we be wise to seek a buyer, or buyers, for this equipment if it is not moved or even required for a long time?

I thought hard about an example, which came to me because I was talking to some United States Air Force colonels who came to this House a few days ago. I talked to them for 30 minutes. They use Harriers. Do we have spare parts for Harriers? The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, mentioned them when she spoke. If we have spare parts for Harriers, perhaps we should sell them off to the United States Air Force. When we spoke about parts, it said, “We need Harrier parts”. I did not initiate that; it is what it said.

Before the Government go on even a moderate ordering or buying spree, all in the correct defence of the realm, what work is done on estimating what conflicts are likely? Procurement cannot be taken in isolation; it is about estimating what is going to happen. I could give many examples but I do not think you can divorce the discussion on procurement from what is going to happen with Trident, which is a very expensive weapon. I know that a review is being undertaken, supervised by Danny Alexander MP, but the actual cost of Trident is going to weigh down on a lot of our procurement strategy, whether we have it or not and whether we have like-for-like renewal.

Do we want armoured vehicles for hot or cold climates? Should they be for coping with roadside explosive devices? The old vehicles used to get blown up because they could not cope with that. Can we think what conflicts are going to happen and where those vehicles will be needed?

The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, talked about the Armed Forces covenant. Uniforms and other personal equipment are also part of our procurement strategy. Do we need uniforms for the Arctic—there was a piece on television recently showing our forces training in Arctic circumstances—or will they be needed in the desert? We may have the horrible feeling that they are training in the Arctic, as I saw on television, but the next conflict may be on sandy terrain. Perhaps we need to know what equipment and uniforms they will need when a large proportion of them will be based on Salisbury Plain. Salisbury Plain, the Arctic, the desert—we have to make a good guess at where the conflict will be.

The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, mentioned carriers and various other warships. It is no good harking back to the past, but we have two carriers. The expenditure on them gave lots of good employment—but did we need them and do we need them? We do not have the right aircraft to fly off them at this time. Our estimation of what we need is easily exemplified by the fact that the previous Government made a decision to build carriers when we did not have the need for them, the facilities to build them or the aircraft to fly off them. The defence picture facing the United Kingdom is changing rapidly.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am sorry to interrupt but I cannot let that remark go unchallenged. The previous Government indeed committed themselves to buying two new carriers. We would have continued to have the aircraft to fly off them—the Harriers—and we ordered the F 35s to replace them. It was an entirely coherent, responsible and balanced decision.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention, but the fact is that we have two carriers that are not well used at the moment, and there is also a story that one of them will be sold off or mothballed. That is the situation now, but I take the point that the decision on aircraft was changed. That had an effect, and the Minister may wish to reply on that point.

To conclude—which is what I was about to do when I took the intervention—the defence picture facing the United Kingdom is changing rapidly, and our Armed Forces demand and deserve equipment that is up to date and responds to the risks and challenges that they face on our behalf. Nothing is more important than working out what conflicts there might be, where we estimate that they will be, what equipment will be needed for them, whether we should buy off-the-shelf equipment manufactured in this country or use the goods we have in store, and whether we should realise the money invested in the goods in store if we are not using them.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, for securing this debate to discuss the important issue of defence procurement. It is a privilege to wind up in such an informed debate, and I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, was not able to speak, because I always enjoy hearing his contributions.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The Minister is very kind. I was not intending to intervene in his speech, but I take this opportunity to apologise to the Committee for having got the timing so badly wrong and arriving late for this debate, which I thought was going to start a little later than it did.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

The noble Baroness suggested that we should have another debate on this issue, and I would very much welcome that. A lot of noble Lords have mentioned the GOCO issue in particular. When the situation is clear on that, maybe we could return to it in a more detailed debate.

Today’s debate provides me with an opportunity to explain our policies and priorities for defence procurement and to set them in the wider context of our ongoing defence transformation programme. The noble Baroness has spoken many times in support of our Armed Forces and demonstrated her steadfast concern for the welfare of our service men and women and their families. I know that those concerns are also shared by other noble Lords here today, so I start by paying tribute to the men and women who serve in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, who provide the ultimate guarantee of our security and independence. That is also why defence procurement, particularly defence equipment acquisition and support, is vital. We need to be able to adapt and configure our capabilities to address tomorrow’s threats and to build more agile forces for the future. Support operations will always be our first priority.

Our approach to defence acquisition is a key element in delivering military capability and ensuring future operational success. The Government’s strategic priority remains to bring the national deficit under control. In defence, we must play our part in meeting that objective. However, we must also meet the commitment in the 2010 strategic defence security review to deliver well resourced and well equipped Armed Forces. To achieve that, the Ministry of Defence is in the process of delivering its largest and most far-reaching transformation programme. We are reforming defence procurement to ensure that we do it better in future and derive better value for money from the defence budget in so doing. We continue to contribute to the goal of reducing the deficit by looking for ways to conduct our business more efficiently, and expect to make £13.5 billion of efficiency savings over 10 years.

As announced in May last year, we have addressed the black hole in the defence budget. Through implementing changes flowing from the SDSR, we have brought the budget into balance. That means that, for the first time in a generation, our programme is affordable within the resources that we expect to have available to us. It provides a necessary foundation for our future approach to defence procurement and the implementation of the reforms recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Levene.

Having established a core equipment programme last year, we are now concentrating on its delivery. We will spend around £160 billion on equipment over the next 10 years, covering our current commitments, the major equipment programmes announced in the SDSR, and deterrent and equipment support costs. In January this year, we published for the first time a detailed summary of our equipment plan, setting out priorities and budgets for equipment procurement and support over the next 10 years. This was accompanied by a National Audit Office assessment of its affordability, and we are delighted that, in its report, the NAO recognised the progress that we had made in putting in place the changes needed to achieve and maintain affordability.

The core programme delivers the major force element set out in the SDSR. This, with the headroom and contingency provision that we have built in to protect the programme from emerging risks, will provide us with the flexibility to determine our procurement priorities in accordance with operational priorities and not simply on the basis of immediate affordability. It will also provide the defence industry with greater clarity on which to plan for the future.

Through the equipment plan we will deliver significant enhancements to our fighting capabilities, including completion of the two Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers, significant investment in the Lightning II aircraft—which together will provide a high-end power projection capability for decades to come—completion of the Astute class attack submarine programme, an upgrade to our fleet of Warrior infantry fighting vehicles, continued development of the Scout and significant enhancements to air transport through the new A400M aircraft.

Our first priority for defence procurement has therefore been to establish a solid foundation from which we can deliver the necessary capabilities for our Armed Forces to do their job. We have made good progress in this and, as an ongoing priority, will continue to apply rigorous management to ensure that the budget remains in balance in the years to come.

I would highlight that the latest NAO Major Projects Report, published in January this year, stated that annual cost increases for our 16 biggest programmes in the financial year 2011-12 were only one-seventh of what was in the comparable report two years earlier. Although we have much more to do, we are moving in the right direction.

We have also sought to reform our approach to how we conduct procurement. In February last year, the Government published their White Paper, National Security Through Technology. This provides a framework for equipping our Armed Forces with the best possible capabilities that we can afford through the equipment plan and, in so doing, for achieving the best possible value for money.

We will seek to fulfil the UK’s defence and security requirements through open competition in the domestic and global market and buy off the shelf, where appropriate, to take full advantage of the competitive international market. However, where capabilities are essential to our national security, such as nuclear submarines and complex weapons, we will seek to protect our operational advantage and freedom of action. We will also maintain our investment in science and technology. In taking this approach, we recognise the important part played by the UK defence industry. Our policy, through the White Paper, is designed to provide the catalyst for making UK industry competitive and therefore able to win a large proportion of additional orders within the global market through successful exports. A healthy and competitive defence industry in the UK is able to sustain many UK jobs and thus make a vital contribution to growth and a rebalanced economy. We are also opening up opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. In the last financial year, some 40% of contracts by volume were awarded to small and medium-sized enterprises, and there is scope for this to increase still further.

Looking to the future, reforming the acquisition system is a key priority and a core element of our work to transform defence. We will take a major step forward in April, when the new defence operating model goes live and the newly empowered service and joint forces commands assume responsibility for setting equipment and support requirements. This is an important part of our work to implement the recommendations of the defence reform report of the noble Lord, Lord Levene.

Major structural reform of defence equipment and support organisation is also central to this process. It will ensure that we have the structures, management and skills necessary to deliver the right equipment to our Armed Forces at the right time and at the right cost. Preliminary work undertaken to date has identified a government-owned, contractor-operated entity known as GOCO as the preferred future operating model for defence equipment support. This needs to be tested further before any final decisions are made. A decision will be made shortly on whether to move into an assessment phase. If agreed, this would see the GOCO model tested against a robust public sector comparator. This would work towards producing a final business case that will recommend a future operating model for defence equipment and support. We would expect a decision to be made in 2014.

A lot of very important questions were asked. I will do my best to answer them, but I am conscious that I may not be able fully to answer all of them, so in some cases I will write to noble Lords in more detail. The noble Baroness and other noble Lords asked about GOCO and whether a compelling case had been made for reform. Proposals for an assessment phase are currently being considered. If approved, the assessment phase will involve developing GOCO options through negotiations with potential private sector partners. A robust public sector comparator will be developed in parallel. As I said, a decision will be made shortly.

The noble Baroness asked whether a final decision on GOCO had been made. The answer is no. We are currently considering whether to move into an assessment phase that will allow us to make a comparison between GOCO and an in-house comparator. It will look at how far defence equipment and support can be improved in the public sector. The noble Baroness also asked about our allies’ views on GOCO. We are working closely with our international partners to assess the impact of any potential changes and will continue to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, asked whether one partner could cope. We envisage that there is likely to be a consortium to cover a diverse range of activities. He asked whether there was an appetite in the private sector. We have engaged with potential partners throughout, and they seem keen. He asked about bankruptcy and falling short. We will ensure that procurement activity does not collapse.

The noble Baroness asked whether there was a government plan to ensure both skills and an affordable programme, and what new skills would be required. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also asked about skills and apprenticeships. For defence equipment and support, we are ensuring that we have the necessary skills to ensure that safety is not compromised. We place the highest priority on filling safety-critical posts with suitably qualified people. We continue to recruit apprentices, for example in the field of engineering, to continually refresh our skills base and ensure that we will have the right skills in future to support our Armed Forces.

The noble Baroness asked about the 1% rise from 2015. This applies to the equipment part of the budget, which is 40% of the overall defence budget. It is not a 1% year-on-year increase from 2015. We have taken what we thought was adequate for the equipment budget and increased it by 1% from 2015. The equipment programme is now affordable within available resources.

Finally, the noble Baroness asked about science and technology. A White Paper, National Security Through Technology, recognises the importance of science and technology. The Government are committed to sustaining investment in science and technology at a minimum of 1.2% of the defence budget. The publication of our 10-year equipment plan will enable industry to plan future investment with greater confidence.

I have run out of time. I am aware that I have not been able to answer every question, but I will write to noble Lords.

Somalia: Piracy (EUC Report)

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, and I think I agree with everything that he said on this subject. I learnt from him—no doubt there is something wrong with the way that I get information on these kind of incidents but I had not heard about it—about the 950 pirates being amnestied by the Government of Somalia. I totally share his anxiety, indeed his horror, at that news and put it to the Government that it should have consequences. Unless there was consultation with the EU in advance of that decision being made by the Somali President then consequences really ought to flow, because it is quite inconsistent with the kind of collaboration and mutual confidence which one had understood had been developed over the past few months between the EU on the one side and the Somali Government on the other. The consequences should be in terms of aid or other forms of support which will be felt, in measured degree, by the Government of Somalia. If we just allow this incident to go uncommented on and unsanctioned, we shall be encouraging similarly bad behaviour in the future and shall lose that sense that we need to act as a team and keep in close co-operation with the Somali Government—we need to consult them about things but they need to consult us as well, and we expect their support. The cost of capturing these pirates is very considerable and the idea that they should be released in this way is quite horrific.

I will make three points, two of which will be approving—indeed congratulatory—points about the report and one of which will be more hortatory, or perhaps slightly critical. First, although there are other very good examples which I will not mention but which we all have had before our eyes, this seems to be an extraordinarily and particularly good example of the success of the European common foreign and security policy. We have managed to make considerable progress—the figures have already been mentioned—in dealing with this great threat and have managed to do so with tremendous leverage in the case of this country. We have almost not contributed any military units at all. We have contributed one of Her Majesty’s ships, a Royal Naval vessel, for a few months and of course contributed very importantly by providing command and control and logistical management of the exercise from PJHQ. We have obviously done an extremely good job there, and I add my own words to the words of congratulation that have already been spoken. I am of course very familiar with PJHQ—it is a wonderful body and a superb organisation, and it is not surprising to me that it has done such a good job. On top of that contribution, we have got all these vessels together. It would have been nice to have even more resources but we have contributed very considerable resources. It is an example of the leverage that can be generated by the common foreign and security policy and of the success that we can have.

Eurosceptics tend to say that we do not need an explicit EU policy and that we can just have a series of ad hoc coalitions where a lot of countries agree in their assessment of the problem and are prepared to do something about it. That is a very inadequate answer indeed. If you do not have a common foreign and security policy, you do not have the mechanisms and the tried and tested procedures there for, first, evaluating the threat, which is very important, and then for managing the response. You do not have the long-standing commitment and sense of solidarity; everybody just starts off saying, “Is it really in our national interest to do this? Do we really want to do it? How much will we be compensated by allies if we do it?”. You have to start afresh again, negotiating all these things from scratch, and every operation has the weaknesses and dangers of an experiment rather than being an ongoing, tried and tested policy where people have the confidence, know the procedures will work, and are familiar and happy with the decision-making process. This is a very good example of how we need a common foreign and security policy. I do not know that the Government are particularly interested in my contribution to their balance of competences review—they would probably dismiss me as a Europhile and anyway a member of the Labour Party, and so would not be interested in what I say—but I hope that the point gets included in the evaluation of the balance of competences review when it comes to the European common foreign and security policy. In fact, it would be monstrous if this was not taken into account as one of the examples of the success of that policy.

The second point I wanted to make, which is again very much approving, is to congratulate the committee on having been pragmatic enough to review its original position on two matters. One was the attack on the pirates’ land bases and the second was on having armed guards on ships passing through the pirate zone. The committee reviewed its original position in the light of evidence and experience and came up with absolutely the right policy solution. It strongly supports—as do I—the initiative taken to deal with some of the land bases. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, that it may be necessary to take further action. If it is, I hope that the authorities concerned will be encouraged to do so.

Equally, armed guards have proved their worth. It is not necessary to carry heavy armament for this purpose: a couple of general-purpose machine-guns, one on the port side and one on the starboard, will be enough effectively to deter the sort of pirates with whom we are dealing in the Indian Ocean. The committee was very good on that. It did not just come up with an initial response but looked carefully at the developing situation, and its report is the stronger for it.

On my third point, about ransom payments, I take issue with the committee. I have spoken on this in the Chamber, so noble Lords may be familiar with my views, which have not changed. The committee’s recommendation comes in paragraph 51 on page 18, which states:

“We reiterate our previous conclusion in our 2009 report that those involved in assembling ransoms in the United Kingdom have a duty to seek consent for its payment and that not to do so, if necessary by filing a Suspicious Activity Report, may result in the commission of a criminal offence. We request that the Government now respond substantively to this recommendation”.

This is woefully inadequate and thoroughly pusillanimous. It does not even begin to address the reality of the situation, which is that these are criminal payments. They are rewards to criminals for criminal activity that endangers life.

They are also very substantial—not that that makes a difference to the principle—and run into tens of millions of dollars on a regular basis. It has become something of an industry and is now a regular feature of the insurance market in London. Lloyd’s makes ransom payments that are transported by all sorts of dramatic means to the pirates in Somalia. This is simply not a situation about which we as legislators should be complacent. It is quite clear that these are criminal offences. They are payments to criminals for criminal purposes and they should be illegal. It should not be a question of reporting the matter through a suspicious activity report. The payments should be seized by the Serious Fraud Office or whichever arm of the police is responsible for monitoring illegal payments of this kind, and we should make sure, if the law is not robust enough to deal with the matter in this way and does not make it a criminal offence to make ransom payments to terrorists, pirates or any other form of criminal, that we change the law to make sure that it does exactly that.

I am very disappointed and very sorry that the committee did not come to that conclusion. It does not explain why it did not, and in its report did not even examine the suggestion that I am making—unless I missed it, and I hope I did not. I would be very interested during the rest of the debate to hear from Members of the Committee about why they feel that the present legal situation is adequate, and why a suspicious activity report is the furthest they envisage going in dealing with this matter—which after all, if it is not dealt with effectively both by the physical measures about which we have been talking and by measures controlling flows in the financial markets, will become a criminal industry affecting commerce throughout the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever)]

My Lords, I begin by acknowledging the quality of the contributions to this debate. Noble Lords have demonstrated a keen and impressive grasp of this very complicated issue. I praise in particular the excellent work of my noble friend Lord Teverson and the other committee members in compiling the report on Operation Atalanta.

Operation Atalanta has successfully contained, constrained and deterred acts of piracy. None the less, the UK’s longer-term aim is to eradicate the underlying causes of the instability that affects Somalia and gives rise to acts of piracy, and several noble Lords have made that point today. This can be achieved only by addressing the root causes of the problems in Somalia. EUTM Somalia and EUCAP NESTOR, launched as part of the EU’s contribution to an overall strategy for the Horn of Africa, aim to provide a comprehensive solution to Somalia’s problems. In time these missions, alongside AMISOM, will create a secure and stable Somalia, remove the incentives for piracy and develop the capacity of coastal states in the region to police their own coastlines.

The UK remains fully supportive of Operation Atalanta’s mandate and is committed to the continued command of Operation Atalanta from Northwood for the current mandate, which expires in December 2014. International pressure on the pirates must be maintained in order to prevent a significant resurgence of activity. While any formal decision to extend Operation Atalanta’s mandate beyond 2014 is unlikely to be taken in the immediate future, the EU has demonstrated a firm commitment to its counter-piracy efforts, including through enhancing the mandate with agreement on the use of autonomous vessel protection detachments and the disruption of pirate logistics dumps. Additionally, the launch of EUCAP NESTOR and a growing EU diplomatic role send further strong signals of increasing EU engagement.

The degree of maritime co-operation between the three core international counter-piracy forces—the EU’s Operation Atalanta, the US-led Combined Maritime Forces Combined Task Force 151 and NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield—is among the best that we have ever seen. The three operations provide a variety of effective framework opportunities for third-state contributions to anti-piracy efforts to further enhance international co-operation, evidenced recently when Royal Thai naval forces commanded a Combined Maritime Forces task force from a UK vessel. The shared awareness and deconfliction mechanism has also helped to ensure that military efforts in the region are effectively co-ordinated between international partners.

The threat from piracy remains a serious problem, but results and trends suggest that Operation Atalanta, in conjunction with other measures to counter piracy, is proving effective. For example, as of 7 March this year, two vessels and 60 hostages were being held off the Somali coast, the lowest levels held by pirates since September 2009. I hate to correct my noble friend but two vessels and 48 hostages were released over the weekend, so the figures that I have quoted are the accurate ones. This compares favourably with May 2011, when 23 ships and 503 hostages were held. Attacks and pirating of vessels are down by over 75% during the past 12 months. However, I emphasise that these gains remain reversible and it is vital that we do not relieve any of the considerable pressure that is currently being brought to bear on the Somali pirates.

The ability to prosecute and detain convicted pirates is an important element of our strategy to combat piracy and is an effective deterrent. Over 1,200 suspects or convicted pirates are being held in 21 states across the world. The Seychelles currently holds 101, representing some 20% of its prison population, while Kenya holds 147. We continue to support regional partners in developing local prosecutorial capacity.

Capacity-building assistance is being provided to the Seychellois justice sector by the international community. For example, the UK has provided funding to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime for the work of its counter-piracy programme, which has included work with Montagne Posée prison in the Seychelles. A new 60-cell block was opened there in September 2011 to help with the detention of suspected and convicted pirates. The UK has provided assistance to the Attorney-General’s Office by seconding two prosecutors from the Crown Prosecution Service to assist with the prosecution of suspected pirates.

A longer-term solution to develop Somali capability and ownership of the piracy problem is being implemented by the UNODC’s post-trial transfer programme, which returns pirates convicted in regional jurisdictions to Somalia to serve out the balance of their sentences. The programme has so far transferred 59 convicted pirates from the Seychelles to Somaliland under the terms of a bilateral memorandum of understanding, the agreement of which was facilitated by the United Kingdom at the London conference on Somalia. Further transfers from the Seychelles are anticipated this year.

I turn to the specific questions asked by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, asked what political progress had been made in Somalia. Real political progress has been made there in recent months. The transitional period concluded on 10 September with the election of a new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. This was a significant moment in Somalia and an important step towards a renewed political process. The London Conference on Somalia in February 2012 brought the international community together to support this process and, for the first time in years, it was run in consultation with the Somali people through their elders. They led a process to draw up a new constitution and formed a new parliament which elected a new president.

It is clear that, after two decades of conflict and instability, the people of Somalia want to usher in a new era of peace, security and democracy. Recent political progress marks a new chapter in their history. The end of the transition is the best opportunity in years to make progress towards peace and stability. Already, people are rebuilding their properties and businesses; confidence is increasing; and the diaspora is returning.

My noble friend Lord Jopling and the noble Lord, Lord Radice, mentioned the 959 pirates who were released. They asked what was the basis of the amnesty and why did this not apply to the “godfathers”. This amnesty referred to the boys who had committed acts of piracy at sea but did not apply to the financial backers or the senior leaders of the pirate action groups. My noble friend Lord Jopling asked for the Government’s response to the committee’s recommendation for an increased contribution from the Gulf states. We are working closely with a number of the Gulf states, particularly the UAE, Bahrain and Oman, and organisations such as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. The UAE has commanded the Combined Maritime Forces Combined Task Force 151 and Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and the UAE all provide bases for Royal Navy ships. They all share information with coalition forces.

My noble friend Lord Jopling also asked whether, as the number of attacks reduces, there is a temptation to relax our presence there. Military response must remain proportional to the threat until the root causes of piracy have been addressed ashore. This is now occurring via EUCAP NESTOR and other capacity-building initiatives. Meanwhile, Operation Atalanta, NATO and the CTF 151 continue their deterrent patrols which deliver the time and space to allow development activity to take place ashore.

My noble friend asked whether pirates would be returned to Somalia. The committee did not consider this to be sensible given the level of prison security. He asked would the UN prison remain unused. The UN has refurbished a prison in Somaliland which is currently housing convicted pirates returned from the Seychelles. Work is on the way to building additional penal facilities. This is crucial to Somalia’s ongoing development. Building justice and the rule of law is a priority for the new Somali president.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, pointed out that the example of success on Operation Atalanta should be included as part of the balance of competences review. Operation Atalanta will be part of a case study on common security and defence policy activities in the Horn of Africa. The noble Lord said that the committee’s conclusion in respect of ransom payments was wholly inadequate because these are criminal payments. Companies assembling ransoms in the UK must seek consent from the Serious Organised Crime Agency prior to payment. The Government do not make or facilitate substantive concessions to hostage-takers, including the payment of ransom. I would point out that it is not against UK law to pay piracy ransoms.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

On that point, do the Government believe that it is a satisfactory situation that these payments are not illegal?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

We agree with the noble Lord that it is not a satisfactory situation.

The noble Lord, Lord Jay, asked whether the United Kingdom continued to strengthen the African Union in Somalia. Support through the EU training mission will continue. The UK continues to support AMISOM in Mogadishu, which is the military arm of the AU in Somalia and was critical to the recent successful retaking of Kismayo that forced al-Shabaab out of one of its key strongholds and away from a key source of revenue. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, as a former ambassador to Paris, for his encouraging words on our support to the French over Mali.

The noble Lord also mentioned west African piracy. The situation there is much more maritime criminality than piracy—the theft of cargo, illegal bunkering et cetera—and should not be seen as similar to that in Somalia. As such, it is clearly the role of national police forces to deal with it. The Royal Navy is taking action where it can, predominantly in terms of training and capacity-building: HMS “Dauntless”, HMS “Edinburgh” and HMS “Argyll” have all recently worked in this area. The noble Lord asked what effect the destabilisation of Mali might have on wider UK interests. It would allow ungoverned space from which terrorists could operate, plan and launch attacks with impunity, and could also destabilise other parts of Africa such as Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

The noble Lord, Lord Radice, asked what the United Kingdom and the EU are doing to meet the threat in west Africa, whether the Royal Navy will deploy assets to west Africa and whether we will apply the lessons from Somalia to west Africa. Lessons are being learnt from Somalia and applied to west Africa. The UK is supporting the industry initiative to create a regional maritime trade information-sharing centre. The Royal Navy deployment has helped build capacity aboard vessels and it is helping to train maritime law enforcement officers and develop maritime legal frameworks to prosecute maritime crime. Corruption locally is the biggest threat.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked how EUCAP NESTOR is progressing. The answer is: as well as can be expected. Building capacity where none has existed for 20 years is a great challenge. It involves preparing assessments of what is required, identifying key leaders who will have to drive forward development on behalf of the Somali Government and people, working in conjunction with various institution-building initiatives and prioritising where EU funds need to be spent.

The noble Baroness asked what the Government’s view is on dumping toxic waste off the coast of Somalia. Historical reports of toxic dumping in the early days of piracy cannot be denied, but it has reduced significantly owing to the naval presence in the area. Recent reports to the UN Security Council have failed to provide evidence of toxic dumping off the Somali coast. This Government remain committed to working with international partners to tackle all the reasons used to justify committing acts of piracy.

The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked me to congratulate Kenya and the Seychelles on their efforts and asked what the Government’s attitude was towards Operation Atalanta. Regional partners are an essential part of the UK’s counter-piracy strategy. The Seychelles are leading the effort, having recognised the threats from piracy to tourism and their fishing and maritime industries. We commend their continuing efforts and those of Kenya.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked whether there was a change in the department responsible, as I am responding to this debate, and whether it reflects a change in the Government’s approach to piracy. There is no change in the department. The Ministry of Defence led the written response to this committee, and it is therefore fitting that I attend this debate now. This Government remain committed to countering the threat of piracy in the Indian Ocean and to working with our international partners.

The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked whether the Puntland maritime police force would be allowed to resume its activities. The Puntland maritime police force is a local militia trained by a private security company and it received weapons in breach of the UN sanctions regime in force for Somalia. The decision to employ or allow the activities of the PMPF rests with the new Government of Somalia.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked whether the Government’s allocation of ships to Atalanta remains as per the report. The answer is yes. We allocate ships on a case-by-case basis, and it may not be the most effective use of ships to allocate them to Atalanta rather than to other coalitions. This is kept under constant review and plans made accordingly. A Royal Navy helicopter is currently assigned to Atalanta, working from a front ship. The noble Lord asked whether, given the current situation, the Government would support extension of Atalanta’s mandate. The EU is beginning a strategic review of Operation Atalanta, and we remain committed to supporting this mission.

The piracy threat cannot be dealt with through military means alone. It will require a sustained international effort that addresses not only the threat from pirates but institutional incapacity. The UK is ultimately seeking greater coherence between EUTM, Atalanta and Op NESTOR within the overall EU Horn of Africa strategy but also with other international and UK unilateral activity. All the symptoms—terrorism, piracy and migration—are a result of the causes of instability in Somalia. EUTM does not currently link directly to the other CSDP missions but rather to the wider EU strategy as part of the comprehensive approach to Somalia. Linking missions with diplomatic and developmental tools should enable the EU to take a lead internationally in seeking to bring stability and governance to the country and wider region.

Armed Forces: Army Basing Plan

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I can confirm for my noble friend that the runway at Leuchars will be kept in operation. I think that a university air squadron is based there and will continue to use it. Once the Typhoons have moved up to RAF Lossiemouth, we would want it as a failsafe runway for Lossiemouth.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, it is the wrong decision to bring back the Army from Germany at present, and to do so at very considerable cost. The Minister mentioned the figure of £1.8 billion. That would have been enough to have kept Nimrod going, to have maintained a Harrier strike force and to have bought all 22 Chinooks. The Government have demonstrated a very perverse order of priorities in this decision. It also deprives the Army of the training opportunities available in Germany which are much more extensive than Salisbury Plain, as the Minister knows very well, and of course of the opportunity for close collaboration in Germany with the Bundeswehr and the American army units stationed there, so it was the wrong decision. However, perhaps I may ask the Minister for a figure that he has not given. What is the estimate of the incremental costs in the future of flying our troops for training in Germany, Canada or in other places where they need more extensive training grounds—a need that would not have arisen had we maintained our position in Germany?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord always finds something wrong with the announcements I make, but he forgets the very difficult financial situation that we inherited. I would point out that although we are spending a certain amount of money on bringing our troops back from Germany, huge savings of at least £240 million a year will be made from there on. I would much rather see the money spent in this country than in Germany.