Strategic Defence Review 2025
Lord De Mauley Excerpts(1 day, 12 hours ago)
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Lord De Mauley (Con)
My Lords, I offer my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, for his role in leading the strategic defence review team and for delivering such a thoughtful and important contribution to UK defence policy. I am particularly grateful to the review team for appearing last week before the International Relations and Defence Committee, which I chair, to discuss the findings and recommendations of the review. Before I go further, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McCabe, on his maiden speech, to which I listened carefully.
I welcome the Government’s recognition that national security and defence must be the first duty of government and that today’s threat landscape requires an integrated response. The SDR’s recommendations come with serious financial indications, but defence is the best insurance policy we have. As General Sir Richard Barrons convincingly told the committee, the costs of war, both in human and economic terms, are considerably higher than the price of preparedness. If we fail to invest now in deterrence, resilience and technological advantage, we risk being outpaced by adversaries who will not wait for us to catch up.
The committee welcomes the ambition and breadth of the SDR, and we are pleased to see it echoes many of the conclusions in our report, Ukraine: A Wake-up Call. However, laudable ambition must be matched by credible delivery. There is, as yet, no comprehensive funding profile aligned to the SDR’s recommendations, or clear pathway to the Government’s ambition to spend 3% of GDP on defence, let alone to the Prime Minister’s NATO pledge of 5%. Without this, delivery of the SDR’s recommendations is at best uncertain. The defence investment plan due this autumn must address this and set out the trade-offs involved if the 3% of GDP target is not achieved.
The SDR rightly commits to a NATO first posture. Meeting NATO’s evolving investment benchmarks, enhancing interoperability with allies and reinforcing our forward presence in eastern Europe and the high north must follow. Domestically, the SDR’s emphasis on home defence and resilience is timely, but can the Minister set out what the Government will do to ensure that the
“more substantive body of work”
needed to the UK’s critical national infrastructure will be undertaken promptly?
Regarding the billion-pound commitment to homeland air and missile defence and the creation of a new cyber and electromagnetic command, how can the Minister be confident that this funding will be sufficient for the SDR’s objectives?
The SDR’s focus on innovation and digital skills is essential. The war in Ukraine has shown the importance of rapid procurement cycles and scalable technologies. We welcome the £400 million identified for defence innovation and the doubled investment in autonomous systems, yet SMEs still face major challenges in engaging with the Ministry of Defence. Radical procurement reform is essential, and concrete timelines for this are still lacking.
To return to the essential theme of resilience, defence in the 21st century is no longer confined to the battlefield; it requires the full mobilisation of society—an integrated approach that connects the population, industry, infrastructure and education. While there is much in the SDR that reflects a broader understanding of defence as a collective national effort, which the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, referred to, the MoD continues to show its complete misunderstanding of Reserve Forces, such an important part of connecting to wider society, and the pressures on those who seek to train while holding down civilian jobs. Can the Minister guarantee that the Reserve Forces will not be singled out, as they so often have been in the recent past, for cuts and so-called in-year savings?
The MoD is persisting in its efforts to neuter the Reserve Forces and cadets associations, whose council I chair, which could and would, if encouraged, rather than deliberately constrained as is proposed by converting them into a more costly NDPB, do so much to promote the resilience that the country so desperately needs. I know that Ministers simply do not understand the damage that they will be doing, especially to the SDR’s aspirations for the reserves and national resilience, if they follow what their officials are pushing them into, and I ask the Minister to look again at that.
To conclude, notwithstanding what I have just said, the shift in the strategic approach set out by the SDR is welcome. To turn its ambitions into reality will require strong and continuing commitment, especially on funding but also on improved relations with industry and sustained engagement with the public. I emphasise, though, the need for a fully costed road map and ask the Minister what plans he has to keep Parliament updated on the implementation of the SDR’s recommendations.
Diego Garcia Military Base
Lord De Mauley Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, will have negotiated in good faith. I know too that if there had been an agreement that he felt was in the national interest then he would have recommended to his Government that it should be supported.
The point that I am making is that the principle was established that negotiations were happening to see what arrangement or agreement, if any, could be made between the UK and Mauritius with respect to Diego Garcia. This Government’s judgment is that we have reached such an agreement. The noble Lord is quite right to point out the security guarantees that we have. He will know that in the treaty there is a 24-mile buffer zone around the island, and the US and the UK can veto any development within that zone. He will also know that there is a further exclusion zone beyond that encompassing the rest of the islands, which means we can prevent development that we are opposed to there as well. That is why we felt we could sign an agreement containing the sorts of security guarantees that the noble Lord himself sought but did not manage to achieve, and therefore did not feel there was an agreement that he could come to or recommend we agree to. We feel that we have guarantees that will protect the integrity of the base by excluding others who would seek to undermine it.
Lord De Mauley (Con)
My Lords, the Statement twice refers to guaranteeing the UK full continued control over Diego Garcia for the next 99 years and beyond. What is the exact legal position that the Government have negotiated regarding the situation beyond the year 2124, which, after all, is little more than a single lifetime away? What concerns me is that the wording available to the public suggests that any extension depends entirely on obtaining the agreement of the Mauritian Government at the time, which does not sound much like a guarantee of full UK control of Diego Garcia beyond 99 years.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
The noble Lord will know that, in addition to the 99 years, there is in the treaty an option for a further 40 years. He will know the importance of respecting a treaty, which is a legally binding agreement between two Governments, whether through an international court, national courts or sovereign Governments themselves. The important principle is that what is in the treaty is what has been negotiated. As far as I am concerned, we will ensure that the treaty is respected, and that is the legal basis on which we go forward.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I will reflect on that—I note that the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, was shaking his head when I answered. I will see whether I can add anything further to the points made by the noble and learned Lord and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. Clearly, the treaty lays out 99 years, with the 40-year further option on that. If the noble and learned Lord is asking me what happens at the end of 139 years, I will reflect on that so that others who may follow me can consider their options in 139 years’ time.
Lord De Mauley (Con)
I will clarify my question. My understanding, from what I read—which is available to the public—is that the Mauritian Government have to agree even to the 40-year extension, let alone what happens at the end of that 40 years.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I will clarify that. I tried to be open and frank in answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I will reflect on that and whether I need to write to the noble Lord to ensure that we have correct factual information. We may differ on opinions, but it is important that we have factual information in front of us. If I need to, I will write to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and put a copy of that in the Library, as well as giving a copy to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, just for clarity’s sake.
Strategic Defence Review
Lord De Mauley Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
That is a good suggestion, and I will look at it and try to take it forward.
Lord De Mauley (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Council of Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations, with a bit of a history with the Reserve Forces. I thank the Minister for his call yesterday, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and his team. My welcome of the SDR is caveated slightly on the apparent gulf between the ambition, which it is difficult to fault, and the funding, which is more concerning. There are a number of issues that I would like to debate, but I will pick just one for this evening. The SDR places a welcome emphasis on home defence and resilience, yet it also acknowledges that:
“A more substantive body of work is necessary to ensure the security and resilience of critical national infrastructure … and the essential services it delivers”.
The Minister mentioned just now that he would address the issue of timelines. I am asking him to include in that thinking about and telling us about the timelines for that important piece of work.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
In a similar vein to my answer to my noble friend Lord Reid, some of these timelines will need to be discussed and worked out to ensure that they are deliverable. Let me say to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, that his point is well made; clearly, we need to get on with that task. There is an urgency to much of this, and we need to address that and ensure that we make much of this happen as soon as possible.
Ukraine (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)
Lord De Mauley Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord De Mauley
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the International Relations and Defence Committee Ukraine: a wake-up call (1st Report, HL Paper 10).
Lord De Mauley (Con)
My Lords, I speak today as chairman of the International Relations and Defence Committee to introduce our report, Ukraine: A Wake-up Call. The report provides a sobering, and now urgent, assessment of the implications of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine for United Kingdom defence policy and the broader security of Europe. Before delving into the detail of the report, I thank the members of the committee, including my predecessor as chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde; the excellent clerk and staff, who put a huge amount of work into the report over the summer; and the witnesses who appeared before the committee.
The findings in our report are stark. The war in Ukraine has shattered the assumptions underpinning western defence thinking since the end of the Cold War. This is indeed a wake-up call not just for us but for the whole of Europe. The war has exposed critical gaps in our capabilities and the fragility of our defence industrial base—all because of our assumption, now revealed as wrong, that future conflicts would be short and limited.
The first conclusion of the report is that NATO deterrence failed. President Putin calculated that the West lacked the political will and the military capability to stop him. This calculation, tragically, was in part correct: our deterrence posture has been found wanting. We must rebuild deterrence through improved military capability, clear messaging and a united front with our allies. This has taken on a new significance following the rift created by the heated exchanges between President Trump and President Zelensky last week and the continuing developments this week.
Another significant development since the publication of our report has been the Prime Minister’s recent announcement of an increase in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and the ambition to increase it to 3% in the next Parliament. While welcome, our report concluded that 2.5% of GDP may not be enough to meet the UK’s growing defence needs or plug existing gaps. Subsequent events have underlined that point.
This leads me to the current state of our Armed Forces. The Army in particular has already shrunk to its smallest size since the Napoleonic era, and it is questionable whether it will be able to field sufficient fighting forces beyond an initial deployment. The Prime Minister has said that he is willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine to help guarantee the country’s security. While I fully understand his objective, it is difficult to imagine how the Army would be able to maintain a credible deterrent force in Ukraine, for any extended length of time—let alone fulfil its other obligations, which seem likely to grow—without increasing in size significantly.
Crucially, we must rebuild the appeal of military service to the next generation. We also need to revitalise our reserves. Ukraine has shown that well-trained and properly equipped reserve forces can, literally, make all the difference. Ours are woefully underfunded. We must ensure that they are ready to mobilise at scale, when needed, and that numbers are boosted so that they can also be deployed to protect critical national infrastructure at home.
Critical national infrastructure deserves a specific mention, because the experience of Ukraine provides a clear warning to the United Kingdom: Russia has relentlessly attacked Ukrainian energy systems and communication networks. We are already witnessing a troubling shift towards more aggressive hybrid tactics being deployed, in the UK and nearby, by Russia and others. We must up our game in countering hybrid attacks. If not, our enemies will realise that they can get away with it, placing us in an ever more vulnerable position.
Defence is not just about soldiers and capabilities; it is also about cybersecurity, the security of our supply chains and resilience within our communities. The concept of total defence, long practised by nations such as Sweden and Finland, must be adopted here. We must move beyond the notion that defence is the sole responsibility of the military. Total defence entails a high state of readiness by both the state and society to defend themselves in case of threat of war, crisis or natural disaster.
I will now speak in my personal capacity rather than as a member of the committee. There is a little-known but influential organisation, which is critically poised to play a leading role in helping the United Kingdom achieve a total defence stance, called the Council of the Reserve Forces and Cadets Association. I declare an interest in that I am currently its chairman. The CRFCA has strong and embedded relations throughout the United Kingdom, with local and devolved Administration politicians, business leaders and opinion influencers through the extensive nationwide membership of the Reserve Forces and cadets’ associations. The RFCAs are the only defence-related organisations that reach all the regions and devolved nations, and the membership connects with all sectors and communities in society.
The Minister recently commented in answer to a Written Question:
“The RFCA has an extensive volunteer membership … bringing a wide breadth of expertise and community links. The RFCAs’ extensive network of volunteer members, based within communities across the UK, enable the RFCAs to … connect to society … While the number of hours volunteered is not formally recorded either for the volunteer membership or non-executive board members, it is estimated that this figure is around 69,000 hours per year”.
In answer to another, he said:
“The vast majority of active members make no claims, reflecting their sense of service and deep connection with the UK’s Reserve Forces and Cadets”.
There is a move afoot in the Ministry of Defence to dispense with this organisation, first created by Haldane in 1908 when it was realised that, to be efficient, while command and training of the Reserve Forces should be centralised, conversely, the raising and administration of those forces could be efficient only if decentralised, this being deemed essential to the encouragement of local effort and the development of local resources in time of peace. This is what the RFCAs, the successor to what were the county associations, provide today with their wide membership; they are local in origin and situation, cognisant of local capabilities and requirements and thoroughly integrated into their communities.
In its stead, the MoD wishes to create a non-departmental public body with one centralised board of paid non-executive directors with little or no experience of, or commitment to, reserves or cadets. There is a significant risk that this, as well as the proposal that the current membership should be retained merely in an advisory or associate capacity, will disenfranchise the members when they recognise that they will have little ability to have a say on how central government directives are implemented in the regions from which they come and on the support they give to sustain the reserve.
At a stroke, the MoD will have lost a body of natural supporters with deep links into the society of their communities and regions, just as the strategic defence review may well place a greater reliance on the reserve for the total defence of the United Kingdom. To quote a former commanding officer tasked with raising a new reserve battalion: “My experience of raising a new battalion has convinced me that the associations are essential to look after the interests of the Reserve Forces as a whole, not just a harmless institution that has to be humoured. It therefore concerns me that there is a view among some civil servants and regular officers of the MoD that the RFCAs are anachronistic and expensive bodies which work against the established chain of command and are positively detrimental to the ‘one Army’ concept”. The RFCAs are here to help and can make a significant contribution to the defence of the nation.
To return to the committee’s report, yet another urgent lesson from Ukraine concerns our defence industrial base. Decades of budget cuts and reduced industrial capacity since the end of the Cold War have left the UK’s defence industry unprepared for high-intensity prolonged conflict. Our procurement processes are too slow and risk averse. Ukraine has, by necessity, embraced a model of rapid innovation, working hand in glove with commercial technology companies and adapting in real time on the battlefield. This is the agility we need. To achieve this, the Government must rebuild trust with the defence industry, whose leaders repeatedly told us that it needs clear, long-term commitments—not shifting goalposts—to enable it to scale up production.
We must also broaden our partner base, including those we may not traditionally think of as military suppliers, in order to provide the cutting-edge capabilities our Armed Forces require. Recent events have underscored the critical need to strengthen our industrial engagement with our European partners. We found that increasing collaboration in integrated air and missile defence should be high on the list of priorities for the Government. The report also highlights the importance of nurturing partnerships. Of course, it did not predict the schism in the western alliance we are witnessing right now, but that only serves to make it even clearer that the UK Government must now use all their diplomatic skills—as I think the Prime Minister seems to be doing, and I commend his efforts—to ensure the unity of the western alliance in support of UK and European security efforts.
Finally, we must acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: the UK is a medium-sized regional power. This may not be a bad thing, but it requires hard choices to be made and a realistic narrative from the Government about what our Armed Forces can deliver. Our report calls for a coherent model that leverages technology, industry, the reserves, diplomacy and society itself to rebuild our deterrence posture and make sure that it is credible. This should be at the heart of the strategic defence review, and the Government must ensure that their response to the review is swift and provides a clear road map for how this can all be achieved. The hard-earned lessons from the war in Ukraine are our wake-up call, and the time to act is now. I beg to move.
Lord De Mauley (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords all want to rush away and catch their trains, so I will only be a couple of minutes. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. There was an unusual convergence of views among the vast majority of those who spoke, which I think should be encouraging to His Majesty’s Government and to us all. I do not have time to give credit to all noble Lords who have spoken but, save for the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and my noble friend Lord Balfe, there was little I heard that I disagreed with. Even with them, I am sure there are things that we can find to agree on.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and others, concurred that increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP will not be enough. As we said in the report, it is not just that we spend more, but that we spend more astutely. I agreed strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, on the need for the MoD to sort out recruitment. The Minister told us a bit about how that will be done.
My noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford spoke specifically about reserve numbers. He is right that it would not be difficult to increase reserve numbers dramatically, and we should. I will not go into detail, but I have the experience of recruiting reservists based on 50 years of close involvement. I joined the Territorial Army in April 1975, and I am the honorary colonel of the reserve unit that I joined then. I know exactly what needs to be done. It does not need to be hugely expensive. I am available on call to the Minister. I beg him not to rely entirely on the counsel of regular soldiers in the MoD; I respect them hugely, but point out that reservists’ motivations are different to those of regular servicepeople who have shown, time after time, that they misunderstand the motivations and needs of reservists.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, gently chided us, pointing out that we forecasted a gradual shift of US priorities. I hope the Grand Committee will forgive us our optimism. I think the views expressed by most noble Lords today suggest that the vast majority of the report is, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, as valid today as it was when we wrote it. I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and my noble friends Lord Soames, Lady Fraser and Lady Goldie, for echoing my concerns about the future of the RFCAs. I say to the Minister that we want to help; please do not tie one hand behind our back.
I thank the Minister for his response to the debate. I am pleased that we agree on so much. It is often said that we always plan and prepare to fight the last war, rather than the next. We must break that mould.
Strategic Defence Review
Lord De Mauley Excerpts(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord De Mauley (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, for bringing this important debate today. I thank him particularly as a former member of the International Relations and Defence Committee—which I now have the honour of chairing—for his contributions to the committee’s work. I also declare my interest as chairman of the Council of the Reserve Forces and Cadets Association.
The strategic defence review provides a welcome opportunity for the Government to rethink their approach to defence. I will focus my remarks largely on the role that Reserve Forces could play in that.
Over the last couple of years, the global security environment has changed dramatically. As other noble Lords have said, we are witnessing a period of growing instability. Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has been a turning point for European security and has raised serious concerns about Russian intentions elsewhere in Europe. In the Middle East, the conflict between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah threatens to escalate into a wider regional war, potentially drawing in Iran. Tensions in the South China Sea are escalating, and a wave of coups in the Sahel is plunging millions into physical and economic insecurity. This raises the question as to whether our Armed Forces are equipped to deal with this new reality.
The International Relations and Defence Committee recently published a report, which the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, referred to, and which we have submitted to the SDR team, on the implications of the war in Ukraine for UK defence. We found that years of strategic neglect have left our forces stretched thin and limited in size. We are underprepared to respond to the worsening global threat environment, and in particular to meet the very real and growing threat from Russia.
Our Armed Forces lack the necessary mass, resilience and coherence to sustain prolonged, high-intensity conflict at scale. This of course also weakens their deterrent effect. If we are to prevent conflict with Russia, deterrence is our best insurance. After all, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine itself represented a failure of NATO’s deterrence posture. We must therefore restore the credibility of our deterrence posture, which has to include, as other noble Lords have said, increasing troop numbers.
Yet even apart from the well-documented challenges of recruitment and retention, increasing troop numbers comes at a significant cost. This is where my own submission to the SDR comes in; the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and the noble Lord, Lord West, may be glad to hear that it is a tri-service proposition. Ukraine has shown that recruitment of the rank and file of a second or third echelon force need not be the problem. It recruited half a million from a population about two-thirds the size of ours in six months in 2022. What it could not do was provide the experienced people to train them. We, and other nations, had to step in and help.
My concept, in simple terms, is based loosely on the very successful Home Service Force of the early 1990s. It is that we should utilise some of the quite large number of experienced people who have recently left the regular and Reserve Forces to form cadres of about 50, as the nucleus each of a battalion-sized unit, 500 strong, the bulk—the other 450—of which would be recruited only at a time chosen by the Government when the threat level warranted it. I hope the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and the noble Lord, Lord West, will forgive me for using army language, but I do it for simplicity. The cadres would need, say, 10 to 15 days of training a year to maintain and update their skills. I ask only that this concept—the submission goes into considerably more detail—is given thorough consideration, and I would of course be delighted to discuss the detail with the SDR team and/or the Minister.
I turn to our Reserve Forces as they are currently constituted. As my committee’s inquiry into Ukraine revealed, their capability has been eroded over recent years. Successive Governments have failed to articulate a clear vision for how the reserves can effectively supplement and support our Armed Forces. It is time to reverse this. Our report says that the Reserve Forces, whose numbers have declined over recent years—largely because of reduced funding and a broken recruiting system—need a co-ordinated approach, including addressing clarity of purpose, demanding training, appropriate logistical and administrative support, equipment and proper funding. I know that the Reserve Forces and cadets associations have specific attributes that are able to help, and they stand ready to help.
I ask the Minister for his assurance that the Government will give due consideration to enhancing the role of the reserves. What plans are there, if any, to respond to the recommendations made by General Sir Nick Carter in his Reserve Forces review?
This is not just about troop numbers; the whole of society has a role to play in defence. We need to move beyond the idea that defence is solely the military’s responsibility, become better at conveying the significance of national security to the wider public and set out how they can contribute to a more resilient society. The volunteer reserves are part of the answer, but the Government must also draw the wider public into a conversation about defence—including the potential for higher, and especially better and cleverer, defence spending—as well as greater civic responsibility.
One useful lever available would be to involve the signatories to the Armed Forces covenant, especially the gold award holders, who ought to have a predisposition to help. There needs to be a greater sense of urgency and awareness about the risks facing the UK. An honest dialogue about the country’s vulnerabilities and what is required to keep it safe is essential. The Government must develop a compelling value proposition that resonates with citizens, emphasising the importance of national security in their daily lives and moving beyond the notion that defence is solely the military’s responsibility. There is much we can learn from our Scandinavian partners and their concept of total defence, which integrates civilians into national security. The Government should build on this framework to create a similarly compelling vision for the UK.
We are at a crossroads. The choices we make now will determine whether we can restore our nation’s credibility and remain an influential player on the global stage. Alternatively, we risk the fate of being relegated to reactive crisis management rather than playing a proactive role in preventing conflicts. The war in Ukraine has moved this debate from theoretical speculation to urgent reality. Complacency in defence is no longer an option.
Reserve Forces and Cadets’ Associations
Lord De Mauley Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord De Mauley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the contribution of Reserve Forces and Cadets’ Associations to the work of the Reserve Forces and the cadets, to national defence and to the Armed Forces covenant.
Lord De Mauley (Con)
My Lords, I start by declaring my interest as president of the Council of Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations. The forerunners of today’s Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations were established by Haldane in 1908 as County Territorial Associations. Through a series of Acts of Parliament they acquired a tri-service role, and in 1967 moved to their current regional structure, establishing a national council. In 1996 they gained their current name and in 2014 they were given the role of setting up an external scrutiny team to provide an annual independent report to Parliament on the state of the reserves. Today, the RFCAs also maintain and develop most reserve and cadet properties, other than those on regular bases, and sea cadet sites, which are charitably owned.
The RFCAs provide a voice for and a range of services to the Reserve Forces, the cadet movement and, more recently, wider defence. They are voluntary organisations, run by 13 regional committees representing their members, who are mostly unpaid volunteers from a wide range of backgrounds, including business, legal, education, local and national government, agriculture, banking, accountancy, property and military, both ex-regular and reserve. Collectively, they willingly give their time to further the interests of the reserves, the cadets and wider defence, and have considerable local influence networks. Each regional RFCA has a paid staff headed by a chief executive, appointed by its committee and reporting to it. The regional chairs sit on the national council, which is supported by its own chief executive and small staff. Because of their membership, RFCAs have critical links to business through regional business groups. They also have a range of equally important links to civic society through their membership and through 13 lords-lieutenant, who are their presidents.
As I mentioned earlier, the RFCAs maintain and develop most reserve and cadet properties—about 5,000 of them around the whole of the United Kingdom—and provide administrative support to the Army cadets. Recently, defence has given the RFCAs an additional, important role to deliver wider engagement with society and to encourage businesses and civic institutions to sign up to the Armed Forces covenant. This recognises that the RFCAs enjoy a degree of immersion in the civilian world which the MoD and Armed Forces lack. They do all this with an annual budget of about £112 million.
Perhaps partly because they are apolitical, the RFCAs have been especially successful in working with the devolved Administrations, managing to maintain consensus on matters where direct approach from the MoD could easily lead to friction. The RFCAs are currently unclassified, arm’s-length bodies, and Cabinet Office guidelines stipulate that it is good practice to apply a tailored review process to such bodies.
Accordingly, the RFCAs have undergone such a process. This review, the report of which is currently in draft, concludes that the RFCAs offer excellent value for money—a striking point, given the persistent weaknesses in the MoD’s own track record in managing property. It makes a number of detailed recommendations, many of which I accept, on matters such as updating service level agreements with the single services, the proper safeguarding of cadets, and so on. Its main concern appears to be the proper safeguarding of taxpayers’ money, something I also think is extremely important.
However, the report points out that the structure of the RFCAs, with no statutory basis for the council, is anomalous and—to tick the right boxes—suggests a fairly dramatic upheaval. Despite conceding the success of the RFCAs across their roles, the RFCA review proposes to put in place an arrangement under which an executive committee headed by the national chief executive would replace the council as the overall authority. National and regional councils would become purely advisory organisations. All appointments would be via an OCPA-compliant process—the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments—instead of election by the membership. In many cases, willing volunteers would be replaced by salaried individuals. The membership would be disenfranchised, though allowed to call themselves “associates”.
RFCAs are strictly non-party political, but there is an analogy here with a political party or a national charity. Suppose the national chief agent were put in charge, with regional agents reporting directly to him or her and the volunteer officers consigned to an advisory role. The loss of talent and commitment at all levels can easily be imagined. Yet, at a time when the Armed Forces are arguably more culturally isolated than ever before, this one strong defence bridgehead into civic society is threatened, critically risking damage to the delivery of the covenant.
Were the draft report’s proposals to go through, they would drive a coach and horses through valuable links to civic society which are at the heart of the Armed Forces covenant—one of the few remaining areas of policy where there is a broad consensus across Parliament and the devolved Administrations. It would also appear to typify the attitudes which the Prime Minister’s aide Dominic Cummings has firmly in his sights, as he says in his blog:
“The government system … is a combination of, inter alia: 1) extreme centralisation of power among ministers, officials … 2) extremely powerful bureaucracy (closed to outside people and ideas) defined by dysfunctional management incentivised to spew rules rather than solve problems”.
The draft report on the RFCA review proposes a solution to a purely bureaucratic issue by pulling down a successful structure and pulling up some of defence’s last remaining roots in the civilian world, which serve it so well. The perceived weaknesses can be addressed in a straightforward way without the wholesale change proposed, as has been explained to those driving the changes, with the council of the RFCAs being a legal entity under primary legislation. The RFCAs are happy to see the council put on a statutory footing; indeed, this would require much simpler amendment to primary legislation than the much more drastic surgery proposed under the review. The national and regional councils should remain volunteer-led, rather than a de facto extension of the MoD. The changes proposed in the review would, in my judgment, fatally undermine the very strengths that the report extols and seeks to preserve.
As Sir Roger Scruton, the philosopher who, so sadly, recently died and whose funeral took place on Friday, once said,
“good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created … the work of destruction is quick, easy and exhilarating; the work of creation slow, laborious and dull.”
Royal Marines
Lord De Mauley Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord De Mauley (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap. It is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, and so many others who have served. I am president of the Council of Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations and so want to focus on the Royal Marines Reserve.
Members of the RMR complete the commando course, earn the green beret and serve on front-line amphibious operations worldwide alongside their regular counterparts. They embody all the qualities the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, spoke of and provide an essential link to our civilian population. The RMR is a compact organisation, recruiting from four main unit locations in Bristol, London, Merseyside and Scotland, each of which has four or five detachments around the country designed to give them a good geographic coverage. The RMR punched above its weight in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first decade of the new millennium, when integration into the Regular Forces at the junior level was seamless and the professionalism and ability of the reserves was clearly recognised. As an example of this, in 2008 RMR Lance Corporal Matthew Croucher received the George Cross for his actions while deployed with 40 Commando in Afghanistan.
The RMR currently has men deployed on global counterterrorism and counterpiracy, maritime security operations and defence engagement. I understand that the RMR is on course to achieving its target manning level for 2020—the Minister might care to indicate the figures. There are, however, a number of issues affecting it and an important one is the slow responsiveness of the contracted service medical process. Candidates are frequently initially identified as potentially medically unfit and by the time they are reviewed and found to be fit, recruit training has started and the next chance to join is 12 months later. This is a recurring problem across the reserves and I urge my noble friend to address it.
The RMR routinely contributes to 3 Commando Brigade, the Lead Commando Group, 1 Assault Group RM and elsewhere; for example, through ship force protection teams. It provides an important contribution to British defence from a small establishment and at a small cost. It is a real blow that all overseas training in the current year has now been cancelled to help make the savings required, with likely effects on recruiting and retention. I am concerned that, perhaps because of its small size, the RMR’s contribution needs to be better recognised.
UK Exports
Lord De Mauley Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Mobarik
The noble Lord asks a valid question. In the last year, UK Export Finance supported the highest number of UK exporters in a quarter of a century, 23% more than in the previous year. However, UKEF is not complacent. The doubling of its capacity announced by the Chancellor will enable even more UK businesses to export. UKEF’s offering is a key component of the UK’s success as a global trading nation.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, there is time enough for two more questions. We can go first to my noble friend and then to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, services are particularly important to the United Kingdom’s economy, but they by no means always play a prominent part in trade agreements. Can my noble friend assure me that the Government will make it a priority that our services will receive prominence in all trade negotiations?
Armed Forces: Reserves
Lord De Mauley Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord De Mauley (Con)
My Lords, I declare interests as colonel commandant of the yeomanry and colonel of the Royal Wessex Yeomanry, a regiment that I commanded early in the millennium, which might make me what my noble friend Lord Attlee calls a “proper Rupert”. I am also president of the Council of Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations, in which latter capacity I succeeded my noble friend Lord Freeman, to whom I am extremely grateful for bringing this debate.
In those capacities and in my efforts to research for myself our progress towards our targets for 2020, I have recently visited the Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry in Scotland, 7 Rifles in London and 622 Squadron RAF at Brize Norton, as well as my own regiment in the Royal Yeomanry at annual training in Sennelager, and a magnificent event to mark the unveiling of a memorial to Trooper Potts VC, hosted by 94 (Berkshire Yeomanry) Signal Squadron.
Listening to this debate, one could be forgiven for going away with the understanding that things are not going quite as they should be for the reserves. The reality is that they are generally going considerably better than they have been for very many years. I should pay tribute to the unprecedented support given to the Reserve Forces by the Government, emanating from my right honourable friend the Prime Minister himself. I would also single out for thanks the Minister for Reserve Forces, my honourable friend Julian Brazier, who is doing an outstanding job.
The Defence Reform Act 2014 gave the Reserve Forces and cadets’ associations a statutory responsibility for reporting annually on the state of the reserves. In that regard I draw noble Lords’ attention to this year’s external scrutiny team’s annual report, all of which is worth reading. I know the Government have taken care to note it.
Time is rationed, so I must focus my remarks on recruiting, although I would have liked to speak about several other matters, such as capability, integration and the reserves estate. I will not have time either to talk specifically about officer recruiting, to which my noble friends Lord Freeman and Lord Attlee referred, except to say that they are right and that this is a particular area of concern.
On the issue of numbers generally, I hope that my noble friend the Minister will confirm that the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force are making good progress and will achieve their targets, give or take a little, by 2018. The Army has the biggest challenge but is making progress, and I expect it to take a little longer, but I emphasise that, from the reports I hear, this is often because units have found workarounds rather than relying on the system in place.
Focusing on the Army, bearing in mind the aim of 30,000 people trained, in round numbers there were 21,000 in April this year—the Minister may be able to give us more up-to-date figures—with 4,400 more under training. However, this looks better when one appreciates that the trained strength is up by 1,000 since the year before and, more significantly, the figure for those under training is up by a further 1,000 since the year before. Aspects of the recruiting process remain cumbersome—too many applicants have been dropping out while in the pipeline because it has taken too long—but now the services have got a grip and are enlisting candidates conditionally while still awaiting their final medical clearance, which is eminently sensible and partly answers the very real problem identified by, I believe, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith.
The Army is suffering on both regular and reserve recruiting, so a red light is flashing about how well the Capita recruiting group contract is working. There is a systemic problem with the way in which the process is set up, but there is a reluctance to acknowledge it and it would bear ministerial investigation. As ever, there is no substitute for units taking direct responsibility for individual recruits, making them feel part of the team immediately and managing each of them through the pipeline. That is now happening and things are improving.
Three of the recommendations in the external scrutiny team’s report are crucial for recruiting, and they bear repeating. Recommendation 15.3, to which I have just referred, proposes a review of,
“the separate roles played by the national call centres, the Armed Forces Careers Offices, the recruiting field forces and Reserve units to ensure that they are clearly optimised for Reserve recruiting”.
Recommendation 15.4 states that there should be a review of,
“the medical entry standards required of recruits”,
and that the MoD and the services should,
“ensure that the screening contracts are appropriately incentivised and assured to achieve success”.
Recommendation 15.5 states that we need to,
“determine the recruiting resources necessary to ensure steady state manning of the Reserve beyond the FR20 period”.
On a couple of specific matters, perhaps I could ask the Minister how the Civil Service 1% challenge is progressing. When I was at Defra, we made significant efforts to draw to the attention of civil servants the benefits of reserve service. It would be good to know how that is going because it seems a bit awkward for the Government to ask private sector employers to encourage their people to become reservists if the Government do not do the same, and more.
Finally, on the grounds that we need to recruit everyone bright and fit enough that we can, I ask my noble friend whether foreign and Commonwealth nationals can be recruited into the reserves, and what progress there has been on recruiting ethnic minorities, who historically have been underrepresented, so that major efforts have been made to attract them.
Defence Budget
Lord De Mauley Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord De Mauley
My Lords, there is plenty of time. We have heard from two Labour Back-Benchers already. Let us hear from my noble friend Lord Forsyth.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, would my noble friend take this opportunity to pay tribute to the role which Scottish regiments have played in the British Army and reaffirm that the best future for regiments such as the Black Watch, with its proud tradition, is in Scotland’s remaining part of the United Kingdom and continuing to play such an important role in its defence?