King’s Speech

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I congratulate our new Ministers on their appointments, but I also congratulate their immediate predecessors. We have been treated this morning to the menu in Annabel’s kitchen—the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie’s—but she cooked pretty good when she was on the other side of the House, so we have to thank her for her work.

They say that there is not a lot new under the sun. Well, I was just looking up what was happening in June 2010, when the previous Government came into office and launched their review under the guidance of the then Defence Secretary, Dr Fox. The release at the time said that this review was

“to deliver and support the sort of foreign policy this country needed”.

Dr Fox said that

“we would have to confront the harsh facts of the economic climate in which we operate”.

It went on to say that the SDR

“will make a clean break from the military and political mindset of Cold War politics”.

Really? Looking at what is happening in Ukraine, far from the Cold War, we are back to the Somme. Therefore, I think we really need a root-and-branch review of this. It is good news that our colleague here, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, is leading that, but we also have to bear in mind that the new Chief of the Defence Staff told us that we needed to be prepared for war in three years, though he said that there is no inevitability.

I will focus on what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, said at the beginning of her remarks about this mythical 2.5% or 2% or whatever. Who says that 2.5% is going to deliver? If you are going to do a strategic review, you do a strategic review. But if the envelope is already sitting there with your boundaries before you even start, it is not a strategic review. The question therefore is: what do we need in the modern world to defend ourselves? If we are starting—to coin a phrase—with the bat of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, being broken in the pavilion before he gets on to the pitch, that would be the wrong direction of travel. I think we need to do it strategically, and to come back and tell people what it means. That may not be palatable—we all want to see certain elements of welfare improve, to see people looked after in health and education—but everybody agrees, and this Government and the previous Government agreed, that the key priority for every Government is the protection of their people, their way of life and our values. I hope that the review by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, will not be constrained simply by arithmetic. Let us see what it is. If the Government, Parliament and all of us decide not to take the advice and have a different mechanism for arithmetic, that is fine. But let us at least get it out there and open in public.

I also wanted to raise, and mentioned to the Minister in advance, one local issue—I suppose all politics is local. My hometown, Belfast, has the Harland & Wolff shipyard. It is not the business side of that arrangement that I want to focus on but the infrastructure side. The only other alternative that we depend on for a lot of our repairs is at Rosyth, in Fife. If that is overwhelmed with demand or damaged by an enemy, where do we go?

I ask the Minister to let us know that the Government are focused on the fact that Harland has a strategic asset and piece of infrastructure that is necessary to protect our country in the future, and that we are not going to be sidetracked by short-term business considerations. I wanted to make that point because not only are we concerned, obviously, about the jobs and the business, but the type of infrastructure in place there cannot instantly be replaced in any other location. We wish the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, well. I have little doubt that if the review can be done in the time available, that itself will be a bit of a breakthrough, but we simply do not have the time left.

809 Naval Air Squadron

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The noble Lord is quite right; I did say up to 12. The whole point of this is that the forces we have need to be flexible and interchangeable. By the end of 2025, we will have two squadrons in full operation. We will have 48 aircraft by the end of 2025, and I am assured that there will be up to 12 aircraft in each squadron which are capable at any one time. I am absolutely certain that there will be a lot more than two in each.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, is my noble friend happy that we have chosen a situation where there is only one aircraft in the world that can fly off our carriers? It is a very expensive aircraft which is in short supply. Is it not inevitable that we will have to modify these aircraft carriers so that they can fly off catapult-launched aircraft?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord has greater knowledge than I have in this area. As far as the Lightning is concerned, we are fully committed to the 138, as we originally set out. We will have 48 by the end of 2025 and another 27 by the early 2030s. As far as flexibility on the aircraft is concerned, I shall have to find out the full detail and write.

Armed Forces: Resilience

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Robathan on securing this debate. It has been punctuated by two excellent maiden speeches, from the noble Lord, Lord Hintze, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach; we welcome them and look forward to their contributions in the days ahead.

All the speakers who have so far contributed have significant military experience and background, as we have just heard. I do not have that background but I do not believe that matters pertinent to the armed services of this country are confined to those who have served. I therefore think it important that those of us who have not served contribute to the debate and express an opinion. I take an interest through the relevant APPGs and have done so since I came into this House. At the end of the day, decisions relevant to the armed services are political. Parliament and the Government must make those decisions. So resilience is as much a political decision as it is a military one.

Personnel and equipment are of course vital, but above all is the political determination on how they are used. We must not see this debate exclusively through the prism of Ukraine, because there are wider issues at stake. We are in the mess we are in in Ukraine in large measure due to particular international decisions that were not taken in the recent Syrian conflict. The red lines drawn by the United States were rubbed out and Assad and his henchmen were allowed to use poison weapons in that conflict. We have allowed Russia to move in, get warm-water port and pulverise large parts of Ukraine, while we have sent out the message that the West in general is a pushover. A dictator and a tyrant will see that. Of course, Putin got away with it in Georgia, and we have seen what happens.

There is even a parallel with the Falklands. It was the same thing, in so far as a dictatorship saw a weakness and said, “That country won’t go to the far side of the world to defend something”. We did, however, and that sent a strong signal. Now, we are having to do the same thing on our own doorstep. I never thought that I would see battle tanks on the plains of Europe in my lifetime—I never believed that would be possible—but it is happening as we speak. The mistakes we are repeating go back to what happened in the 1930s when dictators saw weakness. Hitler could have been stopped but he was not because we were not ready. We did not have the capability; neither did our French colleagues. As a country, we continue to make the same mistake again and again.

We all know—certainly, those of us who are in politics know—that public expenditure, including on welfare, housing and all the social and other benefits we want our people to receive, is vital. With defence, however, we say, “Well, we used that in World War II. That’s over now; we’ve sorted that out”. We are losing the critical mass necessary to sustain an integrated defence capability that goes from the grass roots of recruits, right through to the industrial military complex, and to our capability and the question whether we actually have the political will to use it. It strikes me that we have repeated all these mistakes. There have been many reviews, which I am sure have punctuated the careers of all the previous speakers in the debate. They have seen this happen and know what is coming at the end of the sausage machine: “Let there be less, not more”.

Importantly, while we must pay attention to cyber, drones and all the other modern warfare techniques, surely, ultimately, there is a necessity for volume. The Russians take the view that mass has its own capability and effect. Russia has a particular technique: grinding. Putin could not care less about 100,000 casualties. He will keep throwing people in there for as long as he can. Although he may have been disappointed at the reaction so far from NATO and the western allies and the heroic resistance of the people of Ukraine, I suspect that, in his deliberations, he says, “Well, we got that wrong. However, I’ll keep grinding these people down. What will the position be in 12 months’ time? How many more reserves of ammunition, vehicles and equipment will we have available then?” He will play the long game. We all know that.

So, although I have no doubt that my noble friend the Minister will give a spirited and coherent response, I must say this to her: the fact is that we are underprotecting ourselves. We are not paying the premium: we have got a cheapie, and there are so many caveats that it simply will not work. The noble Lord, Lord West, who has been beating the drum in this House on our naval capabilities for as long as I have been in it, has pointed out that we simply do not have sufficient surface vessels. As far as the Army is concerned, we must modernise. We have a huge problem with the estate on which our soldiers, sailors and airmen live. We have not resolved all those issues. I do not believe for one minute the figures on our reserve capabilities, from talking anecdotally to people back home. On paper, people are there, but they have not put in the hours of training and some of the vehicles they are training on are prehistoric. Let us bear in mind that we may have these headline figures, but they are not real.

In order to maintain a coherent manufacturing capability right the way through, we must learn from our mistakes. I do not see any evidence that we are learning. The same things are happening again to the procurement process; we just do not seem to be capable of getting that right. Then, we are still changing specs in the middle of contracts. How is it that one of the biggest defence contractors in the world cannot make a vehicle that does not shake its occupants to pieces? It is altogether out of order.

I hope and pray that the Government will look at this. We all know how tight expenditure is but, if we do not address these issues, our successors will pay in blood and treasure a price far greater than anything we contribute now.

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

This is all about an increasingly close partnership between government and industry. The noble Lord will be aware that industry, particularly in defence, employs not just many employees directly but many modern apprentices, and in some cases that has been found to be a proven route for learning and commitment to the corporate organisation. It is an exciting future for young people interested in STEM subjects. Across the nation, particularly in the devolved Administration areas, where I have engagement, there is an interest in progressing STEM and using the critical mass of the MoD providing those skills in the devolved nations to help them with their educational delivery.

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, may I ask about the rollout of work? Part of the problem in the industry has been that work is inconsistent and erratic. While there is supposed to be a shipbuilding strategy, can she tell the House whether companies such as Harland and Wolff in Belfast will get actual orders to contribute by supplying ships and other vessels so that there is consistent work in the defence sector, rather than an erratic supply of work?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware from the White Paper published on Monday that very close attention was paid to the rollout of an exciting shipbuilding programme. There is an intention to refresh our national shipbuilding strategy, and the Secretary of State for Defence is the shipbuilding tsar. So there is a real and rooted interest in the future of the shipbuilding industry in the United Kingdom. I am absolutely certain that all shipbuilders in the UK, if they are interested in the construction of naval marine craft, will engage with the MoD to see what opportunities await.

I can also say to the noble Lord, particularly in relation to Belfast, that of course we have Spirit AeroSystems and Thales. Indeed, I think it was Spirit AeroSystems that recently, this year, got a contract to develop the RAF’s lightweight affordable novel combat aircraft. We are very mindful of the contribution that can be made across the UK.

Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2021

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, in her opening remarks, my noble friend the Minister listed the areas where our service personnel are currently deployed. These range from a very difficult deployment in Mali to deployment on European soil, in Estonia and Lithuania. Of course, there is still Afghanistan and the situation in the Middle East as well, and threats are emerging in the South China Sea. It is perfectly clear that the variety of fields of operation continue to be significant.

The Minister referred to discipline, and of course that is part of the processes that we are debating today. But it is the legal position that I want to reflect on for a moment. I think that many people in this country and in this Parliament are still reeling from the implications of the cases and abuses undertaken and led by sleazy lawyers, who tried to exploit the position when soldiers were deployed in very difficult environments, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. I just want to check with the Minister what training our service personnel receive on the legal aspects of their deployments in different locations around the world. Does she believe it is adequate? Does it take into account potential difficulties that soldiers, sailors and air personnel could be putting themselves into through their activities in these areas?

We also discussed the covenant. This was a considerable innovation and a very welcome one. Apart from the assistance provided for the Covid situation, most of the services in our country at the moment tend to be deployed on other things, including, from time to time, bomb squads deployed not only in Northern Ireland but around the country. However, that was not always the case. The situation regarding the covenant concerns me somewhat because, although it has been operating reasonably effectively here in Northern Ireland in recent years, there are still several weaknesses in its establishment.

A moment ago, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, referred to the annual report that the Secretary of State produces, usually in December each year, on how the covenant is operating. Members need to be aware that at no stage since its commencement have the Northern Ireland Executive produced a report of those activities. That has been done by the other devolved regions—Scotland and Wales—and those have subsequently been incorporated into the report. However, no such report has been made in Northern Ireland, so Parliament is not seeing how the covenant is being operated there. I have no doubt that we will come back to that when the Bill comes before us, but I wanted to draw the House’s attention to the fact that it is a missing link. If the Secretary of State cannot get a report from the Executive in Northern Ireland, he may have to find other means, and he should be provided with the powers to do so. The covenant is UK wide and defence is a non-devolved issue, so I do not believe that the Secretary of State should be left in ignorance of what is happening on the ground.

We all wish our Armed Forces well. They face many challenging times. We will see the first deployment of the “Queen Elizabeth” carrier force in the next few months and that will be a huge step forward, but I believe that we have underfunded our defence for many years and I hope that this overstretch is not allowed to continue further.

Integrated Review: New Ships

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord raises an important question. Of course, for five of those 10 years, his party was part of the coalition Government, sharing responsibility for the Ministry of Defence. His important point merits attention and we look carefully at how we now procure. For example, the model for the Type 31 procurement achieved a concept—a placing of order—extraordinarily quickly, because there had been a recognition that we needed to be much more effective and swift in our approach to procurement. The noble Lord raises an important point and I reassure him that it is very much before the MoD and we are applying measures to implement good practice.

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My noble friend’s initial response referred to supporting UK industry. The fact is that the building of warships has been irregular and sporadic and it has been very difficult for companies to sustain a qualified workforce, because of the nature of the orders. Will the Minister assure the House that this time business and orders will be given and spread over the UK, including to Harland & Wolff in Belfast so that shipbuilding can be sustainable in the long-term, rather than reacting to sporadic and irregular orders?

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

It is right to refer to what the Prime Minister said because he recognised what had been, frankly, a corrosive problem in the way in which the procurment of Royal Naval assets was embarked on. The National Shipbuilding Strategy identified the challenges and weaknesses to which the noble Lord has referred, and the strategy was clear that a much more stable approach had to be adopted in respect of UK shipbuilders. What is happening currently is clearly good news for UK shipbuilders, and the noble Lord has rightly raised the matter of cross-UK activity. I am pleased to say that, with Harland & Wolff taking over the Appledore shipyard, the Government are working closely with the company to understand better how we might support our shipbuilding industry throughout the United Kingdom. That is the commitment made by the Prime Minister and it is one that we will see being sustained by the recently announced intentions for Royal Naval assets.

British Armed Forces: Global Britain

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, I am not terribly keen on the term “global Britain”, but some Members have already pointed out the necessity to join up our activities. Embassies need to ensure that they have economic as well as diplomatic and military representation, because it is entirely the bringing together and integration of these services that enables us to promote our interests and those of the wider security of the world. Our Armed Forces have been underfunded for many years, particularly our Navy. We also have to pay attention to Africa, which will be the great powerhouse of the future, with a growing population. We should be able to capitalise on our historical connections there, and I strongly urge the Minister to do so.

Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Lord Empey Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, the brave contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, drew to the House’s attention the case of Corporal Major Hutchings. In his contribution, the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, said that the military should not be disadvantaged and that this was part of the military covenant. I am afraid that is not working out in practice. We know—it is always correct—that where new evidence comes forward, whether in cases involving members of the security forces or potential terrorists, it is material and should be judged accordingly in a court of law. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Astor, drew to the attention of the House, some people have pieces of paper in their pockets that can override any evidence. The one group of people who have not been identified are those who have received royal pardons. Indeed, we understand that the Government have lost the list containing the names of many of these persons.

We have got things completely out of balance. This applies not only to Northern Ireland but more generally. We have seen an unscrupulous lawyer prepared to profit at the expense of unfortunate members of the security forces who were operating in that hell, as the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, described it. We are all for fairness, but we need a level playing field and we do not have one. That is a matter of deep regret.

The 2% target, to which many noble Lords have referred, is a purely arbitrary figure. The figure should reflect what is necessary, not what is arbitrary. We have ring-fenced 0.7% of our GDP for international aid. However, I am always against ring-fencing departmental money because it usually ends in tears and it makes some departments bear the brunt of reductions in spending in a totally disproportionate and chaotic manner. While I am in favour of well-targeted international aid, I do not believe that the scatter-gun tactics we are using at the moment, whereby we pour millions of pounds into all sorts of weird and wonderful projects, are working. We should concentrate on certain things, such as clean water, trying to rid areas of diseases such as malaria, emergency relief to tackle what we are confronted with in Africa, disasters such as earthquakes and so on. I am in favour of all that, but it is ridiculous that while this country steps up to the plate in this, other, wealthier countries are virtually not even on the pitch in terms of their contributions.

Given the international instability we face, the benefits that we say we are getting from soft power do not, I have to say, register particularly strongly with me. When we are dealing with the North Koreas of this world and a resurgent Russia, which many noble Lords have mentioned, the fact is that the capability of hardware makes a difference. The one point that has been made so blatantly obvious by noble and noble and gallant Lords with their lifetimes of experience in this area is that our surface fleet is wholly inadequate to deal with the circumstances that we face. When the aircraft carriers come on-stream, are we saying that we could simultaneously send two battle groups off to two different parts of the world to work with those carriers? Could we protect the carriers or is it the case that if there was a conflict, they would end up alongside without the capability to protect them? There are huge issues to face here and I do not believe that we will serve our country well if we knowingly, year on year, leave huge areas of our defence capability basically out of action. We have not had the ability to seriously project air power for years and, as has been said, HMS “Ocean” is to be retired early. We have no fixed-wing anti-submarine capability, yet the one thing we need to protect is our nuclear deterrent.

I just do not get it. We are fixated on keeping social programmes going, but there has to be a balance in these things. It has been said: look at what will happen in terms of persons and treasure if this goes wrong. I think we have the balance wrong. I am 100% in favour of co-operation with our European partners and 100% for joint projects to share costs because that makes sense, but we have the balance wrong and continuing to limp forward as we are will not work. Yes, we are getting some great kit, and I do not doubt that that is good, but it comes down to the question of whether we go for gold-plated equipment at the expense of having a spread of volume. That balance must be struck.

I turn to the issues with regard to NATO. I was encouraged by the comments of the American Vice-President Mike Pence in Germany. He reassured us on the commitment of the US to NATO, but as many speakers have already pointed out, many European countries are not stepping up to the plate. It is not that they do not have the money, but as long as someone else is prepared to do it, why bother? The message from the United States is clear: it is not going to carry the can any longer, and who can argue with that? Colleagues in this part of the world have to realise that we have a resurgent Russia, international terrorism and developments taking place, whether in laser technology or weapons that can be triggered from space to identify and damage surface vessels. Not only unmanned aircraft but unmanned naval vessels will be a thing of the future. We must spend enough on protecting our country. Even for an issue such as immigrants trying to cross the Channel, we have three vessels to deal with it. It is ridiculous for an island nation to be in that position.

I ask the Minister to address some of these points when he sums up the debate. Of course, if we press Her Majesty’s Government to spend more on defence, they will have to take decisions to spend less on something else. It is the inevitable piece of arithmetic that has to be done. It will not be pleasant and, as has been said by those who have experience of the military, the price will be high. The Falklands have been mentioned, in particular HMS “Endurance”—all to save a few quid. Everyone looks for economies, but that was being penny wise and pound foolish. There is a fundamental error in the balance between our foreign and defence policies and our aid policies. They are closely linked and it is important that we get the balance right. The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who is not in his place at the moment, made a good suggestion. He has called for a commission or whatever it might be. We should not have to wait for the next five-year defence review; this is something we need to get on with now.

On that point, I would argue that unmanned vehicles of all types are likely to replace pilots and surface vessel personnel. Where does the Minister think we are in all of that? Moreover, does he really believe that we have sufficient surface vessels to deploy simultaneously two battle groups for the new aircraft carriers while at the same time meeting our international commitments and dealing with hot spots? You always need to keep a contingency in reserve to deal with an emergency, but we seem absolutely flat out. Some of our surface vessels do not seem able to propel themselves adequately, so how on earth are we going to deploy two aircraft carriers with their battle groups with such a small surface fleet?

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I join in commending the noble Earl the Minister for the way he has handled the Bill, and the Bill team for supporting him. I have one regret, as I am sure he understands, in that there has been no dealing yet with the problem of the impact of the Human Rights Act on operations. We have had assurances from the noble Earl and from other members of the Government that this is being actively pursued. I hope that it continues to be pursued and that we do not have to wait for the next Armed Forces Bill in five years’ time. I hope that whatever is introduced, by a Bill of Rights or in another way, will be as an amendment to the Armed Forces Act and not standing within its own Act, because the problem we have faced is that the Armed Forces Acts and the Human Rights Act are incompatible. This would have been avoided if we had not treated the problems of the Armed Forces and human rights in the way they have been treated in the past.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, this Bill is on a much smaller scale than the one introduced five years ago, which dealt with the whole concept of the covenant and included very complicated and very necessary commitments. I am very pleased that even this week the Minister has pursued those issues by engaging with the House and making us aware of developments in that area. Frequently, pieces of legislation are rushed through and their implementation sometimes leaves much to be desired. So while the provisions in this Bill are not on the same scale as those of the previous Act, nevertheless they are significant.

As I understand it—perhaps the Minister can clarify this—as well as provision every five years in an Act of Parliament, the actual Armed Forces also need to be renewed on a regular basis. That seems rather a peculiarity because it is very difficult to envisage circumstances where we would not need them. I do not know whether a more permanent mechanism is required in a future Bill so that that provision does not have to be renewed.

I place on record my thanks to the Minister for the manner in which he engaged with noble Lords, dealt with our concerns and gave us an opportunity to participate fully and follow up our queries, some of which may have been better informed than others. Nevertheless, I am happy to see the Bill pass.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I was not going to intervene, but the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said something that worried me slightly. I think that annual renewal by order of the Armed Forces Act is an absolutely essential control on the operation of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence.

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Lords Chamber

In conclusion, the Government’s view is that these amendments, for the reasons I have explained, would seriously erode fundamental aspects of the court martial system. However, as I have mentioned, we are committed to reviewing the system of majority verdicts, and I will report back to the House on that matter. On that basis, I hope the noble Lord will agree to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

Before the Minister sits down, he has indicated that the Government are going to conduct a review, but there is a conflict between what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, are saying with regard to the public confidence issue. I personally have never been confronted with that issue. As a serving officer, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is in the same position. It might be helpful if the Government carried out some inquiries into the level of confidence. I am unaware of any problem. Clearly, as the noble Lord indicated in proposing this amendment, there is a lack of confidence, but I do not know the basis of that or where it is to be found.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes a very important point. This is certainly one of the factors that will need to be looked at in detail. If there is justification for changing the system, we will need to look at all the reasons that have been advanced for such changes. I agree with the noble Lord that we need to get to the bottom of whether there is a lack of public confidence in the way the system currently works. I can undertake that that will be part of the scrutiny we will conduct.