Defence Budget

Lord Gilbert Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend. He has asked quite a few questions and I will not be able to answer them all here, but I will write to him. He asked first whether I think it is a good idea for all the parties to get together. I certainly have very good relations with my shadows and I am very happy to take this back to the department and come back to my noble friend. It is an excellent suggestion, and it is one that he has made in the past. I shall let him know how I get on.

I cannot give my noble friend an instant answer to his questions about profit margins and reductions in the civilian and Armed Forces staff. He also asked whether we are leasing any other vessels which might be bought. Off the top of my head I think that HMS “Protector” might fall into that bracket, but I do not want to be held to that answer and I will write to my noble friend. I am not sure how long the NAO report will take, but I am happy to write to him about that as well.

[Lord Gilbert]

My Lords, when I first was lucky enough to join your Lordships’ House some 15 years ago, and I was already appointed as the Minister of State for Defence Procurement, I held strongly to the view that defence matters are far too important to be treated in a partisan way. I was extremely flattered and gratified that when I was introduced into the House, one of my two sponsors was a distinguished Conservative former Defence Minister and former Secretary-General of NATO. The Statement I have heard today is replete with political self-justification of a sort that should have no place in a Defence Secretary’s Statement. I am very sorry for our Minister because he has had to read it out. The last defence Statement took 13 minutes to repeat, and this one took 15 minutes, with large parts of it just as odious as the previous one. Again, I am sorry that our Minister has to come out with all this stuff because he is a thoroughly decent man. It has no place whatever in a Defence Secretary’s Statement, and if he wants to bandy about political remarks, I would ask him to look at who it was that saddled this country with the F35C—Dr Liam Fox—and he can put that in his pipe and smoke it.

However, today I have only one question for the Minister, who I regard as a good friend and hold in great respect. I hope that he does not consider himself tainted with the remarks I have found it necessary to make. What assessment has been made in the MoD of our ongoing loss of the C130, which is going to be kept by the Americans for many years? We are going to lose interoperability with around a dozen of our closest allies—the Australians, the Canadians, the Americans, the Qataris and many others. I think that this is going to be one of the most damaging consequences of these so-called reviews, and I should be grateful for the Minister’s views on the subject.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, does not feel that I approach matters in a partisan way. I do not use this as a criticism, but I try to go out of my way to invite Members of all parties in this House into briefings. This is indeed a very complicated Statement so I shall be happy to lay on a briefing in the Ministry of Defence on all these issues. However, I hear what the noble Lord says.

With regard to the C130, the problem as I understand it is that the production line is going to close quite soon. I did have a flight in the A400M the other day—it was its first flight. I did invite the noble Lord and I had hoped that he would join me—and I think I very nearly got there. It is a wonderful plane and the Royal Air Force, which was originally very much against it coming into service, is now absolutely delighted. I think it makes a very good addition to the Royal Air Force.