UK Defence Forces

Lord Hutton of Furness Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hutton of Furness (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Soley for giving us the opportunity today to have a very important conversation about the future of our national security and Armed Forces. Like my noble friend Lord West, I think there was probably a broad consensus in 2015 about the outcome of that security review. It recommended Joint Force 2025, an expeditionary force of nearly 50,000 people, with significant land, sea and air elements. It embarked on a hugely significant programme of defence equipment procurement across land, sea and air, and contained a promise to keep spending on defence at 2% of GDP.

But there was obviously major concern at the time, confirmed now by the Public Accounts Committee, the Select Committee on Defence in another place, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, senior retired officers and think tanks—pretty well everyone—that the MoD would not be able to sustain the ambitions of the 2015 SDSR. There was and remains no clear path to realising the significant efficiency savings on which all that spending was predicated, other than continued pay restraint for members of the Armed Forces—and that is perhaps not a brilliant recruitment and retention tool over the long term. Since then, we have had to add into the equation the significant impact of Brexit and the dramatic fall in value of sterling—the pound is 30% down against the dollar and the euro—when so much of that defence budget is spent in dollars and euros.

Two years on, we have the announcement of a new security capability review. Every Defence Minister learns the mantra that everything is kept under review, which can sometimes get them out of trouble. On this occasion, it has probably got them into a little more trouble. There are probably two principal justifications, two years after a significant SDSR such as the 2015 report, for having another look at things. One would be any significant or material change in the threat situation facing the UK. By common consensus, that has got worse, not better. The other would be any significant change in technological development and science—technology that might allow us to think again about how we equip our Armed Forces and where we want to spend our money. Neither of those justifications is plausible for this midpoint review of the SDSR. There is only one obvious conclusion for us all to reach: this is really a review about money.

The question cannot be answered by Mark Sedwill, who I think is a brilliant official. I have absolute confidence in Mark’s ability to conduct a rigorous review. The questions that we are debating can only be raised with Ministers. I think there are two: do they stand by the 2015 SDSR and, if they do, are they now willing to commit the necessary resource to complete that programme?

I am absolutely opposed to the United Kingdom acting unilaterally—for example, by announcing the end of our effective amphibious capability. I do not believe that the QE2 class carriers—they are brilliant ships and I am proud to see them serving in the Royal Navy—have the equivalent capability. Nor do the Bay class ships. They are incapable of supporting and mounting large-scale amphibious operations with the fighting vehicles that the Army now has. Our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan led us, rightly, to conclude that they needed to be better protected: they needed to be stronger, heavier vehicles. We need “Bulwark” and “Albion” to retain that capability.

So we must tread pretty carefully. I am all in favour of the defence industry co-operating with government in the efficiency review: I think it should. I am certainly in favour of our thinking carefully about how we use the overseas aid and defence budgets together to secure greater security results. But it is hard to avoid the obvious conclusion that we will need to spend more now to preserve UK effective capabilities. The painful lesson from history is that spending less on defence does not make us more secure; it does not make those threats go away, it just makes us less able to deal with them.

Defence: Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Lord Hutton of Furness Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hutton of Furness (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to the interests that I have declared in the Register of Lords’ Interests. I act in the UK as an adviser to Lockheed Martin.

I agreed with every word and sentiment in what the Minister said. His speech could have been made by any Defence Minister any time during the past 50 years—in fact, it almost certainly has been—but he was absolutely right in the arguments that he put forward.

Nuclear weapons are terrifying and terrible weapons, but they have served a moral purpose, which is to deter nuclear aggression—these unique threats to the UK and our allies that cannot be controlled by any other means. The nuclear deterrent has been a moral weapons system.

One issue that the other place will face next week is simply this: is there an alternative? Is there a better way of guaranteeing UK security during the next 50 or 60 years? There are some who argue for unilateralism. I do not subscribe to that view, and I suspect that very few people in this House do. It would be an irresponsible act which compromised UK national security and that of our friends and allies around the world. It would deprive the UK of leverage and locus in any bilateral and multilateral process. It would be a complete abdication of our international responsibilities.

The question then is: are there some other alternatives to Trident that might fulfil a similar role and do it as well and as credibly? I pay tribute to the last coalition Government and to the work of the Liberal Democrat Ministers in persuading the Government to conduct the alternatives to Trident review. If anyone really wants to find an answer to some of these complicated issues of whether there is a better or cheaper way to maintain the vital national security interest of the United Kingdom, they must read that review. Unpalatable reading though it might be to some, there is absolutely no doubt about the fundamental conclusions: that a four-boat successor programme is the cheapest, most credible way to maintain our national security and that all the other options—whether they are free-fall bombs to be fired or launched from fast jets or include the use of cruise missiles, be they subsonic or supersonic—carry considerable downsides. First, they will be a less credible deterrent; secondly, and strangely, they will be significantly more expensive, because the real cost driver is the development of a new warhead to tip any new delivery system. Certainly, if it is a cruise missile system that advocates are putting forward, we know that we would certainly need more submarines and there would be a significant cost. There is no better way of securing Britain’s long-term national defence interests than by renewing the Vanguard submarine. So I say unequivocally that that is the right thing to do and I hope that Members in the other place reach a similar conclusion.

I want to finish with three points. First, my noble friend Lord West and others referred to the extraordinary service that the crews of the ballistic submarines have rendered in the past 50 years. My noble friend said that we should express our praise for them; I think that we should do more than that. This weapons system is uniquely complicated. I remember when I was on board one of the submarines being told by the skipper, when I asked him how on earth he kept this level of professionalism going, “Sir, when we leave port, we are at war. That is the only way we can do it”. I think that makes this aspect of service in the Armed Forces quite unique and special. I hope there is a way, despite all the bureaucracy and the rules, that those men who have served and operated these submarines for 50 years get special treatment. I would like to see a special medal awarded for service in these ballistic submarines. It is long overdue and it would be a service that we could render to those great men.

Secondly, it will be very important that Ministers do more to address the concerns that have been raised about the vulnerability or detectability of the Successor boats. Many of your Lordships speaking in this debate have already addressed this point. I really believe there is more that Ministers should be doing to address the concerns raised. I share the view that those who advocate this may be concealing other motives; I do not really want to get into that. But anyone who looks at the scientific and technical literature will know immediately that there are no parallels to be drawn between unmanned aerial vehicles and the development of those sorts of drones and unmanned underwater vehicles. The two operate in completely different technical and scientific backgrounds. For example, electromagnetic waves cannot operate underwater—they can penetrate only a few inches at best—there are massive problems about powering those systems so that they can deploy sonar buoys and other devices; and there is a huge problem about communications. There is no immediate risk, I think, to our Vanguard submarines now or in the future, but a lot of people think there is, and that should be addressed.

Finally, I want to ask the Minister one question. We would all like to live in a world free of nuclear weapons; let us be quite clear. The process for achieving that looks difficult. There is one thing that the Government could do. Because this is still a live issue, I would like to know what concrete and practical steps the Minister is intending to take to the new Government now to make sure that the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty becomes a legal instrument and takes legal effect. At the moment, there is a de facto moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons, but can anyone imagine the shock waves that would be created—literally—if one of the superpowers were to actually detonate a test weapon? This would be the end of most of the legal framework that we are familiar with and which gives us some encouragement that we might be heading in the right direction over the longer term. So what are the Government going to do to address the fact that, despite all these years since the treaty came into operation, it has still not taken any legal effect?

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Hutton of Furness Excerpts

Friday 12th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hutton of Furness]

My Lords, it is an enormous privilege to make my maiden speech in this debate today. Defence has always been an issue of very great interest to me. That began with listening to stories from my grandfathers, who served in the First World War, my great uncle, who served in the American Army in the First World War and my late father, who served in the Royal Marines in World War II.

That interest in defence matters developed very significantly when I became the Member of Parliament for Barrow-in-Furness nearly 20 years ago. As has been alluded to today, my former constituency has a unique association with the Royal Navy going back more than 150 years. The shipyard in Barrow built the first of the Royal Navy submarines; today, it is completing the latest generation of nuclear attack submarines—the Astute class, which is a formidable addition to the Royal Navy.

The links with the armed services in my former constituency extend much wider than the Royal Navy. I am glad to say that there is a very strong Army tradition in my constituency, too. Initially, the local infantry regiment was the King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), which saw service in the First World War and other, earlier conflicts along with the Border Regiment. Both those great regiments of the British Army are now unified in the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment.

Those who wear the uniform of our country render public service of the very highest kind. We have all noticed a rising tide of sympathy and support for our country’s Armed Forces. That is palpable and tangible. I personally believe that it owes a very great deal to the heroism, service and sacrifice of these young men and women in recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that this rising tide of support for the men and women who serve our country in this way is a profoundly good thing. It has helped our Government to focus on ensuring that we stand by them and fully discharge the debt that we owe them all. However, I suspect that there is always more to be done in this area. The primary responsibility rests with government, but the role of the service charities is hugely important, too, because they give all of us as individual citizens a practical means to show our own appreciation for the service and sacrifice of Armed Forces personnel. During my time in this House, I want to focus on that in particular.

In this context, I am concerned, as I am sure are many other noble Lords, about the front-page news story in the Times this morning. I believe that this must be an unintended consequence of the Government’s decision to change the rules about how pensions and benefits are indexed. For noble Lords who have not seen the story today, I should say that it looks likely that serving men and women who are injured on active service will see a very substantial reduction in the amount paid to them as a result of any injury that they have sustained. I simply believe that to be wrong.

Today your Lordships’ concern is with the strategic defence and security review. Like my noble friend Lord Robertson, I want to start on the positive side. There are many things in the strategic defence review that we should be positive about. I strongly welcome the attention now being paid to cyberwarfare, which is a real and sinister threat to national resilience and security. I also welcome the renewed emphasis on conflict prevention and stabilisation and on improving the capabilities of our special forces. I welcome the increased size of the Chinook fleet, which will be a great help to our forces in future. These are all sensible and welcome measures and are in the mainstream of defence thinking today, following some of the changes that have been made in the United States. Our forces are becoming more flexible and deployable, and that is absolutely right. I also welcome, as other noble Lords have done, the emphasis on ensuring success in Afghanistan. That mission is vital to our national security, and I believe very strongly that all of us in public life, in this House and elsewhere, should always remember why we are in Afghanistan and why we ask our young men and women to fight in our name there.

However, significant concerns have been expressed today about the strategic defence and security review, and I believe that those concerns are fully justified. The last time that defence spending was cut significantly in this country was about 20 years ago in justifiable response to an improving strategic and security environment. That cannot be said of this situation. This time, we are reducing defence spending in response to a worsening fiscal environment. One thing that we should all be clear about, here and elsewhere, is that spending less on defence does not make the threats that we face—which are all clearly set out in the national security strategy—any less serious. Unfortunately, it simply makes us less able to deal with them properly.

There are a number of reasons to be concerned about the strategic defence and security review. The idea of aircraft carriers being without aircraft for a decade is not an example of sensible strategy and undermines the very concept of carrier strike. The early decommissioning of the Harriers is a profound mistake. It is disappointing that Ministers have not stuck to their guns on this. For a small amount of money, the Harriers would have given much more strategic credibility to this vital part of our future force projection. If we are to have aircraft carriers, we need to be able to defend those vital assets should they deploy in an active theatre of operations. We cannot rely on others to do that for us. In this context, I believe on the basis of advice I was given when I was Secretary of State for Defence that the loss of Nimrod poses an unacceptable risk to those vital capital warships. I notice, as have many others today, that the First Sea Lord has expressed his unease about the loss of this very important anti-submarine capability.

I am also concerned about the overall reduction in our capability to deploy ground forces. It is clear from the SDSR that we will not be in a position to mount another operation on the scale of the Iraq invasion of 2003. Why we are making such a reduction from a strategic point of view is not entirely clear to me. There is a danger that the SDSR will look to some like salami slicing—the one thing that Ministers should, above all else, have tried to prevent.

If the real context for this review was the fiscal situation, it would have been helpful, as many others have noticed in this debate, to have had more clarity about the future resources required to fund even this diminished level of capabilities. My understanding is that there will need to be significant real-terms increases in spending on defence to make the books balance over the next decade, which is a perfectly laudable ambition of the Government. We could benefit from greater clarity here about the Government’s future spending intentions.

At the heart of the financial assumptions is the need for the MoD to reduce its costs, and I believe that there is ample scope for doing that. As Bernard Gray’s excellent report made abundantly clear, the defence procurement process needs fundamental reform. I wish the noble Lord, Lord Levene, well in his endeavours in this regard, but if the projected savings do not materialise it is far from clear that, without additional resources, the MoD may not have to look at even further reductions in front-line capabilities.

My final point, which has not been raised so far, is on the future of our defence-industrial base. I believe it to be of vital national significance that we retain sovereign capability in key areas. The SDSR does not say a great deal about the defence-industrial strategy, but we certainly need one, so I look forward to the White Paper that the Government are proposing.

I accept that the Government, through the SDSR process, have tried very hard, and I praise the efforts of Ministers and officials, to maintain a balance of effective military capabilities on land, sea and air. Sadly, I have to say that very few people think that the Government have fully achieved that objective. Along with many others, I hope that there will be time in future for Ministers to reconsider aspects of their strategy as we go forward.