Queen’s Speech

Lord Lang of Monkton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. I claim no expertise in defence matters, but I have a strong sense of commitment to the maintenance of the defence of the realm. I will focus mainly on the Army, where I believe there is another side to the impressive list of actions mentioned by my noble friend the Minister in opening the debate.

Last year’s integrated defence review was underpinned by the assumption that, in the words of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister:

“We have to recognise that the old concepts of fighting big tank battles on the European landmass … are over”.


We all say things that we later come to regret. Far from Ukraine vindicating the review, as the Government have now been claiming, I venture to suggest the opposite and that recent events in Ukraine show that the basis of the review was fundamentally wrong and needs to be put right.

Thirty years ago, at the supposed end of the Cold War, 4% of our GDP was spent on each of defence and health. Now, over 7% of our GDP is spent on health and 2% on defence; that is not enough. Germany and Poland are doubling their expenditure and many neighbours are increasing theirs. We must raise ours too by as much as is necessary.

However, percentages and cash figures are not the right way to address this. It is not what we spend that matters most but what we need to defend ourselves and our allies. The integrated review feels more like a cost management report driven by cash limits and not defence needs. In the Army that is reflected, for example, in the false distinction it makes between equipment and manpower—between technology and boots on the ground. We need both. Of course, technology matters, as the heroic soldiers of Ukraine have shown with British weaponry, but manpower is essential and more fundamental. Technology can assist but not replace it. Soldiers on the ground are vital to turn defence into attack, take the fight to the enemy, change tactics quickly when required and to seize and hold recovered ground. Manpower matters and, for our warfighting ability, mass matters.

Overnight, the world has changed; we are back in the Cold War. Conventional war is not dead, as so many assumed, and we must react to that and not be driven by an accountant’s ledger. The first and most obvious need is surely to cancel at once the 11% cut in our manpower that so demoralised our allies and cheered our adversaries, leaving us with the smallest Army for two centuries. Instead of the 73,000 figure, we should be aiming upwards towards 100,000, for that is the direction in which a proper assessment of our needs must surely drive us.

I am told that the Army’s warfighting division now contains only two armoured brigades with only four infantry battalions between them, comprising just 29,000 fighting men. I further understand that out of over 200 tanks we have only 112 serviceable ones, of which fewer than 50 are ready for immediate use. These are frightening numbers; the Russians count their tanks in thousands. They have already lost many hundreds in Ukraine. What use would our contribution be in a major NATO engagement or in fulfilling our new promises to Sweden and Finland? Tanks need support from armoured formations of infantry to hold terrain won. A lack of that is what has caused Russia to lose so many.

As the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, mentioned, the Warrior armoured fighting vehicles which could support tanks have already been scrapped under the review. What a help some of them could have been in Ukraine. There is also said to be a serious shortage of long-range artillery support. So, we have at present a lack of weapons of all kinds, a lack of integration, a lack of co-ordination and backup on the battlefield, a capacity on the ground so small as to be of limited value, and a severe shortage of manpower with which to face what could be the greatest threat to our country and the rest of Europe.

I believe that we need to face up to the new reality and our present vulnerability. We should especially heed the recent statement of the present Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, who has now said in the Soldier magazine that Ukraine has

“highlighted the fact that mass and size are important.”

He has also said:

“I’m not comfortable with an Army of just 73,000. It’s too small.”


Coming from him, this is a powerful message to the Government, and I urge them to heed it.