Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Lyell Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lyell (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Attlee for giving us the chance today to look at the defence review. He and I go back quite a long way, from bouncing like peas in a pod in Poole harbour when we visited the special boat squadron, as members of your Lordships’ defence group. He showed commendable guts then. My noble friend also accompanied me to Kosovo, where we became entangled with the Swedish and Finnish brigade, which was attached to our own brigade out there. My noble friend has been of valuable help and I assure him, and indeed the Minister, that the House of Lords defence group, otherwise known as the war Lords, has not gone away. The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, is not with us for some reason today, and, alas, my noble friend Lord Astor is taking a short period of leave. However, I say to the Minister that we have always relished the enormous and very tight relationship between military defence and Back-Bench Members of your Lordships’ House who at various times in their lives perhaps got their knees quite brown in one way or another, either as a conscript or worse.

I direct your Lordships’ attention just briefly to paragraph 4.40 in the paper in front of us today. It refers to the brigades and the number 50,000. It might come out in the course of his remarks, but can the Minister let us know what the mix of those 50,000 will be? That might be the number, but there will be all sorts of capabilities and capacities involved. Indeed, there is a very valuable illustration on page 28. I was particularly interested to see “LAND—A war-fighting Division”. The symbol for “Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance” seems rather like that of the Whips’ Office, but I do not worry necessarily about that.

Perhaps I may then direct your Lordships’ attention to paragraphs 4.45 and 4.46, which detail the Special Forces. In any defence debate or on many matters, the less said about the Special Forces the better. We are delighted when we get news later of what happens, but one particular aspect of paragraph 4.46 concerns me a trifle. It states:

“We will buy advanced communications equipment”.

I say cobblers to that; we want the best. And only the best will do, not just for the Special Forces but for the men and women who are also occupied with them.

On paragraph 4.48, perhaps my noble friend will be able to enlighten me either today or in writing on the term “innovative brigades”. I am interested in what the mix will be or what they might get up to.

On paragraph 4.49 on the Typhoons, can my noble friend let me know at some stage what the mix in the numbers will be? I understand there to be 138 F-35 Lightning aircraft at some stage. Can he advise me, please, what the mixture of F-35As and F-35Bs is likely to be?

The noble Earl, Lord Stair, who, alas, is not in his place, mentioned accommodation. This has concerned your Lordships’ defence group when we visit, but I am delighted to see in paragraph 4.53 that this will be one of the major projects. I see the noble Lord on the Front Bench indicating that my time is up—he will be relieved to learn that I am about to sit down—but if my noble friend the Minister could glance at paragraph 4.53, it would reassure me greatly.