Armed Forces

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to the Minister for the wonderful series of briefings that he arranges for Members of this House, which I know are widely appreciated.

I realise that at this stage of such an important debate, in which there have been so many remarkable and well informed speeches, there is little new that I can add. In disclosing an interest as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, I have to admit that, although that committee has a far wider-ranging remit, I will be speaking mainly about the Army and, in particular, Army 2020. I will not repeat all that has been said about the role and purpose of our Armed Forces in general, particularly as regards their future should the Prime Minister’s promised budget increase not be realised, and about the gypsy’s warnings on that given by my noble and gallant friends Lord Stirrup and Lord Richards, including in the latter’s outstanding maiden speech.

In its first review of the National Security Strategy 2010, published on 8 March 2012, the Joint Committee commented that it had been produced to a very tight timetable, and hoped that the production of the next one in 2015 would include a much wider public debate and an attempt at political consensus. The security strategy had been used to guide capability decisions in the 2020 strategic defence and security review, but the committee was unable to find any evidence that it had influenced decisions made since then. It called on the Government to develop an overarching strategy, a common understanding about the United Kingdom’s interests and objectives, that could guide choices on investment across government departments as well as operational priorities and crises responses, based on a realistic vision of the United Kingdom’s future role in the world.

In its report on its work in 2013-14, published on 30 April this year, the committee repeated concerns about the way in which the National Security Council operated, including: focusing on short-term imperatives and operational matters, and showing little sign of considering long-term and blue skies topics; not making the contribution it should to enable the Government to work as a co-ordinated whole; and individual departments, notably the Ministry of Defence, making major policy decisions without discussion at the National Security Council. The committee urged the Prime Minister to reconsider his approach to the next national security strategy in 2015, and to give a clear steer to his officials that they were expected to produce a radically different one that tackled the big and politically difficult questions which would guide future decision-making.

I mention this as background to the ninth report of the House of Commons Defence Committee produced this year, entitled Future Army 2020, in which it expressed its surprise that such a radical change to the Army’s structure, reflecting a reduction of 12,000 personnel from that announced in the 2010 security and defence review, was not discussed at the National Security Council, and that it was the Ministry of Defence’s Permanent Secretary who told the Chief of the General Staff the future size of the Army under the Army 2020 plan, which I hope is not a portent of things to come when there is only one uniformed member of the Defence Council. It noted that the Secretary of State for Defence had subsequently accepted that Army 2020 was designed to fit a financial envelope and it called on the Ministry of Defence to explain the apparent lack of consultation with the Chief of the General Staff in the decision-making process that has affected his service so fundamentally.

However, what seems even more peculiar to me about this whole story is that the Government continue to claim that, despite the history of what has actually happened since 2010, their overall strategic vision, expressed in both the security strategy and the defence review, has not changed. The Defence Committee hopes that a concept of critical mass for the Armed Forces will be developed. Had this been in existence, and even in its absence, it would seem only common sense for the NSC to assess and confirm Army 2020 before issuing it to the Army, in relation not just to critical mass but to the MoD’s “fighting power” doctrine, both of which could arm it with a much better informed understanding of how well the Army will be able to fulfil its obligations and contribute to Future Force 2020. As many noble Lords have pointed out, there is in addition a danger that Army 2020 could unravel if there are any further Ministry of Defence budget reductions, in which case both the UK’s vision of its place in the world and the defence planning assumptions would have to be revised.

Army 2020 represents a radical vision for the future role and structure of the British Army, departing significantly from that which was published in SDSR 2010. I must admit that I share the Defence Committee’s doubts as to whether SDSR 2010 can meet the needs of the United Kingdom’s national security, not least in combating asymmetrical threats. Deterrence of asymmetrical threats is much more complex than deterrence of another state. Whether it is nuclear or conventional, there is great difficulty in identifying precisely what action can be threatened or taken against whom. If I have a particular concern, it is that Army 2020 appears insufficiently resourced to enable the Army to operate in the fourth environment in which services now have to operate in addition to land, sea and air—namely, the electromagnetic or cyberspace. If both attack and defence are to be conducted, Signals is currently at about half the strength required.

My other concern is the reserves, and here I admit that I speak as an Inspector General of the Territorial Army of 25 years ago. While conscious of the enormous contribution that the reserves have made to the hectic operational years, you cannot expect employers to go on releasing people without proper reward. You must also pay the volunteers sufficiently well to encourage them to turn out. There is another dimension to the reserves, which I am afraid receives less than due recognition, which is the representation of the Armed Forces throughout the United Kingdom now that they have been withdrawn from so many places. The whole reserves issue should be re-looked at in the context of SDSR 2015 and Future Force 2020, to confirm that plans exist to expand important requirements such as medical and cyber, identified in what I hope will be a better analysis of national security needs than was carried out in 2010.

Apart from Army 2020, I have one other plea on behalf of the Army. I well remember pleading with my military masters for a period of stability for my battalion, which I took to Gibraltar after two years on operations in Londonderry, a six-month unaccompanied tour in Belize, and a hectic six months during which we had to provide a national shooting team and train for a subsequent four unaccompanied months in Belfast. Having been able to catch our breath, get some basic skills training and allow children under four to have their fathers at home for Christmas for the first time in their lives, a rejuvenated battalion was able to deploy straight to South Armagh. The Army has had far worse than that, having been involved in continuous operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere for more than 10 years, with the result that national defence skills, including essentials such as all-arms training, are almost non-existent. The Army badly needs a period of stability, during which it can become accustomed to its Army 2020 posture, including the linkage between certain formations and certain parts of the world, which is resulting in 4 Brigade, with its Middle East responsibilities, training troops from Libya and Egypt.

The Ministry of Defence failed to communicate the rationale and strategy behind Army 2020 to the Army, the wider Armed Forces, Parliament and the public—the Government are saying that it has to work and there is no plan B. The Government owe it to both the nation and the Army to ensure that Army 2020 works. If the situation changes, they must be prepared to respond decisively by providing additional resources in order to guarantee the nation’s security. I therefore ask the Minister whether the Ministry of Defence accepts the Defence Committee’s request that the Government provide regular updates to Parliament on progress of all aspects of the Army 2020 plan, the first of which would be laid before Parliament in January 2015 to allow consideration and debate before the 2015 general election and the SDSR, and regular debates thereafter.