The Role and Capabilities of the UK Armed Forces, in the Light of Global and Domestic Threats to Stability and Security

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for initiating this debate. I am very glad that it is taking place in the period before we have the SDSR because that definitely did not happen in 2010. If lessons are to be learned, it is very important that there is as wide a consultation as possible on an SDSR before it is initiated. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth mentioned this. I have to declare an interest as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.

The Minister confirmed that the Government have not just begun work on the national security strategy and the defence review but that they are due to report by the end of the year. As I listened to the contributions of noble Lords around the Room today, I began to wonder whether that was not too rushed. The last defence review was to be financed by what was promised to be there in 2015. At the time, we said, “We are not quite certain that that finance is likely to be there”, as indeed has proved to be the case. I therefore wonder whether, as a result of the consultations by the various Select Committees, plus those in this House, the Government might wish to think again before rushing ahead with something that they may not have considered.

I am very glad that there are two words in the Motion which I want to say something about. First, on “capabilities”, I would add “sustainability” at that stage because, as the noble Lord, Lord King, will remember from the Options for Change exercise, our key concern—certainly in the Army—was whether what was to be produced would be sustainable. Sustainability includes the maintenance of operations over a period of time. For example, when we sent help to Rwanda, the only thing we could do was to send a composite administrative force for six months, which mended roads, repaired vehicles and provided communications and medical support. There simply were not the replacements in the order of battle for us to continue with an operation that we had started. I fear that sustainability has been absent from many of the reviews I have seen in the recent past. It is a word that should be there.

However, I am very glad that “domestic” is in the Motion because it is often forgotten just how much the Army, for instance, is doing to underpin the domestic life of this nation. When I was commanding my battalion, I sent my soldiers off to a dustmen’s strike in Glasgow. When I was commanding the brigade in Belfast, we had a tanker drivers’ strike. When I was Adjutant-General, we had an ambulance drivers’ strike. In recent times, the Army have not only had strike preparation but underpinned the floods, the foot and mouth disease outbreak and the security at the Olympic Games. They have also gone off because of Ebola. In fact, the Army is underpinning quite a lot of the life of the nation. If it is all to be deployed only on operations—if only operations are being thought of—something will be lost which we cannot afford to lose. As your Lordships will understand, that is a plea not to reduce the Army to anything below the 82,000 it has now been forced down to. I do not think we can afford to do without that domestic role.

What is the actual aim and role of the Armed Forces? It was put very clearly in NSS 2010: to protect the nation’s,

“security in an age of uncertainty”.

Uncertainty, as many noble Lords have said, is of course impossible to plan for. Above all, what is missing from a lot of the consideration that has been happening is what the military refer to as the critical mass needed to carry out the tasks identified or, as the noble Lord, Lord King, said, the minimum strength needed. It is exactly the same thing.

In the Ministry of Defence there used to be what was called a basket-weaving exercise, which happened every year. A White Paper or some other document would be produced which laid down what the services were to do. They then worked out how much it would cost to do what had to be done, and that was then compared with the money that had been made available. Inevitably, there would not be enough money. Then there would be a basket-weaving exercise where every aspect of what was required was costed and put into categories known as “essential”, “desirable” and “nice to have”. That basket was put to Ministers for them to make the decisions and say, “We know perfectly well that we are not going to get any more money, and we accept what you say, and therefore this is not to be done because we cannot afford it”. I do not think there is much evidence of basket weaving in some of the things that have happened. The equipment budget, which my noble friend Lord Dannatt particularly mentioned, raises questions about what should and should not be done, but I am not absolutely certain that that exercise has been carried out in full.

Mention has been made of the financial direction of all this and the role of the Treasury. Of course, since SDSR 2010 we have had Army 2020, which we all know was an entirely financially driven exercise. The Chief of the General Staff was told by the Permanent Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Defence how much money he could have, and therefore the Army as it is structured today is designed to fit a financial envelope. I do not believe that that is correct in terms of meeting the challenges of an emerging world. The role and the capabilities of the Armed Forces need to be looked at in relation to the challenges they are facing. If you end up with a financial envelope that results in 17 fewer major units, you have not necessarily got something which can meet what had been decided would be the minimum only two years previously. I am concerned about the financial direction of much of this, and I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord King, that the strategic defence and security review should not be just an MoD exercise. It must include all the other connected ministries.

I have not mentioned soft power, but we should remember that of the 0.7% of GDP spent on aid, much of that is actually included in the military budget, so why not look at what the military are contributing as part of that 0.7%? It means that DfID and others must be brought in.

I come to my conclusions about all this, and why I think that the question of timing is so important. My late boss, Field-Marshal Lord Carver, used to say that there were two definitions of the word “affordability”: can you afford it or can you afford to give up what you have to give up in order to afford it? I worry that a lot of things in the defence budget would benefit from scrupulous examination under the terms of the second question. My noble and gallant friend Lord Craig mentioned the nuclear deterrent. I am not going to say anything more—other than that, in order to satisfy the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord King, about the inadequacy of 2% of GDP, consideration ought possibly to be given to whether a political weapon should be removed from the defence budget so that defence planning can be done based on the critical mass needed to meet our challenges, which would produce a conventional element that is capable of underpinning the deterrent. It is, after all, a political weapon and there is no doubt that it is unhinging the defence budget.