British Army: Troop Size

Debate between Lord Robathan and Earl Howe

Monday 27th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe (Con)]

The noble Baroness will remember that, as part of the spending review of 2020, MoD secured a generous £24 billon uplift to its budget. This will enable the Armed Forces generally to invest in things that they would not otherwise have been able to, including spending £6.6 billion on R&D, establishing a new space command, developing the next generation of naval vessels, developing a new combat air system for the RAF and enhancing our cyber capabilities. So a multitude of work is going on to improve the capability and capacity of all of our Armed Forces.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, given that, in 1946, Churchill in particular said that our allies the Russians—they were our allies—particularly despise military weakness, does the Minister genuinely think that today is a good time to reduce the Army, as we are doing as we speak?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, through history, the same effects have been delivered by fewer and fewer people due to the smart employment of new technology. In our own day, robotics and artificial intelligence play into exactly the same trend: in reconnaissance, one drone can do a job done by scores of people in the past. So this emphasis on the integration of emerging technology will make an enormous difference to the capability of the Army and indeed across the Armed Forces.