Lord Tunnicliffe
Main Page: Lord Tunnicliffe (Labour - Life peer)
The Earl of Courtown
I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his question. He is quite right that concerns were raised in the newspapers by General Hodges. The fact is that all these budgets are under some pressure or other. Any speculation about the measures the Government will take through the NSCR is exactly that—speculation. No decisions have been taken. Rumours in the press have been misleading and deeply unhelpful.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, we are to have a national security and capability review—that is code for “more defence cuts”. We have a statement from Ben Hodges, commander of the US Army in Europe, who said that if the UK,
“can’t maintain and sustain the level of commitments it’s fulfilling right now, then I think it risks kind of going into a different sort of category”—
that is code for “we will become second-class allies”. How does the Minister reconcile this with the Statement by the then Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, in 2013, when he said—nay, boasted:
“The savings that I have agreed will have no impact on military manpower or equipment”?
He went on to say:
“The ambitious and far-reaching reforms we began in 2010 have eliminated the £38 billion black hole and balanced the defence budget for the first time in a generation. We are determined to ensure that the Armed Forces of the future have the resources they need to deliver our nation’s security”.
There has been an impact on manpower and equipment. We have failed to balance the defence budget and Ben Hodges clearly believes that in the future we will not have the resources to deliver our nation’s security.
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, I repeat that our Armed Forces are fulfilling their commitments across the globe and this Government will ensure that they continue to do so. I remind the House—as many Ministers have in the past—that our investment of 2% of UK GDP in defence gives us a leadership role in operations and exercises. To name just some of the activities currently under way, we are proud of our leading role in NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence, NATO air policing and NATO standing naval forces. We continue to play a pivotal role in coalition operations against Daesh.