Armed Forces

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Soames, for moving this debate. The world is more dangerous and unpredictable than at any time in my 58 years on the active list—a major war is actually taking place in Europe—and yet defence is not often discussed in this Chamber. I hope that will change. I must also make it clear—notwithstanding what I may say about defence shortfalls, and before the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, accuses me of being disloyal to the service I love—that our men and women in the Armed Forces are the best in the world, our Armed Forces are able to conduct almost the whole gamut of military operations and some of our equipment is the best in the world.

But, notwithstanding the siren voices of the Front Bench declaring otherwise, the defence budget is too small. In his resignation letter, Ben Wallace—who, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Soames, should be congratulated on his service to the United Kingdom and global security—stated that the Government have viewed the defence budget as “discretionary spend” and made savings “by hollowing out”. Indeed, he has made constant reference to his concerns over the hollowing out of the Armed Forces and I could list numerous examples today that affect our fighting capability because of that. In his letter, Wallace added:

“I genuinely believe that over the next decade the world will get more insecure and more unstable … now is the time to invest”.


The vast majority of military experts, many of whom are in this House, would agree and consider that defence expenditure should rise significantly, as it has in numerous other countries. The Prime Minister’s letter in response to Wallace’s letter is not that reassuring, talking of defence funding being “on a stable footing” and expressing an aspiration—not a commitment—to reach 2.5% of GDP on defence spending. I believe we urgently need an increase of about £8 million in the defence budget and an immediate commitment to the defence budget being 3% of GDP.

The cry from the Treasury and others will be that there are huge inefficiencies in MoD spending and that by resolving these no extra funding will be required. While it would be foolish to deny that there is scope for efficiency savings—because there is—this will not cover the problem. Yes, we need to speed up and rationalise our procurement system—let us face it, there have been some terrible disasters, Ajax being one currently on the go—and an agreed defence industrial strategy and focus on timely delivery of systems with realistic penalties if not met would help, but defence has suffered from continual so-called efficiency measures for years that in reality are cuts that have reduced military capability. For example, measures taken by the coalition in 2010 reduced our nation’s military capability by one-third and I do not believe that the nation realised that that was done.

Strong armed forces are a crucial deterrent and therefore prevent war. They also have utility in a number of other ways, particularly in terms of national resilience. But in the final analysis they are there to fight and win against the King’s enemies who wish to do our people and our nation harm. That is their prime aim and what they are there for. It seems that recently important social issues have distracted the senior decision-makers in the MoD, who should not forget that a single, unambiguous aim is the keystone of successful military operations and the master principle of war.

The MoD’s other affliction is what I call millennial business speak. What do noble Lords think of the following from the recently produced Maritime Operating Concept?

“Alongside the RN Strategy, it describes the Wise Pivot of the Maritime Force, from a platform-based, role-specific, and aggregated Fleet, to a distributed protean force, operating as a system of systems”.


Lord Nelson gave the following guidance:

“But, in case Signals can neither be seen or perfectly understood, no Captain can do very wrong if he places his Ship alongside that of an Enemy”.


It may lack nuance but is a little easier to understand.

I am sure other Members of the House, with their great knowledge, will identify many areas where hollowing out is affecting our capability. I did not intend doing that and noble Lords will be amazed that I have not mentioned ships—sorry, I just have. My message is that with all the other pressures on resources—and I realise they are huge—we can no longer avoid the hard decision that significantly more needs to be spent on defence if we are to ensure the security and wealth of our nation. After all, it is the prime responsibility of any Government.