Afghanistan: Interpreters
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, since June 2013, 116 cases of intimidation have been reported to the intimidation investigation unit. The IIU investigates claims of intimidation, and an in-theatre decision panel assesses the claim and appropriate response level, depending on the risk to the LEC. The MoD’s labour support unit can confirm that, so far as it is aware, in Afghanistan there have been no deaths of serving LE staff that can be directly linked to intimidation.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, why have the Government been so on the back foot over this issue? The numbers of people involved are minuscule compared with the immigration figures that we have to look at. Other countries are treating people who act as interpreters far better than we do, so I cannot understand why we are so on the back foot. Where is our generosity of spirit? This will affect us in future operations around the world. It is difficult to understand who in government is stopping this happening.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, we are not on the back foot. The intimidation policy has been reviewed, and will be kept under review as appropriate, to ensure that it provides a robust and responsive means for addressing concerns appropriately. This will take account of the current security threat and the lessons learnt from handling cases and consultations with local staff. I have a list of what other countries—our allies—do, and it is very much along the same lines as what we do. I am very happy to write to the noble Lord with information on that.
Defence Reform Bill
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, 72 years ago today in the South China Sea, HMS “Prince of Wales” and HMS “Repulse” were sunk by the Japanese. They were the first British capital ships to be sunk by aircraft and the last battleship and battle cruiser lost in action by our nation. I mention this because our debate today does not take place in a vacuum. In the final analysis, procurement is of importance to future UK strategy and the lives of our people.
On the Defence Reform Bill, I have considerable sympathy with what has been said by previous speakers, although the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, was wrong about the previous Government not trying to solve procurement problems. They tried in many ways to do that, but, like many Governments before, were defeated. Indeed, they even went so far as to call in Bernard Gray to find a way forward.
I believe that Part 1 of the Bill is now redundant. The noble Lord, Lord King, has explained very clearly why it is a real problem. The Government should think carefully about leaving it within the Bill, not least because of the uncertainty caused to industry but there are other factors as well. I was surprised that the Secretary of State’s Statement should come less than two hours before our debate, which is a slightly strange procedure and has made it quite difficult to focus on the detail, but I am sure that Part 1 has to go.
There is no doubt that the GOCO option was very high-risk. Indeed, many of us, including the noble Lord, Lord Levene of Portsoken, whom we have just heard talk so persuasively about this issue, and the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, have been vociferous in our opposition to the proposal. It is of great interest to note that Bernard Gray, who is the champion of GOCO, put the same proposal to the previous Government in 2006, who after considerable deliberation dismissed the idea as risky and potentially damaging to the national interest.
What is beyond doubt is that we have to do something about our procurement organisation—all of us have said that and all of us are aware of that—not least because, since SDR 2010, the procurement organisation failure to let contracts has resulted in about £1 billion of underspend each year that is lost to the department, even allowing for some rollover.
In its 2011 report, Ideas for Future UK Defence Procurement, Labour highlighted the problematic issues of defence procurement which had existed for decades and which, despite attempts such as the defence industrial strategy, smart procurement and calling in Bernard Gray, had not really been resolved. The summary of the recommendations of that review would be worth the Government’s scrutiny—indeed, they seem to have copied some of the ideas because DE&S-plus is very similar in many ways as it is being put forward. In naval parlance, I say, “Bravo Zulu”—the flag hoist for “well done”—to them for having taken some of those ideas on board.
Indeed, I would be pleased if the Secretary of State really had made a U-turn on GOCO. I know how embarrassing U-turns can be. When I was a Minister, I was in the back of a cab and the cabbie said, “I am going to do an Admiral West”. It was at the time of the 42 days debacle, if I can call it that. I said, “What?” and he said, “I am doing a U-turn”. I know how embarrassing it can be: you can get known for these sorts of things.
We must ensure that the DE&S-plus option has that small number of really special people at the top who have that commercial knowledge touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Levene. I second what the noble Lord, Lord King, said. In the Statement by the Secretary of State, I love where it mentions that,
“crucially, we will permit the new organisation significant freedoms and flexibilities, agreed with the Treasury and Cabinet Office, around how it recruits, rewards, retains and manages staff along more commercial lines”.
That is really important, as the noble Lord, Lord King, touched on. However, it is not appropriate that Bernard Gray should be the chief executive of this, particularly if we leave Part 1 in the Bill. For 10 years or so, he has consistently pushed to have this and he will sit there while a Government will have the ability just to slot into the new system with no further real debate in this House. I do not think that that is appropriate. I find it quite surprising that Gray has been pushed forward for that.
On Part 2 of the Bill, relating to single-source contracts, I have concerns about the independence of the SSRO. That will need to be looked at very carefully in the debates over the next few weeks. There are some commercial sensibilities and difficulties here, as was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer. However, I am generally supportive of this and think it is going in the right direction.
On Part 3, I and many others have had concerns about recruiting reservists but it is important to put that in context. The reduction in the size of the Regular Army stemming from SDSR 2010 is on track. I have been very impressed by the effort that the Army has put into doing that, the way it has thought of things laterally and what has been done. That reduction calls for an Army in 2020 of 82,500 regulars. It is quite clear that the money to pay for more than those numbers will not be there post-2016 so things have to be done. It is quite right that the Army has done them.
Any talk of reversing this reduction and restructuring the Army is extremely foolhardy. For example, with the 8,500 men made redundant over the past 15 months, it would take about 15 years to grow those numbers again. Once you change the course of something like the Army, you cannot change it back again quickly. We must proceed with the next tranche of redundancies—I think it is about 1,500 but do not know—because we have to keep the course and momentum going. Recruiting of reservists is, strangely, a different issue. The Army apparently always knew that it would take five to six years to recruit up to the numbers required, so there is not a direct link to regular numbers by time. We need to be aware of that.
What is clear is that the removal of the serving soldiers from the recruiting service—about 800 of them—has had a devastating effect on recruitment, and Capita has not covered itself in glory. Shortfalls in IT have once again raised their ugly head and caused real problems. There are real problems in recruiting, to which I am sure the Government and the Secretary of State will apply themselves. We need to get this right, even allowing for the time-lag to do it. There are also problems with SMEs, for example, in allowing people to join. That has been touched on by a number of noble Lords, not least the noble Lords, Lord Palmer and Lord King. That will need to be resolved as well.
Lastly, we need to put down a marker that we cannot allow SDSR 2015 to be the disaster that SDSR 2010 was. Defence needs a budget that is a flat line plus 2%. We must not allow the SDSR, which will come two weeks after the general election, to knock off track such complex plans as, for example, Army 2020—just to pick on the Army one. It could do that if we get it wrong. The SDSR must be underpinned by an updated national security strategy, finished in plenty of time to allow SDSR 2015 to be conducted in a timely and not a rushed manner, as was done for SDSR 2010. We owe our people nothing less than that.
Defence: Type 26 Global Combat Ship
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord West of Spithead
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the expected build rate and planned life for the T26 global combat ship.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Astor of Hever) (Con)
My Lords, the Type 26 global combat ship programme is currently in its assessment phase. As is standard practice with equipment projects, the final design, equipment fit and build programme will not be set until the main investment decision has been taken, when the design is more mature. This decision is expected towards the end of 2014. Our current planning assumption is for the construction of 13 Type 26s with a planned service life of around 25 years.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the reply, and for letting me have sight of it before today. He will be aware of the force-level formula which relates build rates to the planned life of a warship. Although this Answer undoubtedly raises a whole raft of questions, not least those relating to manpower and shipbuilding, I want to focus on just one. Have we really decided that this great maritime nation of ours needs only 13 frigates? Only four years ago, 18 was considered too risky; at the time of the Falklands, we had 40. Has there been a realistic, in-depth study of the requirement for the number of frigates—I am talking about frigates, not destroyers or other things—or is the number 13 based purely on an arbitrary cost figure? In the final analysis, defence of the nation is the top priority for any Government of whatever hue, and I believe that we are standing into danger.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that defence of the nation is absolutely the top priority of the Government. That is why we are undertaking the Type 26 global combat ship programme. The Type 26 will become the backbone of the Royal Navy from around 2020, and the programme will help sustain surface warship capability in the United Kingdom after the construction of the carriers. This multibillion-pound investment will secure thousands of skilled shipbuilding jobs across the UK for decades to come.
Armed Forces: Territorial Army
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the Chief of the General Staff is doing a very good job. I have considerable briefing on the question that the noble and gallant Lord and the noble Lord raised on SMEs and national insurance. It will take me some time to find it—but I will write to the noble Lord. We have always expected there to be a dip in the level of the reserves before they increase as we are changing the fitness requirements and deployability of the force. To reassure the noble Lord, a target of 30,000 trained Army reservists is well within historical norms. We had 72,000 trained reservists as recently as 1990.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, is not the real problem that we are spending far too little on defence? At this moment, we have HMS “Daring” doing a grand job in the Philippines, but it is one of only 19 destroyers and frigates.
Is it possible to put more money into the cadet forces? They do a wonderful job by taking youngsters off the streets, looking after them, encouraging them and growing them; and 30% of them end up as NCOs in our forces.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, the noble Lord raises an important point which I will take back to my department. I agree with what he said about the cadets. I was patron of my local sea cadets and I am well aware of the good work that they do.
Defence: Aircraft Carriers and UK Shipbuilding
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I am saddened but not surprised by the tone of this announcement. My main reason for that is that there is not a single mention of strategic or operational requirements. My noble friend Lord Rosser mentioned that the Statement said that the Government looked at this and asked whether it would cost more to cancel the carriers than to build them. I would absolutely hope that the reason we build something like a carrier is that we need them for our nation’s security, which we do. There is no reflection of that anywhere in the Statement, or of the sovereign requirement for a shipbuilding capability. We do not build ships for admirals to play with in the bath; there is actually a requirement for them. That is why we do it. Was there any discussion in the National Security Council, of any length—I would like to know how long, if the Minister can tell me—about the strategic requirement for a sovereign shipbuilding capability within this country? It is widely understood that the 19 escorts, which is all we have, are too few in number. Therefore, we will hopefully at some stage start to build more. Is one building stream in Scotland enough to cover that? I do not think that it is. Has this been debated and looked at? It certainly was not touched upon in this paper.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, we must face up to the fact that the coalition Government inherited a much smaller Navy from the noble Lord’s Government. On the operational requirements, the First Sea Lord came to see me this morning and has offered to brief Peers on how he sees these carriers being used. I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord West, that we need the carriers. They are built to be used.
Armed Forces: Redundancies
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I had not expected to speak today but, having heard some very good speeches and feeling as strongly about this issue as I do, I had to say something. Our men and women in the forces are amazingly resilient and strong, and put up with all sort of things being thrown at them. Morale in the front line is amazingly high when one bears in mind all the vicissitudes they suffer. There is a crucial element, which the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, touched on: trust. I am sure that the Minister—for whom I have great respect—knows this and I am sure that when he was a subaltern, he would not have dreamt of not looking after his people first. It is imbued in all of us in the military that you look after your people first. That responsibility goes right to the top of the MoD or wherever.
I am afraid that this treatment—particularly of this small group but also more generally with some of these redundancies—is shabby and not what one expects of the MoD and our military. It will have an impact on people, which is extremely worrying. We cannot afford to have that impact put on our people when they are under so many other pressures. We have heard how good some people think the military covenant is, but it makes a nonsense of that covenant if we are willing to do something like this. I hope that the Minister will be able to come up with some form of words and say that something can be done to look at this. I am well aware of where you draw the line and all those difficulties. I have been involved in similar situations. We have done these things in the past and it really is too important just to brush under the carpet.
Armed Forces: Human Rights Legislation
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, we are concerned that the Supreme Court judgment creates uncertainties in the law that could well impair the ability of the Armed Forces to make robust and timely decisions which are necessary to our national defence. We intend to defend these combat-related claims rigorously.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister not think that this is another example of a number of cases where people are looking at combat through the prism of peacetime? We have seen some extraordinary decisions made in coroners’ courts. We have seen some extraordinary things come out about Bloody Sunday, and we are seeing an extraordinary position as regards the issue being discussed today; I agree totally with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, on the subject. Is it not important that we should get the message across that combat is different? A number of us in this Chamber have been in combat and we know that decisions are made in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. People around you are either dying or are in fear of dying and sometimes information is very scant, whereas those with all of the information are taking hours and hours on a warm and balmy afternoon to come to decisions about our military. When we talk about the military covenant, in the end the most important for our military is to be given the ability and the tools to actually fight and win. All of these things are negating that ability.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I agree with every word that the noble Lord has said and welcome the opportunity to discuss the issue in much greater detail on 7 November during the debate tabled by my noble friend Lord Faulks.
Ministry of Defence: Dogs
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I am very happy to look at that. The situation in this country is that the decision to put a dog to sleep is taken by a veterinary officer and only after all possible avenues have been exhausted. From 2010 to June 2013, sadly, 300 dogs had to be put down, and the reasons for this included injury, illness and age-related welfare reasons. As I have said, those cases were looked at by veterinary officers and the decision was taken only as a last resort.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that we have a good track record in this country of looking after animals within the military? I am sure he will be interested to hear that when we did Options for Change at the beginning of the 1990s, our one study into animals within the forces, known colloquially as the Winalot study, discovered, to the surprise of the Navy, that Army and Air Force dogs had a higher per diem rate for food than officers and men within the Royal Navy.
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, that is a very interesting question and I will consider it closely.
Armed Forces: Human Rights
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, with regard to making the MoD more cautious, looking around the House I can see noble Lords and noble and gallant Lords who, in their time, had to take very difficult operational decisions on land, at sea and in the air. I am sure that they would agree that we must ensure that commanders have the confidence to take decisions that often must be made in the heat of combat to obtain their objective with the least possible loss of life.
As for the equipment, the most important priority is the protection of our troops. Since this litigation started, the wide range of protective vehicles, including Mastiff, Ridgeback, Husky, Wolfhound, Jackal and Foxhound, have been available to commanders to match the most appropriate available vehicle to a specific task, based on the assessment of operational risk. Every effort is made to bring troops’ kit up to spec for the job they do and continuously to update it as technology advances.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, 31 years ago my ship was bombed and sunk close inshore in the Falkland Islands during the amphibious landings, and its AA weapons systems were totally inadequate in the position in which it was placed. I knew that, as the commanding officer, and my task group commander knew that, but it is the duty of military men to fight the war they are in with the equipment they have. It is clearly a total nonsense that one can use human rights legislation to go against that. Indeed, if we had not done that, we would not have won that war. Will the Minister not agree that it is totally bonkers to apply this sort of legislation to war?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, the noble Lord rightly raises the issue that we are grappling with at the moment.
Armed Forces: Redundancies
Lord West of Spithead Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, I think I covered the question of morale in my previous answer. As to redundancies in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, in tranche 1, 2,800 personnel—just over 1,000 Royal Navy, 920 Army and 920 RAF—were selected for redundancy, of which 62% were applicants. In tranche 2 of the Armed Forces redundancy programme, 3,760 personnel—165 Royal Navy, 2,880 Army and 750 RAF—were selected for redundancy. Achieving the reductions required to bring the Regular Army to a strength of 82,000 is expected to require a further redundancy tranche, which may also include medical personnel of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. However, at this point, no decision on this has been taken.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, the Minister is aware that the Chief of the General Staff and the Secretary of State for Defence are both on record as saying that any further cuts would dramatically impact on our military capability. All of us who have any knowledge of the MoD know that there is insufficient funding for Future Force 2020, to which the Minister referred. Notwithstanding this and assuming that there will be further cuts, have we conducted a detailed analysis—rather like the highly regarded global strategy paper that was produced—looking at the true impact of these forced reductions on our Armed Forces’ ability to conduct the military operations that our nation has a right to expect of them?
Lord Astor of Hever
My Lords, on the first part of the noble Lord’s question, as he would expect, I agree with the Secretary of State. On the issue of detailed analysis, as the noble Lord knows there are some very bright people in the Ministry of Defence and I can assure him that endless meetings are taking place to discuss the way forward.