D-day Memorial

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my noble friend is right to acknowledge the gallant and important role played by the Polish 1st Armoured Division under General Maczek, and the sacrifices that it made in the final defeat and destruction of the enemy forces in Normandy. Its determination to hold the line and block the retreat of the German army from the Falaise pocket was a major factor in the capture of some 50,000 enemy personnel. Its efforts are marked by the monument that crowns Mont Ormel, but the construction of an education centre may well—subject to the wishes of the trustees—provide a means of telling its story in a graphic way.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord West of Spithead]

I would not want to get in the way of an ambassador. They get into trouble too easily.

[Lord Ricketts]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I declare an interest as chairman of the Normandy Memorial Trust. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk, for raising the issue with the House today, and for the generosity that the Government have shown towards the memorial project so far. Does the Minister agree that the project to commemorate the 22,500 under British command who fell during the Battle of Normandy has been very much adopted by the public with widespread support, following the launch event on 6 June, as evidenced by the fact that we have since received over half a million pounds in public donations? Can he reassure the House that as we move to finish the memorial in time for next summer, we can continue to count on the support of HMG?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, and his fellow trustees, who include the noble Lords, Lord Dannatt and Lord Janvrin, deserve great credit for the way in which they are taking forward this important project. As the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, knows, the Government have already provided significant support through the Libor fund, but we are naturally keen to assist the trust in other ways, so far as we are able.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, this is a good news story so far, and I too thank the trustees. This is not before time. We have had lots of little memorials around Normandy, but nothing specific that covers all three of our services in one place—and that is extremely important. One of the joys for me is that listed on the memorial will be the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy people who died on the beaches and offshore, as no memorial does that at present. It is interesting that, of the 5,500 British ships off Normandy, the biggest was HMS “Rodney”, whose 16-inch guns destroyed several Waffen SS battalions that were trying to advance. She of course was built well before the war, and there is a need to have ships before wars happen; they stop them happening and, if they do happen, we need them. Does the Minister not think that it is about time we ordered some frigates so that we will be in a good place if something does happen?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I agree fully with the noble Lord that the Royal Navy plays a vital role in the defence of the nation and of our interests around the world. As he will be aware, the first Type 26 frigate is now under construction, and we look forward to seeing the Type 31 emerging over the next few years.

Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz: Merchant Shipping

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to protect United Kingdom and other merchant shipping in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK works closely with the shipping industry through the maritime trade organisation and other regional partners to share information on the risks in the maritime environment. At this time, we are working through diplomatic channels to de-escalate tensions in the region that threaten the free flow of shipping and the wider international community.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for his semi non-Answer. There is no doubt that protecting and defending one’s people and ships always risks escalation, but that does not mean that one should not defend and protect one’s people and ships. Is he absolutely sure that we have enough assets in place and that we are approaching this in the right way so that we do not have a recurrence of the disgraceful surrender of royal naval personnel in the northern Gulf in 2007 to a swarm of Republican Guard vessels, because the Iranians have form on breaking rules at sea and then lying about exactly what happened? We should be working with the Americans and other allies to look at taking convoys of ships through. Six have been damaged so far. When the next couple of incidents happen, if we have not done anything, we will be culpable.

[Earl Howe]

I entirely accept the noble Lord’s point about ensuring proper and adequate force protection for our people and assets in the region. As he knows, the UK has a permanent presence in the Gulf in support of international maritime security operations. We conduct routine deployments to the region. Royal Navy vessels, including the frigate HMS “Montrose”, four mine countermeasure vessels and the RFA “Cardigan Bay”, are currently deployed to the Gulf region to assist international efforts to protect trade and shipping. But we are in no doubt that in seeking to de-escalate the situation, as I described, those assets need to be properly defended.

Defence: Expenditure

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we recognise that there is an affordability gap in our equipment programme. I have said this before. If we did nothing, the programme would be unaffordable. But we are taking action and, with careful management, particularly using the contingencies we have and budgeting for efficiencies, which we are already scoring, we believe that the equipment programme will be affordable.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Earl’s Answer was rather complacent. There is no doubt that this is a clarion call from the Foreign Secretary. As was said, he is in the best position to judge what the balance between hard power and soft power should be. Soft power is very important, but we have whittled hard power down since 2010. It has reduced and reduced. We have a surface shipbuilding strategy with only three ships in the next 10 years, so far. If you have a shipbuilding strategy, you need ships. There is a hollowing out of defence. Can I ask the noble Earl what the plans are now within the MoD, bearing in mind that there are huge shortfalls because the savings measures to make good the figures that they are balancing are just not there, and the comprehensive spending review seems to be shot to ribbons? What are the MoD plans for actually moving ahead? Are they planning more cuts, or are they planning to enhance the areas where there have been reductions and hollowing out?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we should not overlook the fact that we have a £39 billion core defence budget. That will rise to almost £40 billion by 2020-21. The Ministry of Defence’s budget will rise by at least 0.5% in real terms every year of this Parliament. However, we come back to my noble friend’s Question about the percentages of GDP that we should be spending. If there is a right number for defence, it is the amount of money that is necessary to fund defence outputs. What should those outputs be? The answer—which I hope the noble Lord takes comfort from—is that the modernising defence programme has established a set of policy approaches which will help keep us on track to deliver the right UK defence for the coming decade, against the background of the threats facing us.

NATO

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for tabling this debate. I fear that issues of defence seem to have little traction in this place, in the body politic as a whole or, indeed, in the nation at large. This debate was tabled at very short notice, as my noble friend Lord Robertson has said. That is unfortunate because I think a number of people who would have liked to have spoken have been unable to because of prior commitments.

Sadly, it tends to take a war to change the political and national interest in defence. There is no doubt that insufficient investment, both in intellectual understanding of the world in which we live—its relationship to our national grand strategy—and necessary defence funding, make war more likely. A splendid example of this is that 37 years ago today, the Argentinians invaded the Falkland Islands. The fact that there was tension down there was well above the radar horizon, but we were not focused on it. We withdrew HMS “Endurance” for a saving of £16 million, in what in those days were called the long-term costings. What did that cost our nation in terms of getting defence wrong? It cost us £3.5 billion, and 300 men killed, so debates such as this are crucial.

I have to say that it is rather refreshing to have a debate not directly linked to Brexit, but as is the case with so many things, there are significant issues involving the EU and NATO, and thus the dreaded B word does raise its head. The Minister and my noble friend Lord Robertson have explained that membership of NATO is fundamental to the defence of our nation, and they are right. It is also crucial to the defence of Europe, and be in no doubt—a secure, safe Europe is critical to the safety of our island home. What has been a concern for many years, as stated, is that the continental nations of Europe in NATO have for decades been getting defence on the cheap. Most have not invested sufficiently in their armed forces, and have relied on the USA and to a lesser extent—until recently—the United Kingdom to foot the bill. Even worse, when spending money, they have spent on lavish headquarters and extra, often undeployable people, rather than fighting equipment and fully deployable forces.

This situation, as has been mentioned, is slowly improving with the NATO commitment for countries to spend 2% of GDP on defence and enhancing the amount spent on new equipment and procurement. Most of them are not there yet, I am afraid, but there are moves in the right direction. Sadly, I feel the pressures for an EU army and the European Defence Union are pulling in another direction. The establishment of more headquarters and command structures, often replicating those that NATO already has in a suboptimal way, is dangerous posturing. One cannot help wondering if the PESCO arrangements are primarily aimed at spending more on EU defence firms and excluding other nations, such as the UK, rather than getting the best and most equipment for the limited funds available.

What is clear is that, whatever the outcome of Brexit, NATO is our nation’s most important defence alliance, and although the security of Europe is critical to the security of these islands, the United States is our most important defence ally. Having said that, we must continue to work closely with our European neighbours, as we have done for decades. The military links between us and France, for example—a country that does bear its proper burden of defence spending— are closer than any time since World War II. It is pointless having a grand military alliance if there are no threats. As has been said, 73 years ago this month in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill clearly articulated the geographical division of Europe:

“From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent”.


NATO was established on 4 April 1949 to counter the very real possibility of a Soviet invasion of Europe. We know, having seen all its documents following the collapse of the Soviet Union, that there was a very real intention to invade Europe and to take over the whole of that continent. Of course, NATO’s Article 5 was the solution that stopped the Iron Curtain moving westwards. We have had quotes from General Hastings Ismay; the one I rather like was when he said that the whole reason for NATO is,

“to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down”.

Much has changed since then, I hasten to add.

With the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in February 1991 and the Soviet Union disintegrating in December 1991, what was NATO for? I was made very aware of the problem when at the end of 1991, while serving as head of naval intelligence, I was tasked with going to NATO headquarters and leading the revision of MC 161, which is the NATO intelligence bible. That is extremely difficult when your enemy has suddenly disappeared but the world was full of risks and threats, which have increased over the last quarter of a century. The foundational concepts of the post-World War II belief in democracy and capitalism are challenged as never before, and the geographic dominance of—for want of better words—the West and its underlying precepts of justice, rule of law and human rights are at risk. Like-minded nations which believed in the world order established after World War II need to hold together. New and returning actors in Russia and the East do not accept the status quo; some wish the system to collapse and are demanding a rearrangement of the participants at the tables of power.

NATO has found itself involved in central Asia. As the Minister mentioned, its involvement in Afghanistan was a direct result of the only time in NATO’s history that Article 5 has been enacted. NATO was also involved in the Balkans, the Levant, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the north African littoral. However, now we are confronted by a re-emergent Russia that has expansionist ambitions. Indeed, it seems intent on disregarding the world order and destabilising nations around the world.

I mentioned earlier that for the past 70 years, the continental NATO nations have relied on the USA—and, to a lesser extent, the UK—to foot the bill for their security and defence. I added the proviso “until recently” because since 2010, that has no longer been the case. The UK has reduced its military capability to a level that is insufficient to ensure its own security, let alone that of other nations. Indeed, I doubt that we are any longer capable of meeting fully all of our commitments to NATO.

To take just one fighting environment, that of the maritime, at the end of the Cold War we were seen as the bedrock of NATO’s naval power in the eastern Atlantic. Our submarines—some 21 of them—were capable of countering forays by Soviet nuclear submarines trying to penetrate south of the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap. Hence they were able to protect US and UK ballistic missile submarines. They were also capable of penetrating the Soviet ballistic missile submarine bastions up in the Arctic, north of the Kola peninsula. They were supported by Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft—we had over 30 at that stage—that were probably the best in the world at that time. In addition, we had about 50 destroyers and frigates, a number of which were specialist anti-submarine platforms with towed array sonar.

The US striking fleet completely depended on us for anti-submarine warfare support. The UK ASW striking force consisted of an “Invincible” class carrier with ASW dunking sonar and sonar-buoy capable large helicopters, along with a mix of the assets I have talked about. We deployed Royal Marines annually: a full brigade was earmarked for war to north Norway to exercise with our allies and deter the Soviets from invasion. Holding north Norway would enable the US striking fleet to reach launch positions to decimate the Soviet military complexes in the Kola, which so threatened us.

What is the significance of the fact that we had that capability? Surely the Cold War is over. But the broad North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans are no longer safe and secure, and it is the Atlantic that links Europe to its most important ally. Russia has modernised her SSN fleet and is again deploying attack submarines south of the GIUK gap on a scale not seen since the end of the Cold War. Why? She is building a new class of submarine-launched ballistic missiles—not just a new class of submarines for them. She has used specialist submarines and surface ships to identify and interfere with the undersea cables that are so crucial to the global financial system. Why? Russia is making unsubstantiated claims of ownership to vast areas of the Arctic seabed. Norway feels herself under threat; her gas fields are crucial to our energy supply and economy.

NATO is, to an extent, waking up, seeing the need for a North Atlantic command. The UK has signed a memorandum of understanding with Iceland designed to enhance our capability for looking north. We have rejuvenated winter deployments to north Norway, although we now have only a commando group available for that. We have started looking north again, after focusing on south-west Asia for a very long time.

The United Kingdom is the most important maritime power in NATO Europe, but cuts to our Navy since 2010 mean that we can no longer ensure the security of the waters in which we live. Just in numerical terms, in comparison with the end of the Cold War we now have six versus 14 nuclear attack submarines, 19 versus 50 escorts, no MPA at all, 25 versus 77 heavy helicopters, and a commando group versus a commando brigade. Quality is important but numbers also matter.

It is right to celebrate NATO’s 70th birthday. It has been an amazing alliance—probably the most successful in history, and it has ensured our safety throughout its existence. We owe it to NATO, to Europe and to ourselves to reinvest in defence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating, wide-ranging and constructive debate, and I have been very firmly struck by the support which our great NATO alliance commands in your Lordships’ House in its 70th year. I feel sure I will not be alone in finding that enormous and enduring fund of good will both heartening and reassuring. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken for sharing their knowledge and experience of defence and security policy, and of NATO in particular. In expressing support for the alliance, it is perhaps unsurprising that a number of contributors chose to home in on the theme of resources and defence spending among NATO allies. The noble Lords, Lord Robertson and Lord West, spoke of the need for allies to channel those budgets wisely to deliver effective military capability.

Allies have committed to spend 2% of GDP on defence by 2024: that commitment was repeated at last July’s NATO summit. The UK has made it clear that the 2% commitment should be seen as a floor, not a ceiling, but equally I do not believe we should fixate on percentages. As the noble Lords, Lord Robertson and Lord Judd, said, it is about looking at what the threats are and then at how we have the capabilities to deal with them, making sure that those capabilities are properly financed and supported. I understand the call from my noble friend Lord Sterling that we in this country should spend more on defence. In the UK, we spend a minimum of 2% of GDP on defence; we also meet the target of spending 20% of our defence budget on new equipment and associated R&D. We are forecast to increase the proportion of our GDP spent on defence in 2018-19 and 2019-20, after the October 2018 Budget announcement. We should appreciate that the resultant figure will remain considerably above the 2% benchmark.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, criticised some of the areas of spending we count under the defence heading. I am sure she will know, but will not mind my repeating, that it is NATO that determines the definitions for categorising defence spending, not the UK. Like other NATO allies, the UK regularly updates its approach to ensure it is categorising defence spending fully in accordance with the NATO guidelines. We did this during the SDSR following machinery-of-government changes, as well as to reflect the changing nature of defence spending over time.

The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and my noble friend Lord Patten, among other speakers, emphasised the importance of fairer burden sharing between allies. We can reasonably argue that this is a case of a glass nearly half full. Allies are making significant progress on burden sharing. The Secretary-General has calculated that non-US allies will spend an additional $100 billion between 2016 and 2020, increasing to over $350 billion by 2024, and eight allies will be spending 2% this year. We welcome the growing number of allies that have made commitments to meeting the 2% target by 2024, but there is more to be done. We cannot ignore the fact that some allies are spending less than 1.5% of GDP on defence, and three of these are spending less than 1%. I assure the House that we will continue to work with allies to ensure that defence investment is prioritised and sustained.

This is not, however, spending for the sake of spending. It must be considered with the other aspects of alliance burden sharing. That includes cash; capabilities, or what capabilities allies assign to the alliance; and commitments, in other words the NATO operations and missions that allies contribute to. That is why the pledge also includes agreement that:

“Increased investments should be directed towards meeting”,


NATO “capability priorities”, and that allies should,

“display the political will to provide required capabilities and … forces when they are needed”.

The noble Lord, Lord West, referred to the need to maintain complementarity between NATO and the EU in a defence context, a theme echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. The UK’s vision is of every European nation stepping up to modern security challenges, taking responsibility, sharing the burden and investing in our shared security. We must have a united, modernised and fully resourced NATO, able to fulfil its crucial collective defence role and taking a comprehensive approach to Euro-Atlantic defence and security. We need deep security and defence partnerships between like-minded and capable nations, strengthening co-ordination and interoperability and underpinning our work in multilateral organisations. We also need a globally competitive and outward-facing European defence industrial and technological base, driving innovation and delivering the capabilities that Europe needs for its security.

There is frequent discussion on the theme of EU strategic autonomy. We agree that Europe needs to do more to improve its own security and that the EU can play a valuable supporting role, whether using its political weight and economic levers or supporting member states in countering hybrid tactics, building resilience and developing vital defence capabilities and interoperability.

[Lord West of Spithead]

Does the Minister not think there are real dangers in the route the EU is going down, with PESCO, the European Defence Fund and the fact that, in our negotiations with it, on a couple of occasions now we have been stonewalled when it comes to UK industry being involved in things—and one can think separately of Galileo? Is it doing the best for the defence of us all in a European or NATO context?

[Earl Howe]

I very much agree. We find the concept of EU or European strategic autonomy problematic if, as it appears to be, it drives an EU-exclusive or enclosed, institutionalised approach to security and defence that shuts out key strategic partners and could duplicate or undermine NATO. We see that exclusive approach prevailing in EU defence initiatives such as the European Defence Fund and PESCO, which otherwise have the potential to boost, in a coherent way, much-needed investment and support to capability development. That is exactly why we will continue to argue in favour of an open and flexible approach, to ensure that European security benefits from the capabilities and resources that the EU’s closest strategic partners can bring to bear.

My noble friend Lord Patten and the noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Touhig, all spoke powerfully and with authority about Russia, undoubtedly NATO’s most significant long-term challenge. I listened with great respect too to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, on this topic. The November incident in the Black Sea has shown vividly how serious the Russia challenge has become and how robust we must be in response. Noble Lords will be well aware that NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia, but recent Russian actions, including the Black Sea incident, have confirmed that NATO’s dual-track approach to Russia, of strengthened deterrence and defence backed up by hard-headed dialogue, is justified. We reaffirmed this approach at the Brussels summit last July, and will do so again at the foreign ministerial meeting in Washington this month.

As my noble friend said, Russia will continue to look for different ways to test NATO and its allies and partners. In both words and deeds, we need to be prepared to respond, and that is why NATO is already adapting its political and military posture. We are committed to driving forward efforts to modernise NATO, as I mentioned in my opening speech, enabling the alliance to respond to the threats it faces more effectively and with more agility. To test that agility and to enhance our contribution, as I am sure my noble friend Lord Attlee will have observed, the UK deployed some 3,300 personnel, as well as ships and planes, to Norway for NATO’s biggest exercise in 2018; exercise Trident Juncture had some 50,000 troops from 31 NATO and partner nations. This delivered undoubtedly a strong signal that allies can operate at an impressive scale and move across Europe in the event of a crisis. Again, my noble friend will be interested to know that, in spring and summer this year, we will demonstrate a robust posture in the Baltic region by our participation in the US-led BALTOPS exercise, Baltic Protector and a range of other military activities. We have also deployed 800 Royal Marines to Norway in 2019 to take part in cold-weather training. In March last year, a Royal Navy submarine took part in ICEX with the US Navy for the first time in 10 years, and the Navy will mount regular under-ice deployments in the years to come. There is much else that we are doing to up the tempo of our activity as a proportionate response to an assertive Russian posture.

We are also constantly looking at how we can build other structures that complement NATO as the bedrock of our defence. Last June, the Defence Secretary signed the comprehensive memorandum of understanding establishing the joint expeditionary force with our eight partners in that agreement. This year, the JEF signature activity will be the Baltic protector deployment, a large-scale maritime and amphibious exercise in the Baltic Sea, as I mentioned, between May and July 2019.

My noble friend Lord Cormack spoke with his customary sincerity about the need to ensure that we improve relations with Russia. On dialogue, NATO should continue to engage with Russia when it is appropriate and in our interests to do so, so that we can clearly communicate our positions. Periodic focused and meaningful dialogue through the NATO-Russia Council provides a means to avoid misunderstanding, miscalculation and unintended escalation, and to increase transparency and predictability.

In addition, to the NATO-Russia Council, we continue to use other fora, such as the OSCE and direct mil-mil links, to mitigate the risk of escalation and to voice concerns over Russian behaviour, including its failure to uphold treaty obligations. However, I have to tell my noble friend that, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, reminded us, there can be no return to business as usual until there is clear, constructive change in Russia’s actions that demonstrate compliance with international law and its international obligations.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend, Lord Cormack and the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, mentioned China. It is instructive to remind ourselves of the words of the NATO Secretary-General in February this year:

“NATO and China have already worked together to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia. And our militaries are in regular contact. But China’s rise also presents a challenge. One example is of course the concern many Allies have expressed about China’s increasing investment in critical infrastructure, such as 5G. We have to better understand the size and the scale of China’s influence, what it means for our security. And we have to address it together”.


I would add that from the UK’s perspective China is an important economic partner. We do not expect to agree with the Chinese Government on everything, but we strongly support China’s greater integration into more of the world’s key institutions and organisations as its global role and responsibilities grow. We are committed to our relationship with China, which enables both countries to benefit and also allows us to be frank with one another on areas where we disagree.

The noble Lords, Lord Touhig and Lord Bilimoria, spoke of the current difficulties in the relationship between the United States and Turkey. We have repeatedly raised our concerns at ministerial and official level about the proposed Turkish purchase of S-400 missiles. Turkey is a valued NATO ally on the front line of some of the UK’s and the alliance’s most difficult security challenges, and we readily acknowledge that defence equipment procurement decisions are for individual nations. However, all NATO allies have committed to reducing their dependence on Russian-sourced legacy military equipment, and we believe that the proposed purchase would pose real challenges for the interoperability of NATO systems.

The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, spoke of the importance of ensuring that United States leadership in NATO is maintained and encouraged, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, expressed similar views. It is true to say that the White House in recent years has sometime proved unpredictable in its pronouncements, but my noble friend Lord Sterling was quite correct: President Trump has been clear about his commitment to NATO and Article 5. At January’s US missile defence review launch he confirmed that he was 100% behind the alliance. Those are not just words. We should recall that the United States continues to invest heavily in European security, spending $6.5 billion on the European defence initiative in 2018-19. The US also provides a huge proportion of NATO collective defence capabilities, including some which are unique to the alliance, such as strategic bombers, full-spectrum naval forces and strategic intelligence. Thanks to the EDI budget, there were in 2018 approximately 6,850 US troops in Eucom, and EDI is only one of a range of different pots available to fund approximately 80,000 US troops in Europe. Since 2015, there has been more than a sixfold increase in funding available through the EDI.

I was prepared to say a little bit about cyberdefence. I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, about that as I am reminded that time is short.

Aircraft Carrier Task Force

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble and gallant Lord is absolutely right. Of course the number of platforms matters, but I would say to noble Lords, look not only at the number of warships; look also at the breadth of capability that the Royal Navy possesses. There are few navies in the world that can match the Royal Navy for the range and quality of the defensive, offensive and deterrent effects that it can deliver.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

Does the Minister not agree that we talk about this as if the carriers were vulnerable, whereas they can go 500 miles in any direction in one day, and are extremely difficult to find? Certainly, terrorists cannot get at them at all when they are at sea, unlike a static air base, which is very easy to find, as we know exactly where it is. However, if we deploy a carrier group east of Suez into the Indo-Pacific region, does the Minister not agree that it would be foolhardy—historically we have never done this—not to have within the region, because of the transit times, at least one SSN, one destroyer, two key ASW frigates and the support ships involved? Doing that will put huge pressure on the other tasks the Navy does day to day, because we have insufficient frigates and destroyers to do all those tasks as well.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord, with his immense experience, is almost certainly right about the kinds of deployment that we will see the carrier perform. The first operational deployment is still in the planning stage. As recently announced, it will involve our Dutch allies: it will be a joint deployment with US Marine Corps Lightning squadron. The precise composition of the group is being worked through at the moment. We should emphasise the noble Lord’s first point: this carrier represents an extremely capable strategic deterrent for the nation. Let me stress that it will be robustly protected by air and sea assets against threats of all kinds.

Royal Navy: Type 31e Frigates

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect to award the contract to build five Type 31e frigates.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, there has been no change in the Government’s plans. It remains our intention to award a single design and build contract for five Type 31e frigates by the end of 2019.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his answer. Many of us who are concerned about the number of ships in the Navy have been concerned about this delay in ordering. Only yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, accosted me and asked whether the ships’ names committee could call them the “Grayling Class” as there were no ships, which I thought a little unfair. Can the noble Earl reassure the House that the first of these ships will be fully active in the Royal Navy in 2023? If not, as the noble Earl knows, “HMS Argyll” will pay off and the number of frigates that this great maritime nation possesses will have dropped to 12.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we see no reason at all to depart from the timescales that we set ourselves; they remain unchanged. We want the first ship in 2023 and all five by the end of 2028. I say to the noble Lord that we have streamlined the procurement procedure in a way that should be helpful, to enable us to award the contract by the end of this year.

RAF: Operational Conversion Unit

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many F35B jets will make up the Operational Conversion Unit (OCU); and when the OCU will have its full complement of aircraft.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, the Lightning operational conversion unit is due to form as 207 Squadron and return to the UK in July 2019. Initially the squadron will comprise five aircraft. The squadron will expand to support continuing force growth into the next decade as more F35 Lightning become operational, including the formation of 809 Naval Air Squadron in 2023.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for his Answer. We have said in the past that there would be 12 aircraft in the OCU. I would like clarification: will these all be F35Bs? There is some muttering about getting F35As. Could I have an answer to my Written Question, which was: do we still consider that we need a strike group of 35 on board to fulfil the task for which the carrier was built, which is theatre entry to do a number of raids on IADS and other targets over a period of four days? That would seem to predicate a need for at least 70 aircraft afloat in a national emergency, plus, presumably, the OCU, and taking attrition rates into account.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the first tranche of 48 aircraft will be the F35B, which is capable, as the noble Lord knows, of operating from land and the “Queen Elizabeth” class aircraft carriers. Decisions on subsequent tranches of Lightning will be taken at the appropriate time. Of course, the number of aircraft deployed will depend on the circumstances and the nature of the deployment. The minimum number to be deployed will be one squadron; that is, 12 aircraft. The plan is for full operating capability in 2023, with two squadrons, but of course there is scope for each carrier to have as many as 36 aircraft deployed on it.

Modernising Defence Programme

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am afraid I do not have the information in my brief to answer the last part of the noble Lord’s question, but the target we set ourselves in 2015 was £7.4 billion of efficiency savings. We have achieved 70% of our target; we have achieved £5 billion. That was the target over a five-year period. We are now looking further ahead to see what further efficiencies we can generate over a 10-year period. That work is ongoing.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not normally wear a uniform for a Statement on defence, but I have just been at a commemoration of the Battle of North Cape, where the very modern German battle cruiser “Scharnhorst” was sunk on Boxing Day 1943 by a British battleship, two cruisers and 10 destroyers, which hit her with numerous 14-inch shells and 6-inch shells and 19 torpedoes before she sank.

There is lots of rain coming in. If the roof comes down, I will stop talking. It is a bit like being on “Ardent” under gunfire; I rather like it.

The reality is that numbers count, but that is not my point. I feel this is rather a damp squib, to be quite honest, and so was the Statement in July. It is full of platitudes—motherhood and apple pie-type statements. There are lots of things that I would expect to be going on anyway. If they were not, somebody ought to be taken out and shot. It is really very disappointing. The good thing is that the Secretary of State for Defence managed to get £1.8 billion extra for defence, which was fantastic, and he has managed to kick into touch, or into next year, when the really interesting things will happen in the spending review decisions about defence. Not long ago, it looked as if decisions would be made to cut things that would have been quite disastrous for the nation, so he has managed to slip that sideways. To be quite honest, this Statement is not exciting. It is like a glossy brochure, as the noble Baroness said, and I find that very disappointing. The £1.8 billion figure has been talked about before. The £800 million was for Dreadnought and has been pulled forward. We were told that the £1 billion was for Dreadnought, anti-submarine warfare and cyber. It seems that some of this has been purloined for other things. I will be interested in how much of it is for anti-submarine warfare, which is what was mentioned by the Secretary of State when he said we have an extra £1 billion.

The Statement refers to an increase in the “mass” of the Navy and the military. We have certainly got heavier because we have a bloody great aircraft carrier. In terms of numbers, the only difference is that, because we kept three OPVs, we have two extra ships—that is all over the next 10 years or so, because the 31e is replacing other ships. I find that a little misleading.

The Statement says that we are a “leading voice” in European security. Europe’s disgraceful decision on Galileo does not make me think that we are a leading voice in European security—we are in NATO, but not in European security. That is worrying.

My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe mentioned the increase in weapon stockpiles. The MoD has always been bad about that but, as soon you increase weapon stockpiles, you take money from somewhere else. We do not know where this money is coming from. Similarly with some other references to amounts of money, it is not clear where they are coming from, but what is quite clear is that we cannot meet the demanding efficiency targets. One knows that from talking with everyone in the MoD. To pretend that we can is wrong; it is no good fooling and deluding ourselves. Does the Minister really believe that we will meet all the efficiency targets and save the amount of money that we said we would? Yes, we can manage to balance the books over the next two years and manage to get equipment by slipping and sliding things around—the MoD has done that for years—but we have a real problem. Let us face it: there is insufficient money in defence at the moment to run the programme that we would like. Somehow that has to be resolved. It will be fought out in next year’s spending round—the Secretary of State has been clever in sliding it to then and not taking terrible decisions now, but, my goodness, we need to look carefully. To be quite honest, this Statement is really a damp squib.

[Earl Howe]

I am sorry that the noble Lord feels that way. I gently put it to him that the size of the document belies the depth and significance of its content. This was never going to be about a catalogue of future assets or platforms or number of ships in the Navy. As I said earlier, the programme is largely strategic, focusing on those key defence capabilities on which we think we should concentrate in the light of the threats facing us. In effect, it is a sense check of the SDSR of 2015.

The noble Lord rightly says that the spending review will be an important ingredient in our budget over the longer term, but the outcomes of the MDP will inform next year’s spending review in a helpful way. It provides a solid foundation on which to base the case that we will present for defence spending over the coming few years.

Noble Lords should not underestimate the importance of the Budget settlement. That settlement will undoubtedly enable our Armed Forces to modernise and meet the intensifying threats and risks that we now face, including prioritising investment in key capabilities. The spending review will come next year, but we have in the meantime the ability to move forward on a number of vital fronts, which is extremely valuable.

Shipbuilding: Appledore Shipyard

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the importance of the Appledore shipyard as part of the United Kingdom's future shipbuilding strategy.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government were very disappointed to learn of Babcock’s decision to cease operations at Appledore. While it is a commercial decision for Babcock, I recognise how concerning the news is for Appledore employees, their families and the wider community. Appledore is not central to successful delivery of our national shipbuilding strategy. However, more broadly, we are committed to encouraging a more competitive industry, driving innovation and growing the Royal Navy fleet.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for his Answer. I am glad he shows that feeling for Appledore because this is highly destructive of the whole of that community. Appledore shipyard has been amazingly competitive in producing survey ships for the Navy, parts of the Type 45 and parts of the carrier, and it won the latest competition for four Irish OPVs. It is a very efficient and very capable yard. I find it extraordinary that a firm has to close it because it has problems on its balance sheet elsewhere in its structure. However, that is not my question.

My question relates to the amount of work that is available for shipbuilding in the United Kingdom, because other yards will go the same way unless there is a core, basic loading of building. The loading of building that we have at the moment is insufficient. We are paying for fleet solid support ships to go elsewhere out of the UK, but that is an opportunity to add to the loading, enabling us to keep key shipyard workers and these key industries going. I am sure the Minister feels that that would be the way to go. I would be very interested to know the Government’s position on this. Does he feel that those in Appledore ought to fight, fight, fight again, like those from Appledore and Bideford who fought with Sir Richard Grenville down in the Azores some 427 years ago against huge numbers of Spaniards? We must keep fighting to keep it open.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord asks a very serious question about government spend on naval shipbuilding. I do not think it is a fair charge if his implication was that the Government have not been supporting our yards at home. Babcock alone has had £1.7 billion-worth of business just in the last year. It recently started work on a £360 million contract to be the technical authority and support partner for the Navy’s new aircraft carriers. In general, we are seeing in Scotland, for example, a £3.7 billion contract for the first three Type 26s, and at Cammel Laird there has been a £619 million support contract. Then there will be the competition for the Type 31e frigate, which is worth £1.25 billion. Those will be built in the UK. As regards the fleet solid support ships, there is no bias on the part of the Ministry of Defence. This is an open competition and we encourage British shipyards to bid.

Shipbuilding: Warships

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, there has been a lot of talk about shipbuilding but very little building. It seems to me that we have to get a grip on things such as the Type 26 programme. We will now wait for six or seven years for the first frigate to appear, carrying all the costs of that yard, rather than pushing ahead, ordering all eight, getting all the long lead items and actually delivering them one a year. It seems that we are not grasping these key fundamental issues. The Solid Support Ships add into the programme, but we do not look at the real cost to the nation of not building them here in this country.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as regards Type 26, it is true to say that ordering ships in batches is normal commercial practice. For one thing, it enables lessons learned in building the early batches to be reflected in lower prices for the later ships, which of course achieves better value for money overall. Contracting for all eight ships up-front would have precluded us from benefiting from the potential economies of scale, which may now come from the successful export campaigns to Australia and Canada.