Strategic Defence and Security Review

Bob Russell Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The Gurkhas remain a very important part of the British armed forces. I think that my hon. Friend understands exactly the problem that we face in regard to Gurkha numbers. Their terms of service were changed as a result of decisions made by the courts and the campaigning pressure that was placed on the previous Government. That means that most Gurkhas have elected to extend their service to 22 years. Consequently, the numbers of Gurkhas in service are projected to be above the levels needed to sustain the two brigades that we wish to sustain. That has given rise to a larger number of Gurkha redundancies than we would have expected to see. That is regrettable but, I am afraid, inevitable.

We are making tough decisions to tackle the massive deficit left by the previous Government and the unfunded defence programme. If those decisions had been easy or popular, you can bet your life that the Labour Government would have taken them years ago. They did not do so, however, and it now falls to the coalition to do the right thing in the long-term national interest. Translating the strategic prescriptions of the SDSR into decisive actions was always going to be a process rather than an event. Turning the corner on a decade of mismanagement will take time and determination.

To shine a bit of light into the end of the tunnel, the Government announced in July 2011 that the MOD could plan on the budget allocated to defence equipment and equipment support increasing by 1% a year in real terms between 2015 and 2020. That amounts to more than £3 billion of new money over the period. Importantly, that commitment was renewed by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury after the autumn statement. That will enable investment in a number of programmes, including the procurement of new Chinook helicopters, the refurbishment of the Army’s Warrior fleet, the procurement of the Rivet Joint, or Airseeker, intelligence and surveillance aircraft, and the development of the global combat ship.

The MOD is currently undertaking its annual budget setting process, which is known as the planning round. I am personally engaged in that process, and I am increasingly confident that we are close to achieving a sustainable and balanced defence budget for the first time in a decade or more. That would be an immense achievement, and would allow us to plan with confidence and to spend well over £150 billion on new equipment and equipment support over the next decade, as well as delivering the force restructuring and rebasing that we have announced. A turnaround on that scale requires a major cultural shift. Defence must change the way in which it does things and the way in which it addresses problems. It must challenge the received wisdom around the doctrines used to deliver defence tasks and around the management of defence itself.

Last month, the Government published the first annual report on the SDSR, which set out in full the progress that is being made. Let me address a couple of salient areas of what the MOD calls “transforming defence”—that is, the journey from the mess that we inherited towards achieving a sustainable, capable, coherent and adaptable force, built on balanced budgets and disciplined processes, by 2020. As I have said, I am clear that the Ministry of Defence must balance its budget. I am equally clear that it does not exist to balance its budget; it exists to deliver effective defence within a sustainable budget envelope.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Hammond]

I cannot resist taking one last intervention.

[Sir Bob Russell]

Does the Secretary of State accept that morale is very important, and if our soldiers, sailors and air personnel and their families are given accommodation that is not fit for purpose, that does nothing to help the Government’s objectives?

[Mr Hammond]

I reassure my hon. Friend that I absolutely agree that morale is very important. I shall come to morale in a moment, and I understand that accommodation plays an important part in that. He will understand that there are thousands of moving parts in the defence budget, and trying to bring them back into balance is a massive challenge. Inevitably, people will always ask us to do more, more quickly, whether on accommodation, front-line equipment or any other area. We must try to balance the equation and get the judgment right.

As I said, the Ministry of Defence exists to deliver an effective solution within a sustainable budget envelope. NATO membership and our defence relationship with the United States and other key allies, such as France and Australia, are a vital part of the strategic solution as we move to Future Force 2020. It will, of course, be a smaller force, but it will be equipped with some of the best and most advanced technology in the world. It will be configured to be agile, focused on expeditionary capability and carrier strike, able to intervene by airborne or amphibious assault, and with the ability to deploy, with sufficient warning and for a limited time, a whole-effort force of about 30,000, or to maintain an enduring stabilisation operation at brigade level while concurrently undertaking one complex and one small-scale non-enduring operation. It will be a formidable regular force, supported by better trained, better equipped reserves who will play a greater role in delivering defence effect on the back of the extra £1.8 billion that we will invest in them over the next 10 years. All that will be underpinned by the expectation that, in most circumstances, we will be fighting alongside allies, and it will be supported with doctrines that will effectively address the threats of the future with the assets that we will have.

The proposal is about finally moving on from cold war reliance on mass to the “lethal and light” doctrines of flexibility and agility that the challenges of the new century require. It is not just the armed forces that need to reconfigure; the management of defence needs to change too, by developing a laser focus on delivering defence cost- effectively and accountably, protecting the front line and the taxpayer at the same time. Under my predecessor, that transformation had already begun. The recommendations of the Defence Reform Unit under Lord Levene were broadly accepted. Many have been implemented and others are in the pipeline. The Defence Board has been reconfigured to provide for a clear, single, joint service voice on military priorities, and a greater role for non-executive directors under the chairmanship of the Secretary of State. I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) that the single voice for the military on the Defence Board is supported by an effective armed forces committee, at which the chiefs of the individual services are able to work together to determine their combined order of priorities for the Defence Board’s allocation of available resource. That priority order is then presented to the Defence Board by the Chief of the Defence Staff—a presentation that has become extremely effective, because it carries with it the authority of all three services and the joint forces commander.

The Defence Infrastructure Organisation has been stood up to rationalise the Ministry of Defence estate and reduce costs by 25%. Defence Business Services has been created to unify human resources and other back-office functions across the Department. The reform of the procurement process has begun with the appointment of—you guessed it, Mr Deputy Speaker—Bernard Gray, who has now had four name checks, I think, so far in the debate, as chief of defence matériel, and the establishment of the major projects review board to hold those responsible for failing projects firmly to account.

This year will see the transformation accelerate, with an evolution towards a leaner, more strategic head office; the introduction of a stronger financial and performance management regime across the whole Department; the service chiefs being empowered to run their individual services and their delegated services budgets; the new joint forces command being stood up on 1 April; and the start of the reform of the MOD’s defence equipment and support business on the basis of a new matériel strategy.

The next few years will also see the beginning of considerable change on the ground as the rebasing programme set out in July last year is taken forward and the Army begins its return from Germany, as well as its withdrawal from Afghanistan and its internal restructuring to deliver five multi-role brigades. I know those last changes, in particular, are of great interest to individual Members. The House will understand that many of the changes are interdependent and complex, but I can give a commitment that I will make further announcements on the details of individual elements of the transforming defence programme as and when it is appropriate to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

As the newest member of the Defence Committee, I congratulate the Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), on setting the scene for this excellent debate. I also endorse the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray).

In opposition, both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats criticised the Government because our armed forces were under strength and overstretched. I regret to say that the coalition Government are making a bad situation even worse. The morale of Her Majesty’s armed forces is not as good as it should be and among the reasons for that low morale are poor conditions.

I commend the previous Government, for example, for what they did with the new Merville barracks in the Colchester constituency, but I condemn them for their failure to upgrade the family accommodation sufficiently in 13 years. Even today, one can see it with single soldier’s accommodation. When the Defence Committee went to Catterick, we were shown level 4—perhaps it is called category 4—accommodation, which reminded me very much of what we used to see in “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” when the work force decided to decorate the place. The Army in Catterick got in paint and paint brushes and allowed the soldiers to determine their colour scheme in the various bits of the barrack block. The colour variations included interesting combinations and the quality of the workmanship was variable. I do not think that that is the right way to treat our brave soldiers, nor is it right that soldiers’ families should continue to live in accommodation that is not what we would expect in civilian life.

We know that the size of the Army will go down and we have been told today that the numbers will be the lowest since the Crimea. The statistic I had was that they were the lowest since the Boer war, Baden-Powell and Mafeking. Whatever that number is, it is too small for us to have a role on the world stage. We have commitments. The Falkland Islands have been mentioned and I should like to endorse those who have pointed out that it is fortress Falklands now and that things are completely different from 30 years ago. I do not think we should get over-anxious. We obviously need to be alert, but we should not think that the Falklands in 2012 are as they were in 1982.

I pay tribute, as others have, to the Territorials and reservists. Without them, we could not do what we do. Without the 10% of the British Army that is not British, it could not do what it does. We should pay tribute, in particular, to those people from the Commonwealth nations who serve in Her Majesty’s three armed forces. Let us also praise those who provide leadership for the air, sea and army cadets. I am delighted to say that we have all three units in the garrison town of Colchester.

I want to conclude, as others wish to speak, on the subject of the future of the Ministry of Defence police. There are some 3,600 MDP officers and their headquarters are in Essex, in Wethersfield. Despite their highly trained and specialised nature, the role of Ministry of Defence police is often not well understood by decision makers and the wider general public. Indeed, under the previous Government, I went to the MOD to make a special plea on behalf of the Ministry of Defence police in the garrison town of Colchester and I could not get people to understand the important role they played. As a result, the number of MDPs in my constituency has gone from 30 to three. With the best will in the world, the Essex constabulary cannot plug the gap left by the loss of 27 Ministry of Defence police officers. The MDP is facing major cuts to its budget and numbers as part of the strategic defence and security review, with a potentially disastrous impact on national security. The Ministry of Defence must reconsider and I hope that the Defence Committee will help the Ministry of Defence realise that cutting the MOD police is not the brightest of the ideas that it is considering.