Defence Spending

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baron]

Yes, I completely agree. If anything, we need to spend more than 2%, but there have been quite authoritative reports, most notably in the Financial Times, suggesting that our defence expenditure as a proportion of GDP will fall below 2%. One of my questions to the Minister—if he cannot answer it in this debate, I am happy to take a written response—is what truth is there in the suggestion that our defence spending will fall well below 2% or, as some figures suggest, 1.8%?

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Or 1.7%.

[Mr Baron]

Or 1.7%, as my hon. Friend suggests.

I believe it is particularly incumbent on us to ensure that we have a strong defence policy—more incumbent on us than on other powers, perhaps—because in addition to our global interests and territories, we are highly dependent on maritime trade. The South China sea and the straits of Hormuz may seem far-away places, but I can assure the House that if those sea lanes ever became closed, we would certainly feel the pinch. A shock on the other side of the world, as we all know, can have reverberations here—a rise in the oil price is just one example.

There are many less tangible benefits to a strong defence policy. These include maintaining influence, supporting our defence engineering and industrial base, and global partnerships through defence diplomacy. Despite bruising deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, Britain still rightly sees itself as a global power, at the forefront of diplomacy. It is impossible to do this without the options that strong defence gives us. Furthermore, there are many strands to the special relationship, but the ability to deploy force by land, sea and air is an essential component. If this is not present, we can expect a markedly different relationship, as former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently testified.

I hope we will continue to be close allies of the US. We share common interests and common values. However, we need to play our full part in being a good ally lest our influence and, ultimately, our interests suffer. We should not forget that we would be foolish to depend entirely on the US. Sometimes we may have to act alone. The Falklands is just one example of that. In the absence of US support, we need to ensure that Britain can face the world with confidence, and that will involve strong and credible defence.

[Mr Baron]

Nobody in the House would disagree. It is a sad fact that many of our NATO allies are not pulling their full weight. But that should not stop us accepting what we need to do, particularly given our reliance on maritime trade and our global interests, territories and possessions. If anything, it is more incumbent on us than on many of our NATO allies to wake up and realise that we need to spend more on defence, but I take my hon. Friend’s point on board.

Despite the need for a strong defence policy because of both the tangible and the intangible benefits, we continue to make cuts. The Royal Navy, for example, has been reduced to a mere 19 surface ships. Not so long ago, a strategic defence review suggested the figure should be closer to 30.

[Bob Stewart]

Forty-two. [Interruption.]

[Mr Baron]

I will take further bids. For the moment, though, I will stick with my figure of 30. Have the threats declined since that defence review? No, not since we were recommended to have 30 surface ships. Our aircraft carriers are being built, but there is no certainty that the second one will see service. There is talk about it perhaps being mothballed. The other carrier will have to await fighter jets.

The situation is not much better in the skies. The F-35 fighter is beset with problems. Britain without a maritime patrol aircraft—that is an extraordinary position for an island nation such as ours to be in. We need to try to put that right.

I speak with a vested interest here, I suppose, but it is the Army that has borne the brunt of our short-sightedness. Cost-cutting plans to replace 20,000 regulars with 30,000 reservists will create unacceptable capability gaps in the short term and, I believe, false economies in the long term. Unfortunately, my attempt to get the Government to think again during the passage of the Defence Reform Bill fell on deaf ears, although Members of all parties made their views well known. It was, to a certain extent at least, a close-run thing, given the strong three-line Whip.

These legitimate concerns were echoed—in fact, I suggest, amplified—by an authoritative and critical report from the National Audit Office. It provides a list of critical conclusions, so let me read some of them. It states, for example, that

“significant further risks…could significantly affect value for money”.

Another conclusion was:

“The Department”—

it means the Ministry of Defence—

“did not test whether increasing the trained strength of the Army Reserve to 30,000 was feasible.”

It added:

“The Department’s recruitment targets for reserves are not underpinned by robust planning data”

and:

“Reducing the size of the Army will not alone deliver the financial savings required.”

It goes on:

“The Department did not fully assess the value for money of its decision to reduce the size of the Army.”

These are pretty damning conclusions. Another is:

“There are significant risks to value for money which are currently not well understood by the Department or the Army.”

It then states:

“The Department should reassess its targets for recruiting reserves.”

As I say, this is all pretty damning stuff. I believe that the decision taken in 2012 to cut the Regular Army by a fifth before the replacement reservists were even recruited has not gone well; in fact, it has been a shambles. The NAO has said that it does not believe that the MOD will be able to replace those lost regulars until 2025—a full 10 years away.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Mr Stewart, are you standing? The reason I ask is that you are on my list as wishing to speak, but I have not seen you standing. I want to make sure you get the opportunity to speak.

[Bob Stewart]

I am standing.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Good.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Sigmund Freud suggested that denial can be a psychological defence mechanism by which a person, faced with facts too uncomfortable to accept, rejects them and instead suggests such matters are simply not true, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I saw such denial when, as United Nations Commander, I reported genocide in Bosnia during 1992-93. Many international politicians preferred to ignore the clear evidence given to them and avoid facing up to the fact that something had to be done.

I fear the dangers of denial are at play once more. We are consistently reassured that our armed forces are operationally fit for purpose. They are not, despite the fantastic bravery, quality and efforts of our service personnel in their various ships, units and squadrons. It is now clear that the 2010 strategic defence and security review is not working well enough. It has gone wrong in some parts at least, yet the Ministry of Defence persistently maintains that all is well when it is clearly not. I am not being personal here. Friends of mine run the Ministry of Defence and I know them to be deeply honourable, patriotic and decent. I understand when they say they must listen to current advisers, not voices from the past or people who are not involved in defence directly. I might say the same if I was in their situation. I have never held high office, but I wonder whether people in such positions can escape the shackling political requirements of their responsibilities. In the MOD, for both senior civil servants and generals, I suspect it could easily be career suicide to suggest that a plan is going wrong. In the battle of Whitehall bureaucratic politics, it is always safer to give the boss good, rather than bad, news. As a military commander, almost every single plan I carried out went wrong from the start. Is it not a well-known military truism that plans do not survive contact with the enemy, and need constant tinkering and revision from the moment they begin? Have such adjustments happened to the SDSR 2010? I do not think so, but I urge that such adjustment is necessary.

Let me end by talking about what I think is the direst manning situation in our armed forces—within the Royal Navy. The Navy’s manning overstretch is manifestly affecting its operational capability. For instance, highly trained and highly motivated people are simply leaving the service, because in their view they have no choice. The 2020 plan for our Navy is that it should be about 24,000 strong, with two aircraft carriers and about 19 frigates or destroyers. Admiral Jellicoe had 80 destroyers at Jutland! In the circumstances, I just cannot see how we are truly going to be able to man, equip, sustain, protect and fly from one aircraft carrier, let alone two.

Last year, HMS Bulwark, second of the Albion-class assault ships and currently flagship of the Royal Navy, was on operational deployment for 272 days out of 365. When she returns to her home port, many in her crew are required to stay on board to carry out essential maintenance. I recently spoke to two female petty officers, both highly qualified and trained engineers aboard the ship. They told me that even when they were given leave, the chances were that they would be recalled, sometimes to fill crewing gaps in ships other than their own. They said they had very little chance to have a social life, let alone get married and have a family, which they both wanted to do. As a consequence, they had no choice but to leave the Royal Navy.

The Royal Navy simply does not have enough sailors for the commitments it has to fulfil. My firm belief is that the Navy must increase its size by at least 6,000 service personnel, putting it back to roughly the same size it was before 2010. The undeniable truth is that we are simply not spending enough on defence, and our sailors, soldiers and airmen are suffering in consequence. As one defence attaché put it to the Select Committee on Defence two days ago, in defence terms the United Kingdom wants a champagne lifestyle but has a budget only for beer. We not only have to sustain spending on our armed forces at 2% of GDP; we should increase it, if we really wish to have the very best sailors, soldiers and airmen in the world.