Strategic Defence and Security Review

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Earl Attlee]

That this House takes note of the United Kingdom’s role in supporting international security and stability in the light of the strategic defence and security review.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am honoured to lead this debate today, although I fear that I am probably the least experienced speaker. I do not believe that yesterday’s debates and vote in Parliament have pre-empted our discussions this afternoon. The issue yesterday was about current and imminent military operations. Today, the issue is the Government’s SDSR White Paper, which concerns creating international stability and security in order to avoid conflict or confrontation arising in the first place, and, failing that, ensuring that we have the appropriate military capabilities to deal with any foreseeable problems. Post Mumbai and other large-scale atrocities, the horrific events in Paris do not mean that the White Paper is already out of date. It clearly anticipates such events and seeks to avoid them. I am sure that many noble Lords will want to cover the security situation in MENA because it is so central to our situation.

Today, we can look forward to no less than four maiden and 27 other speakers. Even with the time I have available, I cannot hope to cover all the ground of the SDSR. However, in due course, I think that we need to have far more detail about what is proposed in order to measure progress in future years.

The White Paper makes much of the fact that a strong economy is a prerequisite of a successful security and defence policy. Noble Lords will be aware that we spend more on interest payments on the national debt than we do on defence, and we simply cannot go on running a budget deficit for ever. At some point we have to pay off the debt. In the 2010 SDSR the Government had to make some very painful decisions and we have to be clear that they took on some significant risks.

I welcome the general tone of the White Paper, although it is necessarily rather more robust and stern than some of its predecessors. It offers three national security objectives. Objective 1 is to protect our people by meeting the NATO 2% target and investing in agile, capable and globally deployable Armed Forces. Of course, I would like to see more than 2% but one has to be realistic.

We are to respond robustly to the re-emergence of state-based threats, including with the renewal of the nuclear deterrent. The fight against terrorism, radicalisation and extremism at home and overseas will be prioritised by a range of sensible measures.

Objective 2 is to protect our global influence primarily with soft power. We will be spending 0.7 % of GNI on official development assistance—in other words, overseas aid with a slightly more relaxed definition, although still within OECD guidelines. I will return to this later. I was particularly pleased to hear about the increased resources to be allocated to the BBC World Service and the British Council. In the future we will be developing alliances, building new, stronger partnerships and seeking to persuade potential adversaries of the benefits of co-operation.

Finally, objective 3 is to promote our prosperity. We will do this by promoting a rules-based international order. Interestingly, we will be maximising prosperity opportunities from our defence, security, diplomatic and development activities. However, I hope that this does not mean that we will be relaxing our defence export control regime.

Some in my party question the wisdom of spending 0.7 % of GNI on ODA and protecting the aid budget, even in the difficult conditions of 2010. My background is military—that is, hard power—although I have also run an overseas aid operation. Nevertheless, I am sure that this is the right approach. When you look at the cake of government expenditure, the biggest slices, in order, are welfare, health, education, state pensions, interest payments, then defence at around £35 billion, and then, after several other ever-thinner slices, the DfID budget. Even with no aid budget at all, the cake would look no different and defence’s slice would look no bigger. For the reasons described in the White Paper, we need to have both soft and hard power. Of course, it is essential to spend ODA wisely and Command Paper 9163 describes how that will be achieved.

Paragraph 3.18 of the national security strategy covers the resurgence of state-based threats and, in particular, Russia’s behaviour. I approve of the tone and the drafting, especially where it is made clear that we want to co-operate. I think that we need to be very careful to make sure that we understand the Russian viewpoint. I suspect that their map of the world looks rather different from ours. That is one reason why I welcome the return to your Lordships’ House of my noble friend Lord Cameron of Fairfax as an elected hereditary Peer. He has much experience of Russia. I hope that after making his interests clear, he will not hesitate to regularly give us his insight.

I will leave cyber and technology to others, apart from welcoming what the White Paper says and making three of my own points. It is becoming apparent that, apart from the UK and France, EU states are poor at exchanging data, and we do not know who is in the UK at any time.

The White Paper mentions Galileo, which, as a satellite system, is just as vulnerable as GPS. Can the Minister say where we are with the terrestrial eLoran system, which might be much harder to interfere with?

I welcome the Government’s decision to renew the deterrent and have a vote in the House of Commons. I wonder how much time and money was wasted by the coalition Government due to the Lib Dems insisting on studying alternatives to a submarine-launched ballistic missile system when most of us are clear that there are not any. Can the Minister confirm that it is now necessary to run the Vanguard class of SSBN longer than was intended by the last Labour Government, even if it can be done safely?

I am sure that many noble Lords will talk about the maritime patrol aircraft. I was first briefed on the RMPA project before the 1997 election. It seemed even then to be an extraordinary project. The plan was to take an existing aircraft and give it new wings, engines and avionics but save the fuselage. Why not just buy a new aircraft and system, which would be far less risky? I was very surprised that the party opposite, in government, persisted with the project.

For SDSR 2010, I think it was better to cut a capability completely than degrade a lot of other capabilities by the traditional salami-slicing technique—but yes, of course it made it more difficult to ensure that the deterrent remained undetected, as I am sure many noble Lords will remind us today. It may be very inconvenient and challenging to get the necessary help from our allies in the current relatively benign strategic threat environment. However, no one is going to plan a strategic attack on the basis that there is a possibility that they might fleetingly know the location of one NATO SSBN. The beauty of having three closely aligned states with SSBN is that there is just too much uncertainty for a potential aggressor. It works.

I turn to other hard-power issues. The Royal Navy is just not big enough, but I strongly support the concept of the aircraft carriers because they can provide vigorous and independent air support to our forces deployed ashore. The White Paper talks about extending the role of the Type 45 to include ballistic missile defence. Presumably, that would be in a theatre or area role with interception in the terminal phase. Perhaps the Minister can tell us a bit more about that.

By the 2030s, the Royal Navy will have some new general purpose frigates. Can the Minister confirm that these will be proper warships and will carry and operate a helicopter? Although the offshore patrol vessels are not warships, but will be armed, I think that they will have much utility. I have seen the Irish OPVs being built at the Appledore shipyard, and I hope that the forthcoming shipbuilding strategy will secure a future for warship building, and not just in Scotland.

I am very concerned about the state of the Army. I recognise that I am not a capability manager. However, I think that we have too great a proliferation of armoured and protected mobility platforms, with too many UOR vehicles being taken into general service. These vehicles were designed for one particular operation, with no account being taken of long-term sustainability or other military requirements.

Currently, we have only three regular Challenger tank armoured regiments. Since we will only have two armoured infantry brigades, if I am correct, does that mean that we will be down to only two armoured regiments?

The White Paper indicates that two infantry battalions are to be reconfigured for defence engagement. It sounds to me as though a more accurate description is “downgraded and reduced”. Presumably, these battalions will not have the capability of even a light-role battalion. Can the Minister confirm that I am right in my thinking and what the headcount of these battalions will be?

Apparently there are to be 10,000 military personnel available to assist the civil authorities at short notice. Can the Minister confirm that this is MAC A, military assistance to the civil authority, and not MAC P, military assistance to the civil power, and that MAC P in the UK is normally only provided by Special Forces when military primacy takes place for only a short time? I think that it would be helpful if the Minister could explain exactly what this policy means.

Regarding air power and the RAF, I welcome the enhancements outlined in the White Paper. We also now have a much-improved and modern transport fleet that is well-placed to support future operations.

Finally, I turn to personnel. I think that this will be the biggest challenge in delivering the SDSR in future years, in particular nuclear and other highly skilled technical people, both in and out of uniform. I think that some very senior officers have a touching faith in what can be achieved with contractors, especially in theatre. Interestingly, the White Paper has almost nothing to say about reserves. Perhaps we will see a paper on that later.

I am a little worried about what might be behind some of the White Paper’s comments regarding accommodation, pay and allowances. Personally, I would like to see the Armed Forces pay review body take a rather more proactive role in ensuring that the Armed Forces are able to attract the right quality of recruit.

I look forward to hearing the views of other noble Lords. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, especially the Minister for answering it. I agreed with almost all noble Lords, although I think that some of them need to research the existence of the Fleet Air Arm. I remembered during the debate that I had forgotten to raise one particularly obvious point but, fortunately, no other noble Lords raised it, so I can keep it for another event. In the mean time, I beg to move.

Motion agreed.