Armed Forces: Foreign Language Speakers

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Grand Committee

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that I still hold a commission in the Reserves, although it is extremely unlikely that I will ever be active again. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for initiating this QSD.

There are many difficulties with engaging local interpreters on an operation. It is hard to be sure that they are reliable and secure. It puts the interpreters in a difficult position when we eventually withdraw, and even when they go home, perhaps at the weekend. Noble Lords have frequently debated the difficulties that we have incurred with regard to honouring our moral obligations to locally employed interpreters from our operations in Afghanistan.

Another difficulty with local interpreters is that the other local party will try to negotiate with the interpreter rather than the British officer. It is of course possible that the discussions that the interpreter and the local party are engaged in are nothing at all to do with what the British officer thought they were supposed to be talking about. Fortunately, I assure the Committee that in my personal experience, pre-deployment training in the British Army includes how to use an interpreter. It is not like what we see in films when an interpreter has a long chat with the other party; in fact, you carefully let them use only one sentence at a time. It is therefore much more difficult for them to start going off-piste.

Being able to speak the local language is a huge advantage. When I was engaged in international work in Rwanda, I will never forget the look of horror on the face of the government official when I turned up without a local interpreter and started speaking French. I expect this was on two counts: first, the lost advantage for him of working through a local interpreter and, secondly, my not particularly good French. On many occasions they suddenly remembered that they could speak English after all. If one does have to use a local interpreter, only a basic working capability in the local language will be needed to ensure that the interpretation is reasonably reliable and not going off-piste.

The short answer to the noble Lord’s question is no. The first reason is that we do not know which local language will be applicable to the next major operation, or whether it will be enduring or just a short intervention. Of course, as the noble Lord indicated, there is a need to have modern European languages, but I am talking particularly about the local language of the operation. It is simply not worth investing in huge amounts of language training that may never be needed. All that I have said is perfectly understandable, and I think the noble Lord agrees.

The second reason is not so good, and it is that we are very poor at putting in place a language capability even for enduring operations. So far as the regular Army is concerned, incentives for service people to acquire a capability in the local language of current operations are available, but I am not convinced they are sufficient to encourage so many to take it up that the need for local interpreters is significantly reduced.

How much overall do we pay service people to maintain the capability to deploy by parachute drop, and how does this compare with how much we pay in incentives to have the capability in the local language of any operations? I asked a Written Question about when we last deployed at company strength by parachute drop. Apparently it was the second most unhelpful Question that the MoD could be asked. The first is something to do with the RAF, although to be fair the answer to that question has a lot more to do with a successful defence policy over many years.

It is not just officers who could benefit from language training. A full corporal in the regular British Army is an extremely capable person but it may be that his trade, or his type of unit, is not required for the current operation. If they are any good, they will be desperate to “go on tour”, as they say. Being an interpreter for, say, a local liaison officer would be a fabulous opportunity for a junior NCO. Only a fairly modest financial incentive would be needed to encourage regular NCOs of any service to acquire a language of a current operation, and, of course, a certain proportion of service people will turn out to be gifted in languages.

I turn to the Army Reserve, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison. To be honest, a junior direct entry reserve infantry officer with no previous regular service would find it hard to get the chance to deploy in role on an operation; it really does not happen that much. I will spare the Minister’s blushes by not asking how many such officers we have.

Suppose that in 1993 a junior TA officer, on his own initiative, learned to speak Serbo-Croat at conversational level—possibly achieved by engaging with a local diaspora. In the mid to late-1990s, he or she would have been able to deploy in operations almost as often as desired. The military skills of such an officer would be perfectly adequate for the role of interpreter or local liaison officer, and they could have a very fulfilling tour.

My counsel is that we should have much better financial incentives for regular service people at junior level, both officer and enlisted, who acquire an operational local language as directed. We should also very strongly encourage reservists to acquire the operational local language with the clear expectation that they would be able to deploy. It needs to be managed. If we had this policy in place, we could increase our operational effectiveness and reduce reliance on local interpreters, with all the ensuing problems. Finally, I say to my noble friend the Minister: good luck with the Treasury.