Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my somewhat technical interest. I support the Motion in the name of my noble friend the Minister. I echo some of the observations about Russia made by my noble friend Lord Jopling. We know that it is an economic basket case with a GDP equivalent to that of Italy. It makes little that is good enough to export to the rest of the world, apart from armaments, and is far too reliant on mineral wealth. To cap it all, it has a perfectly rotten system of justice and the rule of law, which will make it very hard for ordinary, decent Russians to construct a healthy, modern economy. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds made important points about the nature of Russia and its population. It is also important to understand that the Kremlin’s map of the world will look very different from the one in the Ministry of Defence. Its leader has no regard for an international rules-based world order and, unfortunately, many of his population hold him in high regard. That might change, however, if his armed forces took a number of casualties. In other words, Mr Putin cannot afford to get a bloody nose.

Russian armed forces have some good capabilities but they are not balanced and have weaknesses as well. Mr Putin’s strategic objective must be to break up NATO and Article 5 by intervening in the Baltic states, possibly by using Russian-speaking minorities as an excuse, as other noble Lords have said. I warmly applaud the Government for not being overreactive and provocative and for avoiding the trap of deploying at medium scale. A battalion group lays out a thin red line, or trip wire, while avoiding the expense of deploying at medium scale, which would fix a large proportion of our deployable combat power. At the same time, Mr Putin is incurring the cost of having large numbers of troops deployed, or at least at high readiness. However, we need to take special care to monitor the position of Russian-speaking minorities, as referred to by my noble friend Lord Jopling and other noble Lords.

Several noble Lords have referred to difficulties with the carrier programme. Yes, it is a capability that we do not yet have in place, but when we do have full operating capability it will be game-changing. Of the western states, only the Americans, the French and we will be able to deploy a carrier battle group to support a brigade deployed out of area. We should be positive and look forward to the increased capacity to be a force for good when the carriers come on stream. They are not in service today, but we do not face an existential threat today. It is perfectly clear, however, that we do not have enough surface warships or submarines and we need to do something about this. Perhaps addressing this concern properly will be unavoidable when the carriers start being deployed. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, suggested that we might have to deploy two carrier battle groups at once. Clearly, we could always have one carrier available, but I believe there is no intention to operate two groups at the same time. We do not have the resources to do that.

Many noble Lords have talked about manning, which is of great concern to me and others. I am content for Regular Army phase 1 soldiers to be counted as part of the trained strength of the British Army. This is because most of them will be trained to a basic trade standard quite soon—in most cases within, say, six months—after phase 1. In addition, they would have some military utility even if not fully qualified at trade. Furthermore, in a period of heightened international tension it would be possible to retain fully trained regulars currently in service, especially in terms of PVR and manning control points. The same cannot be said for a phase 1 trained reservist. I have to be blunt: they may well have attended only a few training weekends prior to a two-week recruits’ course. Conversely, a regular’s phase 1 training course would be about 15 weeks. After reservist recruits’ course, they will attend a few weekend training exercises, but they will gain military experience at a painfully slow rate. They will really learn to be effective only after they have completed their initial trade course and at least one annual camp. Anyone who thinks that a phase 1-trained reservist has military utility is living in a fool’s paradise.

Everywhere I look outside defence, there is a problem with insufficient professional and technical engineers. Pay has been more or less frozen everywhere in public service and conditions reformed—we know what that means. Forgetting the problems with MPs and Ministers, we see problems with getting QCs to be judges because the pay is so poor that it is not worth doing. In Parliament, we have problems recruiting IT technicians. We face similar problems in the Armed Forces. You can have public sector pay freezes for only so long. Careers advisers have a duty to school leavers to brief them honestly about career opportunities and the likely rewards. The Armed Forces simply do not have as good an offer as they used to. The Treasury appears to be interfering with the implementation of the conclusions of the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body. I agree with everything said by the noble Baroness, Lady Dean.

There is something else that parents and careers advisers need to take into account. The Armed Forces were always a hard taskmaster. Nevertheless, a good serviceperson could be confident that, if they did the right thing—especially on operations—they would be backed by the chain of command and, ultimately, by Ministers on behalf of the sovereign. That is no longer the case: noble Lords need only to think about the IHAT inquiry. It also does not seem to be a problem to torment an old-age pensioner about some incident that occurred decades ago, which was thoroughly investigated by the authorities at the time and many of the witnesses to which have since sadly passed away. There is nothing wrong with our Ministers, but for one reason or another they are powerless to intervene.

Serving on military or aid operations is a risky business, so we need courageous, able and prudent risk-takers for this activity. Defence Ministers may point to reasonable recruiting and retention figures, but I fear that prudent risk-takers will shy away from the Armed Forces and the gap in numbers could, to some extent, be made up with—shall we say?—not such good quality. Of course, it will be exceptionally difficult to measure the difference, and impossible for the Treasury.

I will say a few words about the need for large-scale—more than one brigade—overseas deployment exercises. The whole point of having credible Armed Forces is to be able to deter aggression. It is immaterial how much is spent on defence if your opponent is not convinced that you can inflict unacceptable harm on him using conventional forces. There is also the risk of overestimating one’s own readiness and capability and then overlooking any weaknesses. Of course these exercises have a marginal cost, but it might be better to spend slightly less on capability and more on exercises if one can increase one’s conventional deterrent effect. In this connection, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Astor of Hever for his work with Oman. I look forward to the Minister making an announcement about Exercise Saif Sareea at some point in the future.

The world is far less stable than in the early 1990s, when I first made a contribution to a defence debate in your Lordships’ House. Nevertheless, we should be proud of what we do and aspire to do even better.