Artificial Intelligence in Weapon Systems Committee Report

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Friday 19th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for introducing this debate.

I read the report as soon it was published. I agree with it and with the position of HMG and the MoD. However, looking around the corner, I see that reality may conflict with what the report says. Its title is of course very appropriate—although we might wonder how we got it. I am relaxed about the MoD’s reluctance to define AWS. A definition has the danger of excluding certain unanticipated developments.

It may be helpful to the House if I illustrate a potential difficulty with a fully autonomous system, to show why we should not willingly go in this direction. Suppose His Majesty’s Armed Forces are engaged in a high-intensity conflict and an officer is in control of a drone system. He reads his intelligence summary—INTSUM—which indicates fragility in the cohesiveness of enemy forces. The officer controls the final decision for the drone to engage any target, in accordance with our current policy. The drone detects an enemy armoured battalion group but the AFVs are tightly parked in a square in the open, not camouflaged, and the personnel are a few hundred metres away, sitting around campfires. In view of the INTSUM, it would be obvious to a competent officer that this unit has capitulated and should not be engaged for a variety of reasons, not least international humanitarian law. It is equally obvious that a drone with AI might not recognise that the enemy unit is not actively engaged in hostilities. In its own way, the report recognises these potential difficulties.

My concern centres on the current war in Ukraine. Both sides will be using electronic warfare to prevent their opponent being able to receive data from their own drones or give those drones direction. That is an obvious thing to do. But if you are in a war of survival—and the Ukrainians certainly are—and you have access to a drone system with AI that could autonomously identify, select and attack a target, absent any relevant treaty you would have to use that fully autonomous capability. If you do not, you will lose the war or suffer heavy casualties because your enemy has made your own drones ineffective by means of electronic warfare. So long as drones are being used in the current high-intensity conflict, we need to recognise that it will be almost impossible to prevent AI being used fully autonomously. Equally, it will be hard to negotiate a suitable treaty, even if we attach a very high priority to doing so.

The whole nature of land warfare is changing very rapidly—the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, used the phrase “fast-moving”—and we do not know what the end state will be. However, we can try to influence it and anticipate where it will end up.

809 Naval Air Squadron

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness asked a very detailed question. The key is that, as the threat changes, we need to change the capability to meet it. We work on very long lead times. All these aircraft are extremely complicated and need to be adjusted to meet the particular threat as it comes through. Through the relationship with Lockheed Martin and the Joint Program Office, we are trying to understand what the delay on some of the deliveries is. However, we do not currently anticipate a shortfall in the ability to build the UK Lightning Force to full operational capability by the end of 2025.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, what is the point of having all the platforms that my noble friend the Minister referred to if we cannot improve the terms and conditions of service for the ratings, to retain them so that they can man the platforms?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. I think we addressed this last week or the week before. An enormous amount of work is being undertaken on the question of recruitment and, particularly, retention, to ensure that the terms and conditions of employment within His Majesty’s Armed Forces are fit for purpose.

Ukraine

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, this is all part of the same story. There are links between these different malign organisations that need addressing. I cannot give an absolutely clear answer about the western Balkans, but I am very happy to write to my noble friend with the detail.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, on the issue of sanctions, we are doing the right thing. We are trying to impose as many sanctions as we can on many entities and people. Obviously, we should not stop those. However, reports in the Economist suggest that they are not actually very effective.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, touched on European co-operation. In my opinion, as I said on 26 January, it is essential that we co-operate on a European level and decide who is going to do what. I said then that if necessary—if it is what we should do—we should create a Royal Ordnance factory. We should be looking at making 100,000 rounds of 155 millimetres a month, but so far as I can see we are just pussyfooting around. That is what President Putin will see. He will see that we are pussyfooting around. For instance, we are not overturning planning regulations or telling BAE Systems that it can do whatever it likes, and needs to do, to create the amount of ammunition we need. We are not telling BAE Systems that if it needs to requisition a machine tool from another factory and that would totally interfere with the rest of our domestic production, it does not matter. The priority must be to make the ammunition.

If we do not give Ukraine the munitions and other equipment that it needs, Ukraine will fail and be defeated by the Russians. The situation is dire. We will then have to double defence expenditure and keep it doubled for the foreseeable future. The cost to us will be very high, and we will not be able to do the things that we want to do for our people because we are going to have to waste the money on defence expenditure.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the impassioned view he takes. He is right, and I agree that we need to up the pace of production. Through the International Fund for Ukraine and other enterprises, the amount of money being spent to arm and replenish the situation in Ukraine continues to grow. Out of the £900 million pledged as part of the International Fund for Ukraine, 27 contracts are out with a total value of £340 million, and another £22 million-worth are just about to be placed. There is a competition out for a further £300 million for ammunition. There is £40 million for drones and another £194 million across air defence and maritime packages. That is just this country, but this is a combined effort across Europe. I am sure noble Lords will have seen that the Germans have started building a new ammunition factory, and the pace of growth continues to increase.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

Why on earth are we bothering with a competition?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

To ensure that we get exactly what we want, and to ensure capacity and deliverability.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

Surely, we should tell industry what we want and tell it to get on with it. If it says that it needs some sort of capacity, power or machine tool, we should provide it.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

There is certainly an element of that, but we work within a global market where resources are not freely available. It is very important to ensure that the vast amount of money spent on the production of munitions is properly spent.

Ukraine

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 21st September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, the beauty of speaking late is that all the heavy lifting has been done; I needed only to listen carefully to the speeches from some very senior noble Lords, and I agree with what they said. Overall, I am very supportive of everything that His Majesty’s Government have done, and I echo the support of Ben Wallace, who did a fabulous job when he was Secretary of State. If we have alternative views in this House, it would be quite fun to have them earlier on the speakers’ list so that we can respond better to them.

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for initiating this debate, and so soon after a major general defence debate. The first issue that I am obliged to raise, yet again, is the one of “Peter”. That is not his real name but the one I have adhered to throughout these debates, initially for reasons of security and latterly for consistency. Your Lordships will recall that Peter runs a small business that, among other things, was exporting armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine. Those vehicles are used both offensively and, more often, to provide protected mobility around the battlefield; they are frequently used for casualty evacuation. Peter has around £3 million-worth of equipment ready to be exported to Ukraine under an export licence granted by His Majesty’s Government, but he was de-banked by a major high street bank at the start of the year. The relevant bank was helpful to me by extending the closure date to March and agreed to continue the provision of banking services on receipt of a letter from a Treasury Minister asking it to relax the money laundering regulations in a specific way.

Unfortunately, Ministers have been unable to undertake such an action. At the time, it seemed to me that the bank was being allowed to determine UK defence and security policy. Ministers also indicated several times in debates that they regard the complete integrity of the money laundering regulations as more important than facilitating the export of armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine. One wonders what the officials in the Russian embassy are sending back to the Kremlin on our determination that Ukraine is not defeated.

I am ashamed that, despite working on this problem since January, I have made little progress with the original problem, although I have found that it was the tip of an iceberg. The shame arises from the fact that I know the avoidable loss of life of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians is being caused by my ineffectiveness. It is unfortunate that the print media have chosen not to run the story of me directly holding Ministers responsible for that avoidable loss of life, despite being briefed in writing. Perhaps I am still in the editors’ sin-bin for successfully having the temerity to suggest that newspapers should be properly regulated in accordance with Leveson and without the involvement of any politicians. I thought that I would be forgiven when I secured an amendment to the then Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill to prevent journalists being accidentally arrested at the border, but maybe not.

It became apparent to me that these problems were much wider than just Peter and were adversely affecting much of the UK defence industry—although it was very reluctant to put its head above the parapet. The same high street bank’s name came up regularly. I ran several amendments to the then Financial Services and Markets Bill dealing with what we now know as de-banking—and I stress that this was before the Farage scandal. Unfortunately, I received very little support from members of the Opposition Front Bench—so ably led by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, who opened the debate for the Opposition—despite my briefing them in writing.

Fortunately, my noble friend Lady Goldie agreed to a meeting with me and the MoD to discuss these matters. She immediately grasped the significance of the problem with regard to the wider defence industry and passed it on to the Minister for Defence Procurement and other Ministers. That is why the media and the City Minister are now openly talking about the matter. Shortly after this, the Farage scandal unfolded. During discussions with the relevant high street bank, it was made clear to me that its problem was an unacceptable regulatory risk due to the money laundering regulations and dealing with Ukrainian businessmen. Reviewing our debates in the Chamber, it is obvious that I believed the bank.

Since those discussions, we have had the Farage scandal, in which the chief executive officer of another high street bank lied to a senior journalist and divulged Mr Farage’s personal banking information without proper authority. In the light of these events, it is reasonable for me to consider the possibility that the bank’s problem was not money laundering. Clearly, it could have negotiated extra bank charges to cover the cost of any extra due diligence. Rather, was it the bank’s ESG agenda, which we have seen adversely affect other SMEs supplying the MoD directly? Perhaps the bank recognised, correctly, that I would not be able to persuade Ministers to relax the money laundering regulations. In the light of what we now know about the banking industry’s ESG agenda, the behaviour of one bank’s CEO and the possibility that I might have been misled, will my noble friend the Minister ask the appropriate Treasury Ministers to review their decisions not to relax the money laundering regulations in the way that I have suggested, in order that Peter can export to Ukraine the armoured fighting vehicles which are so desperately needed?

Some time ago, my heart sank when one of David Cameron’s advisers confidently stated that we no longer needed armoured brigades with their expensive armoured battle groups. Boris Johnson said much the same thing about main battle tanks. In the reserves, I was a military logistician, not a teeth arms man. However, I know that a competently led, properly equipped, dug-in infantry battalion is usually extremely difficult to defeat without using heavy armoured battle groups. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, touched on this. Any attempt to attack dismounted, or with only light vehicles, is likely to result in very high casualty rates. This is exactly what we are seeing in Ukraine on both sides, with some other complications—such as both sides having access to very effective ISTAR. No wonder President Zelensky is so keen on acquiring equipment for armoured battle groups, particularly MBTs, which the UK was in the lead on.

It is important to understand that a reality of war is that an attack by a NATO armoured battle group is a terrifying industrial process. Of course, defensive positions will be sited to take advantage of natural features and obstacles—natural and constructed—and the like. However, defenders will also use anti-tank mines, and this is happening in Ukraine on a very large scale. Unfortunately, we are reading that courageous Ukrainian sappers are manually detecting and disposing of mines in order to facilitate attacks. This is far too slow and dangerous—my noble friend Lord Risby touched on this; I feared that he was going to make my speech for me. It is not clear to me how the Ukrainian forces can hope to prevail without being able to deal with the minefields on an industrial scale. The British Army uses a system called Python, a rocket-launched tow rope filled with about 1.5 tonnes of plastic explosive. When detonated, it will neutralise 90% of mines over a length of 200 metres and a width of 7 metres. Also available are Trojan armoured engineer vehicles, which, among other things, have a mine plough to push any remaining mines to one side. Sadly, this is a very low-population equipment, which means that we cannot release it to the Ukrainians.

The good news is that we have world-class defence engineering companies, such as Pearson, which lead on mine plough technology. The Python system, although clever, does not appear to be difficult to produce. What are we doing to help the Ukrainians in this crucial area of industrial mine clearance?

Armed Forces: Troop Levels

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 21st September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

First, I do pay tribute to the very distinguished contributions that Sikhs have made in our British military history. In relation to the Armed Forces across the piece, we are blessed with—indeed, the Armed Forces are enhanced by—having members from many faith backgrounds. Our objective within MoD is absolutely to deliver proper inclusivity, because what all these representations from different faiths have in common is that they swear allegiance to the monarch and to uphold the safety and security of our country. That is a very strong bond that unites them all. We approach this on a holistic base: we take with pleasure all those who wish to contribute to our Armed Forces’ endeavour and, yes, we are very proud to have contributions from all the faith communities.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, we know that NATO is modernising its structures. How are we responding to this and updating our own structures?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My noble friend is quite correct that NATO has been on a journey of modernisation and transformation, and I think it is a very important journey. The combination of the new NATO force model, the defence investment pledge that was agreed at Vilnius and the NATO political guidance for 2023, in which the UK was a leading influence, represent a modernised, more muscular NATO, to which the UK pledges a full spectrum of capabilities. That includes nuclear, offensive cyber, special forces and space capabilities. For example, the UK was the first ally to offer offensive cyber capabilities to NATO.

Ukraine: Arms Supplies

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

It is for Ukraine to determine its position in any negotiations, just as it is for Ukraine to determine its democratic future. As friends and international partners of Ukraine, we will always work to protect and defend the country’s sovereignty. I observe that, if there are to be any peace negotiations, it is only by going into them from a position of military, economic and diplomatic strength that Ukraine will secure a strong and lasting peace.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that high street banks are having to withdraw provision of financial services to firms exporting armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine because of money laundering regulations? Is she further aware that Ministers have indicated at the Government’s Dispatch Box that they see the complete integrity of the money laundering regulations as more important than exporting armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I am aware that my noble friend has raised this on previous occasions. He understands that it is not really within the MoD’s bailiwick; it is more a matter for my Treasury colleagues. I suggest that my noble friend refers to them for a response.

Ukraine

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to engage in a full, non-time-limited debate on something that is an existential threat to the security of the United Kingdom. I very much appreciated the introduction to the debate by my noble friend Lady Goldie. Can the Minister confirm, to be clear, that His Majesty’s Government’s absolute minimum strategic objective is to prevent Ukraine being defeated? The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, told us that it is a much more complicated issue than the minimum objective, and we do not know what the long-term objective will be. I think all noble Lords will agree that if Ukraine were defeated, we would have to at least double our defence expenditure, with all the attendant difficulties that would ensue. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, gave us hope and evidence that, at some point, even autocrats have to give up. I will elaborate on why Putin will have to do so .

In state-on-state conflict, success for the aggressor will depend upon either an immediately successful attack, using overwhelming military or political superiority, or enjoying overall strategic superiority in the longer term. By as early as 26 February last year, it was likely that the former was not going to happen, and by 9 March, it was not at all clear that the Ukrainians would ever be defeated. To enjoy overall strategic superiority, an aggressor needs to have a larger population and industrial capacity and economy to match it. Russia’s population is quite a bit larger than that of Ukraine, as my noble friend Lady Meyer pointed out, but Putin is profligate in the way he tolerates casualties, and one should never underestimate the moral component of fighting power.

More important in terms of strategic superiority is the relative size of the economies and industrial capacities. While Ukraine is obviously inferior in this respect, it will benefit from the sum of all the NATO countries’ capacity, whereas I understand that Russia’s economy is only the size of Italy’s and is largely based on mineral extraction. Furthermore, we will not allow the Ukrainian Government to run out of money and we can share the cost of doing that. Sadly, this could make for a long war with much pointless, tragic and avoidable loss of life on both sides—and it absolutely pains me to see the loss of life of civilians and lovely young men on both sides. Of course, this is made worse by the Russian people’s tolerance of pain in order to avoid defeat. Nevertheless, the long-term outcome is not in doubt, so long as we do not give up: Putin’s position is not sustainable .

With one exception that I will come to, I believe that HMG, particularly the FCDO and the MoD, are doing an outstandingly good job. I share the views expressed by my noble friend Lord Soames about my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, Ben Wallace, in my noble friend’s excellent maiden speech. I admire the way that each decision made by Ministers is very carefully calibrated and calculated: I hope that that answers some of the rhetorical questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria .

I recall that in around 2010, my heart sank when some Cameron advisers claimed that the British Army did not need armoured brigades with their armoured battlegroups. To be honest, these are extremely expensive to operate and maintain, with considerable logistic support required to keep them in operation. We cut them back because we could not afford them—or we thought we could not afford them. The problem is that to attack dug-in infantry without using an armoured battlegroup, with its protected mobility and firepower, is a suicidal endeavour. That is no doubt why the Ukrainians are desperate to create more such fighting units: they cannot afford the immoral casualty rates that the Russians appear to accept in making such dismounted attacks. I point out that for both sides, training for armoured manoeuvre warfare is not quick, easy or cheap, but hopefully we can enable the Ukrainians to be more effective in that regard.

I have heard and read concerns that donating a squadron of Challenger tanks to Ukraine would leave us short. I do not believe anything of the sort; we have plenty of surplus tanks and we can rehabilitate any tanks much faster than we can train the gallant Ukrainian soldiers to operate and maintain them. Challenger 2 is a very complex tank to take into service and sustain. Now that we have managed to get the Leopard 2 released, there are some tricky questions about how to deploy Challenger 2, but I am confident that the Government and MoD will make the correct decisions, and these are not something we should seek to influence.

I echo the comments of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, about the logistics for this equipment. If Challenger 2 and the AS-90 are to be deployed to the front line in Ukraine, I urge Ministers to obtain categoric assurances from the staff that there will be first-line and second-line maintenance in place within Ukraine, a robust repair loop for engines and main assemblies, and the black boxes that proliferate in armoured fighting vehicles.

It is not clear to me that HM Treasury is fully seized of the strategic objective of at least preventing Ukraine being defeated. How can we be sure that it is not still penny-pinching the MoD? Noble Lords should understand that we cannot determine what our future defence posture should be until the outcome of this war is clear and the lessons have been analysed.

However, I want to refer to a more immediate problem. In order to support government-to-government arrangements, the Ukrainians, through commercial agents, have been buying up private and commercially owned armoured fighting vehicles in the United Kingdom. These vehicles will allow their troops to move around the battlefield with less chance of falling victim to artillery fire or other perils, as I have explained. Every AFV that is sent out provides another group of brave Ukrainian soldiers with the protective mobility they deserve. The Government’s export control organisation has been doing an excellent job of processing the licences for these AFVs, and no doubt it carefully considers all the relevant factors, including where the vehicles are going and, most importantly, where the money is coming from. It obviously has access to all the facilities and capabilities of the state, coupled with the close involvement of the MoD.

Noble Lords will appreciate that locating, purchasing and preparing these AFVs is a specialised business that only a few are effective at undertaking, and only a few have the necessary contacts and facilities. One of these dealers is called “Peter”—that is not his real name, which I cannot divulge for security reasons. I understand that Peter has export licences for at least 100 AFVs. Peter contacted me to ask for my help, because his bank wrote to him on 20 December last year to tell him that his bank account will be closed on 20 February. The bank made it clear that it was not prepared to discuss the matter or say why it was necessary. Peter suspected it was to do with money laundering, because his turnover has rocketed, and he is dealing with Ukrainian businessmen.

I have sought to deal with this matter discreetly and behind the scenes. The major high street bank has been very helpful and, so far as I can discern, it has done nothing wrong and has only been implementing the money laundering regulations. Thus, it would be unfair to name the bank. At a senior level, the bank has made it clear to me that it could continue to provide banking services if it received a letter from a Treasury Minister telling it to do so, or if Peter promised to stop selling AFVs to Ukraine.

I am grateful to the appropriate Treasury Minister for agreeing to have a meeting yesterday about this matter. Unfortunately, within two hours of us feting President Zelensky in Westminster Hall, the Minister was unable to agree to relax the money laundering regulations, even in a specific and minor way. The best advice from the Minister appeared to be that Peter should engage—wait for it—a consultant who would help him be compliant. The problem with that approach is that it is obvious that the bank was unhappy about the Ukrainian businessmen, and it is not clear to me how an expensive consultant can overcome that difficulty. It is also not what the bank thought to recommend to me.

I apologise for raising this matter in such an important strategic debate. However, as matters stand, Peter will have to cease exporting armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine on or before Monday week if he is to pay the wages to his staff and continue in business. As I understand it, this is because Treasury Ministers believe that the complete integrity of the money laundering regulations is more important than supplying armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine. The consequence of this will be that some heroic Ukrainian soldiers will die because they have been denied the opportunity of protected mobility on the battlefield. When my noble friend Lord Ahmad comes to reply, can he confirm that refusing to relax the money laundering regulations in the way I have suggested is the settled policy of His Majesty’s Government?

Armed Forces: Resilience

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Robathan for introducing this debate. I agree with everything that noble Lords have said so far. Before saying anything substantive, I must refer to the two maiden speakers; I know I am not really supposed to. The experience of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, in NATO will be invaluable in complementing the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. I am pleased that he mentioned the importance of logistics, because I will be saying a word about that in a moment. Turning to my noble friend Lord Hintze and his excellent maiden speech, what I find admirable about him is that he initially trained as an engineer and had a short but useful time in the Australian army, in the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, or—I am late—RAEME.

My noble friend Lord Robathan mentioned numbers in one UK armoured division on Op Granby. On Op Telic in Iraq, when the division crossed the start line, it had 25,000 men and women on the nominal roll—I repeat, 25,000. My noble friend mentioned the importance of armoured formations and, by implication, armoured battle groups. As the Russians are finding out, and as was reported in the Times recently, to attack dug-in infantry with anything but an armoured battle group is suicidal.

Touching directly on the war in Ukraine, I entirely agree with noble Lords, but I think it is too early to draw conclusions about what our defence posture should be in the future. We may be learning lessons—we will learn lessons—but we need to see what the outcome is. I also agree that we urgently need a full-scale and non-time-limited debate on the war in Ukraine, which really is an existential threat. We probably need to have regular debates on that.

Like many noble Lords, I think the Government are doing an extraordinarily good job in dealing with the war in Ukraine. Unfortunately, when I took a step back from Westminster during my recent illness, it seemed to be the only thing they were doing well. However, I praise my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for his sterling efforts and his frankness when discussing some of the problems in defence.

I am sure all noble Lords want to support the UK Government by speaking at various events about the war—but with authority. Speaking for myself, I cannot do this if I can rely only on a combination of the Times and the Economist, no matter how good they both are. Last year, I asked:

“Is the Minister aware of one difficulty: the paucity of briefing that we are receiving?”—[Official Report, 27/4/22; col. 354.]


In answer, my noble friend the Minister made the expected noises, including citing Parliamentary recesses, but I think I have had only one invitation to a briefing since that date.

The House will recognise that there will be a range of erroneous reasons why the Putin regime thought the time was right to invade Ukraine. Among these are—to some extent—Brexit, the accompanying instability and a weak UK Government caused by a hopelessly divided Conservative Party. The United States has its own problems. So far as the UK is concerned, there is also the false impression that we are no longer interested in defence and deterrence, despite the protestations of Ministers. When our opponents do their analysis of our Armed Forces, that must be the inescapable conclusion. We look happy to be able to deal with bush fires in the Sahel with “persistent engagement”, but not willing or able to deploy a fully bombed-up armoured division—or even exercise a small one.

We might be able to provide a mechanised division but, since we lack the necessary resilience, this will take nearly 12 months. However, what the Americans want from us is a fully supported armoured division at a useful state of readiness—a point made in the recent Select Committee report. When our opponents analyse our capabilities and resilience, they could be forgiven for thinking that we have only a heavily armoured gendarmerie with no depth, no redundancy and no reserves, especially in terms of logistics.

To provide your Lordships with just one illustration of hollowing out, I will have to go into the realm of military logistics; I apologise if this is too much detail. It is obvious that military logisticians will seek to have as few different types and models of logistics vehicles as possible. One reason is to reduce the spares inventory and the special tools and test equipment that is necessary to support these vehicles in theatre. This applies in particular to engines and main assemblies.

In the years towards the late 1990s, the British Army was supplied with numerous batches of Land Rovers. However, in terms of engines and main assemblies, they were not interchangeable, although outwardly similar. This caused huge logistics problems in supporting the Land Rovers in the field, especially in the Balkans. The last Labour Government carefully procured a range of trucks called the Support Vehicle, or SV, manufactured by the MAN company in Germany. At the time, the maximum number needed would have been carefully calculated, allowing for attrition and, most importantly, unexpected demands. In other words, that Government were prepared to pay the insurance premium referred to by my noble friend Lord Robathan. It would have been a disaster to have to buy a subsequent batch of these trucks, because they could never be built to the same build specification and the Land Rover problem that I referred to would then be repeated.

I mentioned unexpected demand. During the UNPROFOR days and Op Grapple in the Balkans, we were lucky enough to have a Malaysian battalion come and help on a UN deployment. Supporting their own trucks so far from their home base would have presented the Malaysians with insurmountable logistical difficulties, so we loaned them several of our own Leyland DAF four-tonners. We had plenty available, and we had the spare parts in theatre. We were able to provide second-line equipment support or, if necessary, give the Malays a replacement vehicle. Most importantly, we had the resilience—we had the fat.

Up until recent years, the MoD would not sell or dispose of logistics vehicles unless either the fleet concerned was obsolete or there was no longer any obvious use for the vehicle—the latter being hard to imagine for a general service truck—or, of course, the truck was damaged beyond economic repair. About two years ago, I became aware that the MoD was selling unused or nearly new MAN SV trucks with very low mileages. I asked my noble friend the Minister a suitable Written Question, and my heart sank when, on 13 January 2021, I received this answer:

“Due to a change in threat assessments, a surplus of MAN SV6T … trucks has been identified. To economise storage and support costs, a number have been identified for sale.”


We used to have what we called a war maintenance reserve; we obviously do not have one now. Would my noble friend give the same answer now? Are we still selling off perfectly serviceable MAN SV trucks? I ask, rhetorically, what signal does deliberately reducing our resilience send to a potential opponent? My overarching point is that our military capability is carefully measured by our opponents, as observed by the noble Lord, Lord West. They will pay particular attention to our resilience and whether or not we are serious about defence.

Ukraine: Update

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As I said earlier, the issue is not just what we as an individual country can do. We are providing Challenger, and the weaponry and ammunition accompanying it, to work with the American Bradley vehicles. That is a tandem capability. I indicated earlier that other countries are providing tanks as well. The question is where the need arises and the best way of addressing it. The Challenger 2 is obviously a very formidable piece of equipment, and it has a remarkable reputation for withstanding damage—in the current battlefield in Ukraine, that is a very important component. It is not a question of any one particular vehicle being what is needed universally; it is a question of thinking intelligently about how we ally with other bits of equipment and capabilities that allies and partners are producing to ensure that, in aggregate, we have something really effective.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I fully support what the Government are doing in a range of carefully made decisions, but I have two anxieties. The first is about the amount of technical cloning that is needed to support complex NATO main battle tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles that might partially answer the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. My second anxiety is about the capacity of the Russian people to absorb and tolerate pain in order to avoid defeat—which follows on from the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

On training, I do not think that there is much more I can add. What we know from our experience of Operation Orbital, which was the UK’s close training relationship with Ukraine prior to the conflict, and the subsequent Operation Interflex, which is the ongoing, very successful training programme we have been engaged in in the UK—we are now attracting international support for our efforts—is that the Ukrainian armed forces have shown themselves agile, receptive, quick to understand and responsive to training provision. I seek to reassure my noble friend that every aspect of training has been looked at, and it is anticipated that that will not be an impediment to the effective use of the equipment which has been donated.

On the situation within Russia, the sanctions regime both imposed by this country and in concert with other allies is certainly having an effect on Russia. At the end of the day, any change of attitude by the Russian Government has to emanate from the Russian people. As sanctions continue to bite in Russia and impact on what it is able to do—not least a predicted drop in its GDP—Russian people may begin to question, as that recent poll suggests they are already doing, what is happening and what the Government are doing in their name. Frankly, if that is a question that the Russian people start to ask, I think it is healthy. As I said earlier, we have to be very clear that our opposition is to the activity of the Russian Government; it is not in any way a hostile reaction to the Russian people.

Ukraine: Challenger 2 Tanks

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

Although the Secretary of State in the other place did indeed indicate that he would be reviewing the number of conversions and considering the lessons of Ukraine, I think that remark did not constitute a formal review of the process; rather, it is his understandable discretionary right as Secretary of State to look at that issue. Interestingly, he also said later on, in response to questions:

“I am always happy to keep under review the number of tanks”—[Official Report, Commons, 16/1/23; col. 42.]


and the nature of these tanks. I think that the Secretary of State is absolutely realistic, as many of us are, and I know the noble Lord is, that the conflict in Ukraine is constantly educating us and instructing us, as it is our allies and partners, but we are trying to respond to that in a sensible and pragmatic way.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, how are the Ukrainian armed forces to develop and generate highly sophisticated first- and second-line support for a complex range of NATO armoured fighting vehicles?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I am not a military strategist or a military technician, but my noble friend is aware that part of the training that we are engaging in with the Armed Forces of Ukraine is to ensure that they can be as professional and strategic in military thinking as possible. My noble friend will be aware that what was announced on Monday in the other place was a very extensive list of additional equipment—another important indication of the fundamental need to work in partnership with other allies. The Secretary of State made it clear, for example, that the merit of the donation of the Challenger 2 tanks will depend on these being able to work with United States Bradley equipment. I think that is an important example of trying to work in tandem to let the armed forces of Ukraine operate to best effect.