NATO: Eastern Flank

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Boyce

Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that the first duty of any Government is the safety and security of the British people at home and abroad. That is why we have committed to spending at least 2% of our GDP on defence every year of this decade. Not only that, in addition the MoD budget will rise by 0.5% a year in real terms to 2020-21 and we have access to up an additional £1.5 billion a year by 2020-21 through the new joint security fund. This is an appropriate response to the complex and challenging international and domestic security threats that we face.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that part of the NATO eastern flank includes maritime and the eastern Mediterranean? Will he say whether we are contributing our Royal Navy to NATO in that area, and if not whether we would have the capacity to do so if we were so asked?

[Earl Howe]

The noble and gallant Lord will know that there is a NATO operation currently in train in the Aegean in which the UK is playing a leading role. As to a wider involvement in the eastern Mediterranean, I will write to him if I can find out any more plans which can be disclosed. What I can say is that we are conscious of the need to defend NATO’s southern border as well as its eastern borders, and that is why we are deploying RAF aircraft for southern air policing later this year.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Boyce

Monday 21st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the key question is whether the Army is configured with enough strength to deliver the demands that we place upon it. We are clear that it is. The noble Lord is absolutely right that we have a way to go on recruitment, but the figures are heading in the right direction—that is, the inflow figures are looking encouraging. The change in definition of “trained strength” is simply a reversion to previous methods, which included phase 1 trained personnel as part of the trained strength, with their ability to engage in homeland resilience and in basic tasks that we place upon them within the UK.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, Russia is growing in intent and capability. We are not only not matching either but we are shrinking in both. We do not have enough numbers in the RN and the RAF to man properly the equipment we have today. Brexit will surely demand that we be prepared to operate more autonomously. Surely the Government must realise that SDSR 2015 is not fit for purpose.

HMS “Ocean”

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Boyce

Monday 7th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, the specified service life for HMS “Ocean” was 20 years as from 1998, and we announced in the SDSR 2015 that she would be taken out of service in 2018. The Royal Navy has been clear that, following the decommissioning of HMS “Ocean”, its priority was to maintain surface lift capability using “Albion” and “Bulwark” while preparing to bring the carriers into service with a smooth sequencing programme. I do not share the noble Lord’s perception of the Royal Navy as suffering cuts; if anything, it is very much on the up. We have the arrival of the two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers to look forward to, which will provide immensely greater capability than we have at the moment.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I am afraid that I do not find the Minister’s Answer to the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord West, particularly convincing. Does the Minister agree that paying off “Ocean” makes no strategic sense and that, despite what he said, it has been done because defence is badly underfunded and, in the Royal Navy’s case, badly underresourced in people as well? Does he agree that it was a mistake to impose an unrealistically low manpower ceiling in the 2010 defence review and to compound that mistake by not addressing it properly in the 2015 defence review, and that the current underfunding of defence resources, which is requiring the services to make cuts of some 10%, is having a very bad effect on training and the quality of life of our soldiers, sailors and airmen?

Naval Warships: Repair at Sea

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Boyce

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Lord made a series of points and asked a series of questions. Of course, there are always acute cost pressures where we have a service at the cutting-edge of excellence, as the Royal Navy is. But there is now a range of ways in which the Royal Navy delivers operational maintenance and repair to the fleet. It can often be, as I am sure the noble Lord knows, through a Royal Navy repair and maintenance party being deployed to a ship or, more likely, as will be the case with the carriers, through the ship’s own personnel and capabilities. In addition, we have well-established commercial arrangements and international agreements, such as the use of other countries’ bases and facilities. I would mention that, due to a successful recruitment campaign, RFA manning is currently on target, with many vacancies oversubscribed.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, with due respect, I fear that the Minister’s Answer to the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Astor, is somewhat complacent. The fact is that the Navy’s attribute to be deployable worldwide without any host nation support is critical. Where I believe it is complacent is that the noble Earl overlooks what happens in conflict. We are scarred with examples of where allies and international agreements sometimes fall away when we get into conflict situations. RFA “Diligence” may be only one component of our support but it is a critical one, especially for the servicing, maintenance and repair of nuclear submarines, which cannot get into ports where there are no nuclear-cleared berths. Will the Minister please reflect on that and reassure the House that the Ministry of Defence may look at this again?

[Earl Howe]

The House will listen with great respect to the noble and gallant Lord, with his enormous experience. The approach now being taken by the Royal Navy is to upskill our own engineers and give them an opportunity to use their skills. That is a good thing and, to that end, we are working with industry to improve training in diagnostics and repair techniques, which puts the service man and woman at the centre of operational maintenance. I will, however, reflect on the points that the noble and gallant Lord has made.

Armed Forces: Future Force 2020

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Boyce

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boyce]

My Lords, a skill set for which there is an ever growing need is, of course, engineering, especially nuclear engineering. Will the Minister say what progress has been made with industry to ensure a flow of that talent between industry and the services, particularly for those who have left the services and joined industry and then been brought back into the services to help out?

[Earl Howe]

The noble and gallant Lord is absolutely right. On nuclear engineers, we have adopted what we call an enterprise approach, which essentially means working with the wider defence industry to better share experience and best practice and to develop career management, manning and access to the key skills that we need to create a more attractive career path for nuclear engineers. There are other elements as well. We need to have proper staged financial incentives, and we have retention incentives for those already working for the Royal Navy. There is no single answer, but I think that this is the way ahead—in particular, working closely with university and technical colleges to support the development of those skilled individuals.

Vanguard Submarine Replacement

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Boyce

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I have no wish to score party-political points on a matter as serious as this. The noble Lord may remember that Parliament voted in 2007 to support the programme to replace the Vanguard-class submarines. That authorised the investment in the programme, including the design work and the long leads. This is the stage we are at now. If we had not commenced the work when we did, it would not have been possible to design and construct the successor submarines before the Vanguard class left service. We are moving ahead with all speed. We are committed to a parliamentary vote because it is only right and proper to give the democratically elected Chamber of Parliament the opportunity to endorse the principle of the deterrent.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that confirmation of the Government’s commitment to the successor programme. There has been some badly informed talk by some people in positions of responsibility on the subject of the vulnerability of the successor to detection in the future. Does the Minister agree that such statements are totally speculative; show serious lack of understanding of anti-submarine warfare, the science of oceanography and the science of the impenetrability of water; and are probably being made with irresponsibly and wilfully misleading intent?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, yes. To be effective, the nuclear deterrent has to be credible. We take the responsibility to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent extremely seriously. We continually assess all the threats and review them against the capability of our submarines to ensure their current and future operational effectiveness, including threats against cyber and unmanned vehicles. We are confident that the deterrent remains safe and secure and will be so in the future.

National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Boyce

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the noble Baroness should not read anything in particular into what she perceives as a paucity of mention of the European Union in this document. There is no doubt that our membership of the European Union adds value to our defence capability. We have only to look at the operation in the Mediterranean to rescue migrants earlier this year to see how the European Union came together. I was in Brussels last week at a meeting of the European Defence Agency, which is another means whereby member states can collaborate to ensure that we have such things as common standards in air-to-air refuelling, aircraft safety and a range of other areas. The European Union is a vehicle for co-operation, in parallel to our membership of NATO, and I would be the first to pay tribute to the work of its member states in protecting the security of Europe.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. We should welcome this arrest in the decline in defence spending. We should also welcome the Government’s rather belated recognition of the damage that was done in the 2010 SDSR. But repairing the holes in our capability caused by that damage will take years and we need it today. In that context, for example, it is to be welcomed that the Statement says:

“We need the sea lanes to stay open and the arteries of global commerce to remain free flowing”,

but for that we need sufficient escorts. Does the Minister agree that it is not enough to say that we will not reduce our destroyer and frigate force from 19? Does he not agree that that force is far too small and that waiting until the 1930s, as the Statement says, is completely unacceptable?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I think the noble and gallant Lord meant the 2030s. This has been a matter of very deep consideration in the SDSR process. The commitment to maintaining our fleet of 19 frigates and destroyers is still there, as I have said. The Navy needs eight Type 26 frigates to undertake the core anti-submarine warfare role and we remain committed to building those ships. We are taking more time to mature the design and drive down the costs before we cut steel on the first Type 26. Meanwhile, we will build two more offshore patrol vessels to ensure continuity of work on the Clyde and to provide more capability to the Royal Navy.

The concept of designing and building a new class of lighter, flexible, general-purpose frigate is, I hope, interesting to noble Lords. We are clear that behind that lies an aspiration to increase the total number of frigates and destroyers available to the Royal Navy. If we can produce something that is more generic—that is less high-spec when it does not need to be state-of-the-art high-spec—that should benefit the reach and capability of the Royal Navy in the round. It should also benefit shipbuilders in Scotland and the rest of the UK. We will publish a new shipbuilding strategy in 2016 setting out the detail of that.