Defence Spending

Debate between James Gray and John Baron

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baron]

My hon. Friend and I may disagree about whether our interventions were misguided, but he makes a very valid point, which is that we have been intervening with increasingly marginal effect. Helmand in Afghanistan was a classic case of that. It took the Americans putting in another 20,000 troops before we pulled that situation round.

Let me return to the point about disconnect. The military interventions over the past decade have distracted us from the greater danger. Too often in these military interventions, we have failed to take the long view in favour of short-term foreign policy fixes that give rise to as many problems as they solve. A key reason is a deficit of strategic analysis at the heart of our foreign policy making, in large part because of continual underfunding—but perhaps that is a debate for another day.

There is little doubt that we went to war in Iraq on a false premise, and that we foolishly allowed the mission in Afghanistan to morph into one of nation building after we had achieved our original objective of ridding the country of al-Qaeda. Our Libyan intervention has not ended well courtesy of a vicious civil war. Speaking as someone who opposed them all, we must dispel these demons when thinking about defence more generally, because, in addition to being mistakes in themselves, these interventions have distracted us from, and blinded us to, the greater danger of traditional state-on-state threats.

For example, recent events in Ukraine reveal a resurgent Russia that is once again making its presence felt around NATO’s borders. Russian bomber aircraft and submarines have resumed their aggressive patrols, some near UK waters and airspace. The Defence Secretary correctly observed last month that Russia posed a real and current danger to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia—all NATO members covered by article 5. Only by dispelling these previous intervention demons and recognising the bigger danger can we mend the political disconnect between commitments, on the one hand, and funding, on the other. It is absolutely essential that we do that.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that two of the most chilling interventions in recent weeks have been, first, from the chief of staff of the American army, who said that he thought that a diminished UK defence capability would serve not alongside, but as part of, an American division; and secondly, from the Europeans, who indicated that the best deterrent against Mr Putin was a European army? Are not both those interventions extremely telling?

[Mr Baron]

I can only agree with my hon. Friend. The idea that British brigades would serve within American divisions would probably have been unthinkable only 10 years ago. That is testament to the alarm in Washington, expressed—this is highly unusual—as we head into a general election. The extent of that alarm is clear for all to see.

Defence Reform Bill

Debate between James Gray and John Baron

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baron]

I commend my hon. Friend for all his good work on behalf of the regular armed forces in this place, but with the greatest of respect his point that the MOD budget has to be cut because of the financial constraints does not quite ring true because other Departments have escaped the cuts. It is a question of national priorities. Does he agree?

[Mr Gray]

I always feel instinctively uneasy when anyone says, “With the greatest of respect,” because it almost certainly means, “With no respect at all.” Of course, I agree with my hon. Friend: of course, we would all love the budgets to be as they were; of course, many of us would like the aid or other budgets cut, possibly in favour of defence; of course, those of us who believe passionately in defence would like to see the defence of the realm maintained as it has been for the past many years; of course, we would like us to achieve the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP—or even the NATO target of spending 2.5%—of GDP on defence, but this is realpolitik and those things are not going to happen.

I will leave that to one side for a moment. We all start from the position of regretting the cuts but realising the reasons for them. On the reserve forces, we all hope the plans in place work. We are all committed to making them work and believe that the reserve forces have done a superb job. In recent years, and as long ago as the first world war, they have made a gigantic contribution to the defence of the realm, and we strongly support that. Everyone in the Chamber is deeply concerned about whether the 20,000 regular soldiers will be replaced by the increase in the TA that is posited. Of course, we are concerned about that, about the recruitment figures and about whether the Secretary of State’s plans will work out. Those are common positions. I suspect that not one person in the Chamber would disagree.

The disagreement arises when we consider what to do about it. The Regular Army is already at about 86,000 or 87,000. By early February, it will be at about 82,760. The redundancy notices have gone out. People are already on their leaving training and getting ready to leave the regular forces. We cannot reverse that. No matter what we do in the Chamber today, there is no magic wand that will reverse it. By the middle of January, the Army will be at 82,760 soldiers. Regret it as we may, we cannot reverse that. The second thing for certain is that, whether or not we have confidence it will work, we will have to set about increasing the size of the reserve forces, their training and their equipment so that they can replace the lost regulars. Those two things are certainties, and regret them as we may, they are going to occur.

The question, therefore, is: what do we do about it? That is the nature of this debate, and it seems to me that there are two possibilities. The first thing we could do, as my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) seeks to do—I have to admit that I signed his new clause 3—is to write our aims and concerns into legislation. In recent years we have done that in this House on a number of occasions—for example, with regard to the green carbon targets and reducing child poverty. In such cases, there is a law that says, “The Government will do this or do that,” and if it does not achieve those aims there will be some penalty to pay. It is therefore perfectly possible that we could do what my hon. Friend seeks to do by writing into legislation—the law of the land—something that says that the Government will improve our reserve forces in the way described. The alternative approach would be to do what we do with regard to every single thing in this place—to scrutinise what the Government are doing in questions and debates in this Chamber, in Westminster Hall and in Select Committees. We can do that in a variety of ways.

I am very encouraged by the fact that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State tells me that because of my hon. Friend’s new clause and this debate, he, the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Defence as a whole have been entirely focused on this matter for a number of days. That means we have achieved one of the things we wanted to achieve. We have said to the nation as a whole—it has been wall to wall in the media—that we are deeply concerned about these cuts in defence spending, about the fact that we have an Army of 82,000 that may not be able to do its job, and about whether the re-growing of the Territorial Army will actually occur. However, should we take the further step of writing those concerns into legislation?

Defence Reforms

Debate between James Gray and John Baron

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baron]

I must say to my hon. Friend, with the greatest respect, that he has confused training with deployment. There is no argument in the House about the fact that reservists will be cheaper; the question is, how much cheaper will they be? When costs are rising, do we enter the terrain of false economies—which brings into doubt the whole question of value for money and whether the plan should have been instigated in the first place? I was talking about training. There has been a dispute about whether it costs more to train a regular, but my hon. Friend should know from the Green Paper that it costs more to train a reservist.

However, this is not just about the bits of the jigsaw that we have seen. We know that there are hidden costs further down the line. According to a recent report by the charity Combat Stress, reservists are twice as likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as regular troops. We may be storing up a ticking time bomb for ourselves. The necessary support structures for reservists are not in place, and I should be interested to know whether there are any proposals in that regard.

May I ask the Minister how much of the £1.8 billion—spread over 10 years—has been set aside for the Government’s plans? We are told that that money has been set aside and all is well, but there are various reports that some of it has already been eaten into. Has any of it been spent, and if so, how much?

While I am on the subject of costs, may I question the Minister about the impact assessment, which attempts to take an overall view of the costs? Again, we are dealing with assumptions and projected usage rates, and not all the figures are on the table, but I think we can all agree that the assessment is very dependent on projected usage rates. The way in which the reserve forces are used will depend on assumptions about future costs.

Artificially low rates can create false economies. The central case in the document seems to be based on an assumption of 3,000 annual deployments. I must ask the Minister whether that projection is realistic, given the original rationale of the reserve reforms. We are meant to be replacing 20,000 regular troops with 30,000 reservists. If the central projected use is 3,000, something is not adding up on the terrain. We need to examine the facts very carefully, because, again, we may be creating false economies and the taxpayer may be presented with a much larger bill than was originally envisaged.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend knows, I strongly support those who are concerned about a capability gap, but I am slightly worried about some of the figures that he has given. For example, the figure relating to the higher cost of training a reservist is correct on a per-day basis, but it is not correct overall. What worries me is that, if Members give incorrect figures, the Government will very quickly knock them back. Let us stick to the main thrust, which is our fear that there will not be enough soldiers to fight in any future deployments that may take place.

[Mr Baron]

I am indeed very worried about the possibility that we shall not have enough troops to deploy. I refer my hon. Friend to the Green Paper, which states that it costs more to train a reservist than to train a regular. However, he has made a valid point about the manpower gap, which I think is a central issue of concern. Will 30,000 reservists be enough, even if they can be recruited? According to figures from the Ministry of Defence, the present TA mobilisation rate is 40%. In other words, for every 100 TA soldiers on paper, 40 are deemed to be deployable at any one time. That suggests that if we are plugging a gap left by 20,000 regulars, we shall need 50,000 reservists, not 30,000.

In response to a letter sent to him a while ago by 25 Conservative Members, the Secretary of State suggested a mobilisation rate of 80%. He said:

“The total strength target for the Army Reserve in 2020 is 38,000, in order to deliver 30,000 trained reservists.

May I ask the Minister what research, what study, what evidence justifies the claim that the MOD’s budgets will double the mobilisation rate? It is one thing to recruit 30,000 reservists, but doubling the mobilisation rate as well would require an extremely large investment. Many of us would be interested to know what evidence supports the claim that the £1.8 billion that has been put aside will achieve both those objectives. It is a very, very tall order.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) raised the issue of the capability gap, and he was right to do so, because there is a fear that the Government plans risk creating such a gap. The Army reforms were put together before the strategic defence and security review, and since then a string of events have changed the international strategic dynamic. The nature of conflict is changing. Previously, it was thought of very much in binary terms—there would be one bloc against another bloc—but more fluid geopolitical forces are now at play, both state and non-state. War is becoming more asymmetrical, and we need well trained, agile, regular forces at high readiness if we are to meet the challenges that lie ahead. There is no disguising among the military their frustration about the fact that they could not have been more supportive to the French in Mali. The penny may have dropped on that side of the channel, but it has not yet dropped on this side.

I must ask the Minister whether 40 days’ training is really enough. Let us be absolutely clear about this: the Government’s plans represent a step-change in our approach. We are proposing to deploy whole units of reservists into the field. We have got to ask serious questions about this. Some would say, “Well, it happens in the US with the National Guard,” but it is, perhaps, not fully appreciated that the US National Guard has its own bases and its own equipment and training programmes. They take it very seriously in the US; they throw a lot of money at it, and even then the National Guard units are not infantry units. That is the interesting thing: the National Guard units are not infantry units, despite the investment the US puts into it.