Julian Brazier
Main Page: Julian Brazier (Conservative - Canterbury)Department Debates - View all Julian Brazier's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Baron
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I shall be dealing with the capability gap—very briefly, if my hon. Friend will forgive me—because I think that it is an important issue, but may I test the patience of the House and stick to the cost issue for the time being? There is a real risk that, if costs rise faster than anticipated, we shall create false economies that will bring the whole project into doubt. That is terribly important, and we are right to ask questions about it on behalf of the taxpayer.
The Government have not come here to present a fully costed plan, but the pieces of the jigsaw that we can see do not reveal a rosy picture. We know from the Green Paper—and the Independent Commission to Review the United Kingdom’s Reserve Forces has confirmed this—that it costs more to train a reservist than to train a regular. We know that those who leave the regular forces to join the reserves will be given a £5,000 bounty, payable over four years. We have some questions about the reservist award, which is the difference between reservists’ pay and what they earn in civilian life. We are told that the potential cost has been accounted for, but the assumptions have not been made clear. We also know that, because employers are reluctant to let key employees go for extended periods, the Government have come up with an incentive for prospective employers amounting to £500 per reservist per month. Those are all added costs, but we still do not know what the fully costed plan is.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
My hon. Friend referred to the Independent Commission to Review the United Kingdom’s Reserve Forces. I serve on the commission, and I do not accept his statistic. Broadly speaking, the cost of a reservist is about a fifth of the cost of his regular counterpart. In America, it is about a quarter, and my guess is that following the changes that we are making, it will be something between a quarter and a fifth.
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 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.
Mr Brazier
My last visit to a National Guard infantry unit was in Kabul about a year and a half ago. It was doing an excellent security job, and it also had detached platoons along the Pakistani border. Some 60% of the American infantry is in the National Guard and 40% is in its regular army.
Mr Baron
All I would say to my hon. Friend is that there is a general view that the National Guard is very much focused on supporting roles, and the Americans treat their National Guard very differently from what I think is being proposed here. For example, I do not know of there being any details about separate training programmes, operational programmes or equipment programmes in the Government’s plans, which we have yet to see. All we are asking is to see those plans, because £1.8 billion may sound like a lot of money but it is spread over 10 years, and we must consider the scale of what we are asking—not just raising 30,000 reservists, or, to be more accurate, adding another 12,000 or 13,000 reservists, but doubling the mobilisation rate. That is a very big ask indeed.
What research has been undertaken to ensure that the money earmarked is sufficient to bring reservist units up to the same standard as regulars upon deployment? That is especially important given that it appears that human rights legislation will require equal training and equipment. That has not been raised much in the debate thus far, but human rights legislation is a concern in the sense that it is going to say, “Any troops put into the field, reservist or regular, have to have equal training and equipment.” I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that.
There is a concern that these plans are having a distorting effect on the ground. I come back to the fact that well-recruited battalions are being axed, including my own battalion, the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, yet more poorly recruited, and therefore more expensive, battalions are being saved. Such a policy reinforces failure. Can the Minister justify the decision for 2RRF to replace on the list one of the more poorly recruited battalions when it was not on the original list of five battalions to be scrapped? We know, because we have seen it in writing from the MOD, that five battalions were originally due to be axed as they had poor recruitment figures. One of those was replaced. They had to go looking for another battalion and they fell upon 2RRF, which happened to be the best-recruited battalion in the British Army. Many fusiliers and their families in swathes of constituencies across the north and the midlands of England would like an answer to that question.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I welcome this debate and I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing it. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham).
I understand my hon. and gallant Friend’s loyal defence of his fine former regiment. As the 100th anniversary of the start of the first world war is almost upon us, it is time to remember six Lancashire and Warwickshire Fusiliers who won Victoria Crosses in that war. Sir John French made the famous remark that without the Territorial units available at the very beginning of the fighting we would have lost in France before the war had really begun.
The reality is that we have a good plan that is being unevenly implemented. America’s land forces are almost exactly split 50:50 between regulars and volunteer reserves. Canada has 44% regulars and Australia has 36% regulars; in all countries there are more reserve infantry than regulars. Uniquely, Britain has a target that is much less ambitious. It is broadly the case that a reservist costs a fifth of the price of a regular. All of us who are keen on defence would like more resources to be allocated to defence. Indeed, more than 20 years ago, I stepped down from my post in government as a Cabinet Parliamentary Private Secretary over that issue. However, the reality is that we have to work within these very difficult economic times, and the alternative to 30,000 reservists is not 20,000 regulars, but somewhere between 6,000 and 7,500, and that would be if we got rid of all the specialist medics, cyber-people and so on whom the Regular Army does not have.
I therefore strongly support this plan; I have seen the work of American and Australian reservists, and I am proud that 20% of the British division that captured southern Iraq was made up of reservists. However, I am concerned about some of the details of how the plan is being implemented. From the beginning, Ministers and the Chief of the General Staff have made a strong commitment to it. Ministers have secured the support of every employers’ organisation in the country. The CGS, starting with his own pitch to employers in his excellent article in the Financial Times, immediately spotted the governance issue by appointing, for the first time since the second world war, a TA two-star—a major-general—to play a pivotal role in it. The problems largely lie within the recruiting group. At a time when the proposition has improved immeasurably as a result of changes the Army Board is making, it is deeply depressing that this department is failing to deliver.
I have before me the monthly recruiting statistics for one unit—I will not disclose which, for obvious reasons. In the 12 months before the first push on TA recruiting in autumn 2011, the unit had enlisted between three and 12 people a month. The figures after that push are: 15 for November 2011, 21 for December 2011 and 19 for January 2012. Then, for a reason not understood by anyone, the recruiting group introduced its new system for medicals and common selection, without any market testing and without talking to units, and within three or four months the figures had dropped to one or two a month. That muddle was sorted—it had nothing to do with Capita. Second time around, the arrangements with Capita—I do not blame Capita—were introduced without any market testing or discussion with units. I am sure we have all dealt with cases of soldiers who have waited six or nine months with their documents repeatedly lost in the system.
Time is extremely short, so I want to suggest three things that the Government need to do turn this around. The units I talk to tell me again and again that there is more interest in joining the reserves and that the figures for the two groups that are not under control of the recruiting group—officer applicants and ex-regulars—are both improving. So, first, we need to get more of the control over the enlistment process back with the units again.
Mr Baron
May I suggest that this is a clear example of where the plan is driven by costs, rather than by strategic design? The cost for Capita to take on the recruitment was derived in large part by scaling down, if not selling up completely, local recruitment offices. So to start opening those offices, although a sensible proposition, would require additional cost if we are going to reverse that recruitment loss.
Mr Brazier
My hon. and gallant Friend makes an interesting point. That is not what I am arguing for, although I would strongly argue that it is ridiculous that the offices we still retain are open 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday instead of, for example, 9 am to 9 pm Tuesday to Thursday, which would allow the people there to do both jobs rather than only regulars. I am calling for more emphasis on the units. A temporary measure has been adopted in that area, which I suggest should be more permanent—it need not be expensive.
The second major change we need is to have a senior reservist officer in the recruiting group who is tasked with talking to units and who has real power in the way in which decisions in that area are made. We have done it at Land Command at the senior level, where two highly effective successive deputy commanders at Land in that position have worked well, and the improvements in the proposition have stemmed in no small part from that. The same needs to be done in the recruiting group.
The third change we need is on a relatively small scale, as seven or eight changes among the 400-odd decisions that had to be made to the location of the reserves are not right. Seven or eight really well-recruited sub-units have been wrongly selected for disbandment, including the best-recruited squadron in the yeomanry, which is going down to troop level, the best-recruited battery in the TA gunners and three or four well-recruited infantry sub-units.
I believe that this plan is achievable and it is moving us in the direction of the allies we fight alongside. It is a good plan; it just needs an improvement in implementation.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who made an earnest plea. I also thank the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for all he has done to secure the debate today and the debate last year. He deserves our support for what he said today.
This is an important debate, because, as yet, the Government have not made a good enough case for their plans to reform the country’s armed forces completely by 2020. Furthermore, we know that, of the three services, the Army will be most affected by the Government’s proposed changes. I confess that a particular concern for me from a local perspective is the plan to disband 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
A year ago, on 18 October, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) has mentioned, the House debated the proposed disbandment of that battalion. The vote was won, but we know that it was not binding and the Defence Reform Bill is before Parliament with the disbandment proposals intact. All the while, the Army is working to implement its restructuring by 2018.
Colleagues speaking in support of this motion cannot yet see any evidence that supports the Government’s decision to give reservists a bigger role in defending the country. To complete the transformation of the Army, the Government must meet their target of recruiting 30,000 new reservists by 2018. However, the Assistant Chief of the General Staff told the Defence Committee in July of this year that achieving the 6,000 target for this year is “looking tough”. Even if recruitment improves, there are concerns from many quarters about how employers will react when their staff, serving as reservists, have to be deployed for up to 12 months at a time every five years. There is also concern that the compensation of £500 a month to cover each reservist is too low to cover employers’ costs.
Moreover, can Future Force meet the same capability levels as the Army today? With less time for training and with a voluntary role, these soldiers cannot be expected to be comparable with full-time, fully trained and battle-ready Army personnel.
Mr Brazier
I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying. On the question about being battle-ready and so on, under the American system the regular troops are used to seize ground and the reserve troops, who can bring extra expertise—they include policemen, farmers, business men and so on—are used to hold ground. They are often more successful than regular troops at building links with the local community.
Mrs Glindon
The point at issue is the transformation to reservists.
So far, the Government have not been able to instil in either Members of this House or the people of this country any confidence in their cost-cutting proposals, because they have not laid the figures on the table. Instead, they have launched headlong into reform, announcing redundancies and undermining the morale of our forces on active service. I remind the Minister that the military covenant states that our military deserve our support, respect and fair treatment, and they should have that at all times.
As for the question of the depletion of our Regular Army, earlier this year I had the honour, along with the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), of taking to Downing street a 10,000-strong petition, which was co-ordinated by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle and signed by the people of the north-east, asking the Government not to disband the 2nd Battalion. On Tuesday this week, hundreds of fusiliers marched through Whitehall in support of a national petition to save their battalion that was presented at 10 Downing street. It was an emotional afternoon, charged with the pride of a regiment that has the best recruitment record in the land, yet tinged with sadness and dismay that that proud tradition could soon be consigned to history.
After the march, I was honoured to bring four veterans from the north-east on their first visit to Parliament. I am pleased to say that while I showed them around this great place, every member of staff and every MP we encountered treated them with the utmost courtesy and respect. Those veterans—Jim, Terry, Jim the Stick and Mac—fear for the future of their battalion and the opportunities for young people in the north-east to follow them into a full-time Army career.
None of us wants to see the battalion or any other unit disbanded in haste and without our being sure that the Government’s plan is cost-effective and wholly workable. This House, our armed forces and the people of the country have a right to see evidence from the Government that they can make the savings and maintain the level of defence that they claim the reforms will deliver.
If the Government are serious about defence reform, they must acknowledge the relevance of the motion and act in accordance with it. I support the motion and urge all other Members in Westminster today to do so, too.
Sir Bob Russell
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for providing a word I was struggling to find; it was not my original thought, but it will do.
The Daily Telegraph reports today:
“Controversial plans to restructure the Army are ‘failing’ because cuts to the defence budget are putting off potential new soldiers…according to a leaked document”,
and:
“The memo, which is understood to have had wide distribution within the Ministry of Defence, says that ‘disappointing’ recruitment to the new Army Reserve means that targets for a larger part-time force will not be reached.”
It goes on to quote that document, saying that
“the Army faces ‘increased risk to its structure and operational capability’”.
The full-time Army has been cut from 102,000 to about 82,000 and five battalions will be axed. As someone who would desperately like to see 3rd Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment reinstated, I well understand why people are anxious about battalion cuts. The cuts are supposed to be offset by a major expansion in the part-time reserve force, which is expected to grow from 19,000 to 30,000.
Mr Brazier
Just while my hon. Friend is mentioning the distinguished Royal Anglian Regiment, one should also say that the Territorials have produced a number of distinguished Members of Parliament, including Sir Winston Churchill and the hon. Member for Raleigh, a former member of the Royal Anglians.
Sir Bob Russell
Or indeed, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). I welcome a fellow Essex MP to the debate, and in a few minutes I will also be delighted to welcome from Essex the new Deputy Speaker. It is good to see an Essex girl doing so well.
The Daily Telegraph says that the 10-page report dated 6 August and marked “Restricted” claims that the Army is currently recruiting barely half the number of new reservists needed to hit the target. It says:
“The Army is currently failing to attract and recruit sufficient Army Reserve personnel. Reserve info numbers in Quarter 1 are disappointing. If this continues the Army will miss its challenging inflow targets both this year and next.”
That would have consequences for the full-time Army. The report continues:
“Only 376 recruits joined the Reserve between April and June, missing a target of 1,432. That puts the Army on course to recruit only 50% of the overall 2013-14 target”.
The defence of the realm should be based on the defence needs of the nation; it should not be resources led. I get the distinct impression that it is being resources led. I pay tribute to our service personnel and their families. I suggest to my colleagues, friends and chums on the Government Front Bench that, should windfall funds materialise from the disposal of MOD assets, which they could well do, the money should be used primarily to modernise our Army married housing. The modernisation programme is currently on hold because it is claimed that the country cannot afford it, but as heard in Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday, the economy is improving. So if there is an MOD windfall, I suggest that the money goes on improving our housing.
I should like to end on an upbeat subject and advise the House that on Wednesday 6 November at 7.30 in the atrium of Portcullis House the Colchester military wives choir will be making a return visit. Everyone is welcome to come along and hear them.
Sir Alan Beith
The same logic can indeed be applied, but the sheer strength of feeling with regard to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers is significant, as is the number of Members who are taking part in this debate because of their concern about the future of the 2nd Battalion and of the regiment in general.
I do not want to spend too long on why the mistake was made, but it is clear that in the case of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers the decision to stand down was based not on efficiency, but on the cap badge argument, which preserved Scottish battalions that did not recruit as well as the Fusiliers. Interestingly, the cap badge argument did not count for much when, a few years earlier, we lost the King’s Own Scottish Borderers—the other regiment that had its regimental headquarters in my constituency—and they were merged with the Royal Scots to become one battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. In effect, the two regiments associated with our area have sustained losses.
Since the decision was made—Ministers may claim it was right, but I think it was wrong—the facts have changed, and when the facts change, Governments have to look at things again. It has become clear how difficult it will be to meet the TA recruitment target. I do not know many people—indeed, anyone—who are confident that we will achieve the targets in the given time scale. It is therefore likely—in fact, I am certain—that there will be a capability gap.
Mr Brazier
The reason we are not meeting the targets is not that there is a shortage of people willing to enlist. As I explained in my speech, we have had two big surges, but both were wrecked because the Department in charge of recruiting and enlistment has set up systems that are simply not volunteer-reservist friendly.
Sir Alan Beith
My hon. Friend, who has worked diligently on strengthening the TA and its role in our military structure, makes an important point. I am not sure whether that is the whole answer or argument. If we are deterring potential recruits as a result of slow processes, that should be put right. Many years ago my hon. Friend was my Conservative opponent and he became aware during that time of the significance of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in my area.
As well as the slowness of TA recruitment, TA centres are being closed. Alnwick in my constituency is keeping a good and strong TA centre of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The TA centre in Berwick was reassigned some time ago to the Royal Logistics Corps, which no longer needs it. I think we should have kept it and that it should be reassigned back to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
If we give up on rural areas and create a situation whereby it is too far for people from rural areas to attend training nights, we will cut off a significant source of recruitment. There are many loyal people in rural areas who want to serve and many ex-regulars return to rural areas. At the very least, we need to devise ways in which the training structure can accommodate people who live 30, 40 or 50 miles away from a training centre, if we are not simply to write off a whole area of recruitment.
I do not want to take up much more time. It is clear from today’s discussion that a lot of people, for various reasons, have serious concerns about our ability to meet the TA targets. I therefore suggest to Ministers that the contingency plan they should have to hand and keep in preparedness is the retention of at least one of the regular battalions, and the obvious choice is the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
Andrew Selous
I accept that, but there is no reason why the chamber of commerce in my hon. Friend’s constituency or the Federation of Small Businesses could not do the same thing. I would like to see stalls on the high streets, in the market towns and at the village fairs in his constituency. We should literally be setting out our stall to get young men and women to join the reserve forces. Groups of employers could do the same thing.
To highlight one employer, Carillion is doing an excellent job of encouraging its staff to join the reserve forces because it is a two-way trade. Not only does the country get the reserve forces that it needs, but employers get back a capable, determined and well-trained employee who will be of even more benefit to their work force. It is important to recognise that this is not just about employers doing the decent thing; there are sound business reasons for employers to get behind the reserves. The Government also provide assistance to meet mobilisation costs.
It is important to recognise the contribution that the Territorial Army, as it used to be called, has made to recent campaigns. Up to 10% of our forces in Afghanistan have come from the Territorial Army. Indeed, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) mentioned the figure of 14% for Iraq in our debate on 23 April.
We need a simple and straightforward recruiting system. My memory of joining the Territorial Army in 1980 is that it was a quick and easy process. Captain Simon Lalor, who is now a major-general, was the recruiting officer of the Honourable Artillery Company. I had friends in the company and I went in to see him. The process was very quick and I was doing my recruit basic training before I knew it. There was not a long delay, but I am sure that the necessary security checks were undertaken then, as they must be now. If we were able to do it quickly, simply and easily then, I am sure that we can do so now. That is important because if a young man or woman who is bursting with energy and commitment wants to join the TA, we have to act quickly to capture that enthusiasm or we may lose them.
I return to the point that I made about the need for community engagement. It is important that businesses, civic leaders, Members of Parliament, mayors, county council and unitary council chairs and so on get behind this effort, support the reserve forces and encourage people to join their local unit. I think that an extra 11,000 reserves is possible. I have heard about the difficulties with the current recruitment process that have been outlined, but I still believe that recruiting 11,000 reserves is possible.
Mr Brazier
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. The central difference between the recruitment processes in this country and other English-speaking countries is that reservists here have very little say over the way in which it is designed, organised and implemented.
Andrew Selous
I defer to no one in this House more than my hon. Friend for their knowledge of and commitment to the reserves. He has advised the House well and loyally over the past few years. There are two Defence Ministers on the Front Bench and I am sure that they will have heard his comments. I know that they want to get the process right and that they will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that we achieve the target.
We need community buy-in. We need employers and civic leaders to be out there supporting our reserves. We need an extra 11,000 reserves. We have done it in the past. In 1990, we had 70,000 people in the Territorial Army. Surely it is possible for us to get to a figure of 30,000. I refuse to believe that we cannot do that if we have the right enthusiasm, motivation and recruiting systems.
Sir Edward Leigh
I agree with my hon. Friend. When I arrived in the House we had an annual Navy debate, which was the only debate in which Mr Bonner Pink—a great man who represented Portsmouth—spoke in the course of an entire year, so important was it. We greatly respect my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, but we would like the Secretary of State to be present on these occasions and in these most important debates.
We are, of course, sympathetic to Defence Ministers, and we know the intolerable pressure they have been put under. I will not get into a debate about the £35 billion black hole, just in case the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) intervenes on me, but as we know, the money has to come from nowhere—or rather, from somewhere—and difficult decisions must be made. I hope that was not a Freudian slip, Madam Deputy Speaker, and by the way, welcome to the Chair. Thank you for calling me; you are doing wonderfully well so far.
We all know the pressure that those on the Front Benches are under, but that does not absolve them from answering the central question in this debate. We can argue about the relative costs of reservists compared with regular forces, but we cannot deny that the previous Secretary of State made a pledge to the Chair of the Defence Committee that we would not reduce the Regular Army unless we were sure we could recruit these reservists. That is the nub of this debate, and we must not get lost in the detail. We must keep our eyes firmly focused on the issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) has played a distinguished part in this debate, and his independent commission concluded:
“Our Reserve Forces are in Decline.”
Why are they in decline? The commission concluded:
“We have failed to modernise Reservist Roles.”
We must ask my hon. Friend, and the Minister, whether we can increase the burdens we place on reservists when we are still modernising their role. The 2013 MOD White Paper “Reserves in the Future Force 2020: Valuable and Valued” was produced in response.
Mr Brazier
The central point was that for the past few years reserves have been used exclusively as a part-time personnel service with no command opportunities for officers whatever. That has now changed, and as a result we have a decent proposition.
Mr Ellwood
It depends which frigates we are talking about. It will be rare for us to participate in a conflict without an international flotilla, so we need to think about frigates other than our own. I want to focus on Britain’s military capability, which goes far beyond providing the senior service with a replacement for the Invincible class and thinking of carriers in terms of the battle of Medway and so forth.
We either need carriers or we do not. If we need the capability, we need a minimum of two carriers to guarantee that one is permanently operational. Let us bear in mind what happened in the operation in Libya. Halfway through the operation, the Charles de Gaulle had to head back to France for a refit. Previously, 40% of air operations had come from it. Let us also bear in mind our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, which highlight the need for a new and adaptable, but arm’s length, doctrine of intervention, with the flexibility for upstream engagement and stabilisation, including humanitarian tasks, based on a much lighter footprint. The carriers could become the centrepiece of British expeditionary capability.
The Queen Elizabeth class carriers provide an opportunity to facilitate a step-change in long-range manoeuvrable technology and capability, and allow us to recalibrate our joint-service approach to littoral, expeditionary and inland conflict prevention and upstream engagement. In a wider context, strategic carriers allow us to extend and embolden Britain’s diplomatic soft power and hard power in a manner not seen for a generation, for the reason my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere has given. In my view, we are not reaching the carriers’ potential.
Mr Brazier
Will my hon. Friend confirm that there is no way we can fund that objective, which I strongly support, if we have an all-regular Army?
Mr Ellwood
I will come to funding in a second.
In my view, the full potential of the carriers needs to be exploited. For example, we are not considering having unmanned aerial systems on board, but that will become the norm in future. Drone systems like the ScanEagle, the Fire Scout and the X47-B are already available and exist on other carriers, yet we do not have a programme to consider them, even though our ships will be around for the next 40 years. On capability, it is worth noting that two thirds of airborne operations conducted over Afghanistan by the Americans took place from aircraft carriers based in the Indian ocean. We need to recognise that those are versatile bits of kit.
Rotary systems have been mentioned. The Apache played a pivotal and interesting but new role in Libya, with the use of Hellfire missiles, extending the range at which we can use our force capability. Hellfire has a range of 8 km, the Storm Shadow 500 km, and Brimstone 12 km. I stress these points because two thirds of the world population lives within 250 miles of the coastline. That is where future conflict will take place. If we do not want to put boots on the ground, it is aircraft carriers that will allow us to conduct and expedite such operations.
Continuing to operate two carriers will send a powerful message to potential adversaries, both state and non-state, but also to our allies, such as the US, allowing us in turn to employ greater leverage on their decision making. It will also save millions of pounds because we would not have to create forward bases or undertake long-range operations. In the operations in Libya, Tornados had to be refuelled five times—three times on the way there and two on the way back, putting massive strain on the airframes. Operating two carriers will give us greater flexibility compared with running just one. With one carrier, operations are likely to be carrier-strike only—there would be little expeditionary capability.
Hon. Members have spoken passionately about retaining the soldiers who live in their constituencies. My question is this: what are the soldiers expected to do? Huge work needs to be done on expeditionary capability, upstream engagement and stabilisation. We could win the war quickly, but lose the peace because we do not have such stabilisation. Aircraft carriers can play an important role in that. Two aircraft carriers could have a tailored expeditionary capability that we have never had.
Other nations are watching us with interest. The Americans have the Wasp class carriers, which are 44,000 tonnes, and the Nimitz class carriers, which, because of sequestration, are likely to be removed. They are looking at the 65,000 tonne class with interest, and also saw what we did with the Apache. They may want to follow suit. We do not talk this up. Building a third aircraft carrier is not even being considered because of the embarrassment and the legacy problems of the past.
I believe that the additional annualised cost of a carrier, which has been mentioned—about £65 million a year—is a small price to pay for the diplomatic signal and military statement of intent it would send to potential adversaries, state and non-state alike. It would significantly reduce the operational cost of war fighting, conflict prevention and peacekeeping roles. It would also elevate Britain’s ranking as Europe’s senior military power, justifying our permanent membership of the UN Security Council. I hope that hon. Members on both sides the House support my call for operating two aircraft carriers.