Lord Austin of Dudley
Main Page: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Austin of Dudley's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberThe noble Lord will understand that, were we to retain that second battle group in Estonia, it would require significant extra investment and additional temporary winterisation of infrastructure and storage—and, of course, it would have a detrimental operational impact on the overall flexible deployment of the Army. We have a very good relationship with Estonia, as I said earlier. We have a robust and enhanced capability that we are making available to Estonia. I think that is a matter for commendation.
My Lords, why does the UK now have the smallest Armed Forces it has had at any point since the Napoleonic wars? Is it really realistic for the UK to play a full role in confronting the threat from Putin’s Russia with Armed Forces of that size?
As the noble Lord will understand, looking back to the integrated review, what became very clear was that the review identified that it is not just numbers we have to talk about but capability, technical advancement and what we equip our Armed Forces with. That now includes sophisticated technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotic activity. There is a whole manner of ways in which we are taking forward our troop presence and the capability of the Army that goes beyond thinking simply in terms of numbers.