Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome SDSR 2015, which starts with a vision of a secure and prosperous United Kingdom, with global reach and influence, with the NATO target of 2% of GDP spending on defence agreed by the Government. Thank you very much. There will be an increase in the defence budget in real terms every year—thank you very much—as well as a commitment to increase and not to reduce the Army below 82,000, and to increase the RAF and Navy by 700 people. Thank you very much. Spending will be,

“£178 billion over the next decade on equipment and equipment support”,

increasing by 1% in real terms. This is all excellent news. The nuclear deterrent will be maintained, and the replacement of the Vanguard class with the new class. There will be an increase in,

“the resources for counter-terrorism police and the security and intelligence agencies to pursue terrorists”,

and,

“more than double our spending on aviation security around the world”.

This is absolutely marvellous. India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, on his visit last month to the UK, spoke in the Royal Gallery of three joint defence exercises between the UK and India already in one year. This is marvellous. Does the Minister agree that we should continue that?

We will be dedicating 1.2% of the defence budget to science and technology over this Parliament, and establishing,

“a defence and security accelerator for government to help the private sector, allies and academia turn ideas into innovative equipment and services”.

This is absolutely brilliant—all music to my ears. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for initiating this debate and congratulate all the maiden speakers.

The Economist has gone so far as to say that the SDSR 2015 allows Britain to reassert,

“itself as a serious military power”,

and will allow it to regain some of the respect that it has lost in Washington. Given the debate and the action in Syria, both here and in the other place yesterday, there is every possibility that we will have to put boots on the ground to fight the spread of anarchy across Syria and Iraq, and we will be left in a difficult position.

The expertise in this House was demonstrated yesterday to be a hundred times that of the other place, yet we did not get to vote yesterday at all. It shows how important it is that we look ahead and recognise the effects of the so-called Black Swans. The Prime Minister said that we must expect the unexpected. Earlier this year, I was privileged to lead the debate in this House on the 200th anniversary of the Gurkhas’ contribution to the UK and India. My late father, Lieutenant-General Bilimoria, was commissioned into the 2/5th Royal Gurkha Rifles, Frontier Force, and commanded his battalion in the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh, was colonel of the Gurkha regiment and president of the Brigade of Gurkhas and retired as commander-in-chief of the central Indian army.

The noble Lord, Lord Howell, spoke about soft power, the BBC and the British Council. Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University said that a combination of hard power and soft power gives you “smart power”. SDSR 2010 was not smart—it was dumb. Quite frankly, it was negligent; we had no carriers, no Harriers, no maritime reconnaissance, cuts to our troops and means before ends. Does the Minister agree with the noble Lord, Lord West, that there has been a 30% reduction in military capability since 2010? I have been very outspoken in my criticism of the SDSR 2010, with the cuts to the troops of 80,000—you cannot even fill Wembley stadium. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in Wembley stadium. Today there are barely 3,000 Gurkhas in the British Army whereas, in India, the Gurkhas are approaching 100,000. I was privileged to show General Dalbir Singh, the chief of the Indian army, from the 5th Gurkhas, around Parliament. Will the Minister confirm and reassure us that there will be no further cuts to the Gurkhas? Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw, former chief of the Indian army, said that if a man says that he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or a Gurkha.

Yesterday, we saw the fight of the evil of Daesh, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State or IS, whatever these monsters are called—we decided to intervene in Iraq and Syria yesterday, whereas last year we decided to intervene only in Iraq. Does the Minister agree that that was a mistake and that we should have intervened in Iraq and Syria a year ago?

Without doubt, defence of the realm is the most important role of government. We are a tiny nation with just 1% of the world’s population but thanks to the hard and soft power we have one of the most powerful defence forces in the world, so powerful that the world knows that this hard and soft power emanate from a country that is respected for and has fought for freedom, fairness, justice and liberty for centuries.