Queen’s Speech

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley]

My Lords, it is now just over 18 months since the Government announced the outcome of their strategic defence review. Much criticism was and still is heaped upon it, suggesting that the outcome was driven by the financial difficulties that the country was facing and was less than a fair appraisal of the Government’s strategic perceptions. The vision—no more than that—of a new defence capability to be achieved around 2020 was projected, but without certainty, until after the next SDSR in 2015, that the additional forward funding required to match these aspirations is going to be provided. Last Monday's defence budget Statement said that the proposals for planning round 12, which will take the programme as far as 2021 were,

“reflecting the planning assumption agreed with the Treasury of a 1% per annum real increase in the equipment and support budget from 2015”.—[Official Report, 14/5/12; col. 141.]

Note, please, that that is not the same as an increase in the overall defence budget. Will that 1% have to be found from elsewhere in the defence programme? Perhaps the Minister can elucidate on that point.

Given the great unease and uncertainty about the economic situation, I wonder whether even a modest increase in the equipment spend of 1% will be achievable come the day. Meanwhile, today our Armed Forces are involved in considerably more expeditionary activity than they were to expect or to plan for, and at the same time all three services are embarked on redundancies and redeployments of major proportions.

An essential part of any defence programme must strive to ensure that commitments and capabilities are matched. If they are not, sooner or later the overstretched equipment has to be replaced or refurbished far more quickly than planned for and at additional budget cost. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell the House more about the next stages in the coalition’s defence thinking, not just about the gradually more imminent withdrawal from Afghanistan. Do they, for example, accept that for what are termed wars of choice there has to be a protracted period of disengagement or an absolute minimum of new operational commitments? That is particularly so for the Army, which seems likely to have to rely on the safe recovery of much of its equipment that is now deployed in Afghanistan, although if press reports at the weekend are to be believed, £2 billion worth of this army kit is to be left behind and handed over to the Afghan Army.

For the rest, if the problems over logistics access through Pakistan persist, and with no credible alternative route to shipment home by sea, the long and tortuous overland route north and west from Afghanistan will be even more of a challenge. Perhaps the Minister will be able to reassure the House that the Government have contingency funds earmarked to replace army equipment handed over to the Afghans or that does not make it successfully back to this country from Afghanistan.

One of the most unsatisfactory decisions announced at the time of the strategic and security defence review was the scrapping of the maritime patrol aircraft Nimrod mark 4. I set out my reasons when your Lordships debated the review back in November 2010 and I do not intend to dwell on them again in detail. But since that debate, I was concerned to learn that the public line being taken by the then Defence Secretary, Dr Fox, had been inaccurate and misleading. What really took so many by surprise was the decision not only not to proceed with Nimrod, but to cut all the airframes up immediately for scrap.

That caused a great deal of disquiet. Attempts were made by the Government to explain away this crass decision. For example, in a BBC TV broadcast on 27 January last year, Dr Fox said that the Nimrod had not passed its flight tests. The story was being put about that the Nimrod was 10 years late, was unsafe, that there were doubts that some of the technical difficulties could be resolved and even that the aircraft had not flown. If those were the points being briefed privately by the Secretary of State to the Prime Minister during discussions of that defence review, then he was being seriously misled about the true state of the programme. While I accept that rightly or wrongly the financial pressures faced by the Government forced the decision not to bring the Nimrod into service, it does nothing for the credit of those taking these decisions to attempt to mask it with such misleading statements.

The true state of the programme, admittedly after years of difficulty, was, by autumn 2010, well advanced. Five airframes had been flying, the first getting airborne in August 2004. The second, which first flew in December 2004, was used extensively for missions system testing and had completed more than 230 flights. Three further aircraft with mission systems had been flying by 2010. Apart from the first airframe that did not have a mission system fitted, four aircraft could have been ready for operational use by last year or this one. The first aircraft was in fact delivered to and accepted by the RAF in March 2010.

None of that suggests that the aircraft was unsafe or that any teething technical problems could not have been dealt in the normal way when a new type enters service. Apart from its primary role in maritime operations, the earlier variants of Nimrod demonstrated the versatility, variety and flexibility of such air platforms fitted with state-of-the-art electronic aids and weapons. Nimrods proved their worth hundreds of miles inland over Afghanistan as much as they did providing security cover for our deterrent force submarines or co-ordinating search and rescue missions far out over the Atlantic. In last Monday’s Statement there was no mention of a plan to meet this particular role. I hope that the Minister will reassure the House that the roles abandoned when Nimrod was scrapped have not been forgotten.

Are there plans for a new maritime patrol aircraft with the range, endurance and sophisticated mission systems associated with its predecessor roles well to the fore in the future equipment programme? The cost of providing new platforms and mission systems for this role will probably far exceed that of putting the nine Nimrods into storage until the funds to bring them into service could have been found—a penny-wise, pound-foolish decision if ever there was one. Indeed, there seems to have been a waste of resources on this programme and on the “will we, won’t we, will we, yes we will have” the F35 STOVL-variant and the £100 million additional nugatory cost of preparing for the now redundant cats and traps system on the carrier.

The current reliance for critical maritime surveillance tasks on a mix of Merlin helicopters, surface ships and a Hercules aircraft can do little to match the reach and variety of roles of a maritime specialist aircraft. The sooner their more modest capabilities are replaced and enhanced, the better for our national security. I hope that the Minister can reassure the House.