Armed Forces

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Soames, on his fine introduction to this important debate. Two MoD reports published this summer received much less attention than the revised DCP. These were concerned with personnel issues, the continuous attitude survey, and the very comprehensive Agency and Agility report. No matter how much is spent on equipment, fighting platforms and war stocks, none will be any use without the men and women of our Armed Forces who use their training, skills and commitment to use them. Personnel are often rightly singled out for praise and admiration by Ministers and others. In return, I believe Ben Wallace deserves praise for his fine performance as Defence Secretary at a particularly difficult time.

As time is short, I return to the Agency and Agility report. In the Written Statement to Parliament on 19 June 2023, the Minister agreed with the report’s analysis and conclusions. The author’s covering note to the Defence Secretary said that he knew that the Chiefs of Staff and other senior leaders were

“committed to the change set out in this report”.

The report sets forth with a following wind in its sails. I wonder whether it will reach its destination. The last major look at terms of service, and much else to do with personnel, was the Bett report way back in 1994-95. He recommended full acceptance and no cherry picking. It took the Government nearly two years to respond and more than a decade to implement, and then only in part. It is still early days, but have the Government set themselves any target date for a response?

In the vignettes at the end of the report, every individual is expressing job satisfaction. Yet this critical aspect, contributing to good morale, could be even better highlighted in the body of the report. Working for government will hardly ever be paid more than is likely to be available in the private sector for comparable tasks; it will probably be less, even when making adjustment for pension expectations. So the suggestion that expertise could be financially rewarded regardless of rank will not be the whole story. Rank, too, has status and reward, as well as more pay, as has job satisfaction and working as part of a team.

Long experience of adversity and antipathy to risk taking with public funds may raise difficulties with its encouragement, which Haythornthwaite, the author, proposes. His report recognised the importance in operations of the chain of command, underpinned by service ethos. He seems, perhaps unfairly, to ascribe less importance to ethos in peacetime settings. More thought is given to what is in it for the individual and less to what obligations and undertakings must be given in return to reflect the 24/7 commitment and the Armed Forces Act. His people valuation proposal must have this. It is unique for the Armed Forces. He uses a catchphrase several times to encapsulate his approach:

“Think big, start small, scale fast”.


For the MoD, or any government department, thinking big is a policy ambition. “Start small” is the classic pilot “see if it works” approach. But “scale fast” is rarer than hens’ teeth, maybe triggered only by a pandemic or war. Even the proxy war in Ukraine has not seen procurement scaled fast. Test of success of this report will be delivery of “scale fast”.

This timely report deserves a proactive approach and a determination to take it forward. New thinking of this kind is more essential than ever to get the best from the far too small number of operational platforms and weapons stocks to hand. I was pleased to note the positive references to the Armed Forces covenant. It deserves far more than government is so far prepared to state in statute.