Strategic Defence Review

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, mentioned, his team has already received much guidance and many suggestions on force size and mix. I am sure that the first-responder contribution of the Royal Air Force front line, which gives the Government choice and strength in facing and dealing promptly with crises worldwide, will have been mentioned. It will be of key importance to sustain and enhance this capability in years ahead. As mentioned by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, front-line fighter strength is too low to sustain even moderate attrition in war.

Above all, the review must concentrate on the men and women who, either in uniform or civilian appointments, are essential to the strength and capabilities of each service. The comprehensive Agency and Agility Haythornthwaite report, published last year with considerable fanfare and senior leadership approval, ran to 67 recommendations. Considerable time and effort will be required to get even some of them, let alone all, into decision and implementation, and many are not cost free. I expect that some progress has been achieved, although it has not been widely publicised.

One would have hoped already to see some positive response within the services themselves, but the most recent continuous attitude survey shows no indication that morale, recruitment or retention has improved. The year-on-year failure to recruit and retain front-line personnel strength is cumulative and now extremely alarming. It will take at least five years of fully successful and increased annual intakes to correct these growing imbalances. This is a most serious issue. It must be grasped or the services will fail and fall short.

Those with long memories of attempts to improve working and living conditions at officer and other rank levels have seen them inadequately funded and suffer from short-term savings or other issues. Plans, let alone aspirations, have not lived up to expectations. This is a major reason given for premature retirements. The defence review must treat this aspect of its work with maximum attention and seriousness. Funding must be met. A further aspect causing difficulty with retention applies to pensions. Surely, special consideration should be given to the Armed Forces to reflect their distinct career patterns, and to others employed by government.

Fundamental to this review is the definition of what the Armed Forces may be required to do. In simple terms, they contribute to the defence of the nation. One glaring and widely acknowledged weakness is the air defence of the UK base itself. For far too long, this has taken second place to the demands of operations overseas. As more modern threats emerge, it is essential that our home base is more adequately protected. A Wedgetail fleet with only three airborne radar airframes is surely not enough.

But can the review meet its objectives without further top-level political guidance on our national defence strategy? How much of a global capability force is there to be, and with what reach? What sustainability is it to be equipped and manned for? How long will it be able to sustain such operations? A nuclear deterrent seems to be a given, but will the submarine force sustain the four boats and warheads required for continuous at-sea patrol? What other givens are there, or should there be? We know that 2.5% of GDP has been promised, but when? We should know that for planning assumptions at least. Would it be reasonable to presume that NATO’s operational strength, both conventional and nuclear, will effectively deter any possible Russian aggression while Russia is fighting Ukraine?

Such scene-setting assumptions will need to be examined and spelled out. Or is it, for all the depth of this review and guidance, that the outcome will once again be entirely financially governed and limited? My experience of reviews goes back to Denis Healey’s in 1966. All fell short of full funding—will this SDR prove to be the exception?