Armed Forces: Resilience

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Robathan on securing this debate. It has been punctuated by two excellent maiden speeches, from the noble Lord, Lord Hintze, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach; we welcome them and look forward to their contributions in the days ahead.

All the speakers who have so far contributed have significant military experience and background, as we have just heard. I do not have that background but I do not believe that matters pertinent to the armed services of this country are confined to those who have served. I therefore think it important that those of us who have not served contribute to the debate and express an opinion. I take an interest through the relevant APPGs and have done so since I came into this House. At the end of the day, decisions relevant to the armed services are political. Parliament and the Government must make those decisions. So resilience is as much a political decision as it is a military one.

Personnel and equipment are of course vital, but above all is the political determination on how they are used. We must not see this debate exclusively through the prism of Ukraine, because there are wider issues at stake. We are in the mess we are in in Ukraine in large measure due to particular international decisions that were not taken in the recent Syrian conflict. The red lines drawn by the United States were rubbed out and Assad and his henchmen were allowed to use poison weapons in that conflict. We have allowed Russia to move in, get warm-water port and pulverise large parts of Ukraine, while we have sent out the message that the West in general is a pushover. A dictator and a tyrant will see that. Of course, Putin got away with it in Georgia, and we have seen what happens.

There is even a parallel with the Falklands. It was the same thing, in so far as a dictatorship saw a weakness and said, “That country won’t go to the far side of the world to defend something”. We did, however, and that sent a strong signal. Now, we are having to do the same thing on our own doorstep. I never thought that I would see battle tanks on the plains of Europe in my lifetime—I never believed that would be possible—but it is happening as we speak. The mistakes we are repeating go back to what happened in the 1930s when dictators saw weakness. Hitler could have been stopped but he was not because we were not ready. We did not have the capability; neither did our French colleagues. As a country, we continue to make the same mistake again and again.

We all know—certainly, those of us who are in politics know—that public expenditure, including on welfare, housing and all the social and other benefits we want our people to receive, is vital. With defence, however, we say, “Well, we used that in World War II. That’s over now; we’ve sorted that out”. We are losing the critical mass necessary to sustain an integrated defence capability that goes from the grass roots of recruits, right through to the industrial military complex, and to our capability and the question whether we actually have the political will to use it. It strikes me that we have repeated all these mistakes. There have been many reviews, which I am sure have punctuated the careers of all the previous speakers in the debate. They have seen this happen and know what is coming at the end of the sausage machine: “Let there be less, not more”.

Importantly, while we must pay attention to cyber, drones and all the other modern warfare techniques, surely, ultimately, there is a necessity for volume. The Russians take the view that mass has its own capability and effect. Russia has a particular technique: grinding. Putin could not care less about 100,000 casualties. He will keep throwing people in there for as long as he can. Although he may have been disappointed at the reaction so far from NATO and the western allies and the heroic resistance of the people of Ukraine, I suspect that, in his deliberations, he says, “Well, we got that wrong. However, I’ll keep grinding these people down. What will the position be in 12 months’ time? How many more reserves of ammunition, vehicles and equipment will we have available then?” He will play the long game. We all know that.

So, although I have no doubt that my noble friend the Minister will give a spirited and coherent response, I must say this to her: the fact is that we are underprotecting ourselves. We are not paying the premium: we have got a cheapie, and there are so many caveats that it simply will not work. The noble Lord, Lord West, who has been beating the drum in this House on our naval capabilities for as long as I have been in it, has pointed out that we simply do not have sufficient surface vessels. As far as the Army is concerned, we must modernise. We have a huge problem with the estate on which our soldiers, sailors and airmen live. We have not resolved all those issues. I do not believe for one minute the figures on our reserve capabilities, from talking anecdotally to people back home. On paper, people are there, but they have not put in the hours of training and some of the vehicles they are training on are prehistoric. Let us bear in mind that we may have these headline figures, but they are not real.

In order to maintain a coherent manufacturing capability right the way through, we must learn from our mistakes. I do not see any evidence that we are learning. The same things are happening again to the procurement process; we just do not seem to be capable of getting that right. Then, we are still changing specs in the middle of contracts. How is it that one of the biggest defence contractors in the world cannot make a vehicle that does not shake its occupants to pieces? It is altogether out of order.

I hope and pray that the Government will look at this. We all know how tight expenditure is but, if we do not address these issues, our successors will pay in blood and treasure a price far greater than anything we contribute now.