809 Naval Air Squadron

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The noble Lord is quite right; I did say up to 12. The whole point of this is that the forces we have need to be flexible and interchangeable. By the end of 2025, we will have two squadrons in full operation. We will have 48 aircraft by the end of 2025, and I am assured that there will be up to 12 aircraft in each squadron which are capable at any one time. I am absolutely certain that there will be a lot more than two in each.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, is my noble friend happy that we have chosen a situation where there is only one aircraft in the world that can fly off our carriers? It is a very expensive aircraft which is in short supply. Is it not inevitable that we will have to modify these aircraft carriers so that they can fly off catapult-launched aircraft?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord has greater knowledge than I have in this area. As far as the Lightning is concerned, we are fully committed to the 138, as we originally set out. We will have 48 by the end of 2025 and another 27 by the early 2030s. As far as flexibility on the aircraft is concerned, I shall have to find out the full detail and write.

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.

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Lord Empey Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

This is all about an increasingly close partnership between government and industry. The noble Lord will be aware that industry, particularly in defence, employs not just many employees directly but many modern apprentices, and in some cases that has been found to be a proven route for learning and commitment to the corporate organisation. It is an exciting future for young people interested in STEM subjects. Across the nation, particularly in the devolved Administration areas, where I have engagement, there is an interest in progressing STEM and using the critical mass of the MoD providing those skills in the devolved nations to help them with their educational delivery.

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, may I ask about the rollout of work? Part of the problem in the industry has been that work is inconsistent and erratic. While there is supposed to be a shipbuilding strategy, can she tell the House whether companies such as Harland and Wolff in Belfast will get actual orders to contribute by supplying ships and other vessels so that there is consistent work in the defence sector, rather than an erratic supply of work?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware from the White Paper published on Monday that very close attention was paid to the rollout of an exciting shipbuilding programme. There is an intention to refresh our national shipbuilding strategy, and the Secretary of State for Defence is the shipbuilding tsar. So there is a real and rooted interest in the future of the shipbuilding industry in the United Kingdom. I am absolutely certain that all shipbuilders in the UK, if they are interested in the construction of naval marine craft, will engage with the MoD to see what opportunities await.

I can also say to the noble Lord, particularly in relation to Belfast, that of course we have Spirit AeroSystems and Thales. Indeed, I think it was Spirit AeroSystems that recently, this year, got a contract to develop the RAF’s lightweight affordable novel combat aircraft. We are very mindful of the contribution that can be made across the UK.

Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2021

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, in her opening remarks, my noble friend the Minister listed the areas where our service personnel are currently deployed. These range from a very difficult deployment in Mali to deployment on European soil, in Estonia and Lithuania. Of course, there is still Afghanistan and the situation in the Middle East as well, and threats are emerging in the South China Sea. It is perfectly clear that the variety of fields of operation continue to be significant.

The Minister referred to discipline, and of course that is part of the processes that we are debating today. But it is the legal position that I want to reflect on for a moment. I think that many people in this country and in this Parliament are still reeling from the implications of the cases and abuses undertaken and led by sleazy lawyers, who tried to exploit the position when soldiers were deployed in very difficult environments, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. I just want to check with the Minister what training our service personnel receive on the legal aspects of their deployments in different locations around the world. Does she believe it is adequate? Does it take into account potential difficulties that soldiers, sailors and air personnel could be putting themselves into through their activities in these areas?

We also discussed the covenant. This was a considerable innovation and a very welcome one. Apart from the assistance provided for the Covid situation, most of the services in our country at the moment tend to be deployed on other things, including, from time to time, bomb squads deployed not only in Northern Ireland but around the country. However, that was not always the case. The situation regarding the covenant concerns me somewhat because, although it has been operating reasonably effectively here in Northern Ireland in recent years, there are still several weaknesses in its establishment.

A moment ago, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, referred to the annual report that the Secretary of State produces, usually in December each year, on how the covenant is operating. Members need to be aware that at no stage since its commencement have the Northern Ireland Executive produced a report of those activities. That has been done by the other devolved regions—Scotland and Wales—and those have subsequently been incorporated into the report. However, no such report has been made in Northern Ireland, so Parliament is not seeing how the covenant is being operated there. I have no doubt that we will come back to that when the Bill comes before us, but I wanted to draw the House’s attention to the fact that it is a missing link. If the Secretary of State cannot get a report from the Executive in Northern Ireland, he may have to find other means, and he should be provided with the powers to do so. The covenant is UK wide and defence is a non-devolved issue, so I do not believe that the Secretary of State should be left in ignorance of what is happening on the ground.

We all wish our Armed Forces well. They face many challenging times. We will see the first deployment of the “Queen Elizabeth” carrier force in the next few months and that will be a huge step forward, but I believe that we have underfunded our defence for many years and I hope that this overstretch is not allowed to continue further.

Integrated Review: New Ships

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord raises an important question. Of course, for five of those 10 years, his party was part of the coalition Government, sharing responsibility for the Ministry of Defence. His important point merits attention and we look carefully at how we now procure. For example, the model for the Type 31 procurement achieved a concept—a placing of order—extraordinarily quickly, because there had been a recognition that we needed to be much more effective and swift in our approach to procurement. The noble Lord raises an important point and I reassure him that it is very much before the MoD and we are applying measures to implement good practice.

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My noble friend’s initial response referred to supporting UK industry. The fact is that the building of warships has been irregular and sporadic and it has been very difficult for companies to sustain a qualified workforce, because of the nature of the orders. Will the Minister assure the House that this time business and orders will be given and spread over the UK, including to Harland & Wolff in Belfast so that shipbuilding can be sustainable in the long-term, rather than reacting to sporadic and irregular orders?

[Baroness Goldie (Con) [V]]

It is right to refer to what the Prime Minister said because he recognised what had been, frankly, a corrosive problem in the way in which the procurment of Royal Naval assets was embarked on. The National Shipbuilding Strategy identified the challenges and weaknesses to which the noble Lord has referred, and the strategy was clear that a much more stable approach had to be adopted in respect of UK shipbuilders. What is happening currently is clearly good news for UK shipbuilders, and the noble Lord has rightly raised the matter of cross-UK activity. I am pleased to say that, with Harland & Wolff taking over the Appledore shipyard, the Government are working closely with the company to understand better how we might support our shipbuilding industry throughout the United Kingdom. That is the commitment made by the Prime Minister and it is one that we will see being sustained by the recently announced intentions for Royal Naval assets.

British Armed Forces: Global Britain

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Empey (UUP) [V]]

My Lords, I am not terribly keen on the term “global Britain”, but some Members have already pointed out the necessity to join up our activities. Embassies need to ensure that they have economic as well as diplomatic and military representation, because it is entirely the bringing together and integration of these services that enables us to promote our interests and those of the wider security of the world. Our Armed Forces have been underfunded for many years, particularly our Navy. We also have to pay attention to Africa, which will be the great powerhouse of the future, with a growing population. We should be able to capitalise on our historical connections there, and I strongly urge the Minister to do so.