Ukraine (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, our Select Committee was half way through its taking of evidence when we were rudely interrupted by a general election. It is a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and his predecessor in the chair, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, that we picked up the pieces after the election and completed this report. It is a tribute as well to our secretariat, who were terrific.

If I were to summarise the lessons we learned in our report from the war in Ukraine, I would say that they are a surprising mixture of the old and the new. On the old side, we have the front line and the trenches, which are eerily reminiscent of conflicts over 100 years ago and which showed the importance of mass in military operations. On the new side, we have the evidence of the huge importance of drones, which, as we say in paragraph 183, are ubiquitous in Ukraine for intelligence, target acquisition and reconnaissance, as well as for direct attacks. Then, aside from the mechanics of warfare is the international context in which the war is being fought, on which I very much agree with everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said. What has the war told us about the standing of the West in the international community, in particular those countries of the global South?

First, on the importance of mass, as we say in paragraph 34,

“the evidence we heard points to the current size of the British Army being inadequate”.

Before we even begin to talk about increasing the size of the Army, we need to focus a little on the immediate problem of the apparent inability to recruit enough people to maintain present strengths. The figures we had were that, up to July 2024, 11,940 people joined the regular Armed Forces, while, in the same period, 15,700 left. We need a 25% increase just to stand still. I would like to hear from the Minister the strategy we now have for delivering the numbers required, particularly in the light of the increased funding announced last week. How much will be accomplished by retaining existing personnel and how much by new recruits? I am sure he agrees with me that retention has great advantages because, in a sense, you already have the finished product.

I would also like confirmation—I think this is such an important point in recruiting—of the fact that skills acquired in a career in the Armed Forces are extremely valuable for life outside the military, and special emphasis should be given to this powerful selling point. In our evidence, we heard that the armed services are consistently in the top 10 of UK apprenticeship providers, with no fewer than 24,800 people undertaking their apprenticeships in 2022.

Finally on recruitment, the Government said in their response to us that:

“The Armed Forces need to continue to attract a range of diversity, talent, skills and experience which is fully reflective of the society it serves”.


Which groups are particularly underrepresented, and are there good grounds for believing that targeting them will bear fruit in the recruitment challenges facing the forces?

Now to the significance of new technology, especially drones, in the lessons learned in Ukraine. The sheer scale of the use of drones in Ukraine is staggering. Dr Ulrike Franke from the European Council on Foreign Relations told us that drones

“are omnipresent on the battlefield”.

She said,

“we are talking about hundreds of thousands of small drone systems being used, and lost, every month”.

Two issues concerning drones stand out from our evidence. The first is the rapidity of development of drones and of defence systems to counter them. This means that there is, in effect, a drones arms race, with any advantage to either side always in danger of being short-lived. The second issue is simply one of drone production capacity. As we say in our report, it is estimated that

“Russia is producing around 300,000 drone units per month”,


compared with Ukraine’s production of 150,000. I ask the Minister: where are we in the drones arms race? Are sufficient resources being provided to keep us ahead in drone technology and defence systems? Is the industrial capacity available to produce drones on the scale that modern warfare requires?

Finally, I turn to the lessons we should learn from the Ukraine conflict about the international context and the standing of the West. In paragraph 34 of our report’s recommendations, we say:

“As the UK Government is facing a world where the Global South is becoming more assertive, with some countries leaning towards China or Russia, it is vital for the UK to be more proactive and have a strategy on how to engage with the Global South”.


The fact that 40 countries are sanctioning Russia because of its aggression can give only limited comfort to the West, bearing in mind that the overwhelming majority of countries are not imposing sanctions, and many of those are helping Russia, in one way or another, to evade the effects of sanctions. I would like to hear the Minister’s judgment about what the war in Ukraine has told us about the standing of the West in general in the international community and of the UK in particular. The war in Ukraine has been long and bloody. Lessons have to be learned. I look forward to the Minister’s response.