Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Friday 12th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

My Lords, first, I declare shareholdings in a number of companies benefiting from defence spend. Yesterday, we observed two minutes’ silence in memory of those who fell in two world wars. Today, we have an opportunity to pay tribute to those who have fallen more recently—I join in the tribute to Senior Aircraftman Scott Hughes—particularly in Afghanistan, and to our gallant forces who are currently in action there. We owe them and their families so much.

One would have hoped that the world had learnt from earlier conflicts of the futility of war, yet we all continue to spend huge sums on defence when so many suffer from famine, poverty and multiple deprivations. We have to live in the world as it is and thus maintain our very necessary defence capabilities. The SDSR, which we debate today, has been heavily criticised for being too rushed and too Treasury-dominated; I concur with that. In May’s Queen’s Speech debate, I wryly referred to a Financial Times headline:

“Treasury to have say in defence review”—

surely the understatement of the year. However, I am not convinced that more time would have produced markedly different conclusions. Most of us, I suspect, support the broad thrust of the review and its recognition of the tiers of threat that we face: a greater acknowledgement of terrorist and cyberwarfare threats and less likelihood of major state-on-state warfare. Yet we always have to be prepared for the unexpected.

My fundamental concern is that reducing defence spend to 2 per cent of GDP on top of the inherited multibillion pound black hole will leave us still in a state of severe overstretch. Can we really fulfil all our maritime responsibilities, from anti-piracy to carrier protection, with just 19 frigates and destroyers? Of course, the current review has unquestionably been skewed by the irresponsible decision to order the two new carriers before a current defence review and when the MoD was effectively bust. Speaking in the recent Rosyth Adjournment debate in the other place, Gordon Brown said of the carriers:

“These are military decisions, made on military advice for military reasons”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/11/10; col. 742.]

History, and the National Audit Office, may come up with rather different conclusions.

This leads me to probably the most bizarre decision—to ditch our Harrier fleet and all its crew expertise, built up over so many years, to save £100 million a year on a total defence budget of about £37 billion. I do not accept that the choice was either Harrier or Tornado; surely we could have reduced the Tornado fleet further and retained a reserve Harrier force or squadron to preserve carrier strike capability. I very much agree with the recent admirals’ letters to the Times, although I acknowledge that in today’s letter the current chiefs make the point, quite rightly, that the Falkland Islands are much more robustly defended. The loss of Nimrod—the First Sea Lord said earlier this week that it made him “very uncomfortable”—is deeply worrying. How do we intend to replace this capability?

I do not wish to be overnegative; there is much to commend in the SDSR and in recent decisions. We on these Benches are predominantly Trident-sceptic; thus we welcome the deferring of Trident main gate until 2016. We also strongly support the defence treaties with France. Greater Anglo-French co-operation is something I and many others have long campaigned for. In May’s Queen’s Speech debate, I was accused by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, whom I affectionately refer to as C17, of being quixotic on the subject. I am glad that there has been a coming together on defence, but real collaboration on procurement will not come, I suggest, until there is much greater corporate consolidation between our respective defence contractors.

I welcome the extra support for our special forces and the focus on UAVs. Few appreciate the scale of the latter’s development. There are now five US airforce bases and 6,000 airmen involved in controlling flights in the Afghan-Pakistani theatre from 5,000 miles away. I strongly support the review of our Reserve Forces; we need fresh imaginative thinking here. Surely the way forward is to move to deployable formed units, more along the lines of America’s National Guard and away from fill-in deployment.

I am somewhat concerned at the Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff chairing the review. I do not doubt his ability to contribute, but I would have preferred more of an outside independent chairman than an internal establishment figure who is likely to have more traditional attitudes. Have the review’s terms of reference now been agreed?

The subject of MoD procurement probably warrants a debate in itself. Clearly, radical changes are needed. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, whose maiden speech we are looking forward to hearing shortly, on establishing the Bernard Gray review. We all wish our colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Levene, well with his defence reform unit, which is focused on restructuring the MoD and making it “fit for purpose”.

Defence spend sustains approximately 300,000 jobs in the United Kingdom, but this is something of a two-edged sword. Too often, jobs and politics influence procurement decisions. I remember as a Defence Procurement Minister 25 years ago being told that all our then naval requirements could probably be built at Barrow alone—we did not need all those other yards. But closing plants, facilities and bases is notoriously difficult, particularly in human terms. Could we not establish a defence variant of the old enterprise zone concept, with taxation and rates incentives, to encourage new industry to develop and thus make employment in particular areas less dependent on MoD spend?

I draw my remarks to a close by asking my noble friend two questions. Can it really take four years to install carrier, catapult and arrestor gear, as indicated on page 23 of the review document? Secondly, page 31 talks of “substantial savings on food”. What does that mean? Are we going to starve our service personnel, or give them food of a lower quality? Surely we currently buy at keenly competitive bulk prices as best we can.