Afghanistan

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what arrangements they have made to review their continuing support for the promotion of security and development in Afghanistan.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the National Security Council regularly reviews plans for support to Afghanistan, most recently on 21 October. Our plans focus on countering the terrorist threat, as well as promoting security, stability and prosperity. Our embassy in Kabul and a few hundred military mentors will support the new Afghan Government in furthering these priorities. We also plan to provide £70 million in security funding and £178 million in development funding per annum until at least 2017.

[Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)]

My Lords, the military campaign in Afghanistan cost this country £37 billion, or £2,000 for every household. Sadly, we have lost 453 military personnel. Afghanistan faces a very uncertain and difficult future. Is it not vital that we and our allies give the appropriate level of financial support to Afghanistan? The figures that my noble friend quoted are, frankly, derisory. We give Ethiopia more than that—we give Ethiopia £400 million a year—and, if we do not finance Afghanistan properly, its future is going to be very uncertain, and would that not be a gross betrayal of all those who have given their lives in the cause?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, at the Tokyo conference in 2012, a number of states and international organisations made pledges amounting to £16 billion for reconstruction in Afghanistan. On 3 and 4 December we will jointly host a conference in London with the Afghan Government, at which a number of other Governments will be invited to recommit themselves to the development of Afghanistan as a collective effort over the next few years.

Government Procurement Policy

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, on securing this important debate. I also declare a number of shareholdings in defence companies that are listed in the Register of Lords’ Interests, because I shall talk about defence procurement.

The problems and complexities of defence procurement have been with us for many years. Twenty-five years ago, when I was a junior Defence Minister, we were spending £1 million an hour, every hour, on equipment for our Armed Forces. One of my officials at that stage told me that we could probably have built the whole of the then naval requirement in the Vickers yard at Barrow, and we did not need the half dozen other naval yards. We had a substantial problem of overcapacity.

As a Minister, I was subject to a substantial amount of lobbying in the Division Lobbies in the other place—not least by the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, who is sitting in his place and from whom we will hear later. Fairly, he lobbied hard for orders for the Scottish yards. We started a NATO frigate programme that got nowhere. We ordered three new conventional submarines that were never used and were subsequently sold. We had major problems with the Nimrod software, and I remember calling in the head of Ferranti. The then Secretary of State, Michael Heseltine, now the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, brought in Peter Levene, now the noble Lord, Lord Levene, at a salary unheard of in the 1980s of £100,000 a year to bring competition into defence spend and to move away from single sourcing. Incidentally, today 40 per cent of contracts are still placed on a non-competitive basis, amounting to about £9 billion a year.

In 1997, the NAO reported that the 25 largest defence equipment projects under way at that time were £3 billion over budget and, on average, entered service three years late. By 2009—12 years later—the situation had got worse. Bernard Gray, in his report commissioned by a Labour Government, concluded that the MoD was running a “substantially overheated” equipment programme, with,

“too many types of equipment being ordered for too large a range of tasks at too high a specification”.

On 9 July that year in your Lordships’ House I said that,

“in the private sector, if one trades when one knows that one’s operation is insolvent, that is a criminal offence. At the present time, the Ministry of Defence, frankly, is bust. There is a yawning gap between resources and commitments”.

The noble Lord, Lord Drayson, replied:

“My Lords, I am afraid that I do not recognise at all the characterisation that the noble Lord has just set out”.—[Official Report, 9/7/09; col. 760.]

I think it is accepted that when the coalition Government came to power there was an unfunded liability over the next 10 years of about £38 billion. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, who will speak a little later, may well comment on that. I am not endeavouring to make any party-political points, because the problems of defence spend and procurement transcend party politics. I think it is accepted that we have had too much gold-plating, too much specification-changing, too many personnel changes in contract responsibilities and too little co-operation with our European allies on procurement issues. The EDA—the European Defence Agency—estimated that there were 16 separate procurement programmes for armoured vehicles alone. Only days ago, the NAO’s Major Projects Report concluded that we were overrunning by £6 billion on 15 major projects over the past three years, including a £1 billion cost increase on the Astute submarine programme. Of course, we know that £3.4 billion was spent on cancelling Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft.

We also learnt very recently that the MoD had spent something like £550 million on consultancy fees, with one firm, AlixPartners, apparently charging at the rate of £4,000 per consultant per day. In broad-brush terms, industry negotiators have run rings around the MoD over the years. I have tabled a Written Question, which is awaiting answer, asking the MoD to list the six highest salaries that it pays to civilians. My guess is that these will be relatively modest, given the size of the MoD budget. My question is: should we offer really competitive salaries to recruit the best—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sugar—and perhaps not need to spend anything like so much on consultancies?

I am encouraged by the number of new initiatives to improve defence acquisitions that are currently under way, including: the establishment of a new major projects review board; a review of single-source contracts by the noble Lord, Lord Currie; a new material strategy, including options for the future of defence equipment and support organisation under Bernard Gray; and reviewing and renegotiating up to 500 contracts with a value of £8 billion. That is all very laudable; let us hope that significant improvements are achieved.

On jobs and employment, defence spend sustains something like 300,000 jobs. Leaving aside for another day the whole question of R&D spin-off and the operation of SMEs—I think that my noble friend Lord Palmer will refer to SMEs a little later—at present there is a presumption that there should be off-the-shelf purchasing wherever possible. At a time of considerable economic difficulty in this country with high unemployment, we have to be very careful to balance value-for-money purchases with jobs at home. Indeed, that has always been the case.

In conclusion, I would like two things to happen: first, greater industry consolidation across the defence sector, particularly in Europe, because only then will we begin to see a real rationalisation of defence equipment and procurement among our European allies and ourselves; and, secondly, if possible, cross-party agreement to the spending of a specific percentage of GDP on defence, coupled with a Treasury commitment to a guaranteed 10-year funding programme, as there is in Australia, thus giving a firm base on which long-term procurement commitments can be entered into.

Remembrance Day

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

My Lords, first, I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Selkirk of Douglas on securing this debate, on his excellent opening contribution and, as we all know, on his very deep commitment to our Armed Forces.

I was privileged and proud last year to attend the festival of remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall as a guest of the Royal British Legion—something that I have always wanted to do. I was similarly privileged and proud in the early 1980s, when I was a junior Defence Minister, to have an official position at the Cenotaph.

As a constituency Member of Parliament for 13 years, I used to regard remembrance weekend as something very special. My constituency in north-east Lancashire—Nelson and Colne, which later became Pendle—was a very patriotic area and one of substantial recruitment. I always used to attend the legion concert, as well as service parades in the morning and afternoon. When one attended some of the smaller community services, it was very sad and distressing to see the names of so many individuals from one family who had lost their lives, particularly in the Great War—the ghastly, pointless First World War. My own great-uncle, who served in the Liverpool Scottish Regiment, was killed on 3 July 1917 aged 23 and is buried in the Brandhoek Military Cemetery in Belgium. What concerned me during those 13 years was the decline, as I saw it, in the numbers attending the individual memorial services. Indeed, I suggested to our local authority that perhaps we should have one major constituency service in the morning, allowing the smaller events to take place in the afternoon.

However, in recent years we have seen a substantial sea-change in the attitude of the public to our Armed Forces following, I think it is fair to say, a realisation that our troops whom we initially sent into Afghanistan were ill equipped and substantially underresourced. The media got behind our forces and, of course, considerable improvements have been made to their kit. Now, the kit is probably the envy of the world in many respects.

As has been referred to, the Government enshrined the military covenant in law during the passage of the Armed Forces Bill. I think it would be fair to say that the combination of a sympathetic and sensible Minister and pressure from a number of noble Lords and noble and gallant Lords improved the Bill during its passage. Of course, reference has been made to the very impressive turnout as coffins pass through Royal Wootton Bassett, and yesterday’s roll call of deaths brings home to us the current losses. In my judgment, it would be interesting to see whether there is any carry-across or manifestation of increased support for our Armed Forces in poppy sales and in attendance at remembrance parades, as well as continuing support for service charities.

There are around 100,000 war memorials in this country, of which perhaps 1,200 or so are listed. The spate of thefts has been referred to today and previously by my noble friend and colleague Lord Tope. Could the Minister tell us whether there are any laws at the present time that govern damage or desecration to our war memorials? If not, should we not consider their introduction?

In today’s paper, there is an indication that the funding for our very impressive National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire is going to be cut by a quarter. I visited it a couple of years ago, and it is hugely impressive. I realise, of course, that economies have to be made in defence spending, but do we really have to reduce the funding for such an impressive national memorial?

Turning to the matter of the young, does the Minister know whether the British Legion visits schools on a regular basis? Are poppies made available in schools? Should this not be rather more encouraged? I have previously suggested that schools should adopt their local war memorials for the dual advantage of both cleanliness and preservation. It would also make our youngsters more aware of the sacrifices that have been made.

Sadly, some who have given their lives have not been properly acknowledged and treated. It is surely a scandal that it has taken until next year, 2012—some 70 years after the ending of the Second World War—to erect a memorial to the 55,573 brave members of Bomber Command who were killed in action.

I also pay tribute to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for all the work that it does, which I have seen throughout the world, and to the memorials of many communities overseas. On my visit to Normandy earlier this year to visit the landing beaches, I saw the way so many memorials in small French communities are maintained, with full acknowledgement of the particular regiments that liberated those communities.

Sadly, there is no sign of the world becoming any less violent and there will inevitably be casualties in the future. For our forces, we must provide the best possible medical care, make generous provision for dependants—I know that my noble friend Lord Loomba will refer to war widows in particular in his speech—and always ensure that those who make the supreme sacrifice on our behalf have a decent funeral and an appropriate memorial.

Armed Forces: Accommodation

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the implications for defence service accommodation of ending the £1.5 billion programme to upgrade decaying barracks and married quarters.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are no plans to end the upgrade programme for service accommodation. However, from 2013, defence budget projections foresee a three-year pause in the upgrade of some 800 service family accommodation properties—SFA, in defence jargon—and some single living accommodation bed spaces, or SLA, each year. A further 3,000 upgraded bed spaces will be developed by 2014 and routine maintenance will continue to be fully funded. This decision reflects the substantial financial challenges we inherited from the MoD budget and our determination to protect front-line operations.

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

Is my noble friend not embarrassed that while the Government pledge support for the military covenant, of which a key element is housing, and while the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday pledged fast-tracking for 40 major infrastructure projects to help the construction industry, the MoD makes its unique contribution to joined-up government by going in totally the opposite direction and deferring essential maintenance expenditure? Apart from the obvious disadvantage to service personnel and their families, have we not learnt by now that deferring this sort of expenditure always costs a lot more in the long term?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord has read the excellent speech that the Deputy Prime Minister gave yesterday morning, which I commend to the House. I am sure that many others will want to read it. We are continuing to work within the MoD budget to see whether we can generate additional funds for purposes such as these. We are being deliberately cautious in making forward projections, in contrast to the overoptimistic, even reckless, forward projections of the previous Administration in defence budgeting.