Armed Forces: Future Size

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, first, from these Benches I offer condolences to the family of the British soldier shot dead by a rogue member of the Afghan national army. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for putting this debate down—it was a pleasant surprise when I read about it in Bangkok.

The title of the debate mentions the potential problems in the Middle East. Of course, that is only one potential area of conflict and there are others. Did we expect a war in the Falklands or in the Balkans? Did we expect conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan? Can we keep out of conflict in Syria, where horrendous killings are taking place, or Israel/Palestine, whose almost intractable problems seem to be getting worse, or Egypt, Lebanon or Tunisia? The list of potential trouble spots is endless, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, indicated. Where will the next conflict or conflicts be?

With an Army of a mere 82,000 personnel, what will be feasible when any conflict takes place? Could my noble friend the Minister, who does such a great job in the Ministry of Defence, indicate how many generals will be left in this Army of 82,000? How does the number of generals in the Army now and when it is so reduced compare to the number of generals in other armies in France or the United States, relative to the number of personnel in those armed forces?

The title of the debate includes the word “configuration”. An important point from my perspective has always been the configuration of procurement in the Ministry of Defence. The questions really are: what equipment do we have, what equipment do we need and do we know what we need? The question that perhaps no one wants to ask is: what do we not know that we need? What Navy and RAF do we have and do we need? I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord West, in his place. I will leave all naval and aviation problems to him. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, mentioned two aircraft carriers being built. What planes will be able to fly from those carriers? The noble Lord made the analogy to a football team and said it was like sending a team on without a goalkeeper. I disagree: it is like sending a team on without a team. All you would have is the football stadium or the aircraft carriers and nothing to fly from them at the moment.

Then the questions are: what vehicles do we have and how do we use them in the conflicts that take place? We have armoured vehicles and we send them to an area that is sandy so we paint them a sandy colour. Then, if we have a conflict in an Arctic region we take the same vehicles and paint them white. But they are not necessarily—in fact they certainly are not—the proper equipment for our forces. The armed personnel will lose lives because of the inadequacy of that equipment. Would my noble friend accept that defence reviews and procurement move far more slowly than the fast-changing events around the world, particularly in the Middle East and north Africa? How can the Government ensure that the United Kingdom is able to react in a timely way to these defence and security challenges? Then of course there is the financial aspect and the unexpected need for finance. When conflicts take place, will finance be available from some pot somewhere to pay for it? Will the equipment needed be available at short notice?

Could the Minister say what assessment has been made of new types of warfare such as the Iron Dome defence infrastructure protecting civilians in Israel, which has meant that the rockets sent against Israel do not land in any areas of population? They are in fact developing a system that is Iron Dome-plus and Iron Dome-plus-plus to deal with medium and long-range missiles. That is something that I hope would be in our national security strategy.

The Government’s second annual report on the national security strategy and defence review last November highlighted increased instability in the Middle East as one of the major developments since the national security strategy in 2010. How will the Government update the national security strategy to reflect this change? Is the idea of just having a review and then, after a given period, another review and another review the way to go about it? Surely we should be thinking of the review as ongoing and seamless; one should be reviewing it all the time and not just at given times. Does the Minister accept that the developments in the Middle East and north Africa since the publication of the national security strategy have seen major changes in our defence and security picture that were not anticipated when the strategy was first presented. What action will the Government take as a result?

The Times today talks about extensive Army redundancies and the effect of the ability to control the future shape of the Army. The great worry is that the redundancies will include people with needed trades and that they will leave gaps in the performance of certain functions. I wonder how that will be coped with.

Perhaps the Minister will relate that to the use of the Reserve Forces. A lot is mentioned in the reviews as to the building up of the Reserve Forces, but I have my doubts as to whether people with the relevant skills will always be available, and whether they will be able to take the time off from their main employment to go and serve their country. There is a quote in the Times that perhaps doing defence on the cheap is leaving key roles empty. It really is a problem of whether the Army with 82,000 people is going to be fit for purpose.

As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, we owe a considerable and continued debt to our Armed Forces. We are lucky to have the Minister here who I know does an incredible job in the Ministry of Defence. Nothing that I am saying is meant to be critical of that. A lot of these problems are inherent in what has been happening not just during the present Administration but during previous Administrations. There is great scope for looking in a fresh light at what conflicts are likely to happen, what stocks of equipment we have, what we will need, what we could need and whether there are new items of defence and attack available in the world that we should be looking at to bring our forces completely up to date.