British Armed Forces: Global Britain

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I must admit to fearing that our Armed Forces are currently too small to satisfy the Government’s aspirations for us to be global Britain after Brexit or the CDS’s vision of a more forward-deployed military. The Army certainly has no surplus after those required to help with the pandemic have been removed—plus its contributions to NATO’s enhanced forward presence and UN peacekeeping operations in Cyprus and Mali. The realisation of the Government’s aspirations is therefore very much resource related.