Syria: UK Military Action

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, if you are the 64th speaker in a debate it is hard to find anything original to say, so noble Lords will judge whether I achieve that. As a former solider, I assure noble Lords that I am not in favour of any air strikes or warfare unless it cannot be avoided. Anyone who has seen the death and destruction caused by war does not want to see it again. We should always approach any military action with caution and deep foreboding. I shall briefly make five points.

First, like the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I regret the convention that appears to be being established that military action cannot be taken without parliamentary approval by Members of Parliament in the Commons, some of whom will not be well informed and some of whom will be, some of whom will be influenced by self-selecting personnel who send emails, by social media, by groups such as Stop the War, Momentum and 38 Degrees and by political activists who should not be allowed to influence the debate. No Government can survive without the support of, first, Parliament and, secondly and ultimately, the electorate. We do not need this. However, since Parliament is being asked, the Commons and the Lords must back the Prime Minister and trust him. That may be difficult for some, but we must trust him. Governments often make catastrophic mistakes, but so do individuals and MPs.

Secondly, the vote in 2013 hugely damaged the standing of the UK and the West. A red line had been crossed and no action was taken. It sent a signal to Assad, Daesh, jihadis everywhere and indeed to Russia that the West was not to be taken seriously. We were seen as a pushover. Ask Mr Putin in Crimea, Ukraine or Syria and very recently on the Turkish border. By the way, I have been put on a blacklist by Mr Putin for such disobliging remarks and I am unable to go to Russia for my holiday as a result.

My third point is for the Prime Minister and the Government—and I urge noble Lords to trust the Prime Minister’s judgment. I should say that I told him this when I was a Minister in the Ministry of Defence and I survived: the cuts that were introduced in 2010 and 2011 were too drastic. The Armed Forces were cut far too much. We have too few aircraft and ships. This is being rectified to a certain extent by the recent SDSR. Above all, though, we have too few troops. Should we wish to put these much-vaunted boots on the ground, there are precious few of them. There are too few to assist in a multitude of tasks including civil disorder, terrorist attacks and overseas operations.

My fourth point is linked to that. We have excellent Special Forces, but they are special. A rigorous selection process makes them special, and we cannot create Special Forces on a whim or because we wish to do so. The pool of talent has been shrunk by cuts. The Army is now half the size that it was when I joined 40 years ago, whereas the Special Forces are bigger. It is difficult, if not impossible, to increase the size of the Special Forces further without dropping the standards, and that makes them no longer special and no longer capable of the task that we ask them to do.

Finally, the military campaign in 2003 was a complete success. It was very rapid and over within a matter of a week or so. The aftermath was a disaster. Post-conflict planning, reconstruction, stabilisation, development spending and whatever else are essential. I note that this is in the Commons Motion, but it needs more than mere words. It needs action, whatever happens.