Armed Forces: Resilience

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Robathan]

That this House takes note of the level of resilience of the Armed Forces, given the reduction in personnel and equipment as set out in the Defence in a Competitive Age command paper (CP 411), published on 22 March 2021.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have secured this debate. I think it is a fairly timely debate. We look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of my noble friend Lord Hintze and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, with whom I worked in the Ministry of Defence—now I regret saying it—nearly a decade ago. They will know that it is the convention of maiden speeches to be not controversial. I hope they can both break that mould.

I will not labour my own points for too long because I retired from the Army as a major and we have down to speak four former Chiefs of the Defence Staff, one former Defence Secretary and NATO Secretary-General and one former First Sea Lord, and there is another Chief of the Defence Staff listening to mark my homework. I am not very happy about any of that, but they all have much more knowledge than I do.

Politicians need to understand defence and they do not. Spending money on defence is just like any other insurance policy. You have to pay the premiums on, for instance, a house. While people resent the premiums as a waste of money, when the house burns down, they turn to the insurance policy and find that they have not spent enough on their premiums. It is much more serious for our country if we are unable to defend ourselves because we did not pay sufficient premiums for defence.

What is the first duty of government? It is, and it always has been, the defence of the realm. Treasury Ministers especially see money spent on defence as wasted and continually try to cut it. Defence reviews are intended to reduce costs. I was involved in the 2010 review. It was very traumatic. I spoke to a fellow Minister and said I was thinking of resigning. He said, “Andrew, don’t be such a fool; they’ll just put somebody more compliant in instead of you.” It was weak—I know.

The 2010 review was driven purely by saving money. The Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time had no feeling for defence nor understanding of it at all. In the review, we talked a lot about asymmetric warfare. I do not remember any mention of an invasion of Ukraine with tanks. I do not recall Russia being mentioned particularly at all. We did not understand the threat then, as we do now, despite the invasion of Georgia in 2008. We naively thought of China as an ally for greater prosperity for a “golden decade”. We failed to recognise that the belt and road initiative is basically a tool of economic hegemony and imperialism.

At the same time, the review added the nuclear deterrent to the defence budget from the central government budget, which was of course a huge burden. It also added pension liabilities, which had not been there before—I am sure that someone will correct me if my memory is defective. During the coronavirus panic, we spent £410 billion or so on measures to combat the virus. I think that most people now acknowledge that that was not necessarily all money well spent. In that time, per year, defence got about 1/10th of that. There is now a cash increase, but inflation is wiping it out—and what is the first duty of government?

This debate is not intended as an exercise in nostalgia, but, during the Cold War, we typically had something like 55,000 soldiers in West Germany—cavalry, infantry, engineers, signallers and artillery—who were all facing the threat from the East. We had several hundred tanks—I think it was about 900, but I may be wrong—innumerable armed vehicles and a real capability to fight a war. We had, I think, 12 squadrons of fighter aircraft, helicopters, et cetera, as well as 20,000-plus airmen and tactical nukes for most of the time.

Young people—those under 50; I am old—do not really understand the Cold War and look baffled if you mention it. But it was a real war of deterrence, and it worked. There were four armoured divisions in Germany for most of the time, until 4 Div moved to York in the 1980s, as an infantry division. But, even then, we could field three armoured divisions—although they were always being cut by the Treasury, which is why, in the first Gulf War, 1 Div had to borrow units and personnel from across other formations. But, actually, it did pretty well in the first Gulf War: we had over 53,000 UK service personnel in total deployed there, including me.

Now there is war in Europe, which puts the security of all of us at risk. We could not possibly put a single division in the field. There was a good article in Monday’s Times titled:

“‘Hollowed-out’ UK military can’t send a division to war”.


I should say that the reporting was not prompted by this debate. But, 77 years ago, Winston Churchill—it is always a bad thing to quote him—made a famous speech at Fulton, Missouri, which noble Lords will remember. It is remembered because of the Iron Curtain reference—but read on. He said that the Russians desired

“the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines … From what I have seen of our Russian friends and Allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness.”

We have shown military weakness in NATO—notwithstanding the announcement about Leopard tanks yesterday—in the West as a whole and in the UK.

We scrapped most of our tanks. As it happens, I had a discussion in 1991 with the then Defence Secretary, in which I said that I thought the tank would be viewed as the horse of the late 20th century. Actually, I stand by that: they are very vulnerable to drones, laser-guided mortar rounds, et cetera. But they still have utility in war—if noble Lords do not believe me, ask the Russians and the Ukrainians. We have scrapped or amalgamated most of our cavalry regiments: the so-called vulgar fractions—13th/18th, 14th/20th, 15th/19th, et cetera. There is only one regiment—the Royal Tank Regiment—and there used to be four when I served 32 years ago.

This is not nostalgia for the past; these are the facts. I will let others comment on how few fast jets we have to support out troops. But, again, we are told, “Oh, we don’t need jets or aircraft”—but, again, ask the combatants in Ukraine. We are told that drones, cyber and modern technology will mean that we need fewer troops, but this is not a binary issue: we need both if we are to defend ourselves. We need new technology and troops to use it and, above all, to hold ground. Again, ask the soldiers in Ukraine, in ghastly, cold, water-filled trenches.

I pay tribute to my right honourable friend the Member for Uxbridge for his lead, when he was Prime Minister, in sending armaments to Ukraine. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will convey my message to the MoD and No. 10 that, first, we need to continue our support. But we also need to replenish our war-fighting stocks. How many MLRS have we sent, and how many do we have left? I am not sure about NLAWs; I read that we are spending some money on them, but we need to replenish our stocks. We know that sending one squadron of Challenger tanks is reducing our limited armoured capability. We must now spend extra money to fill up our armouries, as a first step—remember the insurance premiums.

I will touch briefly on the failings of procurement, which is a subject for further debates and which, frankly, is a scandal. They are caused in part by the swift turnover of military personnel, by incoming defence chiefs always wanting new and expensive additions to equipment to catch up, and by defence contractors, who can run rings round civil servants, who know little about industry. My noble friend Lord Hammond of Runnymede got a grip of this pretty well when he was Defence Secretary, when I was his Minister for the Armed Forces, but, sadly, it appears to be out of control again: witness the Ajax debacle. There is huge waste, which is to the detriment of our defence budget and operational efficiency.

I turn briefly to personnel. Resilience requires a steady flow of personnel to be recruited and retained. We will not even nearly hit our recruitment targets for this year, and the numbers leaving are increasing—I spoke to someone who should know quite a lot about this only the day before yesterday. Part of the issue is pay, but I suggest that it is more about a sense of purpose or mission. We desperately do not want conflict, but operations do encourage recruitment. We need reserves for resilience, but the numbers are in decline. From the figures, the Reserve Forces apparently decreased by 3%, and the number of new people joining has gone down by over one-third.

Personnel need to feel valued; it is the same as any other job. Over the years, the Treasury bean-counters have looked at reducing quality of life across the board. The messes of soldiers, sergeants and officers have been subjected to endless cost-cutting, so the mess is less likely to viewed as an alternative to home, which is what it used to be 40 years ago. For instance, the catering is outsourced; I have eaten some of it, and the quality is much reduced in general. I will not mention married quarters, which are again in trouble, or the determination to sell off the attractive houses for commanders because civil servants say, “Why should a general live in a big house?”—perhaps because they do not. It is about the perks being whittled away. One has to make an attractive offer to keep good people, who can earn more in the civilian world.

I chanced on this section of a former Defence Secretary’s autobiography:

“Britain can count itself fortunate in having such clever and capable people at the top of its armed forces. I often wondered why they seemed so much better than their counterparts in other similar countries. I came to the conclusion that it was the result of family history. Many of Britain’s senior officers have followed in their fathers’ footsteps”.


This is from See How They Run by Geoff Hoon, who was Defence Secretary for six years. There is some truth in it, but there are other reasons as well—it is particularly because people do not feel valued. So many Ministers over the years—I do not blame Geoff Hoon for this—have said, “What a good system we’ve got. We have such good Armed Forces and commanders. How can we change it and make it less good?”

Our Armed Forces are hugely admired at home and abroad, although I do not think that they are necessarily the envy of the world. But Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in September, which was seen by many millions around the world, showed discipline, attention to detail, pride and tradition, which astonished many, I suspect. But it is not by chance: the service personnel involved also fight wars, so let us not destroy our admirable Armed Forces by penny-pinching in so many ways. Tradition, pride and effective fighting and defence go hand in hand.

Finally, as an historian, I say that we should learn the lessons of history. In the 1930s, disarmament after the First World War was very popular: we could not possibly fight another major war. It is the same today: we are cutting our troops, ships and aircraft as I speak. A House of Commons Library paper published last April said:

“the Ministry of Defence’s day-to-day budget is … set to decline in real terms”—

that was before inflation reached what it has. There has been no change since that was written, so I say to my noble friend the Minister, the Ministers in the Ministry of Defence and the Prime Minister: let the Government change tack. Speak softly, but carry a big stick. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank everyone who participated in the debate, and pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Hintze, formerly of the Royal Australian Army, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, formerly of the Royal Air Force, for their excellent maiden speeches. I said at the beginning of the debate that I would not bang on for too long because I knew there was much more expertise than I have. We have heard it all, and it has been very good, so thank you very much.

I would say that experience is not everything, actually, and war is too important to be left to generals. However, I know my noble friend has heard that experience that shows what a dire state we are in, and she has responded well, so I thank her. We are not looking backwards to the Cold War; we are looking forwards. We need to build on the highly admired Armed Forces, on their history and tradition, and have a better force going forward. When the Minister talks about beimg leaner and more agile, I think we all know what leaner means: fewer—it is quite straightforward. It is all very well having more command papers and strategies. I am sure Mr Putin and other potential adversaries are very interested. We need action now; we need more money now, and we need those insurance premiums that have been put in the bin for many years—over the last three or four decades—to be paid and we need money to be paid now.

Motion agreed.