Defence Reform Bill

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Grand Committee

In terms of overall numbers, there will be a delta where we have fewer forces in the period between 2015 and 2017 than we will from 2018 onwards, but that is by design. Also, it is set against a revised defence planning assumption for what we are going to be doing with our forces, particularly in terms of the potential for enduring operations, in the period immediately after we come out of Afghanistan and finish combat operation there at the end of next year.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

The end of next year?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I shall read that again. I refer to the period immediately after we come out of Afghanistan and finish combat operation there at the end of this year. So this is all absolutely in accordance with a strategic design that flows through the National Security Strategy.

We would all agree, I am sure, that this programme should be subject to proper and effective scrutiny. We have put forward a government amendment to do precisely that, with a report put to Parliament where it will be for the business managers to decide in the normal way what to do with that report. Leaving that report aside, the performance of defence as a whole is already subject to considerable external scrutiny, be that the National Audit Office, the House of Commons Defence Committee, or in defence Questions from MPs or Peers. Furthermore, as the Secretary of State said during an evidence session with the Defence Committee on 5 November, the strategic defence and security review 2015,

“will certainly want to look at the Future Force 2020 construct and decide whether it needs to evolve further to 2025 in response to a changing environment”.

The next strategic defence and security review will take place at a time when the programme has had some time to develop and demonstrate maturity.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

The Minister mentions the SDSR of 2015. That is presumably ongoing at the moment as 2015 is, after all, next year. What consultations has the department had with the various stakeholders in defence, such as Her Majesty’s Opposition, the trade unions, the press, the diplomatic corps, the think tanks and the academics who will be involved? Is there any outside involvement whatever in achieving a degree of consensus on what will be published around the time of the next general election?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I will try to answer the noble Lord’s question when I respond to other noble Lords’ questions. I repeat that the next SDSR, which will take place at a time when the programme has had some time to develop and demonstrate maturity, would be the right time to scrutinise the force structure and whether it needs to adapt to reflect new threats, opportunities or other such variables. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, we, too, welcome the Minister’s Amendment 18. As he said, there was broad support for this when it was debated in the House of Commons. It is therefore appreciated that the Government have brought forward this amendment and accepted the principle of the new clause to be agreed in this House.

Amendment 18F calls for a report within one year of enactment. Its wording is too restrictive to reflect accurately issues as they may arise around viability and cost-effectiveness and we would not wish to support that proposed clause.

Providing an annual report to the Secretary of State, which must also be laid before Parliament, provides reassurance that the position will be kept under review for all three services. We have quite naturally concentrated more on the Army than the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, partly because of the numbers involved and partly because the Reserves are integrated already, in a different way, with the Royal Air Force. Obviously within the annual report it will be helpful to identify where there are differences between the three services and to identify examples of best practice which might cross-refer between them.

As the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, said in his remarks about mental health, there is a general agreement that this is an important issue. We agree with the Minister that this is covered within Amendment 18 and we do not see the need for additional medical detail, particularly in the Bill. There may well be a case for having guidance which sets this out more clearly, but not in the Bill.

It is timely that today sees the publication of the Veterans’ Transition Review of the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft. Almost certainly within that there will be recommendations which will help to influence the response to or implementation of what is happening to the reserves under this Bill. Will there be a government response to that review? It would be helpful to have a debate on it in the light of the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft.

In summary, we support Amendment 18, and while seeing value in the proposed two new clauses of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, we do not see them as essential to the Bill.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

I would like to say a few words in relation to some of the more general issues concerned here. I return to the question I asked about SDSR 2015 because it concerns me that we might be going through exactly the same kind of exercise as we did for the SDSR that was done previously in six months. I do not want to draw any comparisons with the one that I supervised in 1998; it lasted a lot longer than it should have. It still managed to do so but it was affected by the circumstances which came after it, as the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, said. However, it did not become outdated as quickly as the SDSR that the new Government brought in, which quickly came face to face with the reality of Libya after it was put in place. It focused on 2020 but was then faced with the situation in Libya as well.

Importantly, the defence review that we did in 1998 established a consensus. Perhaps for the first time in military history, the review was accepted by all the defence chiefs both in public, as one might have expected, and in private because it represented a view that was consensual. After the new Government came into place, we embarked upon a consultation exercise that made sure that all the stakeholders had an opportunity to express a view. The Ministers, Robin Cook and myself, and the Permanent Secretaries in the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development did a roadshow that went round the country, and which also embraced pretty much every stakeholder in the business. When it came out, it was therefore a genuine security and defence review.

The failure of the last SDSR was, essentially, that it was a Treasury-led exercise, done far too quickly and involving far too few elements. I fear that that is precisely what is happening at this stage. I have consulted the Opposition to see whether anybody has bothered to ask them about the initial preparation or any of the discussions taking place at present, and the shadow Defence Secretary assures me that no such approaches have been made. We look as though we are again getting ourselves into the trap of something being prepared at or around the next election campaign, which will essentially be based on a Treasury view about what the country can afford and how the rest of it fits into that.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My noble friend is saying some important things but does he agree that if the Government are serious about producing or drafting an SDSR, they ought at an early stage to be consulting not merely with the list of people who he quite rightly set out—the academics, think tanks and other stakeholders in this country—but with our allies, particularly the United States and our EU allies? If they do not consult them, the review that comes out may be inconsistent with the strategic intentions and plans of our key allies. Opportunities for fruitful collaboration or for the division of labour will be lost and it may well be that unfortunate misunderstandings will be sown.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

Indeed, my noble friend makes an extremely good point. In many ways, it goes without saying. It may well be that there are some discussions going on with our allies and inside NATO about it. I would hope so, although I am a bit pessimistic about most of these things since it becomes opaque. Part of the dispiriting nature of the way in which the British political system works is that you go from everything to zero quickly, as my noble friend will know only too well from being in government. In government, you know everything and then when you are in opposition you are allowed access to pretty much nothing at all. Therefore, having been Secretary-General of NATO and knowing everything that was going on inside that organisation, it was a grim experience to then dredge the newspapers and the occasional website to try to find out what was actually going on. The point that is being made is that the widest possible consultation is required, so that, at the end of the day, the review is fixed, has traction and makes sense in the light of the international circumstances as well as of domestic public opinion. Without that, it will fall apart, and fall apart quite quickly.