Armed Forces

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I am sure that all your Lordships who have spoken are pleased, as the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said, to have had the opportunity to discuss and comment on the role and contribution of our Armed Forces. However, I fear that today’s debate, in the name of the Minister—timely though it is, this close to Remembrance Sunday—has rather less to do with a collective government desire to discuss defence issues for a second sitting day running and rather more to do with a collective government desire not to discuss the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, and any troublesome amendments, for even one day running.

I hope that there are not too many Members of your Lordships’ House who would have wished to speak in this debate but have been unable to do so because of the very short notice. Our Armed Forces deserve debates on their role and contribution that are properly and jointly agreed in advance, not least because our military personnel continue to be engaged in major operations on our behalf at a time when they are also facing considerable change.

Unfortunately, all too often in your Lordships’ House we have those sombre moments when we express our sincere condolences to the families and friends of serving members of our Armed Forces who have been killed in operations in the service of our country. We also remember the courage and fortitude of those who have been wounded, particularly those who have suffered what we describe as life-changing injuries. It is only appropriate and right that we should use this debate to pay tribute once again to our Armed Forces and the whole service community.

The main centre of combat operations for our Armed Forces is Afghanistan. My noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen powerfully expressed his concerns on the present position. We should all be determined to ensure that when combat operations by our forces cease and the majority of our personnel return permanently to these shores, they will leave an Afghanistan that is able to function as an effective state, governed by elected representatives in the interests of the population as a whole, and at peace, with a respect for law and order. That would be an appropriate legacy for all our personnel who have been involved in operations in Afghanistan, not least for those who have lost their lives and suffered significant injuries.

Our Armed Forces face major change, and not only as a result of the reduction in their number. New threats are emerging. Weak and failing states outnumber strong states by two to one. Non-state actors are also on the rise. The United States of America is attaching greater emphasis in its approach to military and diplomatic policy to the Pacific region and the Middle and Far East and less to Europe. That has potential implications for our defence strategy. The nature of warfare is also changing, with nuclear proliferation, increased terrorism, more use of unarmed aircraft and the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks.

Maximising security and influence today demands coalition-building. We have argued for greater burden-sharing and deployability of assets within NATO, and exploration of how a “coalition of cuts” between European NATO nations can co-ordinate reductions in defence spending. The practice of allies fighting conflicts together but preparing for them individually is surely no longer the way to proceed.

The Government’s intention, as the size of our Regular Armed Forces contracts, is to increase the strength of our Reserve Forces to be able to meet laid down military objectives. We had a debate on our Reserve Forces last Thursday, and one on defence and Europe the week before. The Minister said that he would respond in writing to the many points raised in the debate last Thursday to which he was not able to reply at the time. Obviously, he has not yet had a chance to prepare and send that letter in time for this debate, which would have been ideal, but I suspect that this debate came almost as much of a surprise to the Minister as it did to probably everyone else.

However, on a crucial part of the Government’s strategy—namely, the increase in our Reserve Forces—we have read in one newspaper this morning, as the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, reminded us, that a problem with the recruitment of part-time soldiers, including a backlog of applicants, threatens to undermine plans to expand the Territorial Army.

I repeat that we support an enhanced role for the reserves, whose skills must be maximised and who can be an important link between military and civilian communities. We have to ensure that the system to encourage and enable service leavers and those made redundant to join our reserves is effective, that we support businesses in employing members of the Reserve Forces and that any unnecessary bureaucracy is removed.

With a Green Paper apparently just around the corner, the noble Baroness the Minister, whom we welcome to the Government Defence Front Bench, may not feel inclined in her reply to go further than did the Minister in last week’s debate, although I invite her to do so in the light of the newspaper report this morning.

Since meeting our military objectives in the future is reliant on an expansion of our Reserve Forces as the Regular Army is reduced in numbers, could the noble Baroness be precise about the timescale in which the reserves, with the increased level of commitment required of them compared to today, are being built up and Regular Army numbers drawn down in order to address concerns that there may be a period where the territorial contingency will be too small to cover the capability gap?

This is an important issue, since even the Secretary of State has admitted that these proposals constitute a risk against a background of falling morale, to which my noble friends Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde and Lord Davies of Stamford referred. Recent figures show that the three-year trend of declining morale has continued, with only 18% of soldiers questioned reporting high morale across the Army and only 33% feeling valued. Even the Secretary of State has admitted that government actions have hit morale.

We are clear that there must be some reduction in the overall number of service personnel, but does the noble Baroness believe that those reductions are being appropriately borne? The percentage reduction in the number of senior officer posts in all three services has been considerably less than the percentage reduction in junior ranks. The Armed Forces must be reshaped to make them as effective as they can be in the light of future numbers and future planned objectives and assumptions. It is right to demand painful efficiencies of those at the bottom, but not while appearing to give greater protection to those at the top.

It is all of a pattern that started with the strategic defence and security review, which was rushed and rendered out of date by events in Libya—not even mentioned in the review—where British forces used some equipment that Ministers had planned to scrap. Ad hoc decision-making appears to be all too common. The fact that Ministers have further reduced Army manpower on top of the cuts outlined in the SDSR shows just how rushed and incomplete was that original document. Perhaps the noble Baroness could say whether the SDSR defence planning assumptions that applied to an Army of 95,000 can be guaranteed by a Regular Army of 82,000.

Until all these issues are addressed or clarified, it will be difficult to overlook the impression that this Government’s defence policy largely adds up to a deficit reduction proposal and policy statements and objectives that have not been thought through, either as far as their relevance and consequences are concerned or the logistics and practicality of their implementation.

Ministers regularly claim the financial situation as justification for the speed and depth of the cuts that they have made. We are continually told by Ministers of a financial “black hole” that was bequeathed, but the National Audit Office, the Defence Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee have all described the figure as “unverifiable”, which says it all.

The Secretary of State has said that he has balanced the equipment budget, but we have seen no detailed figures to support this and how it has been achieved. When will the National Audit Office report on the core equipment programme in the light of the Government’s claim?

Defence reform is not simply about cutting Armed Forces personnel and prioritising the pursuit of savings above all else; it is about aligning present and future capabilities with present and future strategic threats within realistic budgets. We do not believe that that has been this Government’s approach in at least some areas, whatever their intention may have been.

However, in two areas, we are at one with the Government. We supported and welcomed the Royal British Legion’s campaign on the military covenant, albeit that it took a bit of a push to persuade the Government to enshrine it in legislation. It provides a clear duty for us all, as my noble friend Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde reminded us, to ensure that members of our Armed Forces and their families are cared for and are not penalised or discriminated against as a result of their service in the forces, and as members of the military community, on behalf of our country. We have proposed greater resources to tackle veterans’ long-term mental health issues and believe that we need to rebalance the system of allowances in favour of the low paid and those on the front line.

The other area where we are at one with the Government is in our support and admiration for our Armed Forces and in our united backing for them in the military operations that they have undertaken, such as in Libya, and in their current operations in Afghanistan. We know that they are risking their lives to ensure the security of our nation and the protection of our people and our interests, and that, in doing so, they are seeking to give others the opportunity of enjoying the freedoms which we take for granted.