Lord Stirrup
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Integrated Review: Update
Lord Stirrup Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Goldie (Con)
The 2021 integrated review and defence Command Paper highlighted that we must focus on capabilities rather than troop numbers per se. Through Future Soldier, the Army will have a whole focus of over 100,000, comprising 73,000 regular service personnel and 30,100 Army Reserve. However, the noble Lord made an important point about hollowness. Over time and under successive Governments, there has been underinvestment in our land capability requirements. We have recognised that and set out a plan. Future Soldier is part of that. We have published an equipment plan of £242 billion over 10 years, and the Army’s proportion of that is £41 billion, covering, for example, Challenger 3, Boxer and Ajax.
I remind the noble Lord that this Government were responsible for a record-breaking finance settlement for defence—the biggest since the Cold War—and it should be acknowledged that we have made a serious attempt to try to redress the hollowing-out process over many years.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, whatever the fresh defence Command Paper has to say, it will be of value only if the Government strike an appropriate balance between ambition and resource. The Minister keeps referring to the largest spending increase on defence since the Cold War. Since virtually all spending reviews since the Cold War have meant a reduction in defence expenditure, that is not a very high bar to clear. Will the forthcoming spending review support the defence Command Paper or undermine it?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
The noble and gallant Lord may consider that it is not a very high bar, but it is higher than any of the other bars that have been set, and the facts speak for themselves. He will be aware that the challenge for defence is that we have to balance the operational and remote resource demands of today with the overarching vision to modernise to meet the demands of tomorrow. In the MoD, we are confident that we can reconcile these conflicting tensions.