Defence Transformation

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his tribute. As for as his question about opening discussions with Her Majesty’s Opposition, he has raised this before; I am very happy to take it back to my department and come back, and I will let my noble friend know what the answer is. As far as proceeds of defence sales are concerned, the answer is yes: they will remain in the MoD budget. As far as the total cost of withdrawal from Germany is concerned, I do not have any figures on this at the moment. We are working on it, and as soon as I have some figures I will let my noble friend know.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, having served as honorary colonel of a TA Royal Engineer regiment I confirm what the Minister has said about the TA’s expertise and utility. However, in repeating the Statement made in another place the Minister referred to models from other countries: Canada and the United States. Part of the reason for the success of the reservist element of their forces has very much to do with the culture of those countries and the background from which those people come. It has to do with the way that reservists are honoured and celebrated within society; the view that ordinary citizens and employers across the board take of their service.

I do not for one moment suggest that we could not have a similar culture in this country but it would be a change from that which we currently have. As we recognise, change in culture is a difficult thing to do. It takes time, commitment and a sustained effort across that period of time, and it has to be led from the top. What strategy does the Minister have? What strategy do the Government have for this transformation of culture, which will be essential if the very demanding recruitment targets he has outlined today for the TA have any hope of being met in the future?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord makes an excellent point about the culture of the reserves in the United States, Canada and other countries. We are aware that this area will need a lot of work and we are determined to make this whole issue of the reserves successful. We will work on it. Part of this issue is mentioned in the booklet. I very much look forward to discussions with the noble and gallant Lord about any further ideas on how we can take this forward.

Mull of Kintyre Review

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I sat through the debate in 1997: I have a copy of it here, including the noble Lord’s speech. I support Lord Philip’s finding that there was room for doubt on the matter and that therefore the initial finding of negligence to a gross degree was unjustified. Lord Philip did not find that the pilots were blameless, but rather that it was not clear beyond absolutely any doubt whatsoever that they were negligent. Those are the four important words: “absolutely any doubt whatsoever”.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, the Minister explained that Lord Philip’s ruling on a point of law means that a finding of gross negligence is not sustainable. However, in relation to some of the issues that have been raised, and perhaps as an aid to clarity for Members of the House, will the Minister tell us what view Lord Philip took of the conduct and findings of the board of inquiry into the most probable cause of the accident?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, Lord Philip's review concluded that the test on which the air chief marshals came to their finding of negligence to a gross degree did not meet the standard of objectivity that he judged to be right. Therefore, the finding has been set aside. Lord Philip did not criticise in any way the conclusions drawn by the president of the board of inquiry.

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, as the Minister said, this is a substantially smaller Bill than that brought forward in 2006 at the previous quinquennial review, when a major revision was made to the administration of justice within the armed services. Nevertheless, I agree that the 2011 Bill contains some important provisions. Perhaps the one that has attracted the most notice, and I expect will attract much comment today, is Clause 2, which seeks to enshrine the military covenant in statute. This, to my mind, is a very welcome gesture, but is it anything more than a gesture?

In order to answer that question, we need to understand the nature of the lacuna that Clause 2 seeks to fill. The noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, referred to the service personnel Command Paper which her Government published in 2008. All of us who are concerned with the welfare of people in the Armed Forces saw it as a very positive step in the right direction, but it was only a step. Some of the changes set out in the paper were, as we have heard, implemented quickly—for example, the doubling of Armed Forces Compensation Scheme payments for the most seriously injured—but others were clearly going to require much more work. This was because many of the issues that over the years have bedevilled military personnel and their families centre on the availability of public services that are outwith the control of the Ministry of Defence. These include things such as access to NHS dentists, places on NHS waiting lists, access to social housing, provision of school places, and many others besides. The enforced mobility to which service personnel are subject put them consistently at a disadvantage in this regard when compared with the majority of their civilian peers.

In 2008, the Command Paper did no more than commit the relevant government departments to working together to find solutions to these problems. The caveat that many of us appended to our welcome of the Command Paper was, therefore, that it not only promised the right things but that it was consistent and sustained the delivery of solutions that really mattered. An external reference group was indeed set up to monitor that delivery. It included representatives of the services' families federations and the leading charities, as well as members of the relevant government departments. Its first report, in 2009, concluded that progress had been made, but that there was still much to do.

As of today, that progress continues. There has been considerable good will, and much good work, between the various ministries, and the people involved deserve great credit for this. However, our society's obligation to treat its Armed Forces fairly should not depend on the good will of the moment. It should not depend on how much—or how little—the military is in the public eye and mind over any given period. Nor should it depend—and forgive me if I seem slightly cynical—solely on a calculus of how much political gain or harm would attach to any given course of action.

I do not wish for one moment to impugn the motives of anyone acting today. I believe their collective heart is in absolutely the right place, but these are exceptional times. One cannot help remembering, with Kipling, that:

“For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' ‘Chuck 'im out, the brute!’

But it's ‘Saviour of 'is country’ when the guns begin to shoot”.

It is worth remembering the perceptive last line of that poem:

“An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool—you bet that Tommy sees”.

The Minister has implied that the current levels of interest and support will continue. He has said that the people of this country know how their Armed Forces should be treated. This may be so, but it has not prevented the issues that I have outlined from being persistent problems over a great many years. We need a formal undertaking in which military people and their families can have confidence and which they see will be upheld and sustained when the guns have ceased to shoot. To that extent, the proposed inclusion of the military covenant in the Armed Forces Act must be welcome, but what sort of an undertaking are we talking about here? How effectively will it deliver solutions to the kind of problems that I have described? A key reason for enshrining an undertaking in legislation is surely to give people some recourse if that undertaking is not met. In this case, such recourse is not available. Instead, the Secretary of State for Defence is called upon annually to explain himself before Parliament.

I accept the arguments that the services themselves have made—that formal legal redress would generally be neither desirable nor even helpful to their people in such cases—but I have two particular difficulties with the alternative that is proposed. The first relates to the point that I have already made—that the Defence Secretary is not responsible for delivering the services that are at the heart of many of the most difficult and intractable issues faced by the military community. Surely, if Parliament is to probe such matters deeply and effectively, it must do so with those who are directly responsible for the provision in question. If the need to explain actions personally and directly to Parliament is the means by which good behaviour is encouraged, surely the explanations should be required from those responsible for the behaviour, and they should not be able to use the Defence Secretary as a kind of air raid shelter.

Secondly, the Bill seems to leave a great deal to the discretion of the Defence Secretary. Phrases such as,

“as the Secretary of State considers,”

or,

“as the Secretary of State may determine”,

crop up quite a bit in Clause 2. Now, I am not suggesting that all boundaries should be set out in the Bill. Such an impractical result is, I presume, what the current wording seeks to avoid. However, is not allowing the Secretary of State alone to define all the parameters as he goes along a little like making him a judge in his own cause? Surely we need some kind of audit function to ensure that the character and scope of the standards to which the Secretary of State—or, as I hope, Secretaries of State—report attract a degree of consensus that goes beyond simply the ministries being judged.

While I therefore welcome the inclusion of the covenant in Clause 2, the undertaking given there is not yet firm enough for Tommy or Tommy’s family to rely upon with confidence through changing times, and I hope that this can be addressed as the Bill goes through its other stages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fookes]

My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, has shot my fox because one of the points that I wanted to make—I will still aim another bullet at it—concerns the incomprehensibility of any one piece of legislation if one seeks to know what the law is on the subject. I share the noble and gallant Lord’s distaste for simply amending the previous Act. Unusually, we have the chance to amend the Act every five years for constitutional reasons that have already been touched upon. As it is the only piece of legislation for the Ministry of Defence, I would have thought it possible for the MoD to start to work on consolidation from now on so that when we next get to the five-year point we will have a Bill that is complete in itself. I once served on the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. It met but rarely. Here we have an opportunity to put the matter right, at least in one piece of legislation.

On the new part of the legislation on the Armed Forces covenant, I slightly disagree with another noble Lord who felt that there was a weakness in giving the Secretary of State considerable flexibility in what he might choose to bring into the annual report, which will be his duty. I think that can be a strength rather than a weakness. If something is too prescriptive, it is very easy to find a little way down the line that it does not cover what you wish it to cover. I prefer to give the Secretary of State a little more leeway. I regard this new arrangement as an experiment. I hope that we will develop, refine and improve it year by year. I do not look upon it as being totally static and never to be changed, but that we can improve upon it.

I have one or two questions for the Minister. First, other than the measures for education, health and so on that are already listed in the Bill, does he have anything else in mind at the moment? If he does not, perhaps I may make one or two suggestions.

One suggestion relates to the Chief Coroner. As far as I was concerned, the whole point about the Chief Coroner was that he was given the power to ensure that coroners engaged in military inquests had sufficient training. This was, and remains, a key point for me. I point out that although this was in legislation brought by the previous Government, it was introduced because they were virtually forced into it by the then Opposition losing the day when they had said it was not necessary. However, the balance is now redressed because my own Government are seeking to get rid of it altogether.

I suggest to my noble friend that this might well be an issue that the Secretary of State could include in his annual report. Ensuring that military inquests are dealt with by coroners with sufficient experience to do them properly could be one of his duties in the annual report. That would deal with a real worry that many people have felt. In the early days, when there were a number of deaths, the coroners did not have sufficient knowledge and experience of the Armed Services and their ethos, and this caused many of the families great strain, including of course to the war widows, of whose association I am very proud to be president.

That brings me to another issue. The reference committee—or whatever it will be called—which is going to advise the Secretary of State on the various issues that will form the basis of the annual report, does not seem to be in the Bill. I may be mistaken, but if it is not in the Bill it should be a statutory body. It might well need to alter its membership, but if it is not there, what is to stop a Secretary of State who is not particularly interested in all this discontinuing it? If the Secretary of State is to be fully informed, it is absolutely vital that he has all these inputs from bodies such as the War Widows’ Association and SSAFA Forces Help, of which I am a vice-president nationally. One of their strengths is that they deal with individual cases of servicemen, ex-servicemen and their families, so they are at the sharp end and know exactly what the problems are. That kind of information is absolutely vital if we are to have an annual report that means anything at all.

Another issue, which was raised by the BMA in a briefing to me and no doubt to other noble Lords, is medical reservists. They can be called up—at very short notice, of course—but they have found that in many cases being called up actually puts their primary career at risk, particularly if the NHS organisations with which they are associated are difficult about it or maybe have different policies. I suggest to my noble friend the Minister that that kind of difficulty could be ironed out as a result of the annual report. I am of course fully aware that—other noble Lords have made this point—in many cases the Ministry of Defence, and indeed other government departments, have no direct control over the actual people who are going to be helpful or otherwise: the doctors’ surgeries, those responsible for waiting lists, and so forth. I am not sure what the answer is to that, save that if there is a body of evidence that is very clear and well set out, it might have some influence as opposed to power. That is at least what I am hoping for; we shall have to see what the result is.

All in all the Bill is a very good development and I wish it well, and I hope that by the time we finish we shall have improved it with some constructive amendments.

[Lord Stirrup]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, I wonder whether she will allow me just two seconds, for the sake of clarity, on her point about the need for flexibility in what the Secretary of State reports. I absolutely agree on the need for that flexibility; I was merely suggesting that there should be some marking of the way in which he exercises that flexibility.

[Baroness Fookes]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for that clarification.

Defence: Reform

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am not aware that the noble Lord, Lord Levene, has made any comment about, as the noble Lord says, lavish residences. I have been to some of the lavish residences the noble Lord mentions and I can confirm that the chiefs use them in an important way for defence, particularly for defence diplomacy, which is a very important part of our objective at the moment.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, within the single service boards and the Defence Council, the single service chiefs are currently responsible directly to the Secretary of State for the efficiency, morale and fighting effectiveness of their services. Can the Minister confirm that this constitutional arrangement will be unaltered by what is proposed?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I believe that it will be unaltered. We are looking into this issue at the moment, but I do not think there will be any change.

Nuclear Deterrent

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the only sensible alternatives in this case are the minimum credible nuclear deterrent or no nuclear deterrent at all, not something that falls between the two? Credibility is in the eye of the beholder, so proposed savings around the margins of the nuclear deterrent programme —in themselves, they may be quite large sums but they are necessarily only a small percentage of the total programme—then put at risk the effectiveness of that programme. They do not represent value for money.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his question. He has used the word “credibility” which is very important. That is why I am so grateful for the support of the Opposition on this issue, because it strengthens enormously the credibility of our policy.

Armed Forces Covenant

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I thank my noble friend for his questions. It is the intention that the pupil premium for service children in state schools will cover the whole of the UK so it is broader than the pupil premium. I will have to write to my noble friend regarding how schools will bid for this.

I was looking through these different publications earlier and saw in one of them a chapter on the Armed Forces’ help for the Olympics. I will have a word with the noble Lord afterwards and point it out to him.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, which has much in it to be welcomed. However, is not a key point of enshrining a requirement in law that there should be a remedy if the requirement is not met? In this case, the remedy seems to be that Ministers will have to explain themselves in Parliament. However, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, pointed out, many issues that have caused such problems for our service families over the years are outwith the control of the Ministry of Defence. I refer, for example, to their inability to get access to dental services, to their having no choice of schooling for their children, and to their losing their place on NHS waiting lists when they move with their spouses. Given that fact, and accepting that devolved authorities are a different and difficult case to which we may wish to return, and given the particular nature of the remedy in this case, will the Minister say whether the Secretaries of State for the relevant departments—for example, health and education—will be held to account in Parliament at the time of the annual report, rather than just the Secretary of State for Defence?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his question. I very much hope that they will be held to account when the annual report comes out. This will cover deficiencies in any of the departments, so I hope that they will be named and shamed.

Defence: Military Commitments

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I agree with every word that the noble Lord said about the two brave soldiers from the Irish Guards.

The SDSR states explicitly the need for an adaptable posture to defend our interests in the world. As a result, we have structured and resourced our forces to give us flexibility to conduct operations such as the one in Libya. The SDSR correctly predicted that we would need to carry out civilian evacuations, and rightly assessed that we could mitigate capability gaps resulting from the SDSR through working with allies, overflight and basing rights. We are continuing to develop and refine the SDSR, but it will not be reopened. Finally, the additional costs of operations in Libya will be fully met from the reserve.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, in his answer to a question on 15 February, the Minister said that the Ministry of Defence was planning on the basis of a flat real-terms budget after 2015. In his Statement on the defence review made in the other place on 19 October last year, the Prime Minister said that the outcome of the review—the 2020 structure—would be affordable only with real-terms growth in the defence budget after 2015. It seems that the Chief of the Air Staff was merely agreeing with the Prime Minister. Will the Minister therefore confirm that the Ministry of Defence is planning on a lower level of capability than that set out in the defence review, and will he tell us what that is?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has been very clear that the defence budget will have to increase in real terms beyond the current spending review period to deliver the Future Force 2020 structure set out in the SDSR. Our aim over the next four years will be to put our forces in a position to reach that ambition, given real growth in the later part of the decade. However, we cannot guarantee what the budget will be under the next Government. Spending post-2015 will be a matter for a new spending review and the next SDSR. Until then, the department will need to plan carefully for those new commitments that will entail significant additional expenditure beyond 2015.

Armed Forces: Redundancy

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My noble friend asks about recruitment, and I have an answer somewhere. The Armed Forces depend upon high-quality young men and women who want to join them for a rewarding and exciting career. The level of recruitment will be reduced during the redundancy period to suit new structures, but recruiting will continue.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, these painful redundancies are an outcome of the strategic defence and security review, which, as the Minister said, was aimed at delivering Future Force 2020. Can he confirm that that Future Force, as planned, will be achievable only with specific real-term growth in the defence budget in the second half of this decade? What assumptions are his department making about the financial planning levels for those years?

Armed Forces: Redundancies

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I assure my noble friend that that is exactly what we are doing. I have sat through interminable meetings to try to get on top of this situation, and I assure him that the new PUS is determined to get on top of our financial problems as quickly as possible.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, the Minister referred to the Prime Minister’s very welcome assurance of his personal commitment to a real-terms increase in defence spending over the period of the next spending review. Will the Minister tell us precisely what financial assumptions the Ministry of Defence is now making in its forward planning for that period? On what sums is it basing its calculations?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I think that I will write to the noble and gallant Lord about that. I am sure that I have those figures in my briefing, but it would take a bit of time to find them and I do not want to test the patience of the House.