National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, the House is grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for repeating the Prime Minister’s Statement. I am especially grateful to him for the very helpful briefing he afforded my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe, the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, of the Liberal Democrats, and me earlier today.

The noble Earl, for whom I have great personal respect, has a difficult job. Our country, people and way of life are again imperilled. Not only do we have to contend with the conventional challenges posed by air, naval and ground forces, but we face the threat of those who would walk down high-street Britain and shoot and kill our fellow citizens. The days when Britain might engage in a conflict and send our forces into battle while those at home were, in the main, safe are now long gone. Today any strategic defence and security review must take account of that.

When in Government, my party had a proud record in the area of defence. It was a Labour Government at the end of the last war who committed us to an independent nuclear deterrent and who helped create NATO. The then Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevan, said of the atom bomb:

“We have got to have this thing over here … we have got to have the … union jack on top of it”.

Bevan made sure that his opponents were excluded from the Cabinet committee that took the decision. That is my kind of Foreign Secretary. Under the previous Labour Government defence spending rose by an annual average of 1.8%, resulting in the modernisation of our Armed Forces. We published Britain’s first national security strategy, delivered the first cross-governmental approach to forces welfare and strengthened medical care and welfare support for those serving in Afghanistan. I judge the Prime Minister’s Statement on the SDSR against that background.

It is the second SDSR of Mr Cameron’s premiership. The first in 2010 was not strategic and not about defence or security. It was nothing more than a cost-cutting exercise run by the Treasury. The Prime Minister has since admitted that his Government took 8% out of defence spending over the past five years. Under his stewardship, defence has underspent the budget that Parliament has voted for it. Such has been the enthusiasm to put saving money at the top of defence priorities that the planned cuts in the size of the Army, announced in 2010, have been achieved two years earlier than intended.

Before the 2010 general election, Mr Cameron promised a bigger Army, Navy and Air Force. In fact, the Army of today is smaller than the one we put in the field against Napoleon. The Royal Navy has just 19 vessels. We are told in the Statement that in the long term we are to increase the size of our frigate fleet. Can the Minister tell us what is meant by “long term”? The French already have 23 service vessels, the Russians 35 and the United States 105. Naval manpower is a real problem. My noble friend Lord West said only recently that 3,500 to 4,000 people were needed to man the fleet correctly. Can the Minister say what is being done to reverse this?

As for the Royal Air Force, the number of planes is at an historic low. We have to rely on the maritime patrol aircraft of our allies to track Russian submarines close to our waters, following the scrapping of Nimrod. That massive error of judgment has to be seen against a background in which the Russians have increased submarine patrols by 50% in the past two years. We welcome the decision to acquire Boeing P-8 MPAs but will the Minister confirm that it will be seven years before Britain has a fully operational independent maritime patrol capability? Today’s announcement of the F-35s is welcome, as is any move to strengthen our high-end military capability, but why has it taken so long to make this decision?

Why is it taking 10 years to create the new strike brigades of up to 5,000 personnel for rapid deployment missions? The world could be quite different in 2025. Does this decision mean that we are abandoning our capability for sustained deployment, which was set out in the previous defence review? Can the Minister tell us for how long these new brigades will be capable of being deployed?

One of the greatest challenges we face is cybersecurity. The Prime Minister has said that due to the threats posed by Russia and ISIL, Britain will be investing in cybersecurity. The Chancellor, speaking at GCHQ, announced that spending on cybersecurity would be almost doubled to £1.9 billion over the period to 2020. He made that statement after the director of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, called on the Government to intervene in the cybersecurity industry because the free market was failing. Can the Minister say what the Government are doing about this? What projects will be part of the £1.9 billion fund? The Chancellor went on to say:

“Strong defences are necessary for our long-term security. But the capacity to attack is also a form of defence”—

I most certainly agree. He said that Britain is,

“building our own offensive cyber capability—a dedicated ability to counter-attack in cyberspace”.

Can the Minister tell us if such an offensive capacity already exists or is it just at the planning stage? If that is the case, what is the timeframe before it becomes operational? How much is being invested in the national offensive cyber programme?

I was in Paris the day before the attack; I was there again last Tuesday, and what a difference in the city in those few days. In view of the horrors of Paris, will the Minister comment on reports in the Daily Telegraph that our special forces have shrunk by 40% due to reduced numbers and restructuring, and will he comment on a senior MoD official telling that newspaper that,

“there is no point spending vast amounts of money on new kit if you don’t have the manpower to operate them”?

Still on personnel matters, noble Lords around this Chamber who have served or spent time with the Armed Forces will know that if service families are happy, the service men and women we send into conflict will have the morale they need to do the job—I am sure the Minister has found that in this time. Does he agree, therefore, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s changes to tax credits will be seen as a breach of the Armed Forces covenant? How well does he think ending annual pay rises for the forces will be received, if the Government go ahead with that? Is it any wonder that a survey by his own department shows that one-quarter of those serving in the Armed Forces plan to leave as soon as they can and one-third are dissatisfied?

The Prime Minister has committed Britain to a NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defence. We welcome that but worry whether it is another of Mr Cameron’s cosmetic creations. For instance, can the Minister say how including the £800 million we spend on war pensions as defence spending will help protect and project Britain’s force and military capability?

The tradition of Governments of both main parties in this country has been to show how much we value the men and women of our Armed Forces by giving them the tools they need to defend and protect our country and ensuring proper remuneration for them and their families. That tradition, I fear, has been spectacularly badly served by this Prime Minister and this review.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for the briefing that I received, along with colleagues from the Labour Party, earlier today. I am sure that the final form of this document was a result of the events in Paris and, as with all reports, the devil is in the detail. The debate next week in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will give us all more time to analyse that very detail.

This strategy points to a more forensic and measured analysis than its predecessor, which is welcome, and it is appropriate to the times we find ourselves in. I will concentrate my remarks on the interconnection between defence and the world, our alliances, personnel and cyber. It is a complete coincidence that the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, has covered much of the same detail. On Syria, my leader has made it clear that he is not a pacifist or a unilateralist, and he is concerned for security of the nation. He will be outlining the conditions under which we would support military action in the next few days.

It is pleasing that the Government see our defence and security as requiring such a strong commitment to our allies and to international efforts. There are few issues that we face that can be addressed without co-operation, from climate change to transnational terrorism to state aggression. It is the strength gained from working with our allies and like-minded states, in particular within the United Nations, NATO and, of course, the EU, that will allow us to overcome and address these issues.

Our soft power capabilities—the British Council, international aid, the BBC World Service and our diplomatic representation—are valuable assets for spreading British values. A recognition of their contribution to our security and defence is an important addition to the SDSR. Will the Minister confirm that there will be no cuts to the budgets of either the World Service or the British Council? I am sure the extension of deep country expertise to a wider span of areas that are vital to our security and prosperity will be welcomed at the FCO, but will the Minister point to how this dovetails with the possible cuts in the FCO’s budget, which officials have said may,

“imperil the UK’s diplomatic capacity”,

if they go ahead?

Moving on to personnel, today I will focus on the Royal Navy and get into the detail of the other services in next week’s debate. Last week I was delighted to visit, with parliamentary colleagues, the two carriers, “Queen Elizabeth” and “Prince of Wales”, in Rosyth. They are an awesome sight and a tribute to British engineering and co-operation between manufacturers. While I welcome their addition to the fleet over the next couple of years, they bring with them a challenge. Will the Minister confirm that there are plans to ensure that there will be sufficient personnel with the right specialities to run the carriers with the Astute-class submarines, destroyers, frigates and support ship configuration? In particular, what action is being taken to ensure that there will be engineers at all levels of seniority and speciality?

As a member of the AFPS, I have visited service personnel in their workplaces, met families in their homes and spoken to senior officers and other ranks. I have to tell your Lordships that morale is not universally high. There is concern about salaries and allowances. Will the Minister confirm the rumours that the annual increment system will change, as will overseas allowances, as a result of MoD cuts? I welcome the move to support a service woman or man to buy their own home. A supported family is critical to the well-being of a serving member of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Will the Minister confirm that the covenant will continue and, more importantly, that its implementation is being monitored by the MoD?

On cyber, it is important that cyber intelligence is shared, as many of our systems are shared with our allies and our partners. I am concerned about defensive cyber. Cyber threatens systems and, by its nature, much of today’s warfare consists of systems of systems, with millions of lines of code, all interconnected and interrelated. It is great that we are working with our partners and allies on this, but adding to the connectivity is a multiplier of risk. So I welcome the joint cyber group, but there is an urgent need for recruitment and training. Will the Minister tell us how quickly we can gear up for this joint cyber group as the need is immediate?

I should not finish without a nod in the direction of how the SDSR is to be paid for. I am aware that the Chancellor will unveil the CSR on Wednesday. The Liberal Democrat Benches welcome the commitment to 2% of GDP, but that is another issue where the devil is in the detail. Will the Minister tell the House what sort of efficiencies the MoD is expected to make—apart from selling land and property—that will have no impact on the smooth running of the department? If we are to believe today’s Financial Times, it will be paid for from the welfare budget and from cuts to police and in grants to businesses.