Armed Forces: Investment

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble and gallant Lord is correct. Some decisions have been taken for the current financial year to decrease the amount of training that certain parts of the Armed Forces will be able to avail themselves of. I emphasise that this is a temporary measure.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, there is no starker illustration of the crisis in defence than that the Secretary of State actually allows a head of service to talk about the fact that it needs more resources. I cannot remember that ever happening before, though admittedly I have been in the Navy only for 53 years. This is a really worrying event and reflects what has been said in this House and the other place about defence.

My question relates to our sailors, soldiers and airmen. This uncertainty, the pressure on resources and the hollowing out that is going on day by day are affecting the morale of our people. It is causing difficulty in recruiting; people are leaving and it is causing churn because there are fewer people. Is the Secretary of State—or the MoD—going to produce something to tell our people what is going on, what the future looks like, when there will be an SDR, if there is going to be an SDR, and what exactly is happening? At the moment, there is huge confusion and that is bad for our military.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord’s central point is, of course, quite correct. I agree with him that uncertainty in any context can be unsettling and damaging. The Government do not wish to prolong this exercise more than necessary. The review is still ongoing and Ministers will consider the conclusions in due course. Any decisions on whether, when or to what extent the conclusions of the work are made public will be made by Ministers separately.