Ukraine: Defence in a Competitive Age

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 7th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

To answer the first part of my noble friend’s question, he will be aware that the defence budget will grow from £40 billion in 2019-20 to £47.6 billion in 2024-25. That significant increase since the start of this Government puts flesh to the vision and the reform and renewal proposals of the Command Paper. I think the balance is correct, but as I have indicated we constantly review that balance. He is aware of Royal Navy shipbuilding plans, the future combat air system and the new proposals for equipment for the Army. That all reflects a very healthy resilience to deal with threat, however it arises. On the matter of reservists, I pay tribute to my noble friend, not just for the role he performs but for his excellent contribution in the paper he produced on how we might reform the reserves. This is enabling the Army to move to a much more flexible, resilient whole-force strength, which, including the integrated reserve, will be over 100,000 personnel from 2025.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the defence Command Paper had two major errors, caused by one underlying problem. It was wrong to pay off ships, aircraft and people—numbers of Army personnel—for jam tomorrow. Sadly, the enemy has a vote, and he might not want to fight us in 15 years’ time; it might be tomorrow. The second problem was that we have not invested properly in the whole area of hard kill—kinetic kill—as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton. Yes, we need cyber, AI and quantum, but people are being killed in Ukraine at the moment by hard kill, not laptops. The reason for all of this was a lack of funding. No matter what fine words are said, not enough has been spent on defence for some years. Could the Minister go back to the Secretary of State and say that, in the final analysis, with the possibility of war right upon us, now is the time to spend money on the Armed Forces? It is crackpot not to do that.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I have huge respect for the noble Lord and his experience, but I disagree with his analysis of the Command Paper. Indeed, when he talks about jam tomorrow, I say look in the mirror and face the images. I argue that the budget figures that I quoted earlier to my noble friend Lord Lancaster reflect an extraordinary increase in the defence budget—I think that the noble Lord is unfamiliar with this and would have loved to have seen it when he held his former, very senior role in the Royal Navy. From what the Command Paper has outlined, it is perfectly clear what we have, what equipment we seek to acquire and how we seek to achieve agility, flexibility and resilience. We are doing that to very good effect. Everyone has been surprised at not just the swiftness but the substance of the response to help the Ukrainians in their defence of their country in this illegal war. The UK has played a strong role in that bilaterally, as have our NATO global partners. That is a matter for commendation, not scaremongering.