My Lords, I am very honoured to be entrusted to introduce this debate on our Armed Forces and the United Kingdom’s defence policy, at a time when we and our allies find ourselves in a very grave, unstable and uncertain period. I declare my interest as honorary colonel of C Squadron, The Royal Yeomanry—the Kent and Sharpshooters Yeomanry. Members of the regiment are currently deployed on operations in support of the Royal Lancers, in our commitment to NATO’s enhanced forward presence in Poland, and in support of the Household Cavalry on Operation TOSCA in Cyprus. It is worthy of note that, over the past three years, the Royal Yeomanry has deployed in excess of 150 Army Reserve soldiers in support of operations and other defence tasks overseas—it is a fine record indeed.
We have witnessed the unfolding reality and cost, in both men and materiel, of the high-intensity land battle in Ukraine. That has brought home to the United Kingdom that our country needs to pay far greater attention to defence and resilience, both civilian and military—and, especially importantly, to maintaining and sustaining our capabilities. But the sad truth, as we all know, is that, given the threats and circumstances, we are not spending enough money on defence. We now have very small Armed Forces and, unless we invest at scale and capacity, we risk being left behind by the United States and other allies and, frankly, no longer able to play the kind of role that we should in the world.
We are all only too well aware of the grave dangers ahead. The war in Ukraine is certainly not the only challenge we face: there are the global ambitions of China, including as a military power, and there continues to be instability in the Middle East and serious instability in Africa. We have important interests to protect and defend. At the same time, as I am sure my noble friend Lady Helic will tell this House, we need to pay far greater attention to shoring up other areas, such as the Balkans, where Russia exhibits every day its malign intent and where, frankly, we have not acted perhaps as quickly and robustly as we should.
All these disparate risks should command our concentration with the same clarity, focus and decisiveness that we devote to Ukraine. These issues are of the first importance to our Armed Forces, our intelligence services and our Diplomatic Service, and they daily grow more serious and complex. It is an important lesson for us to hoist aboard that we cannot complain from the sidelines about the erosion of the international rules-based order if we are not willing to play a large role in defending it. Indeed, it is a great irony that, as the West becomes more risk averse, so the world becomes more unstable before our eyes.
One of the most admirable things about this House is the extraordinary depth of expertise in defence, intelligence, diplomacy and all the other vital aspects of statecraft. There are speakers following me today who have far greater knowledge and far more important things to say than I, about strategy, technology, equipment, capacity and, above all, sustainability. After all, Ukraine has crystallised what machinery, technology and munitions for war in the 21st century look like; there is no sanctuary on the modern battlefield.
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Soames, for moving this debate. The world is more dangerous and unpredictable than at any time in my 58 years on the active list—a major war is actually taking place in Europe—and yet defence is not often discussed in this Chamber. I hope that will change. I must also make it clear—notwithstanding what I may say about defence shortfalls, and before the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, accuses me of being disloyal to the service I love—that our men and women in the Armed Forces are the best in the world, our Armed Forces are able to conduct almost the whole gamut of military operations and some of our equipment is the best in the world.
But, notwithstanding the siren voices of the Front Bench declaring otherwise, the defence budget is too small. In his resignation letter, Ben Wallace—who, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Soames, should be congratulated on his service to the United Kingdom and global security—stated that the Government have viewed the defence budget as “discretionary spend” and made savings “by hollowing out”. Indeed, he has made constant reference to his concerns over the hollowing out of the Armed Forces and I could list numerous examples today that affect our fighting capability because of that. In his letter, Wallace added:
“I genuinely believe that over the next decade the world will get more insecure and more unstable … now is the time to invest”.
The vast majority of military experts, many of whom are in this House, would agree and consider that defence expenditure should rise significantly, as it has in numerous other countries. The Prime Minister’s letter in response to Wallace’s letter is not that reassuring, talking of defence funding being “on a stable footing” and expressing an aspiration—not a commitment—to reach 2.5% of GDP on defence spending. I believe we urgently need an increase of about £8 million in the defence budget and an immediate commitment to the defence budget being 3% of GDP.
My Lords, it is difficult to assess what size and structure of Armed Forces Britain needs without a coherent understanding of Britain’s place in a very rapidly changing world. The last Prime Minister but one was an enthusiast for turning away from commitment to the European region, with a tilt to the Indo-Pacific, for which we would need a larger Navy, and expeditionary forces able to operate at long range from the UK. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought attention back to European security and two changes of Prime Minister have lessened the underlying antagonism to co-operation with our neighbours, but no strategic foreign policy has emerged from recent Foreign Secretaries or Prime Ministers.
For as many years as I can remember, British foreign policy has been based on the foundation of British-American partnership, with the effectiveness of our defence forces judged by how seriously the Pentagon takes our contribution. We have to face the real prospect now that our partnership with the USA may be withering. The next presidential election could bring back Donald Trump, or see a Democratic President hamstrung by a Republican Congress sceptical of supporting Ukraine and content for European states, including the UK, to defend themselves, as we hear presidential candidates saying.
It has to be a foundational principle of British defence policy, therefore, to share in maintaining the security of our own region, extending as far as the Mediterranean, north Africa, the Baltic, the Arctic and the Black Sea. In practice, our forces have co-operated closely with the French, Dutch, Belgians, Norwegians and others for many years. A Conservative Secretary of State once said to me: “I don’t mind our doing that, so long as we don’t have to tell anyone”. I think he meant his own Back-Benchers and the right-wing press. It is high time that we made the best of working with our neighbours and recognised that in a context in which we can hardly afford to maintain the pretence of a full-range defence capability, our security is best protected by sharing tasks, training and equipment.
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for securing this debate. It is very timely, as I worry that the capabilities of our Armed Forces are getting seriously out of balance with the ambitions of our defence policy.
Why do I say that? I suppose that one of the many benefits of being a Member of this House is that you get a free copy of the New Statesman every week. The copy I received just before the House went into Summer Recess contained an article by George Eaton on the fears of British decline. A quick summary of that article is that Britain is in relative decline, and that the decline is not historic or terminal. Importantly, however, the point the article makes is that we will not revise or reverse that decline through the alchemy of a small number of transformative breakthroughs. The idea that we can quickly become a science superpower, a global leader in green tech or the world’s entrepreneurial powerhouse are simply not feasible if you represent only 2% of global manufacture and global research and development.
The article made a simple footballing analogy: if you are sitting towards the lower end of the Premier League, you cannot suddenly reach the top by investing in one or two expensive players. Rather, you need to embark on a strategy of overall improvement. On reading the article, I reflected on the state of the UK’s Armed Forces and this forthcoming debate.
I start with the reassurance that our Armed Forces are definitely still in the premiership. However, we are also in the 2% club, we are in relative decline, we definitely suffer from a belief in the magic of various alchemies—digital, technological, doctrinal—and we have increasingly adopted a strategy of investment in a few very big players that we struggle to afford.
To add some flesh to this, our world-leading attributes probably consist of the continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent, the carrier-strike capability, our special forces, the overall quality of our people—as has been mentioned—and our ability to stage state ceremonial that is still the envy of the world. I worry that such capabilities are born more of a continuing desire to parade the totemic instruments of global authority rather than being the product of a cold-hearted analysis of defence need based on current threats and resource realities. I also fear that the excellence of such capabilities generates to an extent a misplaced public confidence in the Armed Forces as a whole.
My Lords, I start by reminding your Lordships’ House of my various interests in the Armed Forces and thanking the noble Lord, Lord Soames, for introducing this excellent debate. I sense already that a common theme is building.
I have spent the first part of this week in Poland at its defence trade fair in my capacity as the Government’s Defence Export Advocate. It was impossible not to feel a real sense of urgency in Poland’s desire to modernise its Armed Forces as a result of the events in Ukraine. Impressively, Poland is set to spend 4.2% of its GDP on defence, and defence is one of the key battlegrounds in its upcoming general election. Interestingly, the more than doubling of defence spend is being spent not only modernising equipment but on increasing the size of its Armed Forces, and in particular its territorial defence reserve, which is set to increase in size from 32,000 to 50,000.
Poland recognises that one of the lessons from Ukraine is the need for a strong reserve, and that throughout history, not just in Ukraine, wars are started with regulars but finished with reservists. Our NATO allies recognise that as well. France has announced that it is planning to more than double its reserves from 40,000 to 100,000, which includes a proposal for an industrial reserve corps to backfill defence industries with up to 2,000 reservists if they need to expand for war. Germany is also expanding to a 100,000 reserve, plus expanding the liability on others so that it can theoretically call on 950,000 reservists in extremis. The reservist retirement age is 65. Denmark is increasing reserves from the current manning of 28,500 to 62,200. Estonia has 4,000 active reserves, mirroring its 4,000 regular force, with 40,000 trained passive reserves and 230,000 enrolled on a mobilisation registry. There is a common theme: all our Allies’ reserve armies are potentially bigger than the regular force. It makes sense: reserves are a cost-effective way of maintaining mass and skills at an appropriate readiness.
My Lords, in opening, I associate myself with the words of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Soames of Fletching, for securing this important debate and add my words of admiration for his excellent introductory speech.
In essence, today’s debate is about the measurement of aspiration against reality. The simple questions are: does the UK have the military resource it needs to meet our obligations and can we, in fact, defend our country and its interests in a fracturing, increasingly multipolar world?
The Command Paper published in July outlined the geographical and strategic breadth of the challenges we face. Our ability to shape events in our favour depends on our military, our participation in NATO and other bilateral defence relationships and our new Indo-Pacific tilt. NATO is critical in this context. In theory, the UK is supposed to have the capacity to provide a warfighting division to NATO if needed. When asked about the readiness of our warfighting 3rd Division before the Defence Select Committee in July, the CDS responded by saying, that the “vehicles are really old”, the division is “lighter than we want” and that, in order to offer much more than a brigade in this scenario, we would need the gap to be filled by our allies.
Our position of influence within NATO is not static. If our capacity weakens, our influence will weaken with it. It is no accident that General Sir Tim Radford, who was, until July, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, warns that at present, cuts to the size of the UK’s Armed Forces mean that we are only “just holding on” to our leadership role within the alliance.
This reflects the consequences of a wider set of political choices. The number of total deployable active-duty personnel is smaller than the US Marine Corps and is smaller, in fact, than at any time since the Napoleonic Wars. A senior US general earlier this year said that the shrinking of numbers in our military meant that we were barely a tier 2 military power, let alone a realistic aspirant to tier 1 status.
My Lords, I declare my interest as executive chairman of the Changing Character of War Centre at Pembroke College, Oxford—and that is the issue with which I start. The nature of war has not changed since ancient times. It involves the use of force and, arguably, the threat of the use of force, by one group against another. It also requires resistance by those under attack: without that resistance, there is merely a rout. War also implies an intensity and duration to the conflict. None of this is new and none of it has gone away. However, the character of war changes with each new technological and tactical development, but these do not necessarily obviate all previous technologies and tactics. This was the mistake of these so-called “new wars” theorists, who, in the 1980s and 1990s, announced that major wars were now obsolete: there would be terrorism and other attacks by non-state actors, but inter-state war was no longer an international policy option. This was wishful thinking.
Another mistaken view was expressed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who in the other place in November 2021 claimed that the days of big tank battles and land wars in Europe were over, and mocked his party colleague Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the Defence Select Committee, for expressing concern about the cuts to British military capabilities. Three months later, Russia invaded Ukraine.
Old methods are never given up completely. Wars started on land, moved to sea and then airspace, and now to the cyberspace created by human beings. We have added to the spaces where wars may be conducted, but we have not abandoned the original spaces. So it is with the technology of war. We add new ways of attacking and resisting, but the old ways always remain available. Be suspicious of the credibility of anyone who says otherwise.
My second point is that the use of force is the one area where the state must maintain a monopoly and a convincing capacity. With healthcare, education, transport and many other social requirements, we may wish, and increasingly have wished, the state to provide, supply and manage them, but in none of them is a state monopoly essential or even, in my view, desirable. With increasing internal disruption and defending against external attack, it is crucial that the state maintains its monopoly. The recent coup attempt by the Wagner mercenaries in Russia shows what happens when a state allows any other model of the management of physical force.
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Soames, on securing this important and timely debate. I thank him for concentrating his remarks on the commitment and excellence of our soldiers, sailors, Air Force personnel and marines. As the war in Ukraine has demonstrated so starkly, it is the morale and determination of those in military uniform which results in success or failure on the battlefield.
However, we need to place what our excellent service people do on a daily basis in the context of the real world which is around us. The refresh of the integrated review earlier this year confirmed the tilt towards the Indo-Pacific and the need to support our allies and friends in that region in the face of an expansionist China. There is the unfinished business of confronting Islamist militancy in the Middle East and increasingly in Africa. Dominating across all environments is our support for Ukraine in defeating Russian aggression. This broadens out to our vital participation in NATO and other multinational commitments and the need for sustained deterrent deployments, such as in Estonia and Poland.
All this comes at a cost, especially in the land environment, which remains so poorly underinvested. In this month’s edition of the Army’s in-house magazine, Soldier, I was not surprised to read this:
“Talk to personnel in any section of the British Army at the moment and there is one piece of feedback you 'll hear over and over again; everyone is being asked to do more with less”.
Some will say it was ever thus, but I disagree. There have been times in the recent past when there was a balance between commitments and resources. Eventually this came right, at the height of the two campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that was with an Army of over 100,000 regular soldiers and an Army Reserve near its recruited strength of 30,000. Today, we are not engaged in major combat operations ourselves but the criticism is still there: everyone is being asked to do more with less.
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For my own part, I will say a few words about the service men and women. First, I pay a warm tribute to the service families, for whom life is not always easy and whose accommodation is sometimes inadequate, but who keep the home fires burning. We should be very grateful to them. The extraordinary range of roles in the Armed Forces should remind us that none of this would be possible without the consistent and unfailing support of Armed Forces families. Across the world, whether training or on operations, our service men and women, including our Reserve Forces, often operate in hostile environments and endure real hardships and, sometimes, considerable danger. They operate and train in all sorts of environments and extremes across the world against every conceivable threat, and their success is testimony to their hard work, dedication, tenacity and resourcefulness. They are an immense credit to this country.
I also pay a very warm tribute—as I am sure the House will want to—following his departure, to our friend the Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, who did a wholly exceptional job, not least in making the Government realise that expenditure on defence is not discretionary. I also pay a very warm tribute to his excellent colleagues James Heappey, the Member for Wells, who is an outstanding Minister for the Armed Forces, and my noble friend Lady Goldie, who commands, for very good reason, such profound respect in this House. Ben Wallace’s support for Ukraine has been nothing short of admirable—an approach which I hope will continue.
Service men and women see only bad news in the papers. Inevitably, the press tends to concentrate, understandably and not without good reason, on some of the catastrophic procurement disasters and other things that go wrong—they are inevitable on such a big scale and in a very big department. But what they and the world do not see is the consistently high standard of the service men and women, who, through realistic and robust training, prepare themselves for war. For the soldiers, sailors and airmen of today and tomorrow, as for their forebears, warfare will continue to represent the ultimate physical and moral challenge. They will encounter extreme danger in rapidly changing circumstances, amid conditions of chaos and uncertainty. Their skills and the quality of their leadership, weapons and equipment will be severely tested. Such operations are sustainable only by highly trained men and women motivated by the ethos of their services, by pride and loyalty to their traditions and institutions, by their unfailing and almost magical comradeship and a remarkable level of team spirit, and by the emotional, intellectual and moral qualities which lead people to put their lives on the line. That, at the end of the day, is what defence and debates on defence are all about. I remind this House of what Lord Wavell said in his famous lecture on generalship:
“in the last resort, the end of all military training, the settling of all policy, the ordering of all weaponry and all that goes into the makings of the armed forces is that the deciding factor in battle will always be this. That sooner or later, Private so-and-so will, of his own free will and in the face of great danger, uncertainty and chaos, have to advance to his front in the face of the enemy. If all that goes wrong, after all the training, the intensive preparation and the provision of equipment and expenditure, the system has failed”.
To that end, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, who I know take defence seriously, have a profound obligation to ensure that our Armed Forces are properly resourced for the hugely demanding and increasing tasks that are laid on them. With great respect, they should realise with humility how extraordinarily lucky we are to have such exceptional Armed Forces, and that none of this happens by magic and cannot just be regenerated on the spot at a whim. At every level of command in all three services and throughout all ranks, they are truly formidable in their standards, both personally and professionally, in their teamwork and in their highly developed sense of cohesion, duty and obligation. They are an institution that is a priceless asset for this great country in the pursuit of our aims and interests, both at home and abroad.
It is an enormous credit to the quality of the leadership of the services that, in a period of unprecedented upheaval, they have managed to retain exceptional flexibility, combined with great clarity of purpose and endeavour. They deserve our whole-hearted support in every way that we can give it. I beg to move.
The cry from the Treasury and others will be that there are huge inefficiencies in MoD spending and that by resolving these no extra funding will be required. While it would be foolish to deny that there is scope for efficiency savings—because there is—this will not cover the problem. Yes, we need to speed up and rationalise our procurement system—let us face it, there have been some terrible disasters, Ajax being one currently on the go—and an agreed defence industrial strategy and focus on timely delivery of systems with realistic penalties if not met would help, but defence has suffered from continual so-called efficiency measures for years that in reality are cuts that have reduced military capability. For example, measures taken by the coalition in 2010 reduced our nation’s military capability by one-third and I do not believe that the nation realised that that was done.
Strong armed forces are a crucial deterrent and therefore prevent war. They also have utility in a number of other ways, particularly in terms of national resilience. But in the final analysis they are there to fight and win against the King’s enemies who wish to do our people and our nation harm. That is their prime aim and what they are there for. It seems that recently important social issues have distracted the senior decision-makers in the MoD, who should not forget that a single, unambiguous aim is the keystone of successful military operations and the master principle of war.
The MoD’s other affliction is what I call millennial business speak. What do noble Lords think of the following from the recently produced Maritime Operating Concept?
“Alongside the RN Strategy, it describes the Wise Pivot of the Maritime Force, from a platform-based, role-specific, and aggregated Fleet, to a distributed protean force, operating as a system of systems”.
Lord Nelson gave the following guidance:
“But, in case Signals can neither be seen or perfectly understood, no Captain can do very wrong if he places his Ship alongside that of an Enemy”.
It may lack nuance but is a little easier to understand.
I am sure other Members of the House, with their great knowledge, will identify many areas where hollowing out is affecting our capability. I did not intend doing that and noble Lords will be amazed that I have not mentioned ships—sorry, I just have. My message is that with all the other pressures on resources—and I realise they are huge—we can no longer avoid the hard decision that significantly more needs to be spent on defence if we are to ensure the security and wealth of our nation. After all, it is the prime responsibility of any Government.
Part of the long-term problem of UK defence procurement has been that the effort to match the Americans in high-end war capability has led to rising costs, changing specifications and overcomplex weapons systems produced in small numbers and unattractive to export markets. One of the lessons of the conflict in Ukraine is that a larger number of lower-capability weapons may be worth more than a handful of sophisticated systems so expensive that commanders hesitate before committing them to action. The more sophisticated the systems are, the more likely that they will break down. Our Navy now consists mainly of a small number of highly sophisticated ships, many of which seem to break down frequently. Ukraine is teaching us that rapid adaptation of far cheaper and simpler civilian systems can make a real difference, and that larger numbers of units count in both attack and defence.
Another lesson of the Ukraine conflict is that you do not have to train military forces for long periods in order for them to be effective, particularly when commanders can draw on skills already acquired in civilian life. For centuries, British forces have been based on the assumption that we need long-term professional engagement for expeditionary service abroad, and that reserves are of doubtful use and unlikely to be ready in time for any unexpected crisis. As the size of our Armed Forces continues to shrink, there is a powerful case for a substantial increase in reserves.
The noble Lord, Lord Soames, mentioned the yeomanry. I am conscious of the contribution that forces from the London Scottish, now a reserve company of the Scots Guards, have made in recent years. They are valuable—they can make an enormous contribution. Ministers should now be emphasising the positive role that well-trained reserves play in strengthening the UK’s security and expanding the reserves.
The need for home-based reserve forces becomes even clearer when we take into account the importance of improving the UK’s resilience in the face of a changing pattern of threats. We have far fewer organised groups to assist with civil contingencies than many of our neighbours, let alone the USA. Assistance to the civil power used to be a significant part of the responsibilities of our forces, but they are now too small to fulfil that role.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord West, said, little can be achieved without more money. So long as the overall priority of the Government and of the Conservative Party behind them is to cut taxes, and therefore to hold down public spending across the board, little can be done to improve our security and resilience. If the choice is between an early tax cut or an improvement in our national security, which will the Chancellor, the Prime Minister and the Conservative Party choose?
To return to footballing parallels, the team has some wonderful players, we retain the ability to win some memorable games, but we do not have a big enough squad, we have some lousy kit and some very poor facilities, and we have no meaningful reserves, either human or material. We are not designed for resilience or deterrence.
What should we do? I fear that the Defence Command Paper was, perhaps understandably, an exercise if not in deception then at least in public and self-delusion. It seemed designed primarily to ingeniously reassure rather than honestly inform. What is needed is more blunt honesty about the need to resource defence appropriately and to apply those resources to a programme of holistic betterment, but, most of all, to set a realistic ambition for our nation.
As far as resources are concerned, I do not believe that the Government have developed a compelling strategic narrative to convince our society of the need to spend more on defence. Perhaps I worry in part because they do not themselves believe in such a narrative; hence, they are happy to publish illusions. As far as betterment is concerned, we need an holistic programme of reform that covers defence procurement, the relationship with the defence industrial base, the Reserve Forces, war-fighting resilience and the condition of defence infrastructure, including married quarters.
However, above all is the need to set a more realistic national ambition. At least part of the reason why Russia invaded Ukraine was that Putin did not think that NATO, and by inference the UK, had the capability or resolve to do anything about it. To an extent, he may have been proved wrong. However, the fact that Putin made that assumption means that our conventional deterrence posture lacked credibility.
I fear that we have forgotten the reality that defence is built largely on a paradigm. The greater the investment made in capability, the less likely it is that you will need to use it. Deterring war is a far less expensive option than fighting it, even by proxy. Therefore, the stark choice we face is either to increase resources or to reduce ambition. I fear that the alternative is incoherence and accelerating decline.
So what, your Lordships may ask, is the situation in the United Kingdom? On paper, the Army Reserve is 32,000, with no plans to increase its size. In reality, it is smaller and declining in number every month. It was not always the case; following the Future Reserves 2020 review we saw major investment in our reserve, and, between 2015 and 2019, numbers of the Army Reserve grew substantially. It probably helped that the Minister for the Armed Forces at the time was particularly interested in reserves.
The Reserve Forces Review 2030 that I chaired tried to build on this “down and in” success by looking “up and out”, recognising that Reserve Forces are the ideal medium to access skills and talent that the regular force simply cannot hold. This, too, has been a success. Today’s Reserve is no longer just a contingent capability to be held at low readiness; it is also a pool of talented individuals, many of whom act as auxiliaries, bringing their skills to support defence on a daily basis. One of our proposals in the review was to adopt the concept of a spectrum of service for individuals, recognising that, throughout their working career, they should be able to move in and out of uniformed service—be that regular, Reserve or civilian life—gaining skills and experience without necessarily being penalised. Remarkably, sometimes it can be quite difficult for an ex-regular to join the Reserve.
I am delighted that this concept has been picked up by the recent Haythornthwaite review in terms of service with our Armed Forces, but if there is just one message that I hope noble Lords take away from my contribution, it is that today’s Army Reserve is a very different beast from the Territorial Army of the past, and contributes to defence outputs on a daily basis. I have every confidence that the current decline in Army Reserve numbers can be reversed, but the Reserve needs to be invested in both financially and conceptually.
I sensed at times that the Army was never quite sure what it wanted from its Reserve. The new NATO force model of graduated readiness is a building block for that clarity. However, there remain challenges to it. I will name but two. First, the MoD financial model always puts Reserves at risk. Reserves, unlike regulars, are a variable cost and Reserve service days are always at risk of being cut. Who would want to stay in the Reserves and not be able to train? Secondly, we always seek to mirror the Reserve to the regular force in both training and structure. I am delighted that the Army proposes to end that direct equivalence, and regulars and Reserves should integrate at the point of use in one Army, but have the flexibility to be organised and trained in different ways to suit the institutions.
I end by simply saying that, after 35 years of Army Reserve service, it will be my pleasure in October to enter what will be my last job in the Army, as director of Army Reserves—effectively the head of the institution—so this will probably be my last contribution on the Reserves in this forum, for a while at least. But I am clear what needs to be done and relish the challenge.
The conflict in Ukraine has upended any hypothesis suggesting that sophisticated military technology has rendered the role of soldiers, sailors and airmen obsolete. I understand that, as in all areas of life, technology diminishes the need for human agency, but the size of our Armed Forces is still a factor in assessing their strength The British Armed Forces are simply too small. This is not a fringe or minority view, but one shared by several former Chiefs of the Defence Staff. It is especially concerning that we continue to face recruitment challenges even when overall numbers are so small. This is true across all three services, with figures to March this year showing an intake decline of 14.6% for the Army, 16.6% for the RAF and around 22% for the Navy. Like others, I hope that the Government’s response to the Haythornthwaite report will see significant progress made in this area.
In today’s economic context, spending decisions are not between good or bad, but between necessary and urgent. In preparation for these proceedings, I had occasion to look back at other recent debates, both in your Lordships’ House and in the other place, on these issues. In addressing concerns around our military capacity, the ministerial answers I read frequently sought to encompass two irreconcilable positions. We have been told, often in the same statement, that economic stringency imposes regrettable restrictions on our ability to build the defence capacity we need, while being just as solemnly assured that our existing capacity is adequate, indeed ample, to meet all foreseeable needs. That is like having at the same time a Dickensian miser whispering in one ear and Dr Pangloss in the other. If our current capabilities are indeed ample, restrictions are not regrettable but responsible. If they are not, we must revise the scale of our ambition accordingly.
During my time as Secretary of State for Defence, I had the privilege to meet countless service personnel, and was always awed by their dedication, courage, patriotism and resilience. We often ask our troops to do the impossible, and with startling frequency they do just that. In speaking, I seek not to question their bravery but to ensure that the three services have what they need to engage with maximum effectiveness the challenges posed by our strategic adversaries.
In addition, the naive assumption that major war has gone away and that government is merely about providing domestic services is seriously mistaken and dangerous. If adequate resources are not provided for the defence of our country and our interests abroad against internal and external threats, a time will come when we will not be able to protect ourselves against attack.
This became the case with Europe, which for decades largely left it to the United States to be its protective umbrella, but no country has friends and benefactors who can be depended upon permanently to fulfil such a role. Countries have allies who will work with them when it is in their interests, not friends who will sacrifice themselves for no other reason than friendship. Our defence collaboration was never going to be based on the EU but on NATO as a defence alliance—and one that we nearly lost through neglect.
Finally, I want to say something about people. There is currently a superficially attractive notion that, with technology, we will be able to defend ourselves with a diminishing corps of people in our military. This is very ill-advised. There are many arguments already being made in this debate about the need to have enough people to operate the ships, planes, tanks and computers that we need, as well as those who can be called upon to apply military discipline and organisation to assist the civil power with the increasing incidence of pandemics, natural disasters and, in some cases, I am afraid, civil disturbance and illegal immigration. However, there is another aspect to it. If a significant section of our population have served in some capacity, they, their families and their communities have a very special sense of the value of their country and the need to take risks and sometimes make sacrifices to protect it and to defend our freedoms, culture, way of life and interests abroad.
Many people in our country no longer understand the need for this. They think that we managed in the past and that technology will save us in the future. Others live in a world that they wish existed rather than in the troublesome world of humanity that actually exists, with all its dangerous and unsavoury characters as well as the good people. Still others assume that we are all rational actors who will, in the end, weigh up the social and economic costs and benefits and act on those. In the context of war and existential threat, we as individuals and communities become devoted actors, not rational actors. Indeed, if we do not, our community will likely not survive.
Is it any wonder that there is this imbalance when the Regular Army is on course to reduce to 73,000 soldiers and the Army Reserve is down to around 26,000? The ultimate illustration of “more with less” must surely be the situation in 1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, a close-support artillery regiment in 3rd Division—supposedly our one deployable war-fighting division. That regiment has no operational guns. An artillery regiment with no guns is truly reminiscent of the inter-war years, when football rattles replaced machine guns in training.
I exaggerate somewhat to make my point. We have gifted 32-tracked AS90 self-propelled artillery guns to Ukraine, but what about the replacement capability? That is what the commanding officer of 1st RHA needs to tell his soldiers about. It is a Swedish system called Archer. We have bought 14 of these wheeled vehicles and, all being well, they will be in service next November. What about our tracked Warrior infantry fighting vehicles? There was no money for a mid-life upgrade, so they are to be retired and a wheeled alternative introduced instead. Is the plan to upgrade only 148 of our Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Challenger 3 capability enough? Frankly, I mind less about the reduction in our manpower than I do about the reduction in our equipment.
Of course, there are those who would say that armoured fighting vehicles are oh-so 20th century and that the future is with hi-tech drones, clever imagery and high-speed communications, and of course they are right. However, the sad and expensive fact of life that Chancellors and Defence Secretaries must confront is that, as the conflict in Ukraine is showing, the new ways of warfare are not replacing the old ways of warfare but complementing them. A blending of the old chin-to-chin slugging match is as important today as the hi-tech developments of the 21st century. Satellite-informed button-pressing long-range firepower is in lockstep today in Ukraine with brutal gutter-fighting with bayonet, grenade and short-range drones. There are no revolutionary silver bullets. We are told that there is to be an investment in Army programmes—the Future Soldier programme— but largely towards the end of the decade. Is that good enough or soon enough? In any event, that programme must not be subject to further cuts when the squeeze comes.
In the 1930s, there was the threat of a dictator rising in Europe. We chose to appease him. Too late, we began to re-arm. Mercifully, just in time, we produced enough fighter aircraft to win the Battle of Britain. However, the British Army, undermanned, undertrained, underequipped and transported in wheeled lorries, faced an armoured enemy that had embraced the then new technology of the main battle tank. In May and June 1940, our Army was defeated in France and escaped annihilation via Dunkirk. Today, there is a new dictator in Europe—not just a threat but a proven aggressor. Are we re-arming? Are we increasing our defence expenditure? Are we taking our defence responsibilities seriously? In 1935, we spent 3% of GDP on defence. Today, it is not even 2.5%. By 1939 we were spending 18%, and in 1940 it was 46%. Does history have to repeat itself? I sincerely hope not.