British Armed Forces: Global Britain

But it is not just in the Caribbean that UK military forces have been providing support. In west Africa, since June 2020 we have transported vital supplies to communities struggling against Covid-19, through RAF transport flights. In particular, we delivered the components for a field hospital to Ghana to treat victims of Covid-19.

Our reputation in the region as a partner of choice has grown following our provision of long-term support on the ground during the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, where we built new medical facilities and provided additional medical support. In the Mediterranean last summer, the UK deployed HMS “Enterprise” to Beirut to deliver supplies and provide vital survey data that allowed the port to return to normal operations after the explosion. We also provided supplies to house and feed up to 500 soldiers from the Lebanese Armed Forces who were working on the relief operation. Even further afield, in the last few years we have delivered support such as shelter kits, solar lanterns and water purifiers to Indonesia and Vanuatu in the South Pacific, following natural disasters, and deployed teams from the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers to help support their fellow nationals in Nepal in the aftermath of devastating earthquakes.

In 2021, as we become a truly global nation, I seek the Minister’s assurance that with such a strong track record of humanitarian support, we will continue to prioritise our defence assets to support the safety of communities around the world. Of course, the principal role of the military is to deliver security, and I am pleased that recent years have witnessed an increase in the UK contribution to international peacekeeping. I have been part of NATO missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, so the subject is close to my heart.

I have been fortunate to visit two recent success stories. First was the deployment of personnel to support UN, African Union and EU peacekeeping missions to counter al-Shabaab in Somalia. Indeed, in March last year, the first 400 Somali National Army soldiers graduated from a new UK-supported training facility in Baidoa. The second was equally impressive: our contribution to the UN mission in South Sudan, where we have deployed a regiment of Royal Engineers and, for a period, a field hospital. UK service personnel also undertook a wide range of educational support to civilians, including English language and computer training, as well as practical skills such as carpentry and mechanics.

Bringing us completely up to date, the recent deployment of 300 UK military personnel to the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, where they will help to promote peace and counter instability, is in addition to the three RAF Chinooks and their teams that have been supporting the French counterinsurgency operations in the region since 2018. As we look forward to an ever increasingly global Britain with trade at its heart, it is worth recognising that, since the 1980s, we have maintained a long-standing maritime presence in the Gulf and Indian Ocean, now known as Operation Kipion, to ensure the safe flow of trade and oil, while also promoting peace and stability in the region. While not wishing to be fixed in any particular mission, can my noble friend the Minister reassure us that the overall recent increase in support to UN missions will persist?

In addition to humanitarian relief and security, the other key element of defence’s potential contribution to delivering a global Britain will undoubtedly be our ability to assist our allies with training. Training support comes in two forms. Examples of international training are the UK’s ongoing contribution to peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where we are providing training on human security, including gender advisory work to promote stabilisation, and in Iraq, where over 6,000 members of the Iraqi security forces have now been trained by UK soldiers. Training is also delivered here in the UK through a variety of courses for all ranks, from junior commanders to the world-famous Royal College of Defence Studies, aimed at nations’ future leaders. I highlight the MoD’s internationally renowned defence human security advisor course, which covers topics including women, peace and security and has trained 20 international personnel a year since November 2018. One often-overlooked fact, however, is that the extensive network of defence attachés and regional-based training teams means that the MoD has a larger international footprint that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

I have always been deeply impressed by the MoD’s defence engagement strategy and am delighted that this is now firmly a mainstream career option for our service personnel. It is also a key component of the UK’s soft power along with, for example, the BBC World Service. Can the Minister tell us what plans there are to have a genuinely comprehensive cross-government approach to prioritising and delivering soft power influence?

Looking to the future, we await the publication next month of the integrated review, which should deliver, in the language of the grand strategic approach, the ends, ways and means of the Government’s future ambitions. However, it is worth noting that the MoD has already quietly published some of the detail of the ways, or how, it intends to operate, in the Integrated Operating Concept 2025—the IOpC—last September. This sets out a new approach to how we will use our armed forces in an era of persistent competition and the rapidly changing nature of warfare. Representing the most significant evolution of UK military thought in several generations, it will lead to a fundamental transformation not only of the UK military, but how we use it.

It articulates a clear distinction between operating and warfighting, and reasons that while ultimately we need a contingent capability for our military to defend the nation and fight a war, our military should also be out and about in the world, operating—namely doing useful things, helping to build alliances and responding to crisis—rather than simply training as a contingent force. This is good news, as it implies that the MoD will be encouraged to do even more of the sorts of tasks with partner nations that I have highlighted in support of global Britain. Can the Minister confirm that this will be the case?

The IOpC also makes clear that we must be prepared to be enduring in our commitment and forward deploy our Armed Forces. There is no better example of this than the recent forward deployment of HMS “Montrose” to Bahrain. I hope that in the coming years, further Royal Naval assets, including offshore patrol vessels, frigates and future commando elements, will also be persistently forward deployed. I was fortunate, as Minister for the Armed Forces, to travel to 58 partnering nations. The one consistent message that I received was that, while the training and support that we offered were viewed as some of the best in the world, we would be there one minute and gone the next, which is why this move to persistent engagement will be the key for defence’s contribution to global Britain.

I end by highlighting that, in May, a carrier strike group led by HMS “Queen Elizabeth” will undertake our most ambitious deployment for two decades, encompassing the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and east Asia. If the security of our nation is where defence meets prosperity meets global influence, then this deployment, and those global deployments that will follow, will be flagship events for defence’s contribution to global Britain.