Defence Command Paper Refresh Statement The following Statement was
made in the House of Commons on Tuesday 18 July. “With permission,
I would like to make a Statement on the publication of our
refreshed Defence Command Paper. It is just over two years since we
published the original Command Paper in March 2021. In those two
years, our security has been challenged in so many ways. This is
the Ministry of Defence’s response to a more contested and
volatile...Request free trial
Defence Command Paper
Refresh
Statement
The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on
Tuesday 18 July.
“With permission, I would like to make a Statement on the
publication of our refreshed Defence Command Paper. It is just
over two years since we published the original Command Paper in
March 2021. In those two years, our security has been challenged
in so many ways. This is the Ministry of Defence’s response to a
more contested and volatile world.
In the last four years that I have been Defence Secretary, I have
been consistent about the reform I have sought to implement. I
want Defence to be threat-led—understanding and acting on the
threats facing our nation as our sole mission; not protecting
force structures, cap badges or much-loved equipment but ensuring
that we are focused on challenging threats.
I want the Ministry of Defence to be a campaigning department,
adopting a more proactive posture, and our forces more forward
and present in the world, with a return to campaigning
assertively and constantly, pushing back those threats and our
adversaries. I want Defence to be sustainable in every sense. For
too long, Defence was hollowed out by both Labour and
Conservative Governments, leaving our forces overstretched and
underequipped. We must match our ambitions to our resources, our
equipment plans to our budget, and take care of our people to
sustain them in their duties. We must never forget the travesty
of the Snatch Land Rovers in Afghanistan.
The 2021 Defence Command Paper was true to those principles and,
with some tough choices, presented an honest plan for what we can
and will achieve: a credible force, capable of protecting the
nation, ready to meet the threats of today but investing heavily
to modernise for those of the future; a force in which every
major platform would be renewed by 2035, from armoured vehicles
to Dreadnought submarines, frigates to satellites.
We did not plan on issuing a new Command Paper just two years on.
Many of the conclusions of that Command Paper remain right:
Russia was and is the greatest threat to European security, and
China’s rapid military modernisation and growing assertiveness in
the Indo-Pacific and beyond do pose an increasing challenge to us
all. However, I have always said that, as the situation changes,
we must change with it. Since the first DCP was released, the
world has shifted once more, from a competitive age to a
contested and volatile world. The technology advances we
predicted materialised. The threats and challenges we feared have
manifested.
There is no more immediate threat than Russia. Its full-scale
invasion of Ukraine was not simply an assault on a proud and
sovereign nation but an attack on all our values, European
security and the open international order on which stability and
prosperity have depended for over three quarters of a century.
Right now, the people of Ukraine are suffering the tragic
consequences of President Putin’s illegal, unprovoked invasion.
His naked aggression and imperial ambitions have played out in a
tragedy of epic human suffering. The brave citizen soldiers of
the armed forces of Ukraine are protecting their own nation and
people, quite heroically taking on the once mighty Russian
forces. The whole House recognises that they fight not just for
their freedom but for ours. They are not just liberating their
homeland but defending the rules-based system.
As Defence Secretary it is important to import the lessons
learned from the conflict to our own forces. While I wish such
lessons were generated in a different war, the conflict has
become an incubator of new ways of war. They are proving the way
for warfare in the 2020s—whole of nation, internationally
partnered, innovative, digitised, operating with a tempo,
precision and range requirement, and a recognition that there is
a trade-off between assurance levels and operational impact.
I am proud, too, of the role the UK is playing in supporting
Ukraine, whether providing equipment, training or political
support, or galvanising European and international allies and
industrial partners to do likewise. But the return of war to the
continent of Europe, alongside growing threats elsewhere in the
world, has meant that we must sharpen our approach. The
integrated review refresh published in March outlined how we
would do that. It would shape the global strategic environment,
increase our focus on deterrence and defence, address
vulnerabilities that leave our nation exposed and invest in the
UK’s unique strengths.
Defence is central to all those efforts. That is why, after three
decades in which all parties have continued drawing the post-Cold
War peace dividend, this Prime Minister reversed that trend and
provided Defence with an additional £24 billion over four years.
He and the Chancellor have gone further since, in response to the
war in Ukraine. Next year we will spend over £50 billion on
defence for the first time in our history. That is nearly £12
billion a year more cash investment than when I became Defence
Secretary in 2019—a real-terms increase of more than 10%. This
Government have committed to increasing spending yet further over
the longer term to 2.5% of GDP, as we improve the fiscal position
and grow our economy.
Our defence plans, and the Armed Forces to deliver them, must be
robust and credible—not fantasy force designs, unfunded gimmicks
or top trump numbers. As Russia has so effectively proven, there
is no point having parade ground armies and massed ranks of men
and machines if they cannot be integrated as a single,
full-spectrum force, sustained in the field under all the demands
of modern war-fighting. That takes professional forces,
well-equipped and rapidly adaptable, supported by critical
enablers and vast stockpiles of munitions. That is why in this
document, honourable Members will not find shiny new
announcements, comms-led policies driving unsustainable force
designs or any major new platforms for military enthusiasts to
put up on their charts on their bedroom wall. We stand by the
Command Paper we published in 2021 but we must get there faster,
doing defence differently and getting ourselves on to a campaign
footing to protect the nation and help it prosper.
As I said standing here when DCP 21 was announced, we owe it to
the men and women of our Armed Forces to make policy reality. The
work was just beginning. In this refresh, we have focused on how
to drive the lessons of Ukraine into our core business and on how
to recover the war-fighting resilience needed to generate
credible conventional deterrence. The great advantage of having
served in Defence for some time is that my ministerial team and I
have now taken a proper look under the bonnet. Consequently, we
are clear that our strategic advantage derives from four key
sources which require urgent prioritisation.
First and foremost are our first-class people. Our men and women
are not just brave and committed but talented and incredibly
skilled. They are our real battle-winning capability. It is our
duty to ensure they are as well supported, prepared and equipped
as possible, so we are going to invest in them. Last year, I
commissioned Richard Haythornthwaite to conduct the first review
of workforce incentivisation for almost 30 years. It is such good
work that we are incorporating the response into our Command
Paper, and today I am unveiling a new employment model and skills
framework for our Armed Forces. It will offer our people a
spectrum of service that allows far greater career flexibility,
making it easier for military personnel to zig-zag between
different roles, whether regular or reserve, or between the civil
service and industry.
We are transforming our forces’ overall employment offer by
adopting a total reward approach to provide a much more
compelling and competitive incentivisation package. Since all our
Armed Forces personnel deserve the best-quality accommodation, we
are injecting a further £400 million to improve our service
accommodation in the next two years. Many of us over Christmas
will have been frustrated by the poor support our service
personnel and their families received from those tasked with
looking after their accommodation. It is for that reason that I
have withheld their profit and used the money to freeze for one
year only the rent increases our personnel were due to pay. Taken
together alongside such initiatives as wraparound childcare, they
are intended to enrich careers and enhance the ability of our
most talented people to keep protecting the British people, and
to ensure they are rewarded and fulfilled while they do so.
Our second priority is further strengthening our scientific and
technological base. We are already world leaders in specific
areas, but to continue outmatching our adversaries we must stay
ahead of the curve in digital, data and emerging scientific
fields. In 2021, we said we would invest £6.6 billion in advanced
research and development. In fact, we are now investing
significantly more to stay ahead in the technologies proving
themselves vital on the battlefields of Ukraine, such as AI,
quantum and robotics. We are enabling a culture of innovation
across Defence, pulling through those R&D breakthroughs to
the front line. Following in Ukraine’s footsteps, we are
increasingly sourcing the £100 solutions that can stop £100
million threats in their tracks, winning both the kinetic and
economic exchanges of modern warfare.
Of course, our ability to do that depends on the quality of our
relationship with the industry, which is our third priority. I am
pushing the Ministry of Defence to form a closer alliance with
our industrial partners. A genuine partnership to sustain our
defence will mean doing things differently. Ukraine reminds us
that time waits for no one. It is no good holding out for the
100% solution that is obsolete by the time it is launched. Often,
80% is good enough, especially if it means swiftly putting kit
into the hands of our service personnel. Capabilities can be
rapidly upgraded, spirally developed, for the relentless cycles
of battlefield adaptation to win the innovation battle. Instead
of sticking to acquisition programmes that drag on for decades,
we are setting maximum delivery periods of five years for
hardware and three years for digital programmes.
Our fourth priority is productivity and campaigning. To face this
increasingly contested and volatile world, we need to make major
changes to the machinery of the department and its methods. We
are emphasising an ethos focused ruthlessly on the delivery of
real-world effect, increasing the bang for buck in everything we
do. This approach reaches into every part of the Defence
enterprise, from the front line to the back office, and involves
a major redesign of the department. We must shift our whole
organisational culture away from the previous peacetime mentality
to one where we live and operate as we would fight, focusing more
on outputs than inputs and achieving a better balance between
risk and reward. That means empowering people to live and operate
alongside partners, and sometimes to be enabled by them when in
lower threat environments. That means ensuring our equipment,
whether Type 31, Challenger 3, or Typhoons, has the
infrastructure and supplies needed to sustain operations more of
the time and to deliver real-world effect wherever and whenever
it is needed. And it means working with the relevant regulatory
authorities—for example, the Military Aviation Authority—to
accelerate the experimentation, testing and innovating of new
technologies, while remaining within legal bounds.
I want to emphasise one final aspect of the Command Paper
refresh, namely the development of a global campaigning approach.
We started with a review of our head office, where we broke out
campaign delivery from policy formation and established
integrated campaign teams. They have adversary focuses, not
geographic, and will drive our enduring campaigns in the same way
operational commanders lead our forces on deployed operations.
The indivisibility of operational theatres in today’s world means
Defence must be constantly ready to respond globally to safeguard
our interests and those of our allies. Sometimes it will be to
evacuate our citizens in moments of crisis, such as in Sudan;
other times it will be to deter an adversary or reassure a
friend. As we have shown through our support for Ukraine, the UK
Government have the political will, but that matters only if it
is matched by our military agility. Today, we are establishing a
defence global response force. Ready, integrated and lethal, it
will better cohere existing forces from across land, sea, air,
space and cyber, to get there first in response to unpredictable
events around the world.
Crucially, today’s paper also recognises that it is in the
interconnected world and that the UK is unlikely to act alone.
Partnerships are critical to our security and prosperity. In
future, we will be allied by design and national by exception.
Our support for NATO will remain iron-clad, but we will continue
to prioritise our core relationships. We will invest in deepening
relationships with our new partners. It is why we have invested
to expand our global defence network, improving communications
and co-ordinating defence attachés within our intelligence
functions. None of that is headline-grabbing stuff, but it is the
fine details that make the difference to our national
security.
To conclude, the paper is the result of having several years in
the department to understand where it needs most attention. That
continuity in office is improving and I am incredibly grateful to
the long-serving Minister for Armed Forces, my right honourable
friend the Member for Wells, , whose experience in uniform
and public office provided the basis for this paper. We are
grateful to the hundreds of individuals and groups who
contributed to the first challenge phase of its drafting, from
academics to serving personnel and industry representatives, not
to mention the many Members of this House. Most of what we
learned from them is encapsulated in the document.
This is likely to be one of my last appearances at the Dispatch
Box. It has been the greatest privilege to serve as Secretary of
State for Defence for the last four years. I thank my team, civil
servants, special advisers and Members for their support and
their challenge. All of us here have the common interest of
defending this fine country, its values and its freedoms. Of all
the many functions of government, Defence is the most important
and is more important than ever, as the next 10 years will be
more unstable and insecure. The men and women of our Armed Forces
are second to none, and Britain’s place in the world is anchored
in their professionalism and sacrifice. I believe we will
increasingly call on them in the years ahead. We must ensure that
they are ready to answer that call. I wish them and whomever
replaces me well. I commend the Statement to the House.”
8.52pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I am always grateful to the Minister for her
co-operation and help when it comes to these Statements. There
may be some differences, but our overall objective is the same,
particularly at this moment with our support for Ukraine in its
war with Russia. Could the Minister initiate talks through the
usual channels about a longer debate involving more of your
Lordships’ House, perhaps in the autumn, when time allows? A
longer debate on all these matters would be helpful for us. Could
she consider that?
In the light of the work we have done between us, I particularly
ask the Minister to relay our thanks to the Defence Secretary in
view of his announcement that he is to step down. At this time,
it is particularly important to note his leadership with respect
to Ukraine and in building a coalition of support in NATO and
beyond for that effort. I know that maintaining public support
has been very important to him. He has been a Defence Secretary
of integrity who has done all he can to strengthen our defence
and that of our allies, including our nuclear deterrent and its
modernisation. I would be grateful if the Minister could pass
that on; I am sure it is a view held by many in this House.
On public support, can the Minister say what we are doing to
continue our support for the Ukrainian people? Maintenance of
their morale is crucial, and we can only admire their effort and
resolve in the face of Russian aggression. In that vein,
continued support in this country is also important. Can the
Minister reiterate the measures the Government are taking to
explain why we are involved in the conflict in Ukraine, and why
it is so important for us all?
On the future, can the Minister assure us that an incoming
Defence Secretary will not initiate a defence refresh 2 or indeed
3? It is crucial that the current Defence Command Paper is seen
as a longer-term plan. To that end, with a general election
approaching, what discussions are the Government planning to have
with my right honourable friend in the other place, MP? It is important for our
defence that this is an ongoing plan, with consensus built across
Whitehall.
The defence plan contains a lot of strategic vision, including
the demand to be a campaigning department and to tackle skills
shortages, but it fails in some respects to outline in detail
what changes to various other plans should be made. That is very
important, since the Command Paper says, in a crucial phrase,
that we have shifted
“from a competitive age to a contested and volatile world”—
mentioning Russia and China, of course, but other threats too,
including those posed by terrorism and fragile regions. What does
that mean for the current shape of our Armed Forces as envisaged
two years ago, with the change being made in the Defence Command
Paper?
The Defence Secretary says that we must
“match our ambitions with our resources”.
To do that, what ambitions have been left out? The defence paper
also says we must match our equipment plans to our budget. Does
that leave a shortfall? If so, in what?
Many questions are left unanswered in the Command Paper. Why does
the paper not halt the cut in troop numbers—which, as we have
seen, has led to the smallest number of troops since
Napoleon—following the second-in-command at NATO, a British
officer, saying that the British Army was now too small? I remind
noble Lords that the Army has been cut by 25,000 since 2010 to
76,000 and, despite the threat from Putin, will fall again to
73,000 by 2025.
The defence paper confirms cuts in tank numbers. Despite
equipment promises elsewhere, how can we be sure that the MoD can
deliver them, given that just on Sunday the Defence Committee
published a report into military procurement that said the system
was broken? Thousands of skilled Armed Forces jobs remain
unfilled, and supply is now a real problem. Again, little is said
about how to address these problems now, although plenty is said
about the future.
We fully support NATO and defence across the world with our
allies, but troop numbers are being cut, as are tank numbers; one
of our aircraft carriers remains in dock; Ajax is still a promise
rather than a reality; there are problems in the engines of many
of our new destroyers; Hercules transport planes have been
scrapped while we will wait for the A400M; we have inadequate
stockpiles; and defence spending at 2.5% of GDP is still an
aspiration rather than a full commitment.
Many real questions come out of the Defence Command Paper. Of
course we support the Government, but these are challenges that
they need to address. The Government must reassure us that, in
our support for NATO, we have the Armed Forces that we need.
of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, as so often from these Benches, I echo the words of the
noble Lord, . There is nothing in his
comments or questions with which these Benches would disagree, so
I will augment them.
First, I want to express disappointment that the Secretary of
State is stepping down. His time as Secretary of State for
Defence has been important, and his leadership on the Ukrainian
situation has been particularly significant. We can only hope
that when the next reshuffle comes, the Prime Minister is able to
find someone to serve as Secretary of State who can lead our
defence capabilities and take this defence refresh forward
effectively, because we are at a difficult time. The fact that we
have a refresh after only two years is significant. It is clear
that what was said in 2021 was not sufficiently forward-looking;
we were looking at the threats of today and not those of
tomorrow.
While much is to be welcomed in this defence refresh, so much of
it seems to rely on the lessons we have learned from Ukraine.
Great: we need to learn the lessons of the last 15 months, but
are we thinking forward sufficiently strategically? What is being
put forward, and what was outlined in the Secretary of State’s
Statement yesterday, seems to be modest in its ambitions in many
ways. Saying that we will not be looking at new platforms is
probably just as well, because, as the noble Lord, , has touched upon, defence
procurement is an area where we have been remarkably weak. The
defence platforms that have been procured—Ajax, the “Queen
Elizabeth” class and various destroyers—have all come with
problems.
What is being proposed in the defence refresh seems to be more
limited in terms of procurement, talking about working closely
with industry. Like the noble Lord, , I press the Minister on
whether His Majesty’s Government have given any thought to their
procurement procedures. It is fine to talk about working more
closely with industry, but have they got their procedures right?
What lessons have been learned in that regard?
It is noticeable that the new mantra being put forward is about
partnership. When I have raised issues with the Foreign,
Commonwealth and Development Office over the years, I have
stressed the need, post Brexit, for having closer bilateral
relationships and stronger multilateral relationships. So it is
good to hear that in a defence Statement, but it comes alongside
this mantra of “allied by design, national by exception”. A cynic
might suggest that is simply because alone the United Kingdom is
too small to act in the way His Majesty’s Government have so
often suggested they want it to act. The defence refresh talks
about being more agile and having a role globally. Is that really
feasible if we are sticking with the size of troops, whether
regulars or reservists, outlined in 2021? Is it not time to think
about troop numbers again? Do we have the size of forces that we
need in this world of contestation rather than competition? Have
His Majesty’s Government really thought this through
adequately?
Finally, there is a suggestion that we need to think again about
risk and how we view risk. Could the Minister explain what is
really meant? Again, the Statement and the refresh document seem
to be quite limited in explaining what His Majesty’s Government
really mean about this.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence () (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, , and the noble Baroness, Lady
Smith, for their helpful remarks at the beginning of their
questions. I thank them particularly for their tributes to my
right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence,
. I am very appreciative of the sentiments that have
been articulated, and I think they are echoed across Parliament
and the wider public domain. The noble Lord, , referred to him as a “Defence
Secretary of integrity” and I could not possibly disagree with
that.
and I first met in 1999, when, as absolute rookies,
we stepped through the doors of the newly revived Scottish
Parliament. I remember thinking at that time that this was a
decent, principled, very solid young man. My opinion over these
many years has not changed one jot. It has been an honour to be
one of his Ministers. It has been a pleasure to work with someone
with such a passion for the department and such a commitment to
changing things for the better. I can tell from the comments I
have heard within the department that he has been regarded as a
very good steward of defence. There is widespread admiration, and
genuine regret that he has decided to step down. I will make sure
that I convey the thanks of the noble Lord, , and the noble Baroness, Lady
Smith, to him.
A number of important points were raised. The noble Lord, , raised—I will include the
noble Baroness, Lady Smith, in my comments because she associated
herself with the points he raised—the interesting issue of public
support for the war in Ukraine. That is a very important matter.
Generally speaking, people have been so shocked by the prospect,
and now reality, of a third war in Europe when they thought that
those days were behind us. I think the public understand that, in
the very difficult age of hybrid and competitive threat in which
we live, the defence capability within the United Kingdom is one
of their best protectors. It is one of their gilt-edged insurance
policies, which is trying to keep the nation safe and to exercise
our influence in global affairs. I know that my ministerial
colleagues have been active in disseminating that message. I have
picked up some comment from those in the media that they too
understand that. It is an important point and something we
certainly need to keep looking at, because the one thing we
should never take for granted is the safety and security of the
country.
The noble Lord, , raised the status of this
Defence Command Paper refresh and asked whether a new Defence
Secretary would have another one. I hope noble Lords will agree,
having looked at the coherence and character of this refresh—I
invite noble Lords to remember that this was not drawn up on the
back of an envelope; it was distilled out of extensive initial
consultation way beyond the MoD to stakeholders and academia. We
genuinely wanted to find out from these informed sources how we
should be shaping our Defence Command Paper refresh and making
sure that it remained pinned to the integrated review refresh
because the two have a synergy that must not be broken.
I think everyone recognised—again, I say this to the noble
Baroness, Lady Smith, who specifically raised it—that the 2021
paper was not sufficiently forward looking. What happened post
2021 is that the issues defined as the primary preoccupations of
defence—the threat from Russia, the challenge posed by China, and
the growing nature of threat and the hybrid form it can take and
hence the unpredictability of how threat might manifest
itself—did not, of course, take into account the conflict in
Ukraine. Quite simply, that has galvanised thought.
The conflict in Ukraine has done two things. First, I think it
has changed mindsets, not just on the part of the MoD, hence this
refreshed Command Paper, but it has absolutely galvanised the
defence industry, which had put a lot of its manufacturing
production capability into deep freeze—thinking it was never
going to be required. Secondly, it has galvanised attitudes
across the world, not just within Europe and NATO. There has been
a recognition that the unthinkable actually can happen. It is
very foolish to imagine that you can allow yourself to remain
unprepared for that.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that, if she looks at
the current refreshed paper and back at the 2021 paper, she will
find that the broad shapes and issues identified remain the same.
But we have acknowledged in the MoD—and it is made clear in the
refreshed paper—that we have to move at pace, with agility,
flexibility and resilience that perhaps we did not anticipate
three years ago.
The paper makes this very clear, both in its text and its
graphics, because a picture tells a thousand stories. I was
having a look through it and was very pleased to see some ladies
in some of the images looking very fierce and doing all sorts of
incredible things. If you look at this as a whole it is an
extremely solid, well-structured and very coherent document. I
would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and certainly the
noble Lord, , that I do not see anyone
wanting to change this any time soon. It has been built to last.
It is specifically not about soundbite announcements. It is very
deliberately structured to explain where we have got to, where we
need to get to and how we think we do that.
The noble Lord, , mentioned that there was no
outline detail about the other plans. What is clear in here is
that the whole sense of direction and the pace of change is
accelerating. It is visible within this Defence Command Paper
refresh how we are approaching that, whether we are embracing
science and technology, whether we are embracing a new model for
our people, whether we are embracing a new campaigning attitude
and whether we are embracing putting MoD Main Building on to a
campaigning footing, which we are doing. That is incredibly
changing to the mindset that has prevailed in Main Building. This
is not so much about the detail of what other plans may involve.
The equipment plan stands; it is public. The orders placed for
equipment and ships stand. We will need these things. They are
all part of our holistic approach as we move forward.
The noble Lord, , very specifically raised troop
numbers and mentioned Napoleon. I think more instinctively of
Wellington—but never mind, we are even-handed in this House. I do
not remember Wellington walking around benefiting from unmanned
aerial drones or clutching a mobile phone and being able to
control operations from five miles behind the source of conflict.
The point is that we have learned from Ukraine that the capacity
of technology, which also has moved at an astonishing pace, has
completely changed how we look at conflict and how we cohere what
we have. You will see repeatedly throughout this document a
reference to the “whole force”. This is a very important
recognition that we now look at how we contribute across our
whole capability. We have contributions coming from five domains.
This is no longer about looking at one single service and saying,
“We’ll need to do more with that” or “do more with this”. What we
have to look at is what the capability requires to address the
threat that we think is out there and how we most intelligently
cohere that capability to produce the response to that
threat.
On troop numbers, as the noble Lord, , is aware, we currently have
73,000 regulars and 1,000 reserves. However, something else is
also clear in here, which I think is exciting. I often wondered,
and have asked questions about, the silos in which our workforce
existed. Those noble Lords who are familiar with the Armed Forces
will know that we have three distinct single services, a civilian
cohort and incredible skills across all of them. That is why it
is important to remember, as we approach this new age, as
outlined in the paper, that it is about looking at the whole
force and then working out which parts of the capability we need.
I say to the noble Lord that yes, I am satisfied that the balance
of numbers that we have across our single services is
appropriate. We are never complacent. We constantly look at
recruitment. We think that our Armed Forces offer a very exciting
career for anyone minded to join them and we are doing what we
can to improve on that offer and to make sure that it is an
attractive one and that people will be minded to join.
I have tried to deal with all the points that have been raised. I
hope that I have, but as usual I will look at Hansard and, if
there is anything that I have missed, I shall write to the noble
Lord and to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith.
9.14pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I add my tribute on the impending retirement of the
Defence Secretary in the House of Commons. He is the
longest-serving Conservative Defence Secretary and, especially in
his role in connection with Ukraine, he has been outstanding. We
will miss him. I am in many ways sorry that he did not get the
job that he aspired to, which I once had the honour of holding.
After all, he had the primary qualification that the Minister and
I both have—he is Scottish. Sadly, that was not sufficiently
appreciated among the other 31 countries and therefore, the Back
Benches beckoned to him as well.
The Minister held up the document, and I could see that it has
been well flagged by the department for her. It is called not
“Refresh” but Defence’s Response to a more Contested and Volatile
World. On page 63 it states:
“As set out in the IRR, the most urgent priority in the
Euro-Atlantic is to support Ukraine to reassert its sovereignty
and deny Russia any strategic benefit from its invasion. Our
continued and unwavering support to Ukraine has shown the UK at
its best”.
If that is the case and we are now involved in helping Ukraine in
the existential battle it is undertaking with the Russian
Federation, why is this Parliament debating and discussing this
at the fag-end of the day, just before the Summer Recess? Will
the Minister reflect on the fact that the last time we had a
full-scale debate on the subject of a war in which we are
participating was a year ago? Will she take the message back to
her department and through it to the Prime Minister that Winston
Churchill came to Parliament almost every week during the Second
World War in order that the Parliament of the country was as
involved in the conflict as Ministers of the Crown? I have made
this point to her before, but it needs to go beyond her because I
am sure she actually agrees with me. We really have to have
proper debates about this matter; otherwise, documents such as
this will lie on a shelf and will not help with the campaign or
the fight any more than is happening at the moment.
(Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his kind remarks about my colleague
and friend . I will convey them to him and direct him to Hansard.
I know he will be much comforted by the comments of the noble
Lord, Lord Robertson, and I know he will not bear any resentment
that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, enjoyed what has eluded him.
He is looking remarkably free and easy. He is looking positively
liberated, so I think he is clearly anticipating with great
pleasure whatever lies ahead.
I omitted to respond to the point that the noble Lord, , raised at the beginning of his
remarks about an opportunity to debate this in the autumn. The
noble Lord, Lord Robertson, has just articulated a very similar
sentiment, which reminded me. When the noble Lord previously
passionately expressed his disquiet and dissatisfaction with the
amount of time devoted in this Chamber to debate on the Ukraine
war, I did convey that, and I fully understand that this paper is
a very significant component of our defence plans. Again, I will
take this back direct to the Leader and the Chief Whip and say
that there is clearly an appetite for more time to be set aside.
Your Lordships will understand that in this House we do that
through the usual channels. I would appreciate it if your
Lordships would convey the same message through your avenues on
your party Benches, because I think the Leader and the Chief Whip
would find that helpful.
I am very clear about the significance of where we are now, with
another war in Europe, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson,
indicated—an illegal conflict in Ukraine. The pivotal decisions
that now lie in front of defence, our change of direction and how
we will take forward this new model, genuinely require debate and
discussion. I am very sympathetic to that, so I reassure both
noble Lords that I hear what they are saying and I will repeat
that as cogently as I can.
(CB)
My Lords, the refresh paper makes ambitious and encouraging
claims for improving many defence issues. I am told, indeed, that
the paper says “We will” nearly 300 times. Let us hope that the
many advances in defence outlined will remain fully funded, and
that it does not suffer the underfunded fates of so many of its
predecessors. Can the Minister confirm whether the improvements
trailed rely on firm delivery of the aspirational future 2.5%
defence budget? Bearing in mind the increases due to inflation,
are these also factored into the envisaged future programme?
Of particular interest are the many steps intended to improve on
procurement—surely a vital issue following the recent Defence
Committee’s scathing report on procurement entitled It is
Broke—and It’s Time to Fix It.Many of the steps outlined make
good sense: speeding up the processes; bringing industry in
sooner; ensuring that there is production continuity, for example
by maintaining a continuous shipbuilding pipeline, or avoiding
skills fade by maintaining production lines for longer.
Occasionally, it seems to be attempting to ride two horses at
once, procurement being
“Allied by Design and national by exception”—
except for the use of homegrown technologies to reduce the risks
of vulnerabilities to global supply chains. Does the Minister
have any additional figure for the greater support of industry
envisaged in this developing programme?
Reference is also made to increasing efforts to deliver an air
and missile defence approach. Ukraine’s experience has rightly
focused minds on this major gap in UK defence. What timescale is
envisaged to bring this into operation?
(Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his observations
and questions. I think they go to the heart of all of this, which
is money, which the noble and gallant Lord specifically inquired
about. The Defence Secretary has been very clear that we will
live within our means and our means at the moment is 2% of GDP.
But I remind your Lordships that we will have a budget of over
£50 billion this year. By any comparison with what is available
to other departments, that is a very hefty allocation of funding.
The Defence Secretary was clear in the other place that he would
like to see 2.5%; the Prime Minister has committed to that when
fiscal and economic circumstances allow. That would be a very
useful target to bear in mind. So this is costed within the
resource we know we have.
The noble and gallant Lord made an important point about
procurement. We have brought in important improvements, and of
course the paper itself outlines what our new alliance with
industry will be and what acquisition reform will constitute. I
will not rehearse all that, but I was very struck by something
that the Secretary of State said in the other place yesterday. He
said:
“In 2009-10, the average time delay on a project was 28%; it is
now 15%. The average cost overrun was 15% on a project in
2009-10; it is now 4%”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/7/23; col.
792.]
We have been striving to bring in significant reforms. We have
the defence equipment and supply directorate; it is staffed with
people who have both commercial and MoD experience. Noble Lords
will see the proposal in the paper that we move on to five-year
contract periods; I think that is a useful discipline. Obviously,
some of the big contracts will be extraordinary and beyond that,
but I think that is a useful working template.
The other important point that the Secretary of State made in the
other place was that we have found out, particularly from the
conflict in Ukraine, that whereas we used to want to look at,
examine and procure the perfect, even if it took 10 years to get
it, it makes far more sense now to look around and see whether
there is something you can get off the shelf. You can buy it more
cheaply, get it now and then adapt it. An interesting
illustration of that is our ocean surveillance ship, RFA
“Proteus”, which we bought off the shelf and have adapted
ourselves. It will shortly be ready for operational activity. So
I think some important lessons have been learned.
I also picked up something that I am going to commit to memory,
which the Secretary of State said. He said, in defence
procurement,
“never defer—either delete or deliver”.—[Official Report,
Commons, 18/7/23; col. 792]
I absolutely sympathise with that.
I think that what the noble and gallant Lord has been familiar
with, and indeed was referring to, is some of these, frankly,
disastrous procurement experiences where we have placed an order
and changed our minds, and the industry partner has changed its
mind. We have changed the spec and altered the price, and the
whole thing has become like a fast-moving vehicle with no
steering wheel and nobody trying to direct it. The reforms we
have brought in, and particularly what is outlined in the paper,
are going to be a very robust regulator of how we approach
procurement in the future.
(LD)
My Lords, I want to return to the issue of expenditure in due
course, but before I do, I associate myself with the remarks made
about the Secretary of State. He has performed his
responsibilities in an outstanding fashion, with great
commitment. Of course, it is perhaps helpful that in his
particular case he was a serving officer in Her Majesty’s
Army.
On expenditure, does the Minister agree that what the Government
are seeking to do when it comes to expenditure is to create a
virtue out of necessity? In putting that question to her, I have
regard to the contents of page 3 of the document and, in
particular, the paragraph on the left-hand side which begins:
“After three decades of drawing the post-Cold War ‘peace’”.
The Minister herself referred to part of the language thereafter.
I want to unpack that language, if I may. It is clear that the
2.5% which is set out there depends on GDP. The estimated GDP for
the United Kingdom economy this year is 0.3%. It does not seem to
me to be a figure which would allow any movement towards
2.5%.
The other point that I want to make, and the Minister has already
referred to it, relates to
“as the fiscal and economic circumstances allow”.
That is an entirely subjective test to be made at the whim, one
might say, of the Government of the time. It is a test which, for
example, could be blown away if the Government of the time were
more enthused about expenditure on health or education, or
something of that kind. Since we are talking about the Secretary
of State, it is right to remember that there was a very public
attempt by him to persuade the Prime Minister that more money in
real terms should be made available for the defence budget. I am
rather surprised by the expression—and the Minister may be able
to help me with what exactly is meant by it—
“this ambitious trajectory also enables our modernisation for the
challenges of the future”.
The trajectory is not only ambitious; it is entirely without
foundation or substance.
We get some illustration of where this approach leads us if we
look across the page at the paragraph that says:
“That does not just mean more ships, tanks and jets—indeed in
this document there are deliberately no new commitments on
platforms at all”.
The Minister has heard me—on a number of occasions—ask about the
number of F35s that the United Kingdom is going to pursue, in
order to ensure that those pilots who have been assigned to fly
with that aircraft actually get the opportunity of flying one. I
have heard it suggested that they should spend their time on
simulators. Is that a serious suggestion? Respectfully, it seems
to me that the Government’s ambitions are set out, but the
substance by which they could be achieved seems to be a long way
from the contents of at least page 3 of this document.
(Con)
First, I thank the noble Lord for his kind comments about the
Secretary of State. When we talk about budget, we deal with two
things: reality, and what this Government believe is a reasonable
and attainable objective. Let me deal with the reality. Defence
has received an increase to its budget in the face of very
difficult economic circumstances. That is recognition of the
seriousness with which this Government take the current security
environment and their responsibility to protect the nation and
help it prosper.
The Prime Minister said—this is a Conservative Prime Minister
speaking; I cannot speak for any other party—that we are
committed to increased spending over the longer term to 2.5% of
GDP as fiscal and economic circumstances allow. I accept, up to a
point, the noble Lord’s proposition that that is subjective. It
is subjective in the sense that the Government will have to
interpret how the economy is performing and what the fiscal
regime looks like. As the noble Lord is aware, we are trying to
reduce the debt and bring inflation down, and I am confident that
we can reach a position of economic stability in due course, but
that reflects a Conservative Government’s pledge, and we want to
hold good to it. That is partly because we believe in defence,
and secondly because we think it is an attainable aspiration.
As I said in response to an earlier question, the equipment plan
has been published. The noble Lord raised the training of F35
pilots. We have contracted out some training in order to seek
help from Italy. That is happening but we maintain our
operational obligations and we would never compromise the safety
of our pilots or the professionalism of their status by doing
anything that underperformed or threatened their training
integrity. I am satisfied that the training regime is perfectly
satisfactory; it is robust and is delivering the skills we
need.
(Con)
When you read this document, it is clear that it is vastly
superior to the last one, published some two or three years ago.
The thinking, ideas and viewpoints are extremely interesting. The
sentence that captured my imagination is at the very beginning,
in the ministerial foreword, and I shall read it out if I
may.
“We must address increasingly complex and diverse threats, by
maximising our own growing but ultimately finite resources, which
necessitates ruthless”—
I repeat: “ruthless”—
“prioritisation and improved productivity”.
I spent many decades in defence and I have to say that I totally
agree with the comments, particularly from the noble Baroness,
Lady Smith, on how we deal in practice with productivity but
particularly procurement. The noble Baroness was very polite. Our
procurement in this country—in many departments, not just the
Ministry of Defence—is shocking. It is a terrible thing to have
to say that in practice, in everything I have been involved in—in
the ministry and in other ministries —the way we do procurement
and the quality of the people doing it is really letting us down
in a major way.
The real problem is this. If we had a message tonight from No. 10
that at 4 pm tomorrow we will be at war, the speed of change
would be extraordinary and everybody, from all parties, would
pull together. The speed of change, in procurement and everything
else, would go through the roof. I know the Minister is saying
that the Government are doing this and that, but in two years’
time, if we have not demonstrated that we really can deliver, I
am afraid that the rest of the world will ignore us on the basis
that we are no longer a country to contend with.
(Con)
I appreciate the significant experience in these commercial
matters that my noble friend brings to these discussions.
Interestingly, I had highlighted the passage he read because it
attracted my attention when I was flagging the folder myself—I
say to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson—not relying on one of my
officials to do it, because I like to read as I go.
As I have admitted before in this Chamber, the history of
procurement for the MoD has, at times, been a very unhappy one.
The Secretary of State in the other place yesterday did not
disguise that. He pointed out that procurement has been
confronted and beset by difficulties, not over three years or 10
years but probably over 15 or 20 years or maybe even more. What
we have seen in the MoD—and he referred to this—is that, on the
basis of Public Accounts Committees, Defence Select Committees
and observations from the National Audit Office, we have already
taken significant steps to improve procurement. I referred to
some of them earlier. I think this document—and my noble friend
was very complimentary about it—spells out where we think we have
to go in terms of efficiency of procurement, improved
effectiveness of procurement and certainly increased productivity
from defence. That is the course on which we are bound.
We are valued as one of the most important partners in NATO. I
would say in relation to my noble friend’s last point that I
think the United Kingdom is seen as a very serious, significant
defence contributor. I know on my travels abroad the warmth and
the interest that accompanies any visits we make to other
countries. They want to know about us. They want to know what we
are doing and how we are doing it, and they certainly want to be
associated with us. They feel that we exercise influence, but
underpinning that is a credible defence capability, not least our
nuclear deterrent.
It has been a very interesting opportunity to hear views on this
Defence Command Paper refresh. I am very grateful to everyone who
has contributed questions and I end by saying that it has been a
pleasure to support my right honourable friend as Secretary of State and it remains an honour for
me—at least for the moment—to be a Minister in the MoD.
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