Armed Forces

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 1:50 pm on 15 March 2007.

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Photo of Lord Ramsbotham Lord Ramsbotham Crossbench 1:50, 15 March 2007

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, on obtaining this important debate and on the comprehensive way in which he introduced it. Like my noble friend Lord Slim, I want to dwell on blame. That intention was given a nudge this morning by reading in the Daily Telegraph a letter from the former Surgeon General of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant-General Sir Peter Beale, who, referring to complaints about military medical treatment, said:

"Let us be clear. Successive governments, both Tory and Labour, have equally been responsible for the reduction of the Defence Military Medical Services over the past 20 years, notably in the blatantly motivated cost-cutting Options for Change exercise in 1990 (ordered concurrently and obscenely with the first Gulf war)".

I was in the Army at the time of the first Gulf War and I remember the discussions about Options for Change and the reduction of manpower at that time. The noble Lord, Lord King, will remember that we hoped that the lessons of the first Gulf War would have been absorbed before the cuts were made. For various reasons beyond his control—and I suspect beyond everyone's control other than that of the Treasury—that did not happen. I believe that many of our current problems, certainly as far as the Army is concerned, stem from the fact that the lessons—in things such as structures as well as equipment—from that first Gulf War conflict were not absorbed and learnt, because we are reaping the wind.

I am reminded of the speech made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, which I was glad to hear. A great deal of criticism has been poured on the medical services without necessarily looking at the good things that are done. I particularly pay tribute to the remarkable quality of the work of those in the field hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Without their dedication and skill, people would not be returned to this country other than in a coffin. Tribute, which I do not hear often, ought also to be paid to the staff of the rehabilitation centre at Headley Court, an entirely militarily run centre. The Adjutant General told me the other day that more than 30 amputees are now serving in the Armed Forces as a result of the treatment that they received at Headley Court. That has enabled them to return to some form of duty. On that subject I am particularly glad that there is to be a conference in early April of all the welfare authorities and that the Minister for Veterans will be present. The conference will look at the deficiencies, which have been mentioned many times in this debate, in follow-up treatment—not necessarily patients' immediate treatment. Follow-up treatment is by no means good enough and that is affecting and undermining confidence in the system as a whole.

I mentioned confidence. The debate today has focused on the three things which determine defence spending and always have done: the balance between money, manpower and machines. Is the money available to buy the machines with which to equip the manpower? Is the money there to have the manpower to use those machines? Connected with that is the word "affordability". My commander, the late Field Marshal Lord Carver, always used to mention the importance of the word affordability in connection with these things. It has two definitions: can you afford it or can you afford to give up what you have got to give up in order to afford it? The question of money and affordability moves us into a government arena. The Government have to ask themselves whether they can afford the defence requirements and whether they can afford to give up the other things that they want in order to fund those defence requirements. I get the feeling that at the moment the Government are looking at the other things and not at the defence requirements in that balance. However, that is a personal view.

With regard to machines, I look at the defence budget and at the fact that it is dominated by four major projects: Trident, which could be said to have a political overtone; the Eurofighter; the Astute submarine programme; and the aircraft carrier. I am not going to debate the merits of those because this is not the time and place to do it. However, those four massive programmes distort the small budget with its 2 per cent capability. Looked at from the point of view of those in the current operations, it appears to be distorted against their needs. The needs we hear about are all the things that they do not get. At the end of the combat phase of the second Gulf War I was struck by a conversation I had with our divisional commander. I asked him what, in terms of equipment, was the most battle-winning factor that he had during that combat. He said that it was the American Marine air wing, which was put under his command by the American Marine commander. He said that it had every type of fixed and rotary wing aircraft that he needed for that task and that our register did not contain that equipment. It is interesting that the requests from Afghanistan and Iraq are for the sort of equipment that were in that American Marine air wing and not Eurofighter.

I come to the question of affordability. Can we afford to spend so much on those major projects, which the noble Lord, Lord Bach, mentioned are for potential future conflicts rather than the current ones? On the current ones, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, who, like others, I congratulate on his promotion and thank him for the care he takes to keep us informed of what is going on, that one of the complaints I hear over and over again is a lack of agility among officials in the procurement agency. He knows what I mean.

I will give two practical examples of past exercise of that agility. In December 1971 I was given an armour piercing bullet which had penetrated a vehicle in Belfast that day and been taken out of the soldier who had unfortunately been wounded by it. That meant a new threat-level to us. It was brought back to England, given to the authorities and, one month later, CGS and I went see the new vehicle armour which had been designed to meet that threat—that was immediate agility. The most successful and speedily developed equipment I can remember in my service was Milan. It was brought in when three people were left for three years and told to develop it and they did it more swiftly and efficiently because they were not moved. People being moved while projects are happening inevitably means delay.

Finally, I come to the question of manpower, affordability and the covenant which has been mentioned so often. There is no better definition of the covenant than the words of Field Marshal Lord Slim quoted by my noble and gallant friend, Lord Inge—that is, what the soldiers require. They require a properly structured home base where their families are looked after, where they are trained and where they are equipped. I am glad that things are happening to put some of that right, such as more pay, which has been mentioned, and the improvements to accommodation. We must never let it get into that situation again.

On the question of the covenant, I have mentioned in this House before that the one thing that I am sorry is missing from the current Armed Forces is the presence of directors of public relations responsible for the projection and protection of the image of the Armed Forces. Their absence is one of the reasons why chiefs of staff have felt it appropriate to come out and say things in public. They do so for entirely understandable reasons on behalf of their soldiers, sailors and airmen. However, the fact that they do so is bound to damage their all important relationship with Ministers and Government, an undermining which we can ill-afford. I hope that these people will be brought back to do their job. I say that again because every time we stand up in this House and send our condolences to the families of anyone who may have been killed on operations overseas, we all ought to ask ourselves what we might have done to prevent it. We should do that because the covenant that we talk about is a covenant between the Armed Forces and the nation, not the Government and the Armed Forces. We all ought to see that we do as well for our Armed Forces as they do for us.