Contribution
My Lords, I am pleased to have this brief opportunity to speak of the road map to spending 2.5% of our GDP on defence, particularly given that I was unwell and therefore unable to contribute to the recent SDR debate. I will focus on the need to apply a substantial proportion of the £2.9 billion increase announced yesterday to reinvesting in our Armed Forces personnel.
Taxpayers’ money is there but the priorities for government expenditure are just wrong. A cursory comparison with our welfare spending alone makes the moral case. In April this year, the Government’s forecast for our total defence budget in 2024-25 was £55.6 billion. At the Department for Work and Pensions, figures for the same period forecast a spend of £315.8 billion on our social security system. Working-age benefits go to 9.3 million people, a huge proportion of whom are capable of working.
There are principles involved here. To give just one small but significant example, in contrast with our brilliant Armed Forces, benefit claimants receive a Christmas bonus for doing nothing. In addition, the reliance on Armed Forces charities to purchase the most basic items for wardrooms and messes, such as televisions, is scandalous, given our current expenditure on fully serviced hotels and weekly cash payments given to illegal migrants.
If we are to confront the many challenges referred to by noble Lords in the SDR debate, we must seriously invest in our Armed Forces personnel. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said in that debate, we must
“make good the shrinking and hollowing out of our Armed Forces that has been the handiwork of successive, delinquent Governments”.—[Official Report, 9/10/24; col. GC 226.]
Having listened to a brilliant ex-Army officer in January this year—I emphasise “ex”—telling me that some of his fellow officers were being asked if they would continue to serve unpaid, the picture is clear: it is dire.
My plea to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who I am pleased to see in his place, is to visit some bases and barracks unannounced. We all know that the military is adept at putting on a good show. I experienced this myself as Minister for Armed Forces Veterans at the Department for Work and Pensions. Just turn up to an RAF or Fleet Air Arm base and listen out for a plane in the air, and you will be lucky to hear or see anything. Go into the empty wardrooms and look around the desolate acres. Visit Army barracks and more desolate acres. Check out the equipment—what equipment is there, where is it and does it actually work?
I said in your Lordships’ House on 20 May this year that Armed Forces personnel in the Navy would be better off being subject to the process of court martial from the Navy than being discharged on medical grounds, given the outdated and inhumane processes in place. Following correspondence with the Navy this summer, I am sad to say that I hold firmly to that position.
In addition, the system of what is known as holdovers, leading in some cases to training taking more than seven years instead of three because we have not invested in the right equipment for training, is, frankly, shocking. Careers are blighted before they have begun, at enormous wasted expense to the taxpayer. Furthermore, equality of opportunity, which I believe is sacrosanct, is very different from the equality, diversity and inclusion now in vogue. EDI entrenches difference. It is an expensive and divisive diversion from what needs to be done and does nothing for morale. For many, VAT on private school fees will be the last straw.
It is not enough to stamp a letterhead with the words, “Global, Modern, Ready”. If we are to confront the many challenges referenced by noble Lords in this month’s SDR debate, we must prioritise and invest in a complete review and overhaul of how we recruit, train, properly incentivise and thereby support and retain our Armed Forces. Given all the petty regulations that just grow, and the satisfaction expressed in some quarters for the status quo, that review must be independent of the MoD.
I gather that serious consideration is being given to creating an integrated force. That would of course be a radical move, but it might present the best opportunity for a total reset and renewal for the future. It would require serious investment in the short term, but I predict that the investment would prove well spent and invaluable to our future defence force.