Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)

My Lords, I rise with some humility, not having the background of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, or many of the experts we have heard today—I am sure will hear from more. I rise as, I hope, a reasonably well-informed Member of this House—just a layman—who has growing concerns about the defence of this country as we see the threat grow, as has been described, and, frankly, our ability to respond to it decrease. I will not set out the threat because other noble Lords have described the various international threats incredibly well. I want to concentrate my comments in three areas. First, have we explained to the public in simple language why we will need to spend more on defence, recruit more personnel and probably pay higher taxes? Or do we imagine that the people of this country can calculate this for themselves, or that it is self-evident? Secondly, are we moving quickly enough to put our defence strategies into action to confront and—most importantly, as other speakers have said—deter our potential enemies? Do we rely too much at times on the support of our friends to make ourselves more credible? Thirdly, it is said that wars are won by those with the best logistics. So have we engaged industry at the right level to deliver equipment and other resources at scale, speed and the flexibility to pivot or respond to new threats generated, as they will be, by any new conflict? Procurement has been mentioned a few times, but I argue that Covid showed why our procurement systems at state level can rarely be relied on. Although they delivered vaccines, it showed that the system as a whole was not fit for purpose. Would it be fit for purpose for any war or conflict we became involved in? I want to make clear that I support this and the previous Government’s broad strategy. In particular, we have been at the forefront of the international community’s bid to support Ukraine and we must carry on in that relentless and ruthless endeavour to defeat Russia and the enemies of Israel, and to deter any further aggression across the world. The bullies in this world must know that we will face them down and that they will lose. My answer to the three rhetorical questions I posed is that I am not persuaded that we have done anywhere near enough in these three hugely important areas. First, do the public understand why we will need to spend more? Well, they see the war in Ukraine on the news. They know that we have taken in Ukrainian families and given them safe haven here. We have trained many Ukrainian forces here in the UK. They see what is happening in the Middle East, but do they know what is happening in the Balkans and the obvious tensions there? Do they understand that if Russia succeeds in Ukraine, there are many smaller countries immediately in its path in the Baltic and northern Europe that will have a bear at their door—a potential standing army of 1.5 million that will be standing around waiting for something else to do? Do they need to be reminded of the immense achievements of Poland, which is raising an army of 350,000, provides logistical support to Ukraine and is the next country to the west should Ukraine be overrun? As mentioned previously, apart from our commitments through NATO, perhaps this generation should be reminded of the catalyst for the conflagration in 1939 when Poland was invaded from another direction. Perhaps we have all become complacent that land war in Europe is a thing of the past, when Ukraine and the Balkans show that that is not the case. There are two reasons to make this case more clearly. The first is the cost—everybody has talked about this—because someone is going to have to pay, and people need to be persuaded to put their hands in their pockets. It may also cost UK lives. If we want people to make such a sacrifice, they will need to be persuaded. Lord Kitchener found a simple way of doing this in the First World War, but I do not think that will work any more. With this generation, asking people to support a country without explaining why would be properly challenged and questioned. I do not think they are any less courageous than we have all hoped we were, but I do think they will need better explanations. The answer to the second question, on whether our Armed Forces are large enough, must be no because we have said that we will spend more on them—up to 2.5% of GDP—although, as has been remarked already, we have not said by when. That seems a real challenge, because otherwise it is just a vague promise. If we do not set a date, how can anybody know when it has been achieved? It is not just about the previous Government; this Government will face the same challenge. Is it not true that, with all the context we have described and threats getting bigger, our Armed Forces have in fact got smaller? Over the past two years, our Armed Forces have dropped by 18,000 when everybody has been saying that the threats have been getting bigger. Ukraine was invaded in February 2022; it was actually invaded for the first time in 2014. Yet, over the past two years, while these things have been happening, our Armed Forces have got far smaller. As has been said, the Russian army is increasing to around 1.5 million, despite the fact that it has lost 650,000 casualties—either dead or injured—over the past two and a half years. This is a massive number that every country will have to consider. In this country, not only have we lost 18,000 since 2022 but we have lost a further 4,000 over the past two years. So it is hard to say that we are pursuing the priority that we say we have set. The noble Lord, Lord West, reminds us constantly of how few frigates we have. It has almost become a parody. People laugh when it is mentioned.