Contribution
My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register.
Who is to blame for the parlous state of our Armed Forces: politicians, the media or the public? I would suggest all three, but the prime responsibility surely lies with our political leaders—successive Prime Ministers and Chancellors of the Exchequer—for underfunding our forces to the benefit of welfare. Welfare now represents five times defence spend. If only the money we wasted on HS2 had been spent on defence, just imagine the difference.
Some in your Lordships’ House have argued and battled away for years for greater defence spend, such as former military chiefs and, on these Benches, the late lamented Lord Ming Campbell, and my noble friend on the Front Bench. When I was on the Front Bench in 2008, I argued for an increase in the Army from 103,000 to 120,000. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord West, was laughed at over the years for continuously pressing for an increase in the Navy. Well, no one is laughing today.
Defence spending is an insurance, not an indulgence. Our allies have woken up—Germany and Poland in particular, and others—but we are laggards. We live in an ever-dangerous world. Can we ignore the threat from Russia, with a leader willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of his people in a lunatic invasion of Ukraine? As General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, the first Royal Marine to head the Navy, said recently:
“The need to rearm and improve this country’s readiness for war has become an absolute necessity. Just maintaining the ‘capable status quo’ is simply not good enough. We are at an inflection point”.
So how are we responding to the dire situation? The Prime Minister talks the good talk when overseas or with NATO allies, but little happens. Where is the defence investment plan that has been promised for months?
Of course, the Treasury is being difficult—it always is—but the Prime Minister is First Lord of the Treasury. Where is his leadership? We do not need Trump to tell us that he is no Winston Churchill, but in his remaining weeks could he not do right by this country and increase defence spend and thus leave some legacy to be proud of? We now have Gordon Brown back as an adviser so—who knows?—we might be lucky and get a third aircraft carrier, provided that it is built in Scotland.
The MoD never admits to any problems or blackholes. There is always the optimistic line, “We can fulfil all our operational obligations”. The reality is that there is a huge blackhole, with near paralysis in procurement.
Where is the new money for defence to come from? I reject more borrowing. We must tackle the bloated welfare budget. No party has the guts to scrap the triple lock, which is viewed by virtually every commentator as totally unsustainable. I suggest that we raise funds through what I might term shock-and-awe tactics to shake the nation and wake it up to the threat and the need to rebuild our deterrent capability. Perhaps there should be an increase in the standard rate of income tax, an increase in value added tax or a consideration of some form of capital gains tax or sales tax on the sacred cow in this country of principal residences. Moneys so generated must be entirely hypothecated to defence. We must avoid the understandable temptation to spend new moneys solely within the United Kingdom. We must work with our allies to avoid duplication of spend. We will waste so much if everyone focuses on their sovereign capability.
I will say something about the United States-NATO relationship. Trump was right to insist on Europe raising its game on defence spend, but in the final analysis I do not believe that the United States will leave NATO. Trump likes real estate; no way will he just walk away from valuable, heavily invested bases such as Mildenhall and Lakenheath in the United Kingdom, Ramstein in Germany or Aviano in Italy. His military knows the benefits of these bases and our joint intelligence capabilities.
I conclude by asking the Minister four questions, and he may need to write to me. First, is any inroad being made into the bloated number of civilians employed by the MoD? There are around 60,000; our Army is only 70,000 people. Secondly, on recruitment, where are we with Regular and Reserve recruiting? Thirdly, how justifiable is the rumoured Japanese alarm over the United Kingdom dragging its feet over the Global Combat Air Programme, our JV with Japan and Italy? Lastly, what plans are there, if any, to provide a cost-effective deterrent to defend our vital infrastructure in this country from unmanned aerial vehicles—that is to say drones?