---

Armed Forces

My Lords, I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, most warmly for the opportunity to participate in this much-needed debate. I sympathise with the Minister, who until a few moments ago found himself the sole representative of his party on its Benches in this Chamber today. I hope that that does not reflect its interest in the subject matter. I declare an interest as a recent commanding officer of a Territorial regiment, and again I thank the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, for his kind comments about the Reserves, which I echo. After the interventions of several noble and gallant Lords who have dealt so wisely with these issues, along with the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, who considered these matters at the diplomatic and strategic levels—and to whom we all listened with great interest—it is for me to take things back to a more mundane level; that of a commanding officer who is operating at what might be called the coalface of the military. Let me start with manpower. This is an area where commitments are particularly tight in what are called the ““operational pinch points””; these are specialists such as those who are medically qualified, engineers and certain logistic trades. The infantry is also feeling the pinch. The 1st Battalion the Staffordshire Regiment is in the course of a break of only 12 months between tours in Iraq, of which two months are being spent in Canada, training hard. The 1st Battalion the Light Infantry is currently on its third tour in Iraq in three years. These are merely examples. It is well known that the Army is being forced to exceed the level of commitment in the defence planning assumptions, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, mentioned, and it will continue to exceed those assumptions until at least the end of 2007. Now we are galloping off to Afghanistan. Whether or not one agrees with what ISAF has been tasked to do there, which is a matter for another debate, it must be observed that we are sending a relatively small number of troops to do a massive job. Comparing the number of troops involved to those deployed in similar scale operations in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles or in Kosovo does not make pretty reading. Afghanistan is at least as dangerous as either of those and our area of responsibility is large, with very porous borders. The Government bear a heavy responsibility. Turning to recruitment and retention, I would make the observation that to retain a trained soldier in whom the Army has invested both training and experience must be more efficient, all other things being equal, than recruiting a new one. I understand we are paying a bounty to soldiers to recruit their friends, yet inexplicably we pay no danger money to our troops deployed on dangerous missions in inhospitable places. It is not that Iraq is a UN deployment, of course, but as an example, other countries pass on to their soldiers the payment their country receives from the UN for UN deployments, yet our soldiers do not receive the equivalent payment, which is pocketed by the Treasury. It is hardly surprising that so many of them leave, as indeed have several from my former regiment, who are now working for private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan for up to five times their Army pay. All Army officers are taught that you deploy your Reserve only when you can do it decisively to turn the battle in your favour, or if it will enable you to save your force from what would otherwise be certain defeat. You never do it as a matter of routine. But we now expect routinely to deploy our Reserves. Noble Lords will be aware of how many TA soldiers are currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and indeed that number, although significant, is well down on the peak figure reached when the Government ordered the compulsory deployment of TA soldiers; people who have real jobs supporting the economy here and who were put at risk by adventuring in the Middle East because of inadequate funding of Regular Forces. While there are many areas where equipment is below an adequate level, let me focus on just a couple of them. The size of the current fleet of battlefield helicopters was predicated on the defence planning assumptions, which did not envisage two concurrent operations at medium scale; but that is where we now find ourselves, being in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The fleet is therefore split between the two theatres, leading to resultant shortages and thus putting soldiers’ lives at considerably greater risk than they would have been had the Government rationed themselves, as they said they intended, to one war at a time. As regards mine-protected vehicles, in the House earlier this month the Minister said, among other things, that:"““The Snatch Land Rover provides us with the mobility and level of protection that we need.""We had 14 RG-31s in Bosnia, which we took out of service some time ago due to difficulties with maintenance. We have looked at the RG-31 alongside a number of alternatives for our current fleet and concluded that the size and profile did not meet our needs””.—[Official Report, 12/6/06; col. 2.]" Perhaps the Minister could comment on the suggestion made in the press recently that we actually used Mambas in Bosnia, a much earlier and more primitive version. While I accept that the RG-31 is not perfect, being more difficult to dismount from, especially for the commander, wider than the Land Rover and designed primarily to withstand buried mines rather than mines fired from the side, nevertheless in the 21st century almost anything would be better than the Land Rover. The Americans are said to be using RG-31s to considerable effect in their area of responsibility. As a matter of interest, they are also built by a British-owned firm. Even if the Snatch Land Rover did do an adequate job, which unfortunately it cannot against mines, with the operational requirement for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, there are only about two dozen remaining in the UK for reserve and training for future battle groups to prepare for a deployment. The issue of married quarters was the focus for discussion at the Army Families Federation conference on Thursday last week, which I believe the Minister attended. The quality of married quarters has deteriorated dramatically through lack of funding over the past few years. For the peace of mind of the servicemen deployed on operations, support for the family must be effective. In terms of housing, sadly it is widely recognised not to be so. What a depressing tale this all is, yet the Government seem either unaware or not prepared to do anything about it. At the root of all these problems is funding. The Armed Forces are simply not being funded to a sufficient level to implement the Government’s aspirations to stride the world stage. The result is that the Government find it easiest to realise savings in the frontline, both in manning and equipment, thus having a direct and adverse impact on the safety, capability and morale of our fighting soldiers. By way of conclusion, I would say that all of this is compounded by further unnecessary attacks on morale such as the several recent and ongoing legal cases and now the undermining of the position of the commanding officer and, through him, of the regimental system, and therefore directly the confidence of our soldiers, to which several noble Lords and I referred in the recent Second Reading of the Armed Forces Bill.