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Armed Forces

My Lords, I join the thanks to my noble friend Lord King. It is interesting that we are having a debate on defence with six former senior service officers from the Armed Forces, from all three services, four of them former Chiefs of Defence Staff. Given how we spent yesterday afternoon, that confirms the talent of this House. To follow that for a second, I would like to believe—I do not do so with any confidence—that other than the excellent Minister who will answer and to whom I shall refer again, senior officials in the Ministry of Defence will read this debate in full, including the Permanent Secretary to whom I shall also refer again. I shall briefly talk about two things: equipment and defence finance. I have nothing like the knowledge of my noble friend Lord James, but I shall refer to one particular piece of equipment; the Bowman radio system. It is perfectly obvious to anyone who knows even a little about military matters—I merely did National Service as an infantryman—that the radio is just as much a weapon as a rifle, and just as essential in modern warfare. It is sad that we have had this disgraceful situation with the Bowman. We had a good report from the Comptroller and Auditor-General in July last year, and another published on 8 March from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, chaired by my honourable friend Edward Leigh, entitled Ministry of Defence: Delivering digital tactical communications through the Bowman CIP programme. I refer to it now because the Government have understandably not yet replied to it. The Minister is, frankly, much more qualified in his job than most Ministers in most departments, and has the skills and abilities that should make him independent of the civil servants. He is the sort of Minister who should not have to do what he is told, but be telling people what to do. That may be an optimistic statement, but it is a desirable objective. I hope that, when the Government reply to this PAC report, the Minister will personally draft that reply, calling on all the assistance he needs. The main Bowman contract now is with General Dynamics UK Limited, which is chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Levine, who has a particular interest in all of this; he was the Chief of Defence Procurement from 1985 to 1991 and adviser to the Prime Minister on efficiency and effectiveness from 1992 to 1997. The PAC did not actually question him, because it normally calls in the departmental accounting officer, which is what it did. I dare say the Minister already has dealings with the noble Lord, Lord Levine. I do not myself know the noble Lord at all, but I assume he has great abilities in these matters or he would not have got the chairmanship of General Dynamics. He certainly has great experience of Whitehall and defence procurement. I hope that the Minister will call him in and discuss the exact nature of the reply that ought to be given to the PAC’s report, since the noble Lord has been on both sides of the Bowman operation. It is a damning report. Due to time, I shall read only the chapter headings: "““1 Programme governance arrangements were not fit for purpose … 2 Initial decisions were not well informed to reduce laterrisk … 3 Through life costs were not rigorously assessed 4 Operational benefits are limited by reductions in the programme””." One of the failures in this operation has been referred to by my noble friend Lord James: the weight of the actual kit. The piece of kit produced was too heavy for soldiers to carry at the infantry level. The right honourable Member for Swansea West, Mr Alan Williams, the Father of the House of Commons, who proved a determined terrier in questioning the failures of the Bowman system, said: "““Directors of Infantry have stated since the late 1990s that increased weight and size are unacceptable””." The Permanent Secretary of Defence, Mr Jeffrey, replied: "““We ended up with a radio which, for specific purposes for dismounted troops, is heavier than the Army required””." Mr Williams said that Bowman was: "““beyond ergonomic practicality for a foot soldier to cope with””." If that is not a definition of disastrous failure, I do not know what is. When Mr Williams then referred to the huge extra costs, an extra £121 million, that are having to be paid out to try to correct this—and this was not the only fault with the Bowman—he said to the Permanent Secretary: "““Is that not an appalling waste of taxpayers’ money?””," and the Permanent Secretary’s answer was: "““It is a regrettable additional expenditure””." That has echoes to me of Sir Humphrey but it also has echoes of the Home Office. I wondered who the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence was, so I looked him up because I had not heard of him before. I found that he knows all about the Home Office because he came from the Home Office. In fact, he has done 25 years in the Home Office and was, during the crucial years from 2002 to 2005, in charge of the Immigration and Nationality Department of the Home Office, which I seem to remember the then Home Secretary referring to as ““not fit for purpose””. I wonder what made the committee head one of its chapters in this report with ““not fit for purpose””. I have said enough about Bowman but I hope the Minister will take it very seriously. It is a crucial piece of equipment. It has not been well handled and there must be real lessons to learn. It is not just regrettable, it is deplorable. I have one further point to make. I believe we must in future share more equally the financial burdens of military operations in which we engage on behalf of the wider international community. I am thinking particularly of Afghanistan where we are spending, as was said in a Statement to this House recently, considerably more than our share in financial terms. We are, after the United States, the largest military presence there. And some of the few other countries which are making military contributions are putting severe restrictions on their forces. I believe there should be a central fund which is paid for by all members of NATO in proportion to their GDP. That would include countries that make military force contributions to the operations, but those countries would then be reimbursed 100 per cent from that fund. Even if we are going to produce disproportionately large forces to fight the NATO campaigns—and I think it is excellent that we should because we have the finest military forces in the world—at least let us be repaid rather than have other richer countries which make little contribution riding on our backs financially as well as militarily.