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Armed Forces

Absolutely, my Lords. Given the planning assumptions set out in the Strategic Defence Review and the nature of the challenge that we face in the 21st century, we must recognise the need to invest more in defence, but also that we need to change the way in which we manage defence and commit to long-term projects, for example. There is no easy answer; it will not be fixed quickly, but the Government have a strategy. By setting out our priorities clearly, we put ourselves in the best position to make those reforms, implement them and drive the improvements in processes within government to deliver better efficiency and agility. The bull point is that we have to be good at both—it is about not just the absolute money that we invest in defence, but how we can most intelligently invest it and get the balance right between the short and the longer term. Part of that is the change in the structure of the Armed Forces, and the progress that we have made in, for example, collocating headquarters and reinvesting that into the front line. Several questions have been asked about defence equipment, and I take the points made about cost over-runs in the past, and those made by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, about Bowman. Those points have been taken on board by the department and are being implemented to improve how we manage procurement. I am sure that noble Lords will judge me on the results that I achieve in procurement. I shall clarify some points made by the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, that were completely wrong. All our troops have body armour. The vehicle that he talked about being delayed—the 430 Bulldog—is already in operations in Iraq. I saw it last week and had very positive feedback on its performance. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, gave me some notice of his questions, so I will attempt rapidly to give him some direct answers—not on indirect fire, which I will have to speak to him about in private. We need a small vehicle, and the Snatch Land Rovers have been widely used. They need to be replaced in time with newer vehicles. We offer protection for our vehicles, which have been complemented by the new Mastiffs and Bulldogs. The fact that we were able to develop the Mastiff vehicle last year and get it into operation so quickly is the best evidence of agility in procurement—that we are addressing the bull point. Never before has an armoured vehicle been procured and delivered to the front line with such speed. Although it is early days in terms of operational use, the feedback is that the vehicle is seen as highly successful by our troops. We have delivered, as we have heard, a significant investment in new equipment, but we have further work to do to improve our defence procurement processes. We are getting on with those. There is the merger of the Defence Procurement Agency and the Defence Logistics Organisation. My own appointment—I am grateful to noble Lords for their comments—as Minister of State for Defence Equipment and Support means that for the first time one Minister is responsible for all equipment and support, which is an example of the reforms in practice. Our reforms do not stop at the boundaries of the Armed Forces. A number of noble Lords have mentioned the importance of that being balanced by the way in which we work with the Foreign Office and DfID in a comprehensive approach. I do not have time this afternoon to go into the detail of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but both of those depend on the effectiveness of that approach. The feedback that I had on operations in Basra is that we are learning from our experience. Operation Sinbad in Iraq is a good example of that, and we are applying the lessons that we learnt on operations both there and in Afghanistan. This Government have had a number of successes in implementing reforms to deliver improvements. We recognise that there is further work to do, and those reforms need to be matched by investment in our Armed Forces.