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Armed Forces

My Lords, I hear the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, echoing that. I am sorry, it was my noble friend Lord Gilbert, who has sneaked round from the other side of the Chamber and is now in his more usual place. He has long advocated that a lot more money be spent on defence. The noble Lord, Lord Lee, mentioned the reserves and suggested that the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Robertson, had talked about the inadequacy of the reservists. That is unfair, as I do not think that is what they were saying. We are having a strategic review, however. This began in April and the aim is to try to ensure that we have Reserve Forces that meet defence needs now and well into the future. We see the Reserve Forces as an increasingly integral part of defence capabilities. That is what we have been consulting on and I hope we will be in a position to report on this soon. Although we acknowledge that our Armed Forces are stretched, we are told that they are able to work well at the moment and that is what we believe to be the case. We have recently taken on the headquarters for the piracy operation under the ESDP. I hope the noble Lord will welcome this and I believe it is something we can make a contribution to. The noble Lord, Lord Luke, summarised many of the points that others have been making and he came back to the Snatch-vehicle issue as one which I acknowledged in my opening remarks had caused some concern. He asked me to say that Snatch vehicles would only be used in certain circumstances. I think Ministers should not make decisions about what is appropriate for any particular operation. We have to leave that to commanders in the field because we cannot run a war from Whitehall; nor would we want to. Although I understand his concerns, I hope he will also understand our concerns that we have to try to ensure that we provide the wide range of vehicles that commanders want. The House will appreciate the extra investment and the work that is going on. In summary, there are individual points that we want to emphasise or ask questions on, and no one would ever say the situation were perfect, particularly when you are on operations. As my noble friend Lord Robertson said, when you are on operations, difficulties, mistakes and challenges always arise. It is always a changing and challenging situation but the MoD and the country as a whole have to do everything to provide the members of our Armed Forces with the equipment and the resources that they need and to look after them and their families once they have left the service. We can all agree on that point. On Question, Motion agreed to.