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Armed Forces: Future Defence Policy

My Lords, I join the Minister in paying tribute to those who have, sadly, lost their lives and to the most recent casualties. It is moving that we speak so shortly before Remembrance Day, when new names will be added to the war memorials that many of us will be standing beside, and when many of those attending may well, perhaps, be doing so in wheelchairs to pay tribute to those of their colleagues who have paid the final sacrifice. I make no apologies that, while the Minister has indicated the serious challenges and issues that will have to be addressed in looking on that 30-year perspective on defence, I shall speak exclusively about the situation that we face in Afghanistan. The outcome of that will profoundly affect what further deliberations might eventually enter into a defence review. There is no question that we face an extremely critical situation. Today, the Prime Minister indicates—in a speech that has already been trailered in the Daily Telegraph—that it is a campaign or war that we might not win. The gravity of that situation needs no underlining, but the speech is not enough. It is the actions of Government that are critical at the moment, and the leadership that they need. If I might quote the Times leader from last Saturday on my worry, it referred to, ""the brevity of Mr Ainsworth’s tenure"," as Secretary of State being, ""testament to a lack of seriousness with which the Government has treated national defence. … The Government has signalled by its continual succession of defence secretaries (five have held office since 2005) and its pinching attitude to military safety that it is culpable. It is a case of negligence without accountability"." That was written in particular respect to the Nimrod report, but there is the report of Bernard Gray that has been referred to, and the report of Mr Haddon-Cave who talked about the organisation trauma in the Ministry of Defence, in which: ""Financial pressures and cuts drove a cascade of multifarious organisational changes"." That ties in very much with what many of us understand of the problems. Against that background, there is also the most recent debacle of the Territorial Army through—to be quite blunt—the inexperience of Ministers. I do not blame them, as it is simply not fair to keep changing people and giving them new responsibilities, and to expect them to have the background and experience to deal with such issues. I am afraid that responsibility for those problems goes right to the top, because we are at war, and that requires the full commitment of the Government in resources, in diplomatic effort and in every way that we can. That has been the history of our country; when finally challenged, it has been the full commitment of the whole nation that has seen us survive. I see Mr Ainsworth’s problem; I am very worried that he appears to be in something of a difficult position. He is a very junior Minister in the Cabinet, and has been in his position a very short time. He is obviously still having difficulty on the financial side, because financial resources are a problem. Mr Ainsworth said in the debate in the House of Commons last week that the MoD must live within its means. He said that the operations in Afghanistan must, ""have … support, not only from the … reserve but from the defence budget as a whole"," and that, ""Afghanistan is the main effort".—[Official Report, Commons, 28/10/09; cols. 355-56.]." It is the overriding priority at present; we are at war, and there must be the fullest commitment. If it is true, I am appalled that we are not getting the full commitment of the reserve to all of the activities that involve Afghanistan. That was certainly the situation in the first Gulf War, when there were commitments not just from the UK Treasury but from a lot of other countries which supported our efforts there, and that affects all sorts of areas. I, and many other noble Lords, have complained about this in this House, but why do we still not have enough helicopters in Afghanistan? Why are lives being lost? While the Prime Minister tried to say that lives were not being lost because of helicopters, the recent sad and posthumous e-mail report from Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Thorneloe contradicts what he said in that respect. I want to ask the Minister directly; as it is well known that a number of people and organisations have offered the Ministry of Defence additional helicopters that could well be very suitable—certainly for transport facilities and activities and some, possibly, for the operational roles as well—why have those offers been turned down? It is no good saying "There will be further helicopters available next year, or the year after", and progressing into 2012. What about the present situation? Were they turned down on grounds of cost? On what grounds were they rejected? I have a great deal of personal respect for the Minister, and I am delighted to see him back in his responsibilities at last after his sabbatical, if I might put it that way. However, there are workarounds in all of these ways. I would remind him that you do not always have the conventional way to deal with a problem. In the Falklands, how did our forces know that they were going to get every bit of support that was coming? We did not have enough sea transport to get the troops out, so we commandeered not only the "Canberra" but the "QEII". That illustrates an unconventional but determined approach to making sure that the resources were there. Certainly, in the case of Gulf War I, as I refer to it, I had in the chairman, managing directors and chief executives of all the major industrial suppliers—those who were supplying our equipment that was going to war, not least our Challenger tanks, about which there were some worries. One or two noble Lords and noble and gallant Lords who are here will remember this, but I said that those suppliers were on test. If their equipment did not work, it was their responsibility to make sure that it did. Having their civilians out there maintaining the equipment and making sure that it worked had not been done in the same way before, but was another way to work around a problem to make sure that our forces had the resources that they needed at the time. It needs a full-hearted effort and, of course, we need more people. I say immediately that it is a great worry that we have not yet heard a statement from President Obama as to what the American position will be. However, we had what I understand was an interim statement from the Minister and the noble Baroness the Leader of the House in which we offered 500 extra troops on certain conditions. My questions are simply whether those conditions have yet been met and whether our allies will support those troops. If those conditions have not been met, and if we are supposed to need 500 troops, will they be sent or not? Otherwise, why were we proposing to send them? The next issue is how we are going to involve our allies in this struggle. The tragedy, as I suggested back in July, is that we needed a surge at that time to coincide with the Pakistan Army’s efforts on the other side of the border. We have now seen a considerable effort by the Pakistan Army, unmatched by us on this side of the border, so the same problem of the Taliban and other al-Qaeda people moving back and forth will exist. In this situation, we have other friends. The maximum diplomatic and financial efforts should be made, with Saudi Arabia, China, India, Russia and Iran. They all have a key interest in not seeing the Afghan situation collapsing in the dangerous way that it might. They are capable of physical and, some of them, financial contributions. It is no secret that the first Gulf War, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, will remember, was significantly paid for and contributed to by the nations in the Gulf which appreciated the efforts that we were making and helped substantially towards our financial costs. They are looking at how we are going to challenge the situation on the ground. Prince Turki al-Faisal wrote an interesting article in the Washington Post. I hope that the Government have taken that into account, and would like to know if it has been followed up. There are possible roles that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia might play in following up what General Lamb said in his report. With Afghanistan and the Taliban, we now need to have a good look at who we consider our enemies; the idea that it is just "all of them" is a naive approach to the situation. We face a tribal situation, and there is a tribal structure that could be turned to our advantage. I simply say that this war cannot be fought on a peacetime basis. Counterinsurgency needs local support. Unless the local people think that we are going to win, and are committed to doing so, you will not get that local support. I see this as the last chance to get a grip on a very dangerous situation. Of course the lead must come from the United States. Of course we are a junior partner. However, we have a duty to the future defence and security of our country, about which the Minister has just spoken most interestingly. But it will not be the same unless we address the current crisis, deal with it in a much more positive and effective way, and are much more effective in rallying public support behind the brave and amazing courage of our Armed Forces. They are currently trying to conduct a very difficult campaign of war.