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Armed Forces: Future Defence Policy

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this important debate. I declare an interest as a former honorary colonel of a Territorial Army squadron and a branch president of SSAFA. In addition, I am currently taking part in the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme with the Royal Air Force. What I shall say today is by no means a personal criticism of the Minister, for I know that he is held in high regard by the military. I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to all those service men and women who have lost their lives or been injured in Afghanistan, and to their families. It is a fact that, for every fatality in this war in Afghanistan, there are very many more seriously injured service men and women. We seem to hear very little of them in the press, and at this point I should like to mention the wonderful work done by the Armed Forces charities and, in particular, SSAFA Forces Help, with which I am delighted to be associated. That charity is a flexible and multifaceted organisation, dealing on a daily basis with the needs of members of both the Armed Forces and those who have left the services. Among the many things that it has achieved recently is to have been able to respond quickly to the requirement of the Armed Forces to buy, refurbish and run two homes from home, at Selly Oak near Birmingham and at Headley Court, for the use of the families of those who have been seriously wounded and injured in the current conflict. SSAFA Norton House at Headley Court opened in February 2008, while Norton House at Selly Oak opened a year later. Since then, more than 650 people have been accommodated in one or other of the houses. These houses are free of charge to both the users and the Armed Forces. Each house costs SSAFA Forces Help £150,000 a year to run, and this is an additional cost to all the routine daily work which is the bread and butter of this association; namely, handling in the region of 200 cases a day for those in need and continuing, as it has done for very many years, to provide health and social work services for our troops abroad. I am sure that your Lordships will commend the work done by this excellent organisation, together with that of the other services charities. Would the Minister care to comment on what Her Majesty’s Government are doing to better advertise, both to GPs and the veterans themselves, the help that is available to veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder? Moving on to the TA, noble Lords may recall that a number of years ago we had a debate in this House, mirrored in the other place, on the then Government’s proposals for the future of the Armed Forces under the title of Options for Change. A part of that initiative was the proposal to merge the Staffordshire and Cheshire regiments—a merger which has now, many years later, taken place but which was fought vigorously at the time. In that debate, I and other noble Lords pointed out to the then Minister, my noble friend Lord Arran—he became a little aerated but I am delighted to say that we remain pretty good pals—that they were taking the risk of causing our Armed Forces to be seriously overstretched in the future. The plain fact of the matter now is that that scenario has come into being, and with a vengeance. Indeed, today with a reducing military, the British Armed Forces are participating in 15 NATO, EU, UN and OSCE missions. We have 41,000 troops in 32 countries and overseas territories. Surely the facts speak for themselves: our Armed Forces are seriously overcommitted. What plans do the Government have to alleviate this situation? Indeed, more than 18,000 reservists have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003. In April of this year, 2,000 reservists were serving on operations in those two countries. I am therefore delighted that the Government have performed a U-turn on their proposals to cut the TA budget drastically. But it beggars belief that they could even have contemplated such a move in the first place. On 28 October, the Secretary of State said in the other place: ""The Territorial Army and the UK reserve forces make a vital contribution to keeping our country safe—to defending our citizens, territory, interests and national security. They also make a vital contribution to the fabric of our society as a whole. They represent important values: a strong volunteer ethos, a commitment to service, giving back to society and the values of community"." That is sterling stuff. The right honourable Gentleman went on to say: ""The TA has become an integral arm of the regular Army, supporting the operational commitments of regular forces …14 members of the TA have died on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and more have been wounded, 31 returning with potentially life-changing injuries. Their sacrifice must not and will not be forgotten".—[Official Report, Commons, 28.10.09; col. 353-54.]" This was from the man who proposed to cut their funding drastically. It was sheer madness. It was only as a result of a major hue and cry that he changed his mind, and even that change of mind was piecemeal in its formulation—reacting to public opinion, yet again, when they realised that they had got it seriously wrong. We are constantly told by the Government that they are doing everything in their power to provide the best equipment and on time, but the current conflicts are very real, substantial and dangerous. The MoD’s current procurement programme, and the way in which it is run, is shambolic. Some of the equipment is unfit for purpose; some, like the Osprey body armour and most of the personal kit, is, on the other hand, excellent. Most of it takes far too long to procure, and all the time we are told that the MoD is desperately short of funding. We are talking about the lives and well-being of our service men and women, and I should have thought that they deserve the very best of support when they are loyally placing themselves at huge risk, and often paying the ultimate price, for the benefit of their country and their Government. When the Government find themselves able to pour numerous billions of taxpayers’ pounds into banks which very nearly failed due to the practices and failures of their managements, why on earth cannot they find the money to adequately fund our Armed Forces who are engaged in the defence of the realm and others, striving to provide a better future for ourselves and our children? Is it not high time that the Government began to take the advice of the chiefs of staff—the real professionals—when it comes to deployment numbers and other matters of a military nature?