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Armed Forces: Future Defence Policy

My Lords, this debate is one of those where a summing-up is either a joy because you have so much to go for, or a complete nightmare because there is so much to talk about. I pay the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, yet another career-damaging compliment when I say that he started with a worryingly fair and even-handed speech. Indeed, it was reassuring and relaxing to hear something that did not have too much electioneering in it. Of course, his noble friend Lord Foulkes was on hand to correct the balance. This is a difficult subject and we have to make some very unpleasant choices. Two themes have emerged from today’s speeches: we must be ready for the unexpected and we must deal with the matter at hand. Those two themes have run through this debate. Which is the most important? It is up to us to give anybody who aspires to sit on the Treasury bench that leadership because the military cannot and should not be allowed to take this decision. We have to decide what we expect our military to do and give them the right equipment. It is fair to say that we are in desperate need of a defence review, because the situation we have got into was not foreseen or planned for and we have been operating from crisis to crisis. The Gray report, which stands in the background—preparing for this debate was the first time that I had read it in any depth—suggests that the procurement process can best be described as a bugger’s muddle. Projects are allowed to carry on and take money despite the fact that they are not working and are unlikely to deliver. I hope that this will give power to the Minister’s elbow when he deals with the problem, as well as to anybody else who fulfils his role in the future. Without tackling this kind of waste, we will never properly make sure that our troops have adequate equipment to do the jobs we ask of them. What are the jobs we ask of them? If we are to have a review, we must make a judgment on what our target is. If we are going to have to surrender some forms of capacity to enable us to do other things better—that is the "Afghanistan first" argument, I feel—we should embrace it quickly and say it quickly, because there is nothing worse than being caught between the two stools. If we are going to say, for instance, that our nuclear deterrent will be downgraded or possibly even removed to allow better resources for the job in hand, we should do it quickly. We should make sure that the resources are given to those service men and women who conducting the conflict. We should also make sure that our allies and those with whom we are working in concert, which includes the Afghans and the present president, know exactly what is acceptable in terms of their behaviour in the light of that conflict. We need also to ask what the price will be of pulling out and failing in Afghanistan. Let us be absolutely clear: it may well be the total destabilisation of a huge part of Asia and a possible change of leadership in Pakistan, drawing India into an ever more heated conflict with its neighbour. Are we prepared to take that risk? Are we prepared to risk the consequences for our streets of having that conflict playing out? Let us be very clear about our decisions. If we are not prepared to spend more money—and in the current environment, I do not think that anybody is suggesting a huge increase in defence expenditure—can we have the overall capacity to respond properly to every conceivable event? The answer is that we probably cannot. Does that mean that somebody is going to be annoyed and upset because something will be taken from them? Yes, it does. We must embrace this properly. The Gray report’s reference to various chiefs of staff fighting over not only who has which piece of the pie but what is in it is very worrying. Gilbert and Sullivan-like images came to mind of gorgeously uniformed people complaining, "I want my particular little project" and browbeating Ministers. I am sure that it is not like that—at least, I hope that it is not—but that is the image that started to come to me. Unless we are prepared to say to people, "You will take the back seat at the next review", and make sure they understand that, this confusion will carry on. We do not have to limit ourselves to one review. We should have frequent reviews, reflecting the fact that the world changes. We have the capacity to change our military strategy over X number of years. If it is necessary to buy in the technology and support to do it, so be it. If we are dealing with the world as it is, and not the way we have planned for it, which is half the problem with the military at the moment, we will have to look frequently at the situation and have the leadership to tell those in our military structures—and other politicians, who have nailed their colours to various masts—that, "The world has changed, that is no longer relevant, we are moving on". That will mean that other people will be upset frequently. As I promised that I would not take up all the time allowed for the wind-up, as my noble friend used it, I come to one last area that has been mentioned. When I first started speaking on defence matters a few years ago, one of the first meetings that I went to was at the Royal British Legion to discuss its idea about the covenant for servicemen. It has been frequently pointed out in this debate that, traditionally, we have not looked after our servicemen well. Indeed, some people still seem to have the attitude that the Duke of Wellington did after some looting, when he referred to his troops as the "scum of the earth, enlisted for drink". We have had an appalling history of discarding people from our Armed Forces without properly preparing them. We should look at the historically very high numbers of people who end up being homeless and in prison at the end of even quite long military service. That problem is greatly compounded by the stress of combat—which is something that we understand now. We must work this into the package for our service personnel. If we are asking people to risk their lives and we are going to pay them, we should at least make sure that they have a chance of spending their pensions when they leave.