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Armed Forces: Future Defence Policy

Having been on the receiving end of a leak earlier this week, I know exactly what the noble Earl means, but it is important that the general public and this House are aware of exactly what the Prime Minister said. I turn to the impact of funding on safety. A number of noble Lords, including the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, raised the issue of the Nimrod failure and the report by Charles Haddon-Cave. It was also mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh. I echo the comments last week of the Secretary of State for Defence when he expressed our deep regret for our failings and our apologies to all the families who have lost loved ones. We must ensure the safety of our personnel and we will address the very serious issues raised by Haddon-Cave. He remarked that in pursuing financial savings, the MoD and the RAF allowed their focus on safety to suffer. We have accepted this criticism with regard to the loss of Nimrod XV230. As I have said, the task for the MoD is to achieve more with less. However, this cannot be pursued at the expense of safety. We will do everything in our power to guard against anything such as this happening again. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and others set out very effectively their deep concerns on the Territorial Army. I assure him that we are maintaining normal training of the Territorial Army. I can confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Astor, that we see the reservists as an essential part of our Armed Forces. Following assurances from the Treasury, I am able to say that additional ring-fenced money—which the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, asked about—will be made available. We have, therefore, been able to restore the normal TA training regime. This is happening as quickly as possible. The noble Lords, Lord De Mauley and Lord Burnett, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, raised the question of whether or not it was an issue of the Regular Army causing the impact on the reservists. I can confirm that the intake to the Regular Army over the past year has increased by 8.7 per cent and outflow has reduced by 17.6 per cent. A number of noble Lords picked up specific points about operational equipment—in particular, helicopters. The noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, asked a number of questions about the Chinook mark 3. When the mark 3 helicopters were procured by the Conservative Government—that is how long ago the decision was taken—they were procured with an extremely advanced, experimental flight-control system that never worked. When I was Minister for Defence Procurement, I decided to stop the project to get the Chinooks to work, and instead reinstall the conventional flight-control system that was proven, in order to get the aircraft into action as quickly as possible. We are also increasing the overall size of our deployed battlefield helicopter fleet through the redeployment of Merlins—as a number of noble Lords mentioned—and the upgrading of Lynx helicopters with new engines. I understand the concerns over the provision of helicopters. I encourage noble Lords to read what the Chief of the Defence Staff said recently about helicopter provision. By the spring of next year, we will have more than doubled the number of battlefield helicopters—an increase of 130 per cent.