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Future Defence Programme

My Lords, I start by welcoming the areas where there was some agreement. It is clear that the decision to have an extra 22 Chinook helicopters, together with the decisions on the C-17 and the extra investment in work against IEDs, which are of course very dangerous for our people in Afghanistan, have all been welcomed. It is important to remember the changing nature of the situation that we are facing on operations. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Astor, acknowledged that the enemy is adapting very quickly. That is one reason why we have to be responsive, why we have urgent operational requirements and why it is right that we step back from time to time and look at our equipment priorities. We are now trying to make sure that we concentrate our attention on areas where operations lessons have been learnt but where there are longer-term implications. None of us can say exactly what the future threats will be, but we know that we will have to be adaptable and flexible in all that we do. It is right that we learn those lessons and think ahead as we do so. Perhaps I may pick up on what the noble Lord, Lord Astor, said about my colleague, the Minister with responsibility for defence equipment and support. I did not hear that particular radio interview but I am certainly aware that no single party has said that it will increase defence expenditure, although there have been rumours about what will and will not be cancelled by others. I should like this House, and indeed the other place, to have a very mature debate on what the priorities for defence should be and what equipment decisions should follow from that, as from many other decisions. That is one reason why it is very appropriate that we have a Green Paper in advance of the Strategic Defence Review, and I hope that we will be able to debate that in this House with those who have a genuine interest in exploring the future. The one thing that we do know is that the next threat will not be the same as the previous one: we are in a very fast-changing situation with globalisation and new challenges. The noble Lord, Lord Astor, mentioned money being spent on climate change, but there are of course security implications in climate change. Given the nature of the possible contributors, I hope that this House will look forward to having a non-political, mature and wise debate on that Green Paper in advance of any decisions made in the Strategic Defence Review. I repeated in the Statement the spending that the Secretary of State announced when he made his Statement in another place. Defence expenditure is not being cut. So far as concerns defence expenditure, the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement stands—that is, £35.4 billion, which, as I said, is 10 per cent more in real terms than in 1997. The extra £14 billion that the Treasury has put in for operations since 2002 is an exceptional amount of money. It has been very important and shows a degree of commitment that perhaps belies the noble Lord’s description of the Chancellor, now the Prime Minister. He suggested that the Prime Minister was semi-detached. A Chancellor who allows that amount of spending from the reserve, and a Prime Minister who has overseen an increase in spending from the reserve, is hardly semi-detached. His weekend visit to the front line, which I understand is the first such visit by a Prime Minister for a very long time, shows a very high level of commitment. The noble Lord, Lord Lee, asked how we could allow the carriers to go ahead. We allowed the carriers to go ahead because they allowed for a level of deployability that could perhaps not be matched in any other way, which was important. The helicopter issue has been raised by both of the noble Lords. The do not think that the Ministers at the time plucked a cut in anticipated spending on helicopters out of the air. That was part of a review that was going on at that time about what was appropriate. Since that time we have had very significant changes and improvements in our helicopter capability; indeed, the number of platforms and the percentage increase in flying hours in Afghanistan have increased very dramatically in recent years. It is true to say that we are now spending more on helicopters than was anticipated in 2004 to 2005. We are consolidating four types of helicopters, which should improve our position in terms of support, maintenance and the training of pilots and all those required. I was asked whether we would make sure that the Chinooks that we are buying off the shelf from the United States and then making adjustments to—the quickest way of obtaining them and making them deployable—would have adequately trained pilots and maintenance staff. Of course we need all of that back up. The improvements that we have been able to make in flying hours in Afghanistan have been precisely because we have invested in maintenance crews and the training of pilots. That is important and something that we can do. In terms of Astute, we are looking at the production drumbeat. We are having a review of that with industry, which will be reporting in spring of next year, not least because of the practical difficulties that industry has been encountering. It is extremely important that we have a sustainable drumbeat that meets everybody’s needs. In terms of A400M, we all know that this has been a very difficult and ambitious project. It should be a very good plane. We are very keen to have it, but we are not keen to have it at any price. We have to make sure that we can afford it and that it will deliver, in a timely way, some of the capacity that we believe we need. I was asked whether we should be looking at training for the Army and where there might be cuts. The Statement itself says that the priority will be given to all training that is relevant to the operations in Afghanistan. Cuts will come on more routine exercises that are not pertinent to Afghanistan. In terms of the estate, I was asked where there we will be spending. We are giving priority to service family accommodation to Project SLAM. Office accommodation and things of that kind will be affected. I am not in a position to say what the situation is in terms of RAF personnel. It is very early days. We will be happy to keep people posted. At the moment it is not possible to make proper estimates. I was asked whether it would be better if we were doing this after the defence review. The decisions that we have made, which have the support of the Chief of the Defence Staff and all the service chiefs, make sure that we do not take out any vital capability and that we do not in that way pre-empt the Strategic Defence Review. That has been one of the priorities in looking at this whole process. Therefore, we have made very balance decisions.