---

Strategic Defence Review

STATEMENT My Lords, first, I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in offering sincere condolences to the families and friends of those who were killed on operations in Afghanistan recently. They are: Captain Daniel Read of 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps; Rifleman Luke Farmer of 3rd Battalion, The Rifles; Corporal Lee Brownson of 3rd Battalion, The Rifles; Rifleman Peter Aldridge of 4th Battalion, The Rifles; Lance Corporal Daniel Cooper, of 3rd Battalion, The Rifles; Lance Corporal Graham Shaw of 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment; and Corporal Liam Riley of 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment. I am sure that our thoughts are with all of their families and friends and, indeed, all who are serving in Afghanistan at the moment. With the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Defence Secretary. The Statement is as follows: "Mr Speaker, today I am publishing a Defence Green Paper which paves the way for a Strategic Defence Review, set in the context of the national security strategy, early in the next Parliament. At the present time, Afghanistan is the main effort for the Ministry of Defence. Where choices have to be made, Afghanistan will continue to be given priority. Our forces there are fighting hard, protecting our national security by preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists. Two hundred and fifty-three British service personnel have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. Many more have suffered life-changing injuries. Their bravery in the face of a ruthless enemy has been a stark reminder to us all that conflict is difficult and dangerous. We certainly cannot assume that the conflicts of tomorrow will replicate today’s, but we must anticipate a wide range of threats and plan for the requirements necessary to counter them. We have come a long way since our last major defence review in 1998, which gave us the platform to modernise our Armed Forces. Looking forward, we will need to make decisions about the role we want the United Kingdom to play in the world and the capabilities that the Armed Forces need to support that role. We will need to balance those considerations with the financial implications in what will inevitably be a resource-constrained environment. This Green Paper does not attempt to answer those fundamental questions. Instead, it is intended to set out our emerging thinking on the future security environment and other key issues facing defence ahead of the review. While there is no external direct threat to the territorial integrity of the UK, there is a wide range of emerging threats for which we must be prepared. We can work to diminish the threat of international terrorism and to counter the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. We can work to prevent emerging threats—for example, by improving our approach to cybersecurity—and to contain and resolve the threat from failing states. We can work to ensure that the impacts of climate change and resource competition are managed peacefully. But my judgment is that conflict and instability in this new age will be an ever-present risk. In the face of these threats, no nation can hope to protect all aspects of national security acting alone. We cannot simply defend from the goal line, and our defence posture must reflect this. In the coming decades, our Armed Forces must be prepared if called upon to protect our interests, often in distant places, and, most likely, as part of a coalition of international forces. The paper therefore reaches two conclusions. First, that defence must accelerate the process of reform and be able to change swiftly to address new and unforeseen challenges as they emerge. We need to be more adaptable in how we structure, equip, train and generate our Armed Forces. We need a more agile defence organisation. We need more responsive strategic planning. So, today, I am proposing that we should legislate for regular defence reviews to ensure that the Armed Forces continue to adapt rapidly to changing trends and threats. Secondly, the paper concludes that defence must improve its ability to work in partnership with our key allies and security institutions to make the most of our combined resources. Our alliances and partnerships will become increasingly important and define how successful we will be in meeting the challenges that we face. We strengthen our alliance with the US if we strengthen our position in Europe. We will continue to press our European allies to contribute more to our collective defence effort. But make no mistake: this is not about Europe taking precedence over the US or vice versa. The two are mutually reinforcing relationships. In the UK itself, we need to improve further our partnerships with key Whitehall departments and others to ensure the contribution of our Armed Forces is joined up with our diplomatic and development efforts. In addition to the conclusions on adaptability and partnership, the paper poses six key strategic questions that the review will need to address. These are: where should we set the balance between focusing on our territory and region and engaging threats at a distance? How far are future conflicts likely to share the characteristics of our engagement in Afghanistan and, therefore, what approach should we take if we employ the Armed Forces to address threats at distance? What contribution should the Armed Forces make in ensuring security and contributing to resilience within the UK? How could we more effectively employ the Armed Forces in support of wider efforts to prevent conflict and strengthen international stability? Do our current international defence and security relationships require rebalancing in the longer term? Should we further integrate our forces with those of key allies and partners? Although the defence budget has grown by more than 10 per cent in real terms since 1998 and not a penny will be cut from next year’s budget, the forward defence programme faces real financial pressure. We need to rebalance what we do in order to meet our priorities. In December, I began this process; I made a series of decisions to ensure that we found extra resources for vital equipment for Afghanistan. This included 22 new Chinook helicopters, which will provide necessary strategic lift capability for Afghanistan and for other military operations in the years ahead. However, our commitment to reduce the deficit resulting from the global financial crisis means that future resources across government will be constrained. The report of Bernard Gray into defence acquisition set out clearly the pressures facing the defence budget. It also set out the importance of improving our procurement processes and addressing the shortfalls in our acquisition systems. The Strategy for Acquisition Reform, published alongside today’s Green Paper, sets out how we will tackle the challenges facing this major area of defence expenditure. The major reforms it proposes will deliver enduring change by introducing greater transparency. It will ensure that our equipment plans are efficient, strategically focused, affordable and achievable. But it is not just in equipment acquisition that we will need to do better. We are aiming to deliver efficiency savings of more than £3 billion over the current spending review period. We have a strong programme of work to achieve this, including an independent review into the use of civilians in defence by Gerry Grimstone. Our biggest capability is our people. We rely on the ability of people, both military and civilian, to deliver defence. We need to attract the best people: highly motivated and highly skilled. Our people have already shown their capacity to adapt to new challenges. We must continue to ensure that the structures and training that support them are fit for purpose, including continuing to strengthen joint approaches across the services. There has been a great deal of interest and speculation about whether any major capabilities will be confirmed in the Green Paper. This is to misunderstand its purpose. I can say that we do not plan to revisit the conclusions of the 2006 White Paper on the nuclear deterrent. We have committed to a wide range of major capability improvements over the past few years, including most recently signing contracts for two new aircraft carriers; and recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated the importance of being able to deploy and sustain significant numbers of highly trained and equipped troops in a variety of roles, including providing the air and aviation support that they require. Unless the defence review takes us in a very radical new direction, it is the Government’s position that these capabilities are likely to remain critical elements of our force structure, but we need to know first what roles and missions we expect our forces to undertake in future before we can take final decisions about the capabilities that they will need. These will be key issues for the defence review. Let us be clear. Change is needed. There are some tough and important decisions ahead. In my view, we must, as far as possible, put aside our special interests, in politics, in industry and in the services, to take rational decisions that benefit the defence and security of the nation. In preparing the Green Paper, I consulted widely with academia, across government and with the main opposition parties. I am grateful for the help I received. I should like to thank, in this House, the right honourable Member for North East Fife and the honourable Member for Mid Sussex, and, in the other place, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who all sat on my Defence Advisory Forum. Where the defence of the nation is concerned, we must seek as far as possible to reach consensus on the main issues. I hope that the Green Paper I am publishing today helps that process and leads to a mature and well-informed debate about the future structure of our Armed Forces.