Armed Forces

My Lords, this is one of those debates where you look at the list of speakers and tremble slightly. I do not know whether my words will add to the greater volume of knowledge by the end of this debate, but I will certainly acquire greater knowledge. It was a problem that I could find very little to disagree with in what the noble Lord, Lord King, said; virtually nothing until his last couple of sentences. The fact is that we are in an ongoing war, for which we were not prepared and for which our Armed Forces were not really designed. We have prepared on the hoof our level of equipment, design and tactics to try to meet the targets. As the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, suggested, our Armed Forces are involved in a major structural alliance that was designed for another era. The fact that NATO now includes Poland suggests that something that was designed to combat the Warsaw Pact is totally out of date. All our structures and our thinking need to be attacked from that point of view, and it is from there that we need to go on. As the noble Lord, Lord King, said, the fact that we are fighting an ongoing conflict means that we should fundamentally deal with that conflict, because it will be a long slog. People have suggested that there might be elements of engagement there for decades, so we must make sure that our troops on the ground have the appropriate equipment and the appropriate structure to deal with this. This argument is not that new. The minute that the Cold War was seen to be over and other disputes broke out—the Balkans being the classic one—the idea of smaller, peacekeeping units trying to get between not very sophisticated armies, using cheap, mass-produced weapons with which the world is still awash, was seen to be the format in which we should be specialising. How far have we engaged in making sure that this is the case? Is our investment in the right type of technology? Main battle tanks might have been quite useful when we rolled into Iraq, but we discovered that we did not need them. Our light armour was quite sufficient for the job, because our enemy simply cannot match us. Are we liable to meet someone there? Are we going to invest in new forms and structures of defence? Can NATO be developed into something that will enhance that role? Having read some of the NATO articles, I have come to the conclusion that it thinks that to still be relevant it must take on much more this role of peacekeeping, monitoring and helping. This role will also probably seem more attractive to its newer members. We must make sure that we do not give nationalistic politicians in Russia an excuse for going clinging back to nurse, saying "We are still being persecuted". We should try to move away from what is left of the confrontational structure. I shall move on to talk about the support and care of our service men and women. Both noble Lords have spoken about combat stress, and I endorse what they have said. Let us not fool ourselves. Combat stress is only a part of the problem. We are discovering that those who leave the Armed Forces, particularly in the junior ranks, seem to be particularly badly prepared for civilian life. These people often join the Army young and then do not have to deal with the mundane difficulties of life, such as organising how to pay bills, where you go and what you do, and how to find accommodation. They might have low literacy skills and so on; I have discovered that the Army is one of the better employers of dyslexics. The Army gives them structure and help but they are then, after X number of years, effectively dumped on the street. They are then told, as the noble Lord has said, that they can get help if they ask for it: "If you fill in form XBY, turn up on time, in the right place and say the right thing, you will get help". That is a recipe for only those who least need it getting the best help; only those with parents who are capable of assisting them, for instance. Let us face it: these people will not be that young when they leave. The Ministry of Defence should have a good look at the experience of, say, the department for education in getting support and help for people. The Armed Forces should take on board the idea that only the middle class, who can probably subsidise these things, get the help because it is difficult to access through bureaucracy. They should make their help available to those who need it. I hope that the Minister can respond to that. How well does he think that the Armed Forces are doing in ensuring that their support for ex-servicemen gets to those who need it most?