Armed Forces

My Lords, it does not begin to do justice to the occasion to begin my speech with the customary reference to the pleasure that it gives me to follow my predecessor. It is a delight to welcome back to our debates my noble friend, who has just pleased us with her speech about the Gurkhas, which I hope will receive great consideration. Having sat next to my noble friend for the last 10 or 11 years, I never doubted her resolution to come back after her long and regrettable absence through disability. We welcome her very warmly. There could hardly be a more timely moment for my noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater to have given us the opportunity for this debate. We are on the verge of completing our military withdrawal from Iraq, save for a few detachments. Our troops are coming back at the conclusion of a dangerous and difficult job, most professionally carried out, as has been so warmly acknowledged. I share that acknowledgement and gratitude. For all our Armed Forces’ high reputation, I would, if I were the Defence Secretary, be a deeply troubled man, even if I had the experience and very great qualities of the present incumbent, who I happen to think is the best that this Government have produced. The Defence Secretary must often wish that he had half the number of infantry battalions as the battalions in which his sorrows come. A major concern of his surely will be for the well-being, safety and fair treatment of the young men and women who are committed to his charge in the Armed Forces. Across all three services—mainly, of course, in the Army—these young men and women are called on to place themselves potentially in the way of mortal danger, often in tours of duty that recur far too frequently, yet they have never let us down and their contribution has been immense. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, mentioned the Army in Northern Ireland. He spoke movingly of what it had to experience in Omagh. I was deeply grateful during my tenure there for the way in which the Army carried out its difficult and sophisticated tasks. In comparison with today’s challenges for the Armed Forces, it is worth noting that in Northern Ireland we never had to face a suicide bomber. The terrorists there were pretty keen to preserve their own skins. Alas, that is not true in the Middle East or in Afghanistan. If the Defence Secretary is to do his duty by the Armed Forces, he must protect them from further deployments that involve overstretch and insufficient operational support. He must protect them from what I euphemistically call today the "pinch points in manning", or the absence of proper numbers, which is what that really means in English, of skilled service people to fill important posts. That is experienced in all three services. He must also protect them from insufficient research into technology and into other areas on which future operational capabilities will depend. At the moment, all those things are brought about by a lack of resources. Stories of failure in those quarters are, unfortunately, legion and their effect on recruitment and retention are well known. They all derive from the old sin, committed by all Governments, of failing to match commitments to the resources that they are prepared to devote. The Secretary of State also has to see that our forces are provided with what may be called a war aim that is defined clearly and convincingly and seen to be both worthy and winnable. Public support for what the forces are called on to do will always demand that, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, has frequently said. In the first Gulf War, the question that he was most frequently asked by soldiers was, "Is the country behind us?". On that occasion they could be reassured about that, but these days, in my experience, there is far less assurance of it. The Government have much more to do before there is the same measure of support for our operations in Afghanistan. To put it bluntly, there is a feeling in the country that the war there against the Taliban is unwinnable and I would be surprised if that does not also find a place among some of our service people who so loyally conduct it. Would it not have been far more realistic first to have secured Kabul as a firm base and then to have widened the hunt and sought to enlarge the footprint of the rule of law in Afghanistan? People have always been sceptical that sound, fully fledged democratic government can somehow gratefully spring forth, but that is what we seem to have hoped for. The Prime Minister’s Statement yesterday indicates that the Government know better now, which is welcome. I think that the Government are right in what they are seeking to achieve now, but it will take time to overturn the damage done to confidence, which is not good for the forces. The Government are right to perceive that the Taliban either will have to be defeated in the area of the country bordering Pakistan or will have to be defeated on the streets of Britain and so forth. Public scepticism has to be overturned. It is not from any ghoulish desire on my part to pile Pelion upon the Ossa of the Secretary of State’s troubles but, out of sympathy for him, I end by referring to a very dark cloud indeed. In the light of the appalling state of public finances, he will have to fight some lonely battles in Cabinet for what he knows the forces need. That has been foreseen by other speakers today. Unless it is the Prime Minister himself, no colleague will stand up for him; they will all recite the mantra that, if they are to make sacrifices, the Defence Secretary must make them on an equal basis. That is not so. No other department’s sacrifices will foreseeably result in young men and women needlessly losing their lives while striving to make our country safe. He will have to stand and fight. If he goes down, he will know that he has done his duty; if he succeeds, the credit will extend not only to him but also to the Government of whom he is a part. I wish him well in that fight, which he will certainly have to wage.