My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, for this very timely debate. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Hintze, on his splendid maiden speech; I am delighted that he changed from khaki in Australia to dark blue in the UK. I am delighted by his links with the Royal Navy and welcome him to the House.
A few days ago, the Defence Secretary repeated, as was said by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, that our armed services were “hollowed out” and had been for a number of years, and that it was getting worse. Well, what a surprise. This is something that a number of us in this place have been banging on about for a considerable time. We were constantly told that we were talking nonsense. I looked back through Hansard; I went back only five years but, time and again, I saw that it was a constant theme of mine and that the government and MoD response every time was that I did not really understand it and that everything was well. Clearly, it was not.
The Ukraine war has been a wake-up call reminding us all of the fact that, in peer-on-peer conflict—I use that term advisedly, I must say—weapon usage rates are extremely high. This is something that we knew but, for a number of years, not least due to financial
pressures and because our enemies have been terrorists and not national armies, successive Administrations have ignored what we had learned at such cost. What is quite clear is the inadequacy of both the weapons and munitions stocks across all three services. It is the same for weapon holdings as well. For several years, ships have left their home ports without full outfits of weapons. This is unacceptable because, once a ship deploys, it may well end up in a hot war. Historically, we were aware of that and never let it happen. For example, HMS “Exeter” was in the West Indies guard ship in early 1982; she was deployed south as soon as the war started in the south Atlantic. Although one would never use Sea Dart missiles in the guard ship role in the West Indies—stopping hurricanes and the like—she had the full outfit of Sea Darts and used them to very good effect protecting the carrier, fighting down south and shooting down Argentinian aircraft.
Addressing these problems should be one of the highest priorities for the Government, as was recognised by the International Relations and Defence Committee, which has been referred to already: its very good report recognised this. The other thing that has been highlighted is the importance of spares, support and maintenance back-up. As defence funding has been squeezed—and it has been, year on year, over the last few years—so crucial maintenance has been curtailed due to lack of stores items. This actually impacts on personnel: if you are a key maintenance rating on a ship, you are proud of your weapons system, you are ready to do the work, you will work overnight when the ship is in harbour, and then you are told, “We haven’t got that bit of spare gear: I’m sorry, you will just not be able to do it.” That is really bad for morale and it impacts on people staying in the service or leaving. Of course, it leads to breakdown of very key machinery and weapons systems and you then end up deploying without them.
There is clearly a need to build greater resilience into the UK’s own stocks, supply chains, as was mentioned by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and industrial capacity. Industrial capacity needs to be looked at very closely. I will not go into that now but, my goodness me, it does. It is not just quantity of ammunition, missiles and spares that are significant; the number of people and platforms have a significance as well. We have not faced a peer enemy in a hot war, really, since the Second World War—only briefly in Korea and briefly in the south Atlantic. Like the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, I do not want to be nostalgic about it, but between the break-out from Normandy and the surrender of the Germans on Lüneburg Heath, when we had huge, overwhelming air power, the British Army in Europe lost 4,500 tanks in action against the Germans. This gives an idea of the scale of these things.
The loss rates of tanks in the Ukraine war and the clamour by Ukraine for more armour show that tank numbers are important. There had been a growing consensus that the tank was a thing of the past. Attack helicopters, drones and smart long-range missiles meant they were rather like the battleship and no longer relevant. It always struck me as strange, I have to say, when I sat in committees in the MoD: if the tank was no longer important, why the hell were we spending so much money on systems to destroy them?
But that is another issue. We have been too quick to discard tanks, and the fall in numbers is now a real problem, I believe, for the Army. Of course, we have given some away as well—quite rightly, but, my goodness me, I think we need to look at that carefully.
I have another figure from years ago. One hopes there is never fighting like this again, but 105 years ago, post the battle of Amiens where we defeated the German army, the British Army, probably the most powerful British Army we ever had, was advancing and beating the Germans day by day until the surrender on 11 November 1918. We suffered 412,000 casualties out of the 1.9 million men fighting. Once again, personnel losses in the Ukraine war have been highlighted: when you are fighting like this, you suffer large losses and the massive conscription efforts by the Russians, in particular, but also by the Ukrainians, show this. When I did my platoon commander’s course in 1966, the average regiment had about 760 men in it. Now, the average regiment has about 400 men in it. I cannot believe that is just because they are doing things more efficiently. When it comes to rifle teams and such things, you need certain numbers. So numbers are actually important, and with war raging in Europe and the possibility of a world war, do we really believe that 70,000 is the right strength for our Army? I am not sure that is right.
Certainly, as an island nation—I would say this, would I not?—in the final analysis, the maritime is the most crucial environment for the security, survival and wealth of our nation. In World War II, the Royal Navy lost 132 destroyers ensuring that survival. We presently have six in our Navy. In the Falklands, 16 of our frigates and destroyers were lost or very badly damaged. We do not actually have that number operational today. Numbers are important.
As for logistics, it is interesting that, between the wars, we used to think about these sorts of things. We actually ensured that, with our 850-ship Navy, we had enough oil in stock in the UK to fight for six months at war rates. People were thinking about resilience. People do not seem to think about resilience now: everything is just enough, just in time. Yet our NATO allies look to the UK to provide maritime capability. The chairman of the US joint combined chiefs said that sea power was something that
“the United States, for a variety of reasons, expects our British allies to contribute to.”
Our contribution, I have to say, is smaller than is needed.
I find it extraordinary that, as almost every other country has raised defence spending, some by huge amounts, as the war in Ukraine has progressed, the UK has not. How much risk are we willing to take? It is all very well providing Ukraine with equipment, and it is absolutely right that we should, and if necessary, provide even more, but I think we should make sure that our forces our ready and fully equipped for a possible war. By doing that—people watch this—we are much more likely to prevent a world war. People such as Putin look at our Armed Forces. He has looked, over the past few years, at how we and Europe seem to have had no interest in our defence forces, and
he has taken that as a green light to go and do things. I end by saying that I believe the Government are sleepwalking into disaster unless they rapidly grip this issue and increase defence spending.
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