Army Restructuring: Future Soldier — House of Commons, 2021-11-25
Topic: Defense
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement, although I am disappointed not to receive the breakdown of the new Army structure, as I know he intended, which he says is now on the website. The devil, as always, is in the detail and we will study that closely The Defence Secretary says that this statement builds on the defence Command Paper published in March. It does indeed answer points about Army structure, but it provides no answers to the bigger, more important questions about Army strategy and Army size. The Command Paper confirmed: "Russia continues to pose the greatest nuclear, conventional military and subthreshold threat to European security." Yet it failed then to define a clear mission and role for the Army, especially in relation to that threat. This statement fails the same test. Given recent events, not least in Ukraine, surely the Army’s primary role must be to reinforce Europe against Russia and to be an effective war-fighting partner to NATO allies. This demands high-end war-fighting capabilities, not just light forces and cyber operations. A single war-fighting division was promised for 2025. This is the heart of our UK commitment to NATO deterrence and defence. The Chief of the Defence Staff has said that it is "the standard whereby a credible army is judged", so why will this fully capable division, including a new strike brigade, now not be battle-ready until 2030 The Defence Secretary has described the new Ajax armoured vehicle as the "nucleus" of our modernised war-fighting capability, yet his Minister has now admitted that there is "no realistic timescale" for getting Ajax into service. Why did the Defence Secretary scrap Warrior, scale back Challenger and double down on Ajax when the MOD knew that there were serious problems? What is the plan to provide the Army with kit it needs now if it has to contribute to a major conflict? The Secretary of State cannot say he has reduced the role of the Army; he cannot say the Army already has the high-tech kit it needs to replace boots on the ground; and he cannot say the threats to the UK have diminished—indeed, today he said they are proliferating—yet he is still cutting the Army’s established strength by 9,000 over the next three years, and that is on top of 16,000 soldiers cut since 2010 The Prime Minister promised at his election manifesto launch in 2019, on behalf of all Conservative Members: "We will not be cutting our armed forces in any form. We will be maintaining the size of our armed forces." The Prime Minister may take the pledges he makes to our armed forces and the public lightly, but we do not. By the time of the next election, Britain will have the smallest Army in 300 years. Size matters. The Defence Secretary’s deeper cuts now could limit our forces’ ability simultaneously to deploy overseas, support allies, maintain strong national defences, and reinforce our domestic resilience—just as they have in helping the country through the covid crisis. We are a leading NATO member and a United Nations P5 country that may again get called on to deploy and sustain forces away from the UK. We may not seek a major crisis but experience tells us that it may well come to us Why have MOD civilian staff increased by 2,200usb since 2015 while the number of full-time soldiers has been cut by 5,000? Why has the Defence Secretary recruited 962 MOD managers in the past year alone? Why has the black hole in the defence budget got £4 billion bigger since he became Defence Secretary? Why is he the only Cabinet Minister to agree real cuts to the revenue budget for his Department over the next three years? Despite what he claims, is not the truth that this plan for the British Army is dictated by costs, not threats The Army rightly says that the role of the infantry "is at the core of the Army; from peacekeeping to combat operations, anywhere in the world—our Infanteers lead the way." Yet they will bear the brunt of the cuts in this new structure. What is the cut to infantry numbers? Will this involve a halt to recruitment or simply a slowing of the rate of recruitment? Will the new brigade combat teams have a mix of wheeled and tracked vehicles, and will this mean moving at the pace of the slowest? We welcome the new special operations brigade, but how will this increased number of special forces be fully recruited from the reduced ranks of the wider Army? We welcome the plan to maintain the British Army presence across the UK, but can the Defence Secretary confirm whether all existing planned base closures in England will still go ahead? Will the UK’s long-established training base in Canada close, and does this signal the end of training for tank warfare I fear that this plan leaves the British Army too small, too thinly stretched and too poorly equipped to deal with the threats that the UK and our allies now face, which are growing and diversifying.