Brexit: Armed Forces and Diplomatic Service — House of Lords, 2016-12-08
Topic: Defense
Alan William John West (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we will all have seen the Prime Minister aboard HMS "Ocean" earlier this week in Bahrain. Did she know, as she spoke to the assembled ship’s company about the Navy and the importance of its global role post-Brexit, that that ship will be paid off in 2018, after a recent £65 million refit, with nothing to replace her? It is yet another cut to our perilously reduced fleet. We inhabit a dangerous world in which illiberal power is growing and liberal power declining. It is a world made dangerous by Europe’s retreat from power and its wilful refusal to invest in power. The Brexit decision compounds the problems relating to the UK’s defence and security. The dramatic rise in numbers of migrants either fleeing war and persecution or economic hardship is a stark reflection of all these pressures. In addition, we cannot be sure how much longer the United States will remain the ultimate guarantor of a rules-based international system. Russia is a particular concern, after events in the Crimea and Ukraine, cyberattacks across Europe and threats to the Baltic states. What is it doing? President Putin is a revisionist. He believes in areas of control and he understands and respects power In this highly dangerous world, we also have responsibilities for our 14 dependencies and for global shipping run from London. Post-Brexit, we will have to enforce our sea borders and exclusive economic zone much more fully than in the past. We have five Border Force vessels for about 8,000 miles of coastline. To give an example, the Netherlands has 16 for 280 miles of coastline. Perhaps we have got it wrong Faced with these global challenges, what are the Government doing? SDSR 2010 cut our military capability by 30%, as has been mentioned, and it has not recovered from that. It is no use pretending otherwise. There is not enough money in the defence budget. In particular, the Navy has too few ships and men, and is having to make incoherent cuts to keep within its budget; for example, paying off "Diligence" and "Ocean" and not having any surface-to-surface missiles. Far from increasing in numbers, as was stated by both the Prime Minister and the Defence Secretary in 2015—they said it would increase in numbers by 2035—the Navy is actually shrinking. I fear the Royal Navy is not capable of doing what our nation expects it to do We have only 19 escorts, which is a national disgrace, as I have said before. Two of these are tied up alongside because of lack of manpower due to the cuts made by the coalition in 2010. Of the 17 remaining ships, five destroyers have major intercooler problems and there is no rapid programme fixed for exactly when they will be repaired. The reality is that we have 12 escorts fully capable of operations, of which at least one will be in major repair. These 12 are Type 23 frigates. The oldest is 25 years old and the youngest 14; the ships were designed for an 18-year life. The Ministry of Defence has yet to explain how it will replace these ships, which are due to leave service at the rate of one per year from 2023 onwards, let alone increase the total number of escorts by the 2030s, which the noble Earl kindly confirmed is the Government’s aim Our forces are underfunded. There is no new money—it is, in theory, being produced by efficiencies. These efficiencies are impacting on the lives of our sailors, soldiers and airmen. I was given a recent example of an Army football team which could not go to a match because there was no bus because of the efficiency measures. This is unacceptable for a nation such as ours The Royal Navy has ensured the survival and wealth of our nation over several hundred years. We need to wake up to the fact that successive cuts have gone too far. No matter how stalwart the people—and, my goodness me, they are stalwart—or their professionalism, and we have the most professional forces in the world, without sufficient ships, it is as nothing. We are taking risk upon risk and suddenly, quite unexpectedly—because that is what happens in this chaotic and nasty world—it may affect our nation’s survival.