Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200
- 219)
WEDNESDAY 20 OCTOBER 2004
AIR CHIEF
MARSHAL SIR
JOCK STIRRUP
KCB AFC ADC
Q200 Chairman: I recall their High
Commissioner as saying that they had pilots without aircraft and
we had aircrafts without pilots. That was not true but it made
the point. What are they actually doing now? It must be three
or four years since we brought them over.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
They are in use across our structure. We have some in Jaguar force,
we have some instructing, we have some in other forces, and they
are all doing well.
Chairman: I am delighted to hear that.
Frank please.
Q201 Mr Roy: It has been announced
that RAF manpower will fall by 7,500 or 15 per cent by April 2008.
Given the demanding operational tempo which the RAF, in common
with the other Services, has found itself in, how do you justify
that decision?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
We justify it by instituting ways of working that require fewer
people and when I say instituting I am not talking about me or
my commanders-in-chief instituting, I am talking about those that
actually do the work. If you go to Lossiemouth, if you go to Leuchars
and you look at the aircraft servicing flights there and you look
at the way that they have reduced, for example, the time that
an aircraft needs to spend on the hangar floor undergoing a primary
from 14 or 15 days down to two or two and a half days this is
through the work of those on the shopfloor—the senior NCOs
the corporals, the technicians—who have employed their knowledge,
their skills and their talent to driving out inefficiency. All
of this of course reduces requirement for people. I have given
you one example but there are many others in this leaning process,
as we put it. Similarly, bringing the different parts of the logistic
supply chain together in one place, the depth support and the
forward support being done together, gives you economies of scale
and gives you economies in the use of resources which reduce the
overall requirement for people. In all of this we have watched
very carefully implications for our Harmony guidelines and we
are very clear that we are able to do this without impacting on
those.
Q202 Mr Roy: Sir Jock, 7,500 men
and women losing their jobs is a very, very serious matter no
matter what sector they are in. What proportion of the reductions
that you have been speaking about will be through the dreaded
compulsory redundancies?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
We do not have an answer to that yet because the detailed numbers
are still being worked out but it will not be the major portion.
Q203 Mr Roy: When will those numbers
be worked out?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I would imagine by around the end of the year.
Q204 Mr Roy: And that presumably
would then be passed on to the workforce?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
Absolutely. I would just say that none of us likes a redundancy
programme but it is very important at the end of this reduction
that we have a structure that provides the operational capability
we need and provides good opportunities for the people within
it that is able to reward talent and good work.
Q205 Mr Roy: It is also very important
not only for the people within it but for the people you have
paid off? It is also very important to those people, for example,
who will be given the opportunity to retrain.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
Indeed so and the redundancy provisions will be precisely in line
with those that are laid down in Queen's Regulations for the Royal
Air Force.
Q206 Chairman: Just a couple more
questions. I go back on the Defence Committee so far that I remember
being very critical of the Phoenix, all of which kept crashing.
I am delighted to say it has metamorphosised into a very effective
Army resource. UAVs are Army but anything that goes up in the
air obviously, Sir Jock, you have an interest in and UAVs may
come closer within your remit in the years ahead. I want to ask
you on Watchkeeper, which is planned to deliver a tactical UAV
capability in 2006, what role do you see for the extended range
UAVs in support of air capabilities in the coming years? I will
link to that because you might move into it without being invited.
Are armed UAVs a realistic prospect in the next 10 to 15 years
or perhaps even earlier?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
Chairman, you know my views on this particular subject, we have
discussed it before. As you are aware, I was a key part of setting
up the joint UVA experimentation programme in my previous job
so it will not surprise you when I say that I believe UAVs in
a whole variety of shapes and forms and capabilities will play
a key part in our future force structure. We are not yet able
to say precisely how, in what numbers, doing what because we have
much more to learn. So the key is to get on with learning what
they are good at, what they are less good at, what their competitive
advantage is, if I can put it that way, and how we leverage that.
That of course is one of the fundamental purposes of the joint
UVA experimentation programme in which we are fully engaged. I
also believe that an unmanned combat aerial vehicle will play
a key part in our future force structure and we have a lot of
work in hand to again understand what advantages it would offer
us, what changes it would mean in our force structure, doctrine,
processes, command and control, organisation, and so on. I do
not want to go into the details of precisely what we are doing
but we have a lot of work in hand and it is a key priority area
for me. We are driving it very hard.
Q207 Chairman: Can you strap a missile
to your projected Watchkeeper?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
First of all, I cannot answer that specific question. I am not
sure, though, that that is the route that we would take. Watchkeeper
is being procured as a total system of which UAV is a part specifically
to meet a land commander's information requirements, and that
is what it must do, that is what it must deliver. The important
point I would make is that we must not constrain that information
purely to the land commander. It must be made available through
our network enabled capability to a wide range of people. However,
that is the purpose of that system and that is what it must be
focused on. However there are, as we know, a wide range of UAVs
which can carry and deliver weapons now.
Chairman: Thank you. Mike for the last
few questions.
Q208 Mike Gapes: Helicopters. It
is clear to our Committee in evidence that we have seen that helicopter
crews in Op Telic were overstretched and under pressure and there
were reports of fatigued crews and other issues subsequently,
yet despite that we seem to be in a situation where the reduction
in tensions in Northern Ireland is being used as a reason to reduce
the Puma force by six aircraft and nine crews there even though
the National Audit Office have reported that military tactical
airlift capability is already 40 per cent under strength. Helicopters
operate in all three Services and my short question is are you
the champion of the helicopter?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I am certainly a champion of helicopters. When I was AOC1 group,
before the introduction of Joint Helicopter Command, I had all
the RAF support helicopters under me. Although my background is
as a fast jet pilot I flew both the Chinook and the Puma and qualified
as a captain on the Puma, so I am deeply interested in support
helicopter and wider helicopter issues for that reason, and of
course for the reason that they are a critical defence resource.
However, I am not the sole champion of helicopters. I am sure
the First Sea Lord would want to claim a role there not least
for his anti-submarine warfare and airborne early warning capabilities
mounted from his ships and of course the Chief of General Staff
has a distinct interest in battle field helicopters and not least
in Apache. So if you are asking me is there one helicopter supremo
in the Ministry of Defence then the answer to that is no. On the
other hand, if you have got all three chiefs-of-staff swinging
for you I would have thought that was a distinct advantage.
Q209 Mike Gapes: Should there not
be one? Is it not time that we had a more logical way of looking
at this and, as has been argued by some people, to have one of
the three Service chiefs taking overall responsibility for helicopters?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I do not think so because helicopters are not a capability, helicopters
are a means of delivering capability, and so the real issue is
what is the nature of that capability and what is the environment
in which it principally operates.
Q210 Mike Gapes: If I can be clear,
you do not think it would be helpful to have a sense of co-ordination
where helicopters overall were looked at rather than each of the
three Service chiefs doing things in their own areas when in fact
the helicopter has such flexibility that it can move from one
role to another, and as we saw in Op Telic helicopters were used
over land that were not designed for use over land.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
But the chiefs do not do their own thing in different areas. We
have a Joint Helicopter command which is at the moment commanded
by an RAF Two Star but is part of Land Command. That co-ordinates
all of these activities across the support helicopter force. The
Navy's AW and AWS helicopters operate under a different chain
because of the specific nature of their role and the way in which
they are tied to surface vessel platforms and that makes sense,
but the Services are not doing their own thing with helicopters.
Equally, in terms of the future programme we have an equipment
capability area that looks at things in capability terms rather
than Service-specific terms and they at the moment are engaged
in a series of studies looking at the best solutions to our future
rotorcraft needs across the board.
Q211 Mike Gapes: Could you clarify
then, Sir Jock, your own responsibilities and the responsibilities
of your Service for the defence helicopter fleet?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
My specific responsibilities centre on the fact that full command
of the Royal Air Force Support Helicopter Force rests with Commander-in-Chief
Strike Command who is under me as Chief of Air Staff but the operational
control of those forces rests with Land Command. Equally, I have
an interest, if not a direct responsibility, because I am a member
of the Defence Management Board and Chiefs of Staff Committee
and this is a critical area of defence capability.
Q212 Mr Roy: Can I come in on that
in relation to Joint Helicopter Command and ask whether the first
commander of JHC David Niven asked specifically that one of the
three Service chiefs assumed the overall responsibility and that
was declined because of lack of interest?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I do not recall him asking that. I do not know whether he did
or not. I find it difficult to believe that if he did ask it it
would have been turned down through a lack of interest. I think
there might have been some other reason. The bottom line is I
do not know if he said that and if he did what the response was.
Q213 Mike Gapes: This relationship
between yourself and Land Command, is it not a rather strange
situation where the Joint Helicopter Command comes under Land
Command yet significant parts (and the information I have got
is that all Chinooks and Pumas, 20 per cent of Sea Kings and 35
per cent of the Merlins) are manned by the RAF? Would it not be
more logical and sensible to have a different structure?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
You can make arguments for all sorts of structures but I think
the important point is that this is a joint force which draws
together the equipment and people of all three services operating
to a common agenda and all of us have an interest and a stake
in the Joint Helicopter Force. The fact that it is controlled
by Land Command in many ways is neither here nor there. There
are reasons for it being in Land Command, you could advance reasons
for it being in some other command but that would not alter the
fact that the critical element is that it operates not as a part
of the Army or the Air Force or the Navy but as a joint force.
Q214 Mike Gapes: How concerned are
you about the recent pressures on helicopter crews which they
have experienced on recent operations, on Telic and elsewhere?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I am very concerned and that is one of the reasons why we have
set in hand a comprehensive study to look at our future rotorcraft
needs and the most efficient way of meeting those looking precisely,
as you say, across the board rather than in specific stovepipes.
Q215 Mike Gapes: I understand that
the Chinooks are currently being updated at Boeing. When you do
you expect all eight to return to service from the systems update?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I am not quite clear which Chinooks you are referring to here.
Q216 Mike Gapes: I understood, and
the information I have may not be accurate, that there are eight
currently being returned to service at some point which are being
updated at this moment.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
I am not aware of any specific programme other—
Q217 Mike Gapes: I think it is the
Mk 3.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
They are not being returned at the moment, the Department is still
trying to decide the way ahead on Chinook Mk3, which is not a
happy story. It is not my place to go into the audit of what happened
on the Chinook Mk3. We all recognise that there were some significant
shortcomings in the process and some serious lessons to be learned,
but the important thing is how we actually get these aircraft
into operational service. There are a number of options being
looked at at the moment, one of which is an option to modify the
aircraft to bring them up to an acceptable operational standard,
but there are other options as well which would involve selling
them. We have not got a defined way ahead yet but there is a lot
of urgent work going on.
Q218 Mike Gapes: So you cannot give
us any idea as to whether or when they will come back into service?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
No, because the decision has not been made on what to do with
them.
Q219 Mike Gapes: It is possible that
they may never come back into service?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup:
If somebody else wanted to buy them one option would be to sell
them and to go down another route. The option which is being worked
and which is being costed at the moment is referred to as the
fix to field operation, which is to get them modified and bring
them up to the standard so that we can use them operationally.
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