Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
WEDNESDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2004
GENERAL SIR
MIKE JACKSON
KCB CBE DSO ADC GEN
Q300 Chairman: Yes, in numbers.
General Sir Mike Jackson: Something
over 20,000. That is quick mental arithmetic, taking it as 600,
roughly speaking, times 36, making about 21,500.
Q301 Chairman: Almost as many as
we had in Northern Ireland during the troubles, is it not?
General Sir Mike Jackson: No,
it was never that number of battalions.
Q302 Chairman: 12,000?
General Sir Mike Jackson: No,
it was never that number of battalions.
Q303 Mr Havard: It seems to me that
Geoff Hoon goes to Gordon Brown and says, "I want some more
money for the Ministry of Defence"; Gordon Brown says, "When
you can spend the stuff I give you properly, I may be able to
give you some more. There is all this lost money in terms of procurement
and all the rest of it. Go away, learn to live with your budget,
and then come back and ask me when I see the efficiency gains".
Then he comes back, the Ministry of Defence goes through the process,
and says, "If you want all these aeroplanes at £23 million
a copy, and all the rest of it, we've got to make savings".
So this is the suspicion: that, if you like, the size of the personnel,
whether it be in the Army or the other services, is being driven
more by the need to live within a budget to provide the kit, and
the savings are being made by reducing the number of people.
General Sir Mike Jackson: Within
the given resources put to defence there has to be a split, obviously,
between equipment and personnel. We are where we are. I have got
a future Army of 102,000. That is the outcome of the process.
Mr Havard: You can have a lot of boots
on the ground for £23 million though, can you not?
Q304 Mr Cran: General, we will get
away from the Chairman's emotional approach to this whole question
of the regimental—
General Sir Mike Jackson: Perish
the thought!
Q305 Mr Cran: I can say that, maybe
you cannot! What I am confused about, however, is simply this.
You have spent some time speaking about the recruiting record,
and I entirely understand that. If I were in your position I think
that I would be looking at that too; but, as I understand it,
the statistics about recruiting are not straightforward, are they?
My understanding is that, at the minute, the least successful
divisions seem to be the Guards and the Scottish Division. If
that is not correct, you tell me, but that is the information
we have. Although the Scottish figures are now improving, the
Guards are getting worse. The more important point is that, since
1995, my information and the Committee's information is that there
has been no consistency at all of either being very good or very
poor throughout all that period for the whole Army. So how can
you reach very many conclusions from the recruiting statistics?
What you have to do, it seems to me, is to take a very short snapshot,
which might be quite unfair.
General Sir Mike Jackson: No,
we are not taking a short snapshot. We have looked over the last
ten years. Nor is recruiting statistics alone, as I have tried
to explain, the single factor which takes us to a decision.
Q306 Mr Cran: I entirely understand
that, but I would just like us to concentrate on recruiting statistics
for the minute.
General Sir Mike Jackson: You
look at the trend lines, which you can do—yes, of course
you can do that—but you look at the trend lines, which we
have done, and that will inform the decision-making.
Q307 Mr Cran: But you do concede
that if a regiment just happens to be in the wrong end of the
trend line—
General Sir Mike Jackson: No,
I do not concede that.
Q308 Mr Cran: . . . in any period—
General Sir Mike Jackson: If you
are looking over a ten-year period, you are not looking at a snapshot.
So I do not concede that.
Q309 Mr Cran: Some might disagree
with you, and indeed much of what is being said to me as a member
of this Committee is saying more or less precisely that. So it
therefore seems to me that you are in the invidious position of
having to explain to everybody who is interested in this that
you really are being very dispassionate indeed about it. The Chairman
touched on some of these points and alluded to the fact that,
because you happen to be a paratrooper, you might—I do not
mean you, let us de-personalise this—that the individual
making the choice might just be rather predisposed towards paratroopers,
and so on. What are you going to do to convince everybody who
is wholly against what you are doing that you have got this right,
and that you are doing it for the right reasons?
General Sir Mike Jackson: I have
laid out the thinking which lies behind it. I can keep doing that.
There are occasions when the old saw of the horse being taken
to the water but it does not seem to want to drink might apply.
If people do not want to understand why we are doing this, I cannot
keep going round and round the same old buoy.
Q310 Mr Cran: It may be that they
do not wish to understand it; it may be that they quite legitimately
disagree with it. Therefore, it seems to me that there is an enormous
responsibility on your shoulders and the Army Board, and doubtless
after that the Secretary of State, to convince people that you
have got it right. I am simply asking how you are going to convince
them—because they do not agree with you.
General Sir Mike Jackson: I am
in danger of repeating myself. One can lay out the arguments as
clearly as one can. If, at the end of that, with a genuine desire
to understand the arguments, they disagree, then so be it. There
is a head and a heart aspect to all of this, is there not? Soldiering
is very much a mixture of the head and the heart. Without the
heart being there, soldiers are not going to do what we need sometimes
to get them to do. So do not for a moment think that I am in any
way—or my fellow members of the Army Board—trying
to discount that side; but there must be a brain there as well.
The head has got to be part of this. I hope I have explained—perhaps
I have failed with you, sir—that the arms plot cannot go
on, for a number of reasons. It should have stopped some time
ago. That previous Army Boards have come to this same conclusion
is perhaps not a coincidence.
Q311 Mr Cran: I have two questions,
and then we can move on. I think that it is discourteous to those
people who disagree with you to say to them that they are using
just the heart and not the head. I am bound to say that I have—
General Sir Mike Jackson: I have
not said that. What I have said is that it needs to be a mixture
of all of this.
Q312 Mr Cran: Perhaps I may finish
my question. If I have got it wrong, you can put it right. It
is discourteous to imply that there is less brain going into their
argument than is going into your argument. I repeat, very senior
former officers—certainly we have heard from Scotland and
elsewhere—have put very cranial arguments to me about why
you have got this wrong. I think that is discourteous.
General Sir Mike Jackson: No such
intent was in my mind, and I think to term it in that way is a
bit unfair, if I may say so. I would not dream of making such
an insulting remark.
Q313 Mr Cran: That is how it appeared
to me. Can I then move on?
General Sir Mike Jackson: No,
I am not going to let that go, because I do not want to go down
on record as accepting that interpretation you have just made
of my comments. They are far from right.
Q314 Mr Cran: I am very happy you
have corrected it, but I am bound to say to you that there are
those who write to me—maybe not to others, but who write
to me—who have clearly misunderstood the manner in which
you and the Army Board are thinking. All I am saying to you is
perhaps you should have put a little bit more effort into convincing
them that you have got this balanced approach. That is really
all I am saying.
General Sir Mike Jackson: Thank
you. I am putting in what I feel is quite a large effort at the
moment. I will redouble my efforts.
Q315 Mr Cran: That is wonderful.
I have one other question. It is trying to clarify something that
the Chairman asked you. The Secretary of State told the Committee
when he was before us that the two key factors for him in the
restructuring were this recruitment record—we have gone
over that, so let us not go over it again. The other one was the
geographical footprint. I think I know what that means. I would
like to know what the weighting will be between those two propositions.
The Chairman did put this point, but he did not put it in these
terms.
General Sir Mike Jackson: I am
sorry? The geographical and the first proposition?
Q316 Mr Cran: The Secretary of State
told the Committee that the key factors in determining which four
battalions will be cut were, first, the recruiting record and,
second, the geographical footprint. What is the balance between
those things going to be?
General Sir Mike Jackson: They
are both important factors in coming to a conclusion. If you like,
in the Secretary of State's initial announcement there was already
an acknowledgement of geographical balance when, rather than just
saying, "The Army will reduce by four infantry battalions",
he said, "One of those will be recruited from Scotland and
the other three from England". So already you see an element
of geographical balance—and then this will need to be taken
on.
Q317 Chairman: The Chief of Defence
Staff told us that the Guards regiment and the Gurkhas were considered
as part of the proposal for the future Army structure but, in
his phrase, ". . . before the recommendation was made for
the White Paper". Tell us what that means. Is it still open
to the Army Board to recommend reductions in the Guards, the Parachute
Regiment, or the Gurkhas? You touched upon it earlier but I am
not yet clear. I am not arguing that the Gurkhas, the Guards,
the Parachute Regiment, should be kept to one battalion, but will
you convince us that there is any regiment, any unit in the Army,
especially the infantry, which is subject to the same scrutiny
as any others?
General Sir Mike Jackson: I can
give you my word on that. Every battalion, whatever regiment it
belongs to, was looked at along the lines I have already said.
The Gurkhas, for example, are a special case, and I think we would
all recognise that. We looked at the question of Gurkhas. Their
recruitability is infinite: you can have as many Gurkha soldiers
as you want, but there are problems in Nepal. We looked at that,
to satisfy ourselves that the Gurkhas had longevity, if you like:
that something was not going to happen which would bring them
into question. Having done that, they were then set to one side.
We also had in front of us a list of battalions by their recruitability,
if I can put it in that way. So there was a lot of information
here, but I do assure you, Mr Chairman, that nobody but nobody
was given a bye on this. Every battalion was looked at.
Q318 Chairman: So when we invite
you back and you tell us, "We left the Gurkhas alone. We
will still have the 3 Battalion Parachute Regiment and the single
battalion Guards regiments intact", and then you will tell
us—
General Sir Mike Jackson: No,
I have not said that either. I do not want to go any further,
because you are starting to put words into my mouth, sir, and
the decision-making process has a little to go yet.
Q319 Chairman: We will certainly
invite you back, General, when the dirty deed is done, and you
will tell us how rational the whole process was.
General Sir Mike Jackson: I shall
look forward to that.
Chairman: We shall look forward to listening
to you.
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