Examination of Witnesses (Questions 79-99)
31 MARCH 2004
RT HON
GEOFFREY HOON
MP AND SIR
KEVIN TEBBIT
Q79 Chairman: Welcome Secretary of State
and Sir Kevin. I understand you want to make an opening statement.
We hope you are willing to rattle through it as quickly as possible;
it is as long as the White Paper itself.
Mr Hoon: Thank you for that warm
welcome to the Committee. I know how much you appreciate the opening
statements I make. It says here that I should be brief, but in
the light of your enthusiasm, I thought I might go through it
in a little more detail.
Q80 Chairman: I must tell you that if
I had put it to the vote, I would have lost 10:1 and there would
have been no statement.
Mr Hoon: Unfortunately I am not
a member of the Committee. What I want to try to set out is what
we want to achieve through the White Paper. The strategic environment
has developed in the six years since the strategic defence review
(SDR). We can appreciate better the nature of the threats which
we have come to face since the end of the Cold War. They are more
fluid, less predictable, but they are no less real and no less
dangerous. They require that we adapt our defence planning accordingly.
The White Paper therefore provides a comprehensive assessment
of this strategic environment and the challenges which are now
facing us. It sets out the requirement for this country to be
capable of deploying overseas to act against international terrorism
and, if necessary, the states which harbour terrorist groups and
give them a secure base from which to operate. It highlights the
threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction—a
threat which is at its most frightening when it coincides with
the ambition of terrorists to acquire and use them. It addresses
the challenge posed by the consequences of failed and failing
states, where political mismanagement, ethnic and religious tensions
or economic collapse all too often lead to humanitarian crises
and mass migration; areas which offer havens in which terrorist
groups and organised crime can flourish. At home, where of course
Home Office has the lead, we have introduced a number of measures
designed to enhance the ability of the armed forces to support
the civil authorities as they respond to a major crisis, including
a terrorist attack. These include the development of a network
of joint regional liaison officers, the introduction of communications
equipment compatible with that of the police and the establishment
of the 14 civil contingency reaction forces (CCRFs). Our experience
of the pattern of operations since the SDR shows us that we should
plan to be able to support three concurrent small and medium scale
operations, at least one of which is an enduring peace support
operation. We judge that this will remain the trend for the near
future. This is in addition to our standing military tasks and
overseas commitments. In building this into our planning, we must
ensure that our armed forces still retain the ability to adapt
themselves at longer notices for the much less frequent, but more
demanding, large-scale operations. Whilst carrying out a large-scale
operation, we also plan to be able to conduct a small-scale enduring
operation, in addition to our standing military tasks and overseas
commitments. The White Paper sets out the need to structure our
armed forces to strike this balance, which represents a significant
development of the assumption we made in the SDR of one large-
or two concurrent medium-scale operations. The SDR, with its emphasis
on flexible, expeditionary forces, set us in the right direction
and many of its conclusions remain entirely valid today. But our
armed forces must continue to adapt if they are to be best placed
to confront the challenges facing us. In responding to these challenges,
a rebalancing of our armed forces is required, with future flexibility
being crucial. What we need are armed forces which are structured
and equipped to deploy rapidly at small and medium scale and military
capabilities which provide us with as wide a range of options
as possible to enable us to fulfil our operational objectives.
In particular, we are looking to restructure the army to make
it better suited to expeditionary operations. Work in the Ministry
of Defence is continuing, but I have already been able to announce
the creation of a new light brigade and the reduction of one armoured
brigade, from three to two. This will enhance our existing light
forces by offering a third choice in addition to 3rd Commando
and 16 Air Assault Brigades. We will plan to maintain a broad
spectrum of capabilities to ensure that we are able to conduct
limited national operations, or be the lead or framework nation
for coalition operations, at small to medium scale and particularly
where the US is not engaged. But we do not envisage needing to
generate large-scale capabilities across the same spectrum, given
that in the most demanding operations it is inconceivable that
the United States will not be involved, either leading a coalition
or indeed as part of NATO. The UK's focus on large scale will
be on enhancing the quality of those force elements which ensure
a seat at the political and military decision-making table, securing
the United Kingdom an appropriate level of influence to meet our
own national security objectives. In order to secure this influence,
the UK's armed forces must be able to share risk, interoperate
with US command and control structures, match US tempo and provide
credible and significant capabilities which provide the greatest
impact. This is not the same as focusing on the capabilities the
US is short of. Nor are we interested in confining ourselves simply
to supporting military operations. In order to meet our own security
objectives we will need to be at the forefront of operations.
This is nothing new. We have always worked with our allies in
the more complex and demanding operations. As technology develops,
it becomes even more important that not just we, but our NATO
partners, invest in the capabilities which enable us to operate
at the same tempo as the United States. We are actively encouraging
this approach through the Allied Command for Transformation and
the development of the NATO Response Force, with its emphasis
on flexible, deployable and technologically advanced and interoperable
forces. As well as the modernisation of our force structures,
we need to harness the rapid developments in technology and information
networks. Network enabled capability (NEC)—by which we mean
the networking of sensors, decision-makers and weapons systems—will
assist the collection, fusion, analysis and dissemination of relevant
information to where it is needed in near real-time to support
rapid decision-making and the rapid delivery of the most appropriate
military force to achieve the desired effect. The campaigns in
Afghanistan and Iraq have both demonstrated the extent to which
technology and particularly information technology is having a
significant impact on the way we conduct military operations and
the huge potential it has for the future. Whereas in 1991 it often
took days between identifying a target and attacking it in Telic
that time was reduced to a matter of hours, enabling a far higher
number of time-sensitive targeting missions. Our intention to
accelerate and increase investment in NEC was first set out in
the SDR new chapter. We are already investing in a range of systems
from sensors, such as airborne stand-off radar (ASTOR), battlefield
electronic warfare capabilities and unmanned aerial vehicles such
as Watchkeeper, to command, control and information infrastructure
such as the Bowman land tactical communications system, to precision
attack systems such as Storm Shadow and precision guided bombs.
But we have only just begun to realise the full potential of the
new technologies and indeed of network enabled capability. In
directing our finite resources at those capabilities which are
best able to deliver the full range of military effects that we
require, we will inevitably have to face up to tough choices across
the board. We will have to make adjustments in the number of some
of our older platforms, including surface vessels and single-role
fast jets. To create the headroom for highest priority investment
in network enabled capability and mediumweight forces, we will
also have to reprioritise the forward equipment programme. I have
therefore asked the Ministry of Defence to undertake a significant
examination of our capabilities and their associated overheads.
I know that the Committee will be anxious to have an early indication
as to the likely outcome of this work. I expect that we will be
in a position to make some announcements about this in the summer.
But whatever the equipment and technology available to use, we
must not lose sight of the fact that it is our people who ultimately
deliver success. At their heart, operations will remain a human
activity and certain operations will place a premium on boots
being on the ground. It is essential that we invest in recruiting
the right people, training and rewarding them appropriately for
the difficult tasks we ask them to undertake. Our reserve forces—whose
value has been clearly demonstrated in Iraq—will continue
to have an important part to play, not simply in large-scale operations,
but also in reinforcing specialist capabilities. This will require
ever-closer integration between the regular and reserve elements
of the armed forces. Our commitment to improve links between the
services, the reservists themselves, their families and employers
will be reinforced by the lessons we learned from Operation Telic.
We must ensure that we have the right policies to ensure that
we have flexible armed forces which are structured and equipped
to deploy rapidly and sustainably in support of our foreign and
security objectives and to meet the challenges we face. The White
Paper will do just that. It will enhance armed forces' ability
to mount national operations, their capability to lead or act
as framework nation for coalition operations up to medium scale
and their capability to operate meaningfully alongside the United
States in the most serious international crises at large scale.
Q81 Chairman: That was quicker than I
had imagined.
Mr Hoon: I could go on.
Q82 Chairman: Please do not. The first
question is probably very predictable. The Chief of Defence Staff
told the Committee last week that it would take probably until
2008-09 before the UK would be able to deploy a Telic sized force.
It was Question 66. I am sure you have had a word with him on
it. Is this right? What happens if there is need for a very substantial
force before 2008-09? What would the British response then be?
Mr Hoon: I think Mr Cran then
went on to ask him what would happen if circumstances demanded
it. The answer is, as he indicated, that some other commitment
would have to be ended in order to be able then to bring a large-scale
force, for example if necessary for the protection of the United
Kingdom. What General Walker was saying was not that there were
no circumstances in which this could be done; a matter which I
know would concern the Committee, as it would concern me. What
he was saying was that if we continue to train and exercise and
recuperate our forces, given all of our existing commitments,
it would take that length of time before we would be in a position
to undertake such a large-scale operation again. None of this
would come as any great surprise to the Committee.
Q83 Chairman: Can a case not be made
that we should not reduce our forces, if there is pressure to
do so, that we should have our forces so configured that they
can undertake a number of smaller operations whilst still maintaining
the capability to operate very, very substantially? There is an
old Chinese proverb: you do not pull down one part of a Chinese
wall to build up another part of the wall. We are having a similar
question later on from Mr Gapes, but we do have some anxiety about
this, Secretary of State.
Mr Hoon: I am not suggesting that
the Committee is not right to have some concerns, but what General
Walker was making clear, something which I have said in the House
before, was that at very short notice, if we absolutely had to,
clearly we could mount a large-scale operation, not least one
which was in the defence of the United Kingdom. There is no doubt
that effort could be made in an appropriate timescale, but we
do not judge on our present assessment of threats to the United
Kingdom that that would be necessary and therefore, given our
other commitments, which obviously we would want to maintain if
we could, the answer he gave is not one I think the Committee
should find particularly surprising.
Q84 Chairman: The Committee would probably
argue that our intelligence services, competent thought they are,
could not project a week ahead what is likely to happen. The idea
that they could predict what is going to happen in 2008-09 and
say we are quite capable of operating in the same way does cause
us a little concern.
Mr Hoon: As the Committee will
be aware, in the days when there was an obvious military threat
to the territory of the United Kingdom, before the collapse of
the Soviet Union, it was always anticipated then that we would
have reasonable notice of the build-up of any potential Soviet
force, because clearly we would be able to see it. Part of the
lead-in time for any defence of NATO territory at that time was
based on the assumption that we would have an equal timescale
in which to prepare for any large-scale Soviet Union attack. Although
fortunately the Soviet Union is not around to threaten us, the
same argument would apply: if there were to be the build-up of
sufficiently large forces to threaten the United Kingdom which
required a military defence, we would be able to see it happening.
In so far as I am aware, it is not happening anywhere in the world
at the present time. It was also a key conclusion of the Strategic
Defence Review.
Q85 Chairman: I hope you are right. The
SDR in 1998 was highly commended as a vision for future defence
policy. That was an attempt to cover defence requirements to 2015,
so we have heard these words before; not from you, Secretary of
State, but from your predecessors. Yet not only was that plan
not able to survive until 2015, it barely survived to 2000 and
since then we have had two substantial documents amending the
SDR. Does that not somewhat undercut your argument that we can
always adjust? Now we are only a few years beyond the SDR and
already there have been very substantial revisions, requiring
new documents.
Mr Hoon: You used the right word.
You said "amending"; you did not say "fundamentally
replacing". The simple answer to that is that circumstances
have arisen and the pace of change has been such since then that
it has been necessary to elaborate on the essential assumptions
which we made at the time of the SDR. There is nothing in the
work we have done which is significantly inconsistent with the
assumptions we made. There are some additions, there are elaborations.
Quite specifically, the previous White Paper, to which you are
referring, the New Chapter, I called the New Chapter. I did not
want the Committee or anyone else to come to the conclusion that
we were in any way trying to replace the Strategic Defence Review,
we were adding to it in the light particularly of the events of
11 September 2001. This latest elaboration of our thinking is
not in any way, in my judgment, inconsistent with the SDR, it
simply reflects the rapidly changing international landscape with
which we have to deal.
Q86 Chairman: The chapter you put in
was a damn big chapter. Yes, it was more than an amendment. It
certainly was not a fundamental review, but it was very substantial.
I am merely saying, with the benefit of experience, that we are
a little concerned about the long time it would take to build
up our armed forces and at what would be drawn down in order to
meet that additional commitment.
Mr Hoon: You have already encouraged
me to be brief and I recognise that in trying to deal with the
detail, the Committee might, as I did, have a look at Denis Healey's
1968 White Paper which went to about 12 pages. There is a tendency
in government to elaborate our observations rather more today
than we did in days gone by.
Q87 Chairman: That is when we withdrew
East of Suez. It seems to me we are back. The SDR's robustness
has been emphasised in the Defence White Paper. This new, excellent
document, however, seems to be moving away from the concept of
a war fighting capabilities being based on divisional sized forces
down towards brigade-sized deployments. Is this a fair conclusion?
Mr Hoon: What we are trying to
achieve is a refinement of the assumptions we made at the time
of the SDR, that we would either do one large-scale or two medium-scale
operations, recognising actually that in recent times we have
had to be able to conduct more than two medium-scale operations
and in a sense we are reflecting the reality of a world in which
we have commitments today, not least in Iraq and Afghanistan,
but also we have seen in recent times that the Balkans can suddenly
flare up as well as our standing commitments. What we are trying
to do is recognise that smaller scale operations are likely to
become a more regular part of our commitments and face up to the
need to organise in particular the supporting forces which will
be required if we try to maintain those sorts of commitments.
Q88 Mr Blunt: What savings are you seeking
from the 14 work strands? What proportion of those savings is
going towards enabling the Department to fall within the Treasury's
expenditure limits? What proportion will be to enable the Department
to create the headroom for the highest priority investment in
network enabled capability and other enhancements?
Mr Hoon: I shall ask Sir Kevin
to do the technical financial details, but can I indicate the
overall nature of the work we are trying to do. Ideally all Ministers
of Defence would like to maintain a huge range of capabilities,
some of which would be immediately required, some of which might
be required in the medium term, some of which might never be used,
even in the longest term. You will know from your own experience
of the Ministry of Defence that that is simply not practical.
It is not affordable and difficult choices have to be made about
existing equipment as against the kind of equipment we might like
to use in the future. That is essentially what these work strands
are identifying. They are identifying what inevitably will be
difficult choices which we have to make between maintaining equipment
which ideally it might be marvellous to retain in our overall
inventory, but which we judge is not sufficiently flexible or
capable of dealing with the kinds of challenges identified in
this White Paper. Therefore it will have to be replaced by the
kind of equipment which we judge today is more likely to be needed
in future.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: To the extent
that there is a financial target, that is something which remains
to be discussed between ourselves and the Treasury and it would
be wrong of me to comment either way on that at this stage. You
will be aware that there is a general governmental objective of
reducing government expenditure across the board in administration
and procurement costs of 2.5%, which the Chancellor announced
in the Budget. Precisely how that applies to the Ministry of Defence
remains to be seen. This work is not being done in terms of straightforward
economies; it is being done in terms of efficiencies in relation
to our priorities.
Mr Hoon: If I might add, for the
benefit of your own thinking on defence expenditure in the future,
we will spend every penny of the money which was set out by the
Chancellor for the current spending round and we will go on spending
more in real terms thereafter as the Chancellor indicated; something
you might like to reflect upon.
Q89 Mr Viggers: I want to ask about the
financial framework in which you are taking decisions. There are
persistent rumours, which I understand to be true, that the resource
accounting and budgeting provisions imposed by the Treasury on
all departments have had a particularly damaging effect on the
Ministry of Defence, forcing upon you decisions which are not
just tough but really unacceptable or even disastrous. Are you
really satisfied with the decisions like the phasing out of Sea
Harriers, with the effective mothballing of Ark Royal and,
perhaps regarded by many as the most disastrous choice of all,
the decision to scrap the new Centre for Defence Medicine in Birmingham,
the Selly Oak site, the scrapping of a £200 million project.
Is that not a disastrous choice, an indication that you are under
extreme, almost excessive, pressure?
Mr Hoon: May I just repeat the
point I made earlier? We will spend every penny of the amount
set out in our department expenditure limit by the Chancellor
for this financial settlement. I resist the idea that the adjustment
to resource account budgeting has had a damaging effect. It has
clearly had an effect. We have to deal with that change. It does
have particular implications for a department which has a very
large capital base: £86 billion or something of the sort.
Obviously in making that adjustment, there have been some implications
for the amounts we have had available, but it will not cut back
on the cash settlement outlined by the Chancellor, both as far
as the current settlement is concerned and indeed, as he indicated,
the fact that he anticipates a real terms increase in the amount
of money which defence will have available to spend in the next
settlement.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: The rules on
RAB offered us the scope to make the defence budget stretch further;
not cuts, make the budget stretch further by enabling us to use
our asset base of £86 billion and bear down on that so as
to release resources caught up in capital charging or depreciation
costs for strengthening of our front-line outputs even further
than the increases in the budget as a whole, to which the Secretary
of State has referred. It was on that assumption that we came
out of the last spending round. The implications of how fast and
how extensively we can do that is something which is being discussed
with the Treasury and the Treasury is unwilling, for wider reasons,
to let us have the full flexibility we had sought. Just how much
flexibility we will have is still a matter for discussion and
decision, but this is on top of the basic increase in defence,
it is not, as it were, RAB cutting back on defence.
Q90 Mr Viggers: That is very reassuring.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: You should be
reassured, but I am just giving you a technical explanation.
Q91 Mr Viggers: Is it possible to suggest
that the cancellation of the centrepiece of defence medicine is
not a cut?
Sir Kevin Tebbit: It is not related
to the issue I have just described. It is just an overall prioritisation
we have to make.
Q92 Chairman: You know from the famous
defence cost study 15 medical services have deteriorated. The
Committee said then that we doubted they would ever recover from
defence cost study 15. Now, if the Centre for Defence Medicine
in Birmingham—if it is true—is getting amputated,
can you give us some assurance that there will be a recovery in
the defence medical services and how are we going to manage without
this centrepiece of the Birmingham concept?
Mr Hoon: I am not making any announcements
at this stage. What I would say is that we clearly have to learn
lessons from operations. Much of the medical support we put in
place for Iraq was not actually needed in quite the way that previous
operations had assumed. The ease of communications and transport
meant, for example, that anyone who was suffering from more than
a minor wound or injury was simply taken straight back to the
United Kingdom rather than having the kind of facilities we would
traditionally have had close to the front line.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: It remains the
case that since the Secretary of State has been in office we have
put £120 million back into defence medical services, which
were indeed cut back very, very severely in the defence cost studies.
I cannot comment on what further decisions there might be, but
we have been seeking to re-invest in defence medicine from a low
base.
Chairman: We shall return to this.
Q93 Mr Hancock: In answer to Peter Viggers
you confirmed it was not going to happen in Birmingham. You said
it was caused by other priorities. I assumed that you were referring
to a decision which had been made.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: No, I was not
referring to that.
Q94 Mr Hancock: So it has not been made.
Sir Kevin Tebbit: I was simply
saying those issues were not related. I did not confirm there
was a closure. I simply said that those issues, that is individual
decisions on medical services, are not related to this wider RAB
question.
Q95 Chairman: We shall be back, because
we have taken a long, long interest in this and we do not want
to see the progress which has been made in any way compromised.
Mr Hoon: I should be delighted
if you did. All I would say is that it is consistent, is it not,
with what we are saying? You should be looking at the results,
you should be looking at the way in which our armed forces have
received medical treatment, not least in the light of operations
in Iraq, as against the availability of facilities which might
or might not actually be used. I think only a handful of soldiers
were on board the hospital ship throughout the war fighting stage.
Q96 Mr Viggers: The plan was to build
the Royal College of Defence Studies in Birmingham and the centrepiece
of that was a £200 million project at Selly Oak and it has
been cancelled. That is a fact. It is disastrous. Let me move
to something else. At what point do platforms as well as capability
begin to matter? I am talking about network enabled capabilities.
At what point do you balance that? As your introductory statement
said, you need boots on the ground as well as network enabled
capabilities. Can you give us a sense of perspective on that?
Where is your emphasis?
Mr Hoon: It is obviously necessary
to have a sufficient number of platforms to be able to deliver
the effect. That goes without saying. What we are simply resisting
is what is an increasingly outdated argument which measures the
effect by the number of platforms. More fighting operations, particularly
in Iraq, demonstrated that it was not the number of tanks nor
the number of aircraft which were available—clearly there
have to be sufficient to deliver the effect—it was the way
in which they were able to operate together to produce consequences
for Saddam Hussein's regime which he could not deal with.
Q97 Mr Viggers: The White Paper refers
specifically to the need to "rapidly deploy appropriate military
forces to achieve desired effects".
Mr Hoon: That is what I just said.
Q98 Mr Viggers: What are the key areas
where you are focusing your attention?
Mr Hoon: As I indicated in opening
and the White Paper makes clear, we have a range of very sophisticated
equipment already. Anyone who goes on board a modern warship is
well aware of the electronic equipment which already exists; that
is true of any modern fighter aircraft and is increasingly true
of the army. What we are lacking and what we are looking crucially
to provide is the means of joining up those different platforms,
that different equipment, to allow for the process I described
in opening of ensuring that in real time we have information moving
from sensors to those who take decisions to those who then are
able to deliver military effect in a much shorter timescale than
ever before. I am not suggesting that we do not have an array
of very powerful and very sophisticated technologically advanced
equipment. What we need now to do is to link up that equipment.
Q99 Mr Viggers: Is that being linked
up on a joint forces basis? Are you finding that the air force
and the navy are a little ahead in this?
Mr Hoon: For historic reasons
that is probably the case and probably because of the way in which
we have used the army over a long period of time, there is some
catching up there. That is no criticism of the army, we have simply
not considered the impact of technology on the army in the way
that perhaps we should have done. We are beginning to see it in
other armed forces, most notably the United States. So we have
to make similar progress.
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