UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1031-ii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

DEFENCE COMMITTEE

 

 

FUTURE CAPABILITIES

 

 

Wednesday 20 October 2004

AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR JOCK STIRRUP KCB AFC ADC

Evidence heard in Public Questions 92 - 226

 

 

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Defence Committee

on Wednesday 20 October 2004

Members present

Mr Bruce George, in the Chair

Mr James Cran

Mike Gapes

Mr Dai Havard

Mr Frank Roy

Mr Peter Viggers

________________

Witness: Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup KCB AFC ADC, Chief of the Air Staff, examined.

Q92 Chairman: Air Chief Marshal, it is very courageous of you, sitting alone, but please do not feel obligated to answer everything yourself. I am sure you have some very distinguished people sitting behind you to correct any odd error you might make, and I do not believe there will be many, so welcome to our Committee. Are there any introductory remarks you would like to make?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Only to say that I very much welcome this opportunity because a great deal has been going on. There has been a lot of change in recent years and we have a lot more change planned and not all of it, if I may say, has been covered with quite the accuracy or dispassion that I would have wished, so this is an excellent opportunity for us to discuss some of those issues.

Q93 Chairman: Thank you very much and we certainly welcome you without any minders you might have to reinterpret your remarks. Firstly, the RAF in recent operations has become even more closely integrated with the other two services in the form of close air support and network-enabled operations. Are you happy with this arrangement and do you see any further evolution to the process of greater integration with the other services?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I am very happy with our progress in this regard. I think I would just utter one word of caution which is that we must be prepared to fight the next war and the one after rather than the last war, and the next one will, to some degree or other, be different. We think we can forecast some of those differences, but we certainly will not be able to forecast them all and there will be things about them that surprise us, so whilst there were lessons from Telic particularly in terms of air-land co-operation that we have learnt and which we are now incorporating into our processes and procedures, we must be careful not to be led from one single track down into another single track and we must be prepared for a wide range of eventualities. However, that said, the lessons that we learned from Telic are now being applied. Air-land co-operation was one area where we clearly needed to do better and both we and the Army have put a lot of effort into that. It involves changing our organisation and structure to some extent and we are doing that, it involves changing and developing our doctrine and we are doing that, and inevitably it involves much more training and exercising of those procedures and we have set those in train as well.

Q94 Chairman: So integration with the Army and Navy is not a problem, but integration in operations with other countries, like the United States or even eventually France, is that feasible or do you have to make planning assumptions of an exercise? Are you happy that we could operate in the future successfully with our allies?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: It is perfectly feasible. We do an awful lot of work of course with the United States Air Force with whom we have operated very closely for a long time and with whom, in accordance with our defence policy, we anticipate co-operating closely in the future, but they are not our only ally or potential coalition partner and we do a lot of work, for example, with our French colleagues. If I can cite one instance of this, as you know, we are all contributing to the new NATO reaction forces. Those reaction forces have to be commanded and controlled and the plan is for nations to contribute command and control elements for each rotation. The original NATO plan was for France to command and control the NRF-5 rotation for six months and then for the UK to command and control the rotation for six months after that. We have agreed, my French opposite number and I, that instead of that, we will together command both rotations. That will help us in terms of interoperability, it will expose a number of key lessons which we will incorporate into our processes and structures, so that is just one example of the way that we are improving our interoperability with the French and I could cite many more examples.

Q95 Chairman: This is a quite difficult question and I will understand if you are not in a position to answer, Air Chief Marshal, but obviously on so many people's minds are future operations in Iraq. If you cannot answer, you cannot answer. Is it envisaged or theoretical if British forces move into an area under the control of the United States, and we know it is 650 Black Watch, does it mean that we provide air cover, support, rescue, whatever the back-up is should there be any problems or will this be a responsibility of the US Army and the US Air Force? Have you reached that stage? I do not want to ask any trick questions.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I clearly cannot answer any questions about UK force deployments on current operations or indeed about current operational plans. What I can say in a broader sense is that the way we allocate air power in a campaign is from a central organisation. One of the key aspects of air power is that it should be central control, dispersed execution, delegated execution, so if anybody on the ground anywhere in an operation or theatre requires air support, then that air support will be allocated to them on a priority basis by the combined air operations centre and it could come from anywhere within the assets allocated to the combined air operations centre. Clearly there are advantages wherever it is possible in providing support from assets which are trained more frequently with those people who are on the ground, but the important thing is that they get the support they need when they need it and in order to achieve that, one must be flexible.

Q96 Chairman: There were many occasions during the recent war in Iraq when the US Air Force supported British troops on the ground. Were there any lessons from that which would encourage you that there would be a limited number of problems of the US Air Force or Army providing that air cover? Would there be any insuperable problems because our Air Force are pretty close and flying times are not immense or in the event of a unit being under some form of attack and it might be the Royal Air Force or even the Army which would be able to provide the initial, first and swiftest response? I hope you do not think I am trying to get you to answer questions that are in advance of any decisions which at this stage we are told have not been made.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: No, I am talking purely in terms of general principle and not on specific issues. It may be that the Royal Air Force assets are best placed to respond swiftly with the right degree of support, but to an extent that would be a matter of chance. I would repeat that the issue is to get the ground forces the support they need when they need it. I have no difficulty whatsoever with that support coming from the United States Air Force or indeed the United States Marines or the United States Navy. We have practised together, we have common doctrine, we have common procedures, we have people on the ground who understand the interfaces with those other organisations. We are structured to make that work.

Q97 Chairman: Well, that is very encouraging. We have already seen helicopters brought under a single joint command. Are there any other air assets which might be made similarly joint?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I cannot think of any at the moment, but neither would I rule it out for the future. I would make a more general point which is that we are, all of us in all three services, committed to a joint approach to operations. A joint approach to operations and jointery is, as much as anything, an attitude of mind. Joint units can help contribute to that, but joint units on their own do not constitute jointery, so where it makes sense to bring assets together into a joint organisation, where it improves operational efficiency and effectiveness, then of course that is what we would seek to do, but it is not necessary to do that to have a joint approach to operations.

Chairman: In parenthesis, the Committee have approved my suggestion that we would invite the Secretary of State to come and address the Committee after he has made any formal announcement, should a decision be made to deploy British forces out of area, so we will have the definitive statement when the decision is made.

Q98 Mr Viggers: What longer-term air defence commitments do we have? I am thinking of the main headings of NATO, Quick Reaction Alert aircraft, and commitments such as the Falkland Islands?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: We clearly have our QRA commitments in the UK for the policing and protection of UK air space and wider assets within the United Kingdom. We retain the Quick Reaction commitment in the Falkland Islands. We are currently, along with other NATO partners, contributing to the Quick Reaction air defence assets for the Baltic States and that is part of the overall integrated NATO air defence system. That is a time-limited, temporary deployment. More widely, we need air defence assets for expeditionary operations. We need rather fewer of them today than we have done in the past for a variety of reasons. The scale of potential air threats to expeditionary operations has decreased, numbers have decreased. Capabilities have not decreased. There are still extremely capable aircraft being manufactured around the world and being exported, extremely capable weapons, and we have to be able to deal with those. We have to be able to deal with them much less today in the context of a specific and direct threat to the United Kingdom or indeed a specific and direct threat to our deployed forces, but, for example, we have a number of very high-value assets flying around the air battle space, E3Ds, tankers and so on, as do our allies and coalition partners and they are crucial to our operational effectiveness and must be protected, so there are a range of air defence tasks that will continue into the future on expeditionary operations against some potent potential threats, although the overall scale in terms of size of threat has reduced over the years.

Q99 Mr Viggers: The disbandment of the Tornado F3 squadron in 2005 and the halving of the number of Rapier anti-aircraft missile launchers reflects what you have described as a reduced threat and of course these will in due course be supported by Typhoons. Are you satisfied that the phasing out of the Tornado and Rapier will not leave us with a capability gap until the Typhoons come into service?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I am satisfied. The rationale goes something like this: that with the introduction of much more capable, multi-role aircraft, such as Typhoon, we were always clear that we would be able to achieve our tasks with lower numbers, but we expected to have to maintain those higher numbers until we got those systems like Typhoon into service and fully proved. It has now become clear, however, with the improvements that we have been making in stages over the years, for example, to the F3 by the introduction of JTIDS, with the introduction of the highly capable ASRAAM short-range missile and with the introduction of the highly capable AMRAAM radar-guided missile that we are seeing some of those efficiency improvements within specific capability areas in advance of new systems coming into service. What we are not getting of course is the flexibility we get from a true multi-role aircraft which we will achieve when Typhoon comes in, but what that means is that we have actually been able to advance the reduction in some of those numbers.

Q100 Mr Viggers: The first tranche of Typhoon is 55 in an air defence role initially. Will they be multi-role before entering service and when will they enter service?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Well, of course the Royal Air Force is already operating Typhoon. We have ten aircraft in our colours now and in the hands of our pilots and that number is increasing all the time. The question of introduction to service is not a black-and-white state because we will be introducing capabilities in an incremental way over the next several years. The initial air defence capability we expect to be fielded within the next few years, certainly in the second half of this decade. What we have done is advance our air-to-service capability which we were expecting to introduce quite a bit later and we have now brought that forward into the final batch of tranche one aircraft, so our ability to be able to use the aircraft in a multi-role sense will help us much earlier than we had anticipated.

Q101 Mr Viggers: And the latest on the gun saga, the cannon which was phased out and replaced by a lump of concrete and now we are getting the gun back again, what is the latest position?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I think the position with the Typhoon gun is an excellent example of where we want to be across the board with our equipment capability. We cannot foresee with any accuracy the nature and/or scale of all the threats and challenges we might have to face in the future, so for us adaptability and agility, the ability to react to an unforeseen future is crucial. We cannot do that by investing in everything we can think of because we certainly will not need all of those things and anyway we could not afford them. Our thinking up to now on the Typhoon gun has been that we will not require it because of the advances in short-range missiles and various other tactics and techniques and procedures, but we could get to a situation which we have not foreseen where we will require it. Well, we have a gun in Typhoon and we are not planning to fire it because it would cost us quite a bit more money in terms of ground support equipment, fatigue on the air-frame and so on, but if we decided that actually we did need it for something, we could bring it into operation in very short order, so we have complete flexibility as far as the Typhoon gun is concerned.

Chairman: I am sure some people are very happy with that. I can recall ten years ago arguing the case and we were totally, totally dismissed. However, our procurement policy would have failed quite miserably, but I can imagine some scenario where a plane has been shot down and is surrounded by hostiles when perhaps it might be necessary, so I am pleased to hear of flexibility in the decision-making.

Q102 Mike Gapes: Can I ask you about the second tranche of Typhoon. The contract has not yet still been agreed. Why is that? What are the issues that are holding it up and when do you expect the contracts to be signed?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I think I would have to refer you to the Chief of Defence Procurement for a definitive answer to that question. All I would say from my perspective, as the head of the Royal Air Force, is that we want tranche two deliveries, but we want the right aircraft delivered at the right cost. From my perspective, that has been the ongoing issue over recent months. As the Secretary of State has said, the United Kingdom is committed to tranche two, subject to satisfactory negotiations on performance and cost.

Q103 Mike Gapes: It has been reported that agreement was reached in Athens a couple of weeks ago. Is that true?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I have no idea.

Q104 Mike Gapes: And you could not give us any idea whether we are likely to have the signing of the contract within the next three or four weeks, as has also been suggested in some quarters?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I have no knowledge whatsoever of that and I would have to refer you to the Chief of Defence Procurement.

Chairman: His appearance before us has caused some consternation so I think it would be in his interests not to appear before us for a while until the storm clouds have drawn away!

Q105 Mike Gapes: Can I carry on, Chairman. The tranche 2 aircraft when it is finally there will be multi‑role. Exactly what does that mean? What capabilities will it have?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: First of all, I would just reiterate the point I made a few moments ago which is the last of the tranche 1 aircraft will be multi‑role capable so we do not have to wait for tranche 2. It is one of the good things that we have negotiated into this programme. We have advanced our multi‑role capability. What does it mean? It means that we will have an aircraft that we can employ in a wide variety of roles. Now, we will not be able to employ them in that full variety of roles right from day one because it depends what has been integrated on to the aircraft. The key thing to remember about Typhoon is that it is very software intensive. The key to Typhoon's capability in the future is the software because that is what governs the integration of different sensors and weapons. If I may just take a moment to say I have seen a lot of what I regard to be ill‑informed comment on Typhoon over recent months, for example that it is a Cold War legacy. It is the case that major platforms in all three environments from initial conception to out-of-service date are going to be anything upwards of half a century and over that period things are going to change many times so the key is that our platforms in which we invest a lot of money and which we need in service for a long time to amortise that cost must be adaptable. We must be able to change the nature and/or scale of the capability we mount from those platforms, and these days that is increasingly about software, so that is at the heart of the integration of sensors and weapons onto Typhoon. We have not made up our minds yet beyond the next four to five years on precisely the order in which we wish to integrate these weapons because we have not had to. The key decisions we have made are to bring forward the integration of laser‑guided and GPS‑guided precision weaponry onto Typhoon because that is the most important capability we need in addition to air defence to give us the kind of multi-role responsiveness we need today. Beyond that we will decide our priorities in due course.

Q106 Mike Gapes: Will those laser‑guided precision weapons be capable of ground attack at night in low cloud and in all weathers?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes.

Q107 Mike Gapes: Good. What about the reconnaissance role? What is going to happen to that?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Of course we already have the Tornado GR4 with its raptor pod which provides us with an excellent tactical reconnaissance capability. The role which is currently fulfilled by the Jaguar will be taken on by the Harrier which can carry the joint reconnaissance pod. We have other more strategic reconnaissance assets of course and in due course we plan to incorporate the reconnaissance role into Typhoon. At the moment that is not at the top of the priority list, but it will be there in due course.

Q108 Mike Gapes: That role that is currently Jaguar will be taken on in a different way?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: It has been taken on by the Harrier in the short term.

Q109 Mike Gapes: But only by the Harrier?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: The Harrier will be operating the reconnaissance sensor that the Jaguar currently operates alongside the Harrier. We already have the Tornado GR4 which will continue with its raptor pod and then in due course we will feed in the reconnaissance capability of the Typhoon as well.

Q110 Mike Gapes: How do you envisage the role of the Typhoon in operations such as the US Airforce is currently undertaking at Fallujah? Would it have a role in operations of that kind?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I would not want to comment on specific operations or Fallujah. What I would say is that Typhoon would have a role across the operational spectrum. It will have a precision attack capability, it will have an air defence capability, in due course it will have a reconnaissance capability, and our intention is to build out of this programme a highly capable, adaptable, agile aircraft that we can use across a wide range of situations.

Q111 Mike Gapes: Assuming that a decision or an agreement is either here or imminent and the signing is imminent or not too long away, when would you expect the tranche 2 aircraft to actually be operational?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I am not sure I can answer that question and I am not sure that it is, if I may say, the nub of the issue which you are seeking to get at. The issue of operational employment is an issue of software. At the moment air frames are being built. Tranche 2 aeroplanes will be somewhat different from tranche 1 aeroplanes but the key to the operational deployment, whichever tranche they are, is the software standard that is built at that particular moment in time so it really is not an issue of tranche 1 versus tranche 2; it is an issue of software development.

Q112 Mike Gapes: We have got 55 at the moment in tranche 1 and we have got 89 to come with tranche 2. Do you think we will ever have a tranche 3?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: The UK has signed a Memorandum of Understanding for 232 Typhoons. That remains the position. From my perspective tranche 3 is not yet on my radar horizon. I am interested in tranche 2 and in the delivery of the capabilities through the software build standards and integration that we need on those tranche 1 and 2 aircraft.

Q113 Mike Gapes: We have been told as a Committee that decisions do not need to be taken before 2007 on tranche 3. It may not therefore be on your radar understandably at this moment but nevertheless do you think it would be a good idea if tranche 3 were to be cancelled, postponed, moved to the right? Do you think we need it?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I do not think that we are in a position to make that judgment at the moment. The contract is not due for signature until at least 2007 and we are constantly reviewing our position, our balance between numbers and overall capability, and all of those deliberations will no doubt influence decisions taken in 2007. I really do not think that this is the moment to be worrying about that. We have other things to worry about which are much more immediate, like tranche 2 and the capability of build standards.

Q114 Chairman: I can think of many arguments why it is not imperative to make any decision on tranche 3. One question we have not asked is are there any financial penalties for not proceeding? The concept of financial penalties seems to be more directed towards the Germans pulling out.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I think that the answer to that depends upon so many variables that I would have to once again refer you to procurement experts.

Chairman: Okay, right. Dai Havard?

Q115 Mr Havard: We were originally told by the MoD that there was going to be no gap between the Jaguar and the Typhoon's introduction and then in Future Capabilities we were told that that had been revised and in fact there is going to be a gap because the Jaguars are going to be taken out of service two years earlier than was originally planned and told to us. The first question I suppose is how long is that gap going to be?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: There is not going to be a gap between the final end of the Jaguar force and the beginning of the Typhoon force.

Q116 Mr Havard: There is no gap?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: There is not going to be a gap between the final end of the Jaguar force and the very beginning of the Typhoon force. What we are not doing is taking each squadron and as it goes out of service with the Jaguar replacing it with the Typhoon squadron at that same moment in time. We do not actually do that anyway because if you were to do that, during that transition period you would need twice the number of people you have to man both because you have got to work up one force while you are still manning the other. So there is always an element of feathering the two together but, as I said earlier, we had originally anticipated that we would not be able to reduce our total number of defensive aircraft for example in the face of Jaguar until we had the capabilities that we were seeking in Typhoon. However it has become apparent through the improvements that we have made through the years that the qualitative advances we have achieved enable us to run down those numbers ahead of Typhoon coming into service. Typhoon will build on that those qualitative advances and give us the additional flexibility of a true multi‑role aircraft but it does mean we are able to advance the out-of-service dates of the Jaguar and one of the F3 squadrons.

Q117 Mr Havard: There seems to have been an assessment then of what the threats are today. You made a point about predicting the future is a very uncertain thing to do but what you seem to be saying is that Tornado and Harrier are going to be that much more capable than was originally envisaged and that Typhoon will slowly be introduced into that package as well. Against today's assessment of what is required that is going to be sufficient, is it, for this period of time because one of the questions that seems to come is that 62 Jaguars are going to be dispensed with because the Tornadoes and Harriers combination is going to be that more capable yet very quickly afterwards we have to have 89 Typhoons to plug the gap that was left by 62 Jaguars. We are getting very confused about exactly where these gaps and enhancements in capability and in protection not only for today's threats but other predicted threats will be. So are you going to have this capability?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I am sorry, I do not recognise the numbers that you have quoted because we do not have 89 Typhoons replacing 62 Jaguars. But what I would go back to is the point about capability - effect not numbers and what can you actually do - and we are able to do much more with our aircraft now than we have been able to do in the past. I go back to the example which I cite fairly frequently. In Iraq last year we deployed only 70 per cent of the number of fast jets we used on Operation Granby in 1991 and yet our force in Iraq last year was considerably more powerful and capable than its predecessor of 12 years earlier because we had invested in things that made that smaller number more capable overall than the larger number. That is what we will continue to do and what we plan to do for the future. So it is only logical if you take that progression forward that you can now achieve your effects with a smaller number of aircraft.

Q118 Mr Havard: You see this as a seamless process then that will provide this capability? There is a suspicion on this side that this is largely driven and where you have a spectacular example is where you may have, say, twice as many aircraft as you have got pilots and it is to do with whether or not you can find people properly to fly these assets. The other thing is these aircraft are £23 million a copy or whatever it is. There are lots of boots and people to put in boots that you can provide for £23 million. So decisions about how many of these you can have and what they can do and what capabilities they can provide, as you will understand, is quite a serious sort of question, so is it going to achieve this trick?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes it is. You posed a number of implicit questions in what you just said and made some statements with which I would fundamentally disagree and I am very happy to address those if we want to pose them as specific questions. In this instance from my perspective the issue is not the number of Typhoon replacing the number of Jaguar. The issue is not will advancing the out‑of‑service date of Jaguar create an operational capability gap; the issue is managing the people. We have to move from a Jaguar and F3 force to a Typhoon force. Those people who were on the Jaguar and F3 forces ‑ pilots, the weapons systems operators, the ground crew ‑ have to move from one job to another, and managing that transition is my key challenge. So in looking at those out‑of‑service dates what I have had to consider is does this fit in with the flow of people from one force to other because that is what maintains our capability, and the answer to that is, yes, we have tailored this specifically to achieve that.

Chairman: We have to go out and vote to protect your pensions. Please forgive us for departing.

The Committee suspended from 3.40 pm to 3.59 pm for divisions in the House.

Chairman: An unexpected time out. I am afraid there will be another vote so you will have to be patient, so sorry. James Cran please.

Q119 Mr Cran: Air Chief Marshal, on to the subject of training in a specific sense, you will not recall but I will read out the quote to you from our report on the lessons of Iraq where we said: "However, we feel that the shortcomings in the practice and training of close air support by the RAF and land forces which have emerged in recent operations must be urgently addressed." We then go on to say in our view what has to be addressed. Perhaps you will recall that. Could you bring us up‑to‑date with where that is?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Absolutely. We have a project of which you will be aware, Project Cunningham Quays, to address specifically those issues and it incorporates all three front‑line commands, not just air and land but maritime as well. As I said in response to an earlier question, we found that the issues boil down to three specific areas. The first one is the structure and organisation for running air/land co‑operation. We have a structure, we have had it for many years, but our conclusions are that a) it is not big enough and b) it does not have sufficient clout, it is not run at a senior enough level, and that we need fundamentally to improve that. The second area concerns the whole question of doctrine. There are undoubtedly in UK doctrine, in NATO doctrine, in US doctrine some gaps which have emerged as capabilities have changed over the years. That has to be addressed. Our view is that if we put in place the right structure and manning for our air support organisation they are the people to do that and to take that forward jointly between the three Services. Then the final area is the one of training because you can have processes, you can have procedures, but your people have to train if they are to be effective and they have to train together using the skills they will need in combat. There are two strands of work addressing this. First is the longer term strand which incorporate these issues and this kind of training in our overall defence exercise programme so that it is institutionalised in what we do but, secondly, we have identified a number of areas where we can get some quick wins, where we can insert this training in exercises that are already planned, bring assets together, and make use of the potential synergy that we have, and that avenue is being explored as well. So we are making considerable progress on all of those three fronts. I would only add as one rider that quite a bit of this requires additional resource.

Q120 Mr Cran: I have no doubt. I have found the dialogue between yourself and Mr Havant to be confusing and I therefore must wait until I see the written word before I conclude what I conclude from it. However there was the premise for at least some of the time-scales we are looking at ahead there will be reduced aircraft numbers. I think that is correct?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: That is correct.

Q121 Mr Cran: What effect will that have on the training vis-à-vis close air support?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: None.

Q122 Mr Cran: It will have none whatsoever?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: None.

Q123 Mr Cran: Thank you. Will the training be extended to include operations with an urban environment as in for instance the operations that clearly the US Airforce are conducting in Iraq at the minute? Can we train for that and if we can how do we train for that?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: This would be one of the important questions for the SFOR organisation to address when it looks at the whole issue of doctrine and procedures.

Q124 Mr Cran: Okay and when are we liable to get anything from that? What is the timescale for that?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: As I say, in part this does rely upon extra resources being made available to fund posts, but assuming we are able to do that, and we do put a great deal of priority on it, then certainly I would anticipate during the course of next year.

Q125 Mr Cran: Of course, as I understand it - perhaps you will contradict me - there are no UK based facilities for close air support. You mentioned one operation but is there a range of places we can train, or just the one you mentioned? What do you feel about that?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: There are UK based facilities. For many years we have run forward air controller courses. We dedicate aircraft to it from the Royal Air Force. We have a range of facilities to enable the forward air controllers to practise their skills. The problem is that it is not sufficiently large to train enough and there are not enough opportunities for continuation training of those who are already qualified, so it is a matter of expanding it considerably, but there are potential opportunities on a wide range of exercises, both in the UK and more widely.

Q126 Mr Cran: You did mention the cost factor, which I chose to ignore at the time you mentioned it but I am now ready to ask a question about that. You agreed that there are additional costs associated with all of this and the question is how are they going to be funded?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: That is something that we are addressing during the current short-term planning round.

Q127 Mr Cran: Again, when are we liable to have answers?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: The outcome of the current planning round will be known early next year, around a February timescale.

Q128 Mr Roy: Can I take you back to cost and speak specifically in relation to closures. Obviously you are aware of the plans that have been put forward for RAF Kinloss and Lossiemouth and the huge disquiet there is in Scotland regarding the possible closure of these RAF bases. I would like to refer to the Ministry of Defence press release of 12 October on the future role of, for example, RAF Kinloss. The MoD said that the basing of the new RAF Nimrod MRA4 fleet, which comes into service in 2009, replacing the Nimrod MR2 would be based either in one or two locations, either at RAF Waddington or at RAF Kinloss in Moray. I said earlier about the huge disquiet and there is a huge worry in the Moray area, for example, that of both of those bases only one is really being considered for closure. Obviously the morale at these RAF bases is not helped when they read these stories in the newspapers. The local newspapers at the moment are saying that they have a costing plan that shows the cost of closing Kinloss as opposed to RAF Waddington and there is no similar costing plan for RAF Waddington on its own. Obviously that makes it plain to people that this is a bit of a charade and all along what the RAF or the MoD want to do is close both Moray bases. The reason I feel I have to bring up closures is the disproportionate impact that closures would have on the Moray area and on the morale of the men and women serving on that base. I was looking through the Moray Economic Survey into the possible closure of these bases and the two bases have a total of 4,274 service personnel and 740 civilian employees; total income (wages and spending on supplies) for the two bases was £93.2 million of which £27.6 million accrued to local residents; the majority of Moray schools have RAF children in them and one in particular has 80 per cent of the children who are there from the base; and the RAF has nearly 3,000 homes that have been rented out to RAF personnel, hence the very understandable worry of the disproportionate impact that this whole subject has caused. The biggest worry for many people is the perceived lack of consultation that is extremely worrying, that is burrowing its way into the fibre of thousands and thousands of people in the Moray area who need those bases open. There is a genuine feeling that we are just paying lip service here and Kinloss would close and the Lincolnshire base would stay open. What do you say to the people who write to me, whether it be local councillors, school teachers, nurses or RAF personnel? Is this the way to go about it? What does it do to the morale of your serving personnel?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: The first thing I would say is that I entirely understand the concerns of the people living in that area. I have served on the Moray Firth, it is a marvellous area and they are very supportive people. What I would say is that there are no firm plans for anything. In this country we have 73 military airfields. Of course, a great many of those are very small grass strips, glider sites and so on. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that we have more airfield infrastructure in this country than we need from a military perspective. That is inefficient. It requires people to run the additional bases; it requires money to run them. The money that we spend on keeping up bases that we do not really need is money that we cannot spend investing in the infrastructure of the bases that we do need, and this Committee is well aware of the importance all of the Chiefs of Staff attach to improving the state of our infrastructure across defence. It would be irresponsible of us not to address that issue. We have had a Defence Airfield Review to look at that issue. The Defence Airfield Review has come up with a number of wide-ranging propositions, and that is what they are. All of them will have to be tested through a full business case, which would need to take account of all of the issues which you have raised. None of them so far have been, so we are nowhere near taking the kinds of decisions which your correspondents feel may have been taken.

Q129 Mr Roy: Is that decision based outwith and inside the RAF bases themselves? When you look at the full costing, for example, do you look at the social impact and the cost of that?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes. All investment appraisals and business cases take account of all the factors. What the outcome of those will be I do not know, but at the moment there is no agreed business case one way or the other and until there is we do not have any plan. When that business case is being constructed there will be the appropriate degree of consultation and all the appropriate factors will be taken into account.

Q130 Mr Roy: What is the timescale of that?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: For Kinloss and Lossiemouth, I would hesitate to give a precise timescale. I think that it will be most likely in the second tranche of propositions that we address because there are some that are much more immediate.

Q131 Mr Roy: What does that mean? Are you talking about March, June, September next year or when?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I hesitate to give you a specific date because you will hold me to it.

Q132 Mr Roy: Give me a year.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Certainly it will be a little while yet.

Q133 Mr Roy: Next year or the year after?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Certainly not before next year.

Q134 Mr Roy: Not before next year. This is like going to the dentist!

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I cannot give you a precise date because we have not yet established how long it is going to take us to work through the first tranche of propositions, but it is important for everybody to understand that until the work is done no decisions are made. Your question to me was based on the misunderstanding of your correspondents that this decision had been made, that it had been prejudged and there had been no consultation, but that is not the case.

Q135 Mr Roy: Just clarify this for me. Clarify that there is not a plan, a cost study programme to close RAF Kinloss and yet there is a similar cost study programme to close Moray. The people at RAF Kinloss are saying to me: "They have got this programme, it is us against them, it is two bases and yet they have only done a cost study of one base, what does that tell you?"

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: The propositions that were made in the Defence Airfield Review were, of course, underpinned by some judgments on costs otherwise there would have been no basis for making the propositions in the first place, but those propositions are very broad brush and have to be tested through a proper business case and investment appraisal which would take account of costs at both ends.

Q136 Mr Roy: Are you telling me then that absolutely the same programme has been carried out for both bases, yes or no?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: It has not been carried out for either. We have not done the business case.

Q137 Mr Roy: You have not done the business case and you have not done the costing?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: No, not a detailed costing.

Q138 Mr Roy: Are you telling me that the newspapers have got hold of something that they say is a costing of what would happen to RAF Kinloss but that is not true?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: What we have is a broad brush indicative figure of what we might be able to save by doing one thing rather than another but it is not a detailed costing. The Ministry of Defence's Senior Economic Adviser would not allow us, even if we wished to, to proceed on the basis of an incomplete investment appraisal.

Q139 Mr Roy: You are treating both bases exactly the same?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes.

Q140 Chairman: May I largely endorse what my colleague has said. With your budget severely constrained we cannot expect you to bear the burden of industrial and economic policy in Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland or anywhere, but does your appraisal include the consequences of closure for the economy as a whole? We hear a lot about joined-up government, will there be joined-up government with this airfield review where what might be great for the Royal Air Force or Ministry of Defence budget might be pretty damning, indeed catastrophic, for a community which appears to be largely dependent upon the Ministry of Defence? Are you being joined-up in your approach, Air Chief Marshal?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Our business cases always take account of the wider issues: social, economic, industrial impacts.

Q141 Mr Roy: Disproportionate impacts?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: That is something which the business case would have to judge.

Q142 Chairman: Will that business case be published eventually or is it internal to the Ministry of Defence?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I am not sure of the rules on that, Chairman, I will have to get back to you.

Q143 Mr Roy: Please do not tell me that for ten minutes you have been doing all this equally and everything will be clear and then you fling in a one liner at the very end that you may not publish it because if you say that you have just null and voided the last ten minutes of what you have been saying because no-one will believe you or the MoD unless they see the evidence of how you came to the decision to close.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Fortunately that is not what I said. What I said was I do not know what the regulations are.

Chairman: I think you have made the point. Read the Glasgow Herald tomorrow.

Q144 Mr Viggers: My questions are about the total aircraft numbers. In the document Future Capabilities, page 18, there is a table of overall force levels and some of them are very specific: for instance, 36 infantry battalions, 25 destroyers and frigates, even 83 transport and tanker aircraft, so those are specific statements of numbers. The figure for offensive aircraft is the number of "deployable force elements" and for air defence aircraft "deployable aircraft and the aircraft held at readiness for the QRA air defence of the UK". We know that the MoD has committed publicly to purchasing 232 Typhoons and 150 Joint Strike Fighters. In evidence to the Committee's 2001-02 report on Major Procurement Projects the MoD went into some detail on Eurofighter and it said an active fleet of Typhoons would be 137 aircraft and then it went into detail about the number of squadrons and so on. Why, uniquely, does Future Capabilities list only the number of deployable fast jets rather than the total fleet?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I cannot answer for how that particular paper was constructed but what I can do is try to explain the difference between listing force elements and listing total fleet size. In considering our operational capability we have to think not just of the aircraft but of the people, the crews, because highly trained, highly skilled crews are just as important at delivering the operational capability as the aircraft and systems themselves are. That means that those crews have to be trained and that requires flying hours. If you look at the number of force elements that you will apply as a maximum on an operation that will tell you what sort of size of air crew force you need to sustain. It will depend upon the crew ratio that you deploy on the operation, typically 2:1 for the Royal Air Force; it will depend upon how many additional combat ready crews you have to leave back in the United Kingdom, for example for QRA, but also to continue the training of the new crews coming through; it will depend upon what percentage of your squadrons at any one time are not combat ready because they are still working up. That will give you your total frontline crew size. That will also tell you the size of the operational conversion units you need to train people to feed that frontline. You will also have to add in things like the operation evaluation units which are developing doctrine and tactics. That will give you your total air crew size for a given aircraft type and that in turn will generate an annual requirement for a certain number of flying hours. Aircraft, in a sense, are commodities, they wear out, you use up their fatigue life over time and, unfortunately, despite our best efforts you occasionally lose some through accidents. Given an annual requirement for flying hours across a 25/30/35 year life of an aircraft type you can work out from that how many platforms you are going to need over that very long period to generate that number of flying hours. That gives you your total fleet size and - I stress - your total fleet size over the entire life of the aircraft which can stretch out, as we know, to a quarter or a third of a century or more. Ideally, of course, we would only buy those aircraft when we needed them, when the ones we had in the frontline were worn out through attrition or fatigue life but, of course, industrial production does not work like that and you have to have a sustainable production line of a particular aircraft type. That is what generates the requirement for your total fleet. There is a distinct difference between the size of force you are going to employ on an operation and the total fleet size you will need over a very long period of years to generate the flying hours to train the crews.

Q145 Mr Viggers: Yes, because the Secretary of State has told us that we can manage requirements with a smaller number of fast jets. That was his explanation for the disbandment of a Tornado 3 squadron and three Jaguar squadrons. We are interested to know how these decisions affect the numbers of Typhoons in the active fleet.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: As I said in response to an earlier question, at the moment we are focused very much on developing the capabilities in tranche 1 and tranche 2 for which we hope we will have a contract some time in the near future. The total fleet requirement is something that will need to be addressed when we look at tranche 3 in due course.

Q146 Mike Gapes: Can I ask you about the Joint Strike Fighter and the reported difficulties there are with the short takeoff vertical landing version of that aircraft and the serious weight problems there are. It has been reported that the solution to this is a significant reduction in the capacity of the weapon bay. What are the implications of that? What impact will that have on the operational capability of the Joint Strike Fighter?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: It has no direct implications for the United Kingdom. The reduction in the size of the weapon bay means that it will not be able to house the 2,000lb class of weapon internally in the weapon bay but it could, of course, still carry it externally.

Carriage of a 2,000 lb class weapon is not one of our key user requirements for the joint strike fighter. I would also just say that in terms of weapon development for the future, the trend is very much towards a smaller class of weapons, towards a more tailored effect which minimises collateral damage, for example - just one example - the small diameter bomb programme which the United States is pursuing at the moment. So as far as our operational requirements are concerned, that does not have any impact.

Q147 Mike Gapes: What about if you were carrying a weapon on the exterior of the aircraft, bearing in mind this is supposed to be a stealth aircraft? Is that not a problem? Does that not have an impact?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes, but we have other aircraft which can carry the 2,000 lb class weapon. The 2,000 lb class weapon is of course for a particular type of target and increasingly in the future we are going to be looking at smaller classes of weapons. So I could not sit here today and say, "We will never want to carry a 2,000 lb class of weapon on JSF", but what I can say is that given the trend of weapon development and given the capabilities we have in other parts of our inventory, such as on Tornado GR4, such as on Typhoon in due course to deliver 2,000 lb weapons, this would not be a serious constraint for us with regard to JSF.

Q148 Mike Gapes: But you would confirm that if you did carry it, it would have to be outside rather than inside and therefore it would reduce the stealth capability?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes, it would.

Q149 Mike Gapes: The JSF is over budget and late. Figures have been given of 1.4 billion over the UK budget. When can we now expect it to enter service for the RAF?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: We are still working on a date of around 2012 for the first aircraft appearing, but we will have to see what the implications are of the restructuring of the programme which the prime contractor has made over the last few years, not least to address the weight problem. We do not know at the moment what the implications are because there are efforts to recover some of the lost time in other parts of the programme.

Q150 Mike Gapes: When will the in-service date be set formally? You said "around 2012", I understood it was originally earlier than that, and around 2011 had been mentioned.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: No, 2012 has been the date up to now. Again without wishing to seem to duck the question, it is not possible to have that degree of precision at this stage of the programme. We have to understand that we are talking about development programmes at the cutting edge of technology which will run into problems. It is unthinkable that they would not run into problems. So whether there will be an impact on the in-service date and, if so, what that impact will be, are things which are impossible to forecast at the moment.

Q151 Mike Gapes: Can I move on to some questions relating to the number of aircraft, the maximum number of offensive and air defence aircraft available for deployment? The Future Capabilities document states that we will be able to deploy up to 84 fast jets. Within what sort of timescale would such a deployment on that scale be possible?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I think it said up to 80 fast jets, up to 64 offensive fast jets.

Q152 Mike Gapes: Okay, we can check that.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I think I am right. How long will it take to deploy 80 fast jets? Again, it depends. If we were deploying just 80 fast jets, it would take a certain period of time, but almost inevitably we will not, we will be trying to deploy a lot of other things as well - land forces, various other elements of our force structure - so the priority we give to each bit of that force structure will depend on the environment and the operational circumstances at the time. All I would say is that in Op Telic last year we deployed roughly the same amount of materiel, the same number of people as we did for the Gulf War in 1991, and did it in half the time. That included 70 fast jets. We are working to improve our deployment capability all the time, so I would expect that figure if anything to come down.

Q153 Mike Gapes: The table actually has got 20 air defence aircraft and 64 offensive support aircraft, which does add up to 84. I do not know whether within your 64 or your 20 there is a variation. Is this to do with the QRA?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I would have to look at the table and the detailed numbers, but what I can say is that in terms of expeditionary deployment the plan is to deploy up to 80 fast jet aircraft.

Q154 Mike Gapes: Is that for a large scale operation?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: For a large scale operation.

Q155 Mike Gapes: And in high readiness?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes.

Q156 Mike Gapes: So it would not necessarily need a significant period in order to prepare those aircraft?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: It depends what you mean by "significant period", they would not all be able to deploy within 48 hours, but then they are not all required to be deployed within 48 hours. They would all be able to meet the readiness states at which they sit. Within that force structure, and I do not want to go into detail in this forum, we would have so many aircraft of one type at a certain readiness state and then so many at a slightly lower readiness, but all within the high readiness bracket, and they would all be able to deploy within those timescales, and usually when we are called upon to do it quicker, we can.

Q157 Mike Gapes: Perhaps you can send us a note with more information, if you cannot give it verbally?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I would be delighted, yes.

Q158 Mike Gapes: What are the main constraints which have meant that we are talking about 80 or 84?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: The main constraints on the total number?

Q159 Mike Gapes: Yes.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: It is a matter of judgment in terms of overall capability. It would be nice to have more aircraft deployed, but to have more aircraft deployed would mean less resource available to spend on other things which we believe are more important for overall effect, overall capability, so inevitably it is a question of balancing numbers against all the other parts of your force structure which go together to create that total effect. What one is seeking to do is maximise the effect created for any given level of resource.

Q160 Chairman: This Committee, when we produced our Report on the Strategic Defence Review, said we would undertake a very regular review of the Carrier programme. I understand there are delays in the Joint Strike Fighter programme, and I understand there may well be delays in the Carrier programme. A delicate question: the RAF is famed for its advanced planning, can you tell us if the Joint Strike Fighter can take off from an Invincible class aircraft carrier? I am thinking of the unthinkable, or very thinkable. I will not be around at the time but it would be interesting to know this. Should there be delays in the Carrier programme and should the Joint Strike Fighter programme be successful, I would be dismayed in my retirement home - if I am around at the time in a retirement home - to think we had these wonderful Joint Strike Fighters but with nowhere to go. So at some stage I presume you would be thinking about whether it might be necessary to deploy Joint Strike Fighters on Invincible class, assuming they will be around in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and deployed albeit in substantially lower numbers than would be available. What I am asking is, at what stage are you going to start to panic about whether you are going to be able to put these aircraft on top of anything which moves?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: The first thing I would say, Chairman, is that we do have a senior responsible officer for the Carrier-Strike programme which looks at all the elements of that capability, not just the Carrier but the aircraft as well and all the other bits and pieces which go into it, to ensure that things are developed coherently and not in stovepipes. As to the specific question of whether one could operate JSF off the Invincible class, we simply do not know yet because we do not know enough about JSF. It is not just an issue of the aircraft performance, the resilience one needs in the deck, the space one needs and so on, but a question of not just can you take the aeroplane off and land it but can you actually operate it, can you put on the Carrier all the systems one would need to sustain and maintain that striking force of aircraft We simply do not know enough yet to be able to answer such a question.

Q161 Chairman: But you have the capacity to find answers in due course?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: We do.

Q162 Chairman: Should you find by 2010 the programme has slipped to such a level, you have the ---

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: We will in due course have the capacity to answer the question.

Q163 Chairman: We have been lobbying, as has the Ministry of Defence and the Embassy, over the absurd and appalling ITAR Waiver. Some announcements were made recently that there is some hope the US is likely to be more forthcoming in transmitting information on an unclassified basis which will be helpful to us. It seems to me truly absurd for a country like the United Kingdom, which has proved itself to be by far and away the most loyal ally to the United States, to be in the position of almost grovelling to the United States and saying, "Please will you give us the information we require." Do you have any opinion as to whether these recent announcements might result in the aviation industry and the military in the United States providing the UK manufacturers and the Royal Air Force with sufficient information to allow you and British Aerospace to do the job which you are both empowered to do? Or do you feel, as I suspect, the recent announcements in the US are in principle and may not actually deliver decisions within the US bureaucracy, who may not feel themselves obligated to implement a principle rather than an instruction? If you cannot answer at this stage, Sir Jock, perhaps you will send the Committee a letter which will enlighten us as to how you interpret the developments in the United States?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: In keeping with the principle of effects-based operations, let me start off by outlining the effect I would want to see from an RAF perspective, and I think it is important to keep that in mind because there may be more than one way of achieving that effect. The effect I want to see is an ability to adapt the aircraft quickly and affordably when we need to, because as I said earlier we cannot foresee every eventuality. We have to be able to adapt to an unknown future. If the system of adapting, modifying, the aircraft is so cumbersome that we cannot do it in operational timescales, then that will be a serious incumbence. Whether we will have such a system in place, I do not know, what I do believe is that we do not yet have anything like a credible route map for achieving that, and so that area requires a great deal of work and effort.

Q164 Chairman: Thank you. Perhaps you can drop us a note in due course. It is not often in this Committee we land a killer punch but with the spectre of three people facing us and a triple whammy the question I am going to ask must be the most predictable question this Committee could possible ask in the light of our session with the Secretary of State, the Chief of Defence Staff and Kevin Tebbit. The proposed combined Tornado GR4, Typhoon, Harrier, JSF active fleets could total some 350 aircraft excluding attrition purchases You have decided to reduce the number of fast jet crews to 225. Bearing in mind the normal crew to aircraft manning ratio varies from 1.1 to 1.5:1, can you explain how this number of fast jets will actually be manned, unless we have reached the age of UAVs and we have the pilots sitting wherever they may be deployed at home?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: As I explained in the answer to your previous question, we construct our total fleet size from the requirement to provide flying hours to train our air crew. The deployable force we envisage at the moment requires the number of combat raid pilots on frontline squadrons which were set out in the White Paper. We will need a fleet to support those numbers, to generate the necessary flying hours for those frontline crews plus of course the operational conversion units, plus of course the operational evaluation units, and we will need a fleet which will sustain that size over the life of the various air frame types. What that final number will be, we have not yet decided. We talked about Tranche 3 of Typhoons earlier. With regard to the number of pilots, if we decide that our overall deployable force, and therefore our total fleet size, should be something different from the number we first thought of, then we would have to vary the number of air crew we plan to have. I do not say that will happen, I do not say it will not happen, what I do say is that we have to remember the procurement of these aircraft, be they Typhoons, be they JSF, typically cover anything upwards of a 15-year period, so we are looking a very long way into the future. For JSF, for example, we are probably looking to close to 2030 before final deliveries might be made, depending on the total fleet size one buys. So I think it is wrong to ascribe a greater degree of precision to numbers which cover such a long period of time than they deserve.

Q165 Chairman: How long will it take to train a crew to fly a Joint Strike Fighter or a Typhoon?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: From scratch, presumably?

Q166 Chairman: Yes.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Currently about three years to get on to an operational squadron, combat ready, although we are looking very closely at our training machine, our training pipeline, and we have every intention of reducing that period of time.

Q167 Chairman: Are you confident you will be able to recruit, train and retain enough fast jet pilots to fill this reduced number of air crews, bearing in mind you have not been totally successful in attracting fast jet pilots bearing in mind the National Audit Office Report in 2000? It is not too encouraging that you can just whistle and out come men and women who can fly Typhoons or Joint Strike Fighters.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: We have not typically had a problem recruiting people. We have from time to time had a problem retaining them. There are only a certain number of people one can push in at the front end of the pipeline at any one time. If retention becomes dramatically worse over a short period of time, that will of course affect the frontline air crew strength quite quickly. So the real key to controlling the availability of air crew on the front line is actually retention rather than recruiting. I am not saying recruiting is not important, it is critical and we pay a great deal of attention to it, but typically we are usually pretty successful in that area. Where we have a much more variable record is in retention.

Q168 Chairman: So the pilot for a Joint Strike Fighter has not been born yet?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: For some of them, that is undoubtedly true, given the length of time we maintain these aircraft in service.

Q169 Mr Viggers: Reference has been made to Joint Strike Fighter and its weight problem, one aspect of weight of course is payload and the other one is range. It would be jejeune of me to ask you exactly what the range of the Joint Strike Fighter is going to be but I would like to ask a general question about the strategic use. Do you envisage its use will be comparable to that of a Harrier? Do you envisage in terms of range and payload it will be similar to the Harrier or rather different?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I envisage it having a wider coverage of effect than the Harrier from the outset. How that will develop over the years in which it is in service I cannot foresee. There are all sorts of things one can do to a basic platform to change the nature and/or scale of its capabilities. For example, if one decided one wanted an aircraft to go a lot further than one had originally envisaged, there are a number of approaches to this. One can use in-flight refuelling, as we do now. One can fit con-formal tanks which extend the range of the aircraft dramatically. Technology can provide improved weapon effects which enable one to reduce the weapon load and, therefore, increase the range. Similarly, there are technologies which can be fed in on a sensor weapon and information-handling side which can vary the capability of the platform, so all I can really talk about is what we envisage in the early years of JSF's service life. Beyond that, we would be speculating, but initially certainly a greater coverage of effect than we currently get from the Harrier.

Q170 Mr Cran: On to the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft, the word on the street is that the present VC10s and Tristars are going to have their service lives extended by two years. Can you tell us anything about that?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Air-to-air refuelling is a critical capability for us and so we have to ensure that we maintain sufficient air-to-air refuelling resource to cover the transition period to whatever comes next. Because there is some uncertainty about the date of what comes next because we do not yet have any contract for anything, we have to ensure we retain the flexibility to cover that period.

Q171 Mr Cran: So it may be two years, it may be less or it may even be more?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: It depends what comes out of the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft programme.

Q172 Mr Cran: The other question I am going to ask, you could quite easily deflect to the Defence Procurement Agency, I guess, but I hope you can tell us what you can about the arrangement. Do you know anything about the contract negotiations and how they are going? You mentioned the contract, so do you have any expectation of when the contract might be signed?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I cannot answer anything about contract negotiations and, not wishing to put words in their mouths, I dare say neither would the Defence Procurement Agency. All I would say from my perspective is that I would like to see a resolution as soon as possible because this is a critical area for us.

Q173 Mr Cran: But it is true to say that we will have a capability until this aircraft comes to support any operations that might come along?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: On our current plans, yes, but of course I do not know what the outcome from the negotiations will be and, therefore, what the in-service date will be of whatever comes next.

Q174 Mr Cran: But I guess you are pressurising as much as you can to get those who should be doing it to get on with it?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I am, but equally I am confident that they are getting on with it as fast as they possibly can.

Q175 Mr Cran: Is it still likely to be a PFI arrangement? Can you tell us that?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I think we have to await the outcome of the contract negotiations. That is still not clear.

Q176 Mr Cran: Do you have any sense of what the timescale might be so that we can keep a watch?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I could not say. What I will say is that I hope it is resolved quickly, so from my perspective we all need to be watching right now.

Q177 Mr Cran: And just so that I know what that word "quickly" means, taking my cue from my colleague, what does "quickly" mean in your terminology?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: A year ago.

Q178 Mr Cran: But since it was not a year ago?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Absolutely as soon as possible. That is what I am looking for, but of course we have to have the right deal. We all understand that. We all understand that we have got to wait for the negotiations to be concluded, but from an operational perspective we need to get something under way as soon as we possibly can. Everybody understands that. The team that is negotiating understand that and they are working as quickly as they can and I am confident of that.

Mr Cran: I am not getting much more out of you, Air Chief Marshal!

Chairman: You are doing pretty well, I thought!

Q179 Mr Cran: Is there a point beyond which the VC10s and the Tristar tankers just will not be able to do the job? I would just like to attack it from that end so we know where we are.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: There is not at the moment a cliff edge. I cannot say that beyond a certain date those VC10s will be unable to fly, but they become progressively more difficult and more expensive to maintain, the availability reduces over time and so our operational capability in terms of air-to-air refuelling declines over time.

Mr Cran: We will watch this space.

Q180 Chairman: But how can the B52 be 100 years old and still used?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: The B52 might well be 100 years old and used for certain tasks. The question one has to ask oneself is: how much does it cost to run it and what would be the cost of a replacement? Those are the issues. Clearly if we thought that it would be cheaper and operationally as effective to continue running the VC10 rather than replacing it, then that is what we would do. Equally, the United States Air Force may be looking to run the B52 for a very long time, but it is as anxious as we are to replace its ageing and very expensive tanker fleet.

Q181 Mr Cran: But we would not get to a point, would we, where we would have to rely, or might we have to rely, on the capability of perhaps our American allies?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: We would certainly not intend to do that.

Q182 Mr Cran: If we could.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Anything is possible, but that is certainly not the plan.

Mr Cran: Okay, we will watch this space!

Chairman: Maybe the French will help us out!

Q183 Mr Roy: Sir Jock, I am back to the cliff edge. I am losing the ability to live trying to get an answer, but if you give me an answer, we will all stand up at the one time and cheer. Could I take you to the Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft, not the base closure and such like because you have explained that in your own way, but in a statement on the Future Capabilities White Paper, the Secretary of State said that the UK's maritime reconnaissance needs could be met with 16 Nimrod MR2 aircraft, which is down from 21, and that the requirement could in future be met by a fleet of around 12 more capable Nimrod MRA4 aircraft. Nimrod has demonstrated its ability over land, for example, in Iraq and Afghanistan which would then beg the question that it is not just for anti-submarine work where a lot of people would accept that the threat is no longer there in the way it used to be. Is there, therefore, not the case for retaining the five Nimrod MR2 aircraft which are to be decommissioned and keep them for the land reconnaissance which it has just proved it is capable of doing? Yes, no or maybe?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Obviously there is a case for it, but, like all things, it is a matter of the opportunity costs. If one were to do that, it would cost a certain amount of money and that money would have to be taken from other programmes which, on balance, we judge to be of a higher priority, so again it is striking the balance between overall numbers and total effect. What I would say is that the Nimrod MR2 has proved itself in operational theatres over land as well as over sea. It has shown that its capability in both arenas is substantially greater than it has been in recent years, so again there is the case to be made that given its improved effectiveness, you can do more than you could before even with fewer platforms and that was the judgment that was made.

Q184 Mr Roy: Are there any future plans to procure additional Nimrod MRA4 for a land reconnaissance role in addition to the 12 for the maritime?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: The number that we settled on as part of the Defence Review took into account its flexibility in overland roles. It is more a question of doing either/or than of doing them both. We simply do not have the resource to be able to procure sufficient numbers to be able to do all of these roles in different areas at the same time, so a judgment has to be made over whether you will need to do that or whether the flexibility to do one or the other is the most cost-effective route and it was the latter that we judged to be the best outcome.

Q185 Mr Roy: But not to do both?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: At the same time.

Q186 Mike Gapes: Can I ask you about the airlift capability. The RAF's vital, essential role on expeditionary operations is very much dependent upon its strategic and tactical airlift capability. Can you update us on the current position with regard to the A400M and the likely in-service date and any other information about the programme?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: As far as the in-service date is concerned, that still stands at the beginning of the next decade essentially, in about another seven years or so.

Q187 Mike Gapes: So 2011?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes, 2011, there or thereabouts is when we expect to se the first aircraft come in.

Q188 Mike Gapes: Sorry, does that mean 2011 or 2012?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Well, again it means at the moment that 2011 is what we are aiming for, but this is a programme that is still in development and whilst we have great confidence in Airbus's ability to build a strategic transport aircraft in the civil sense, there are a number of other aspects of this aircraft which are not straightforward and which are not normal in a civilian aircraft, so there is some technical risk involved in developing those and we have not yet got to the stage where that risk has been reduced to the point where I would feel completely confident about when I can expect to start operating these aircraft.

Q189 Mike Gapes: Is that slippage mainly caused by the delays in Germany?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I am not saying there will be any slippage. What I am saying is I am trying to answer your questions from the perspective of a military commander. The Department has targets, goals for bringing equipment into service and I would very much like it if the Department met all of those, but we all know that that is not the case and in some areas we understand why, because of the technical challenge involved in the programmes, so I have to consider a range of possibilities. I have to ensure that we have the appropriate capability, no matter what variation there may be in specific programmes, so I am aiming at 2011 to start operating these aircraft. However, we have the capability with the four C-17s, which we have been leasing up to now and which we will buy out, and the additional C-17 procurement, which has been announced, to ensure that we maintain sufficient lift capability throughout the transition from the C130K fleet to the A400M.

Q190 Mike Gapes: Can I ask you about the C-17s. They are currently leased and there are four of them and the United States is apparently enhancing its C-17 fleet as a result of experience in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Will we also be seeking to upgrade our leased C-17s with enhancements?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: We will be looking at that as an option, but it would have to be considered alongside everything else in the planning round.

Q191 Mike Gapes: Will the additional C-17s have enhancements?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I cannot answer that. We can let you have the information. I do not know off the top of my head.

Q192 Mr Viggers: Two years ago you appeared before this Committee and identified two areas where key strategic decisions needed to be made quite soon. One of these was proper network-centric capability. How much progress have you made and do you think the key decisions have been taken as required?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I think we are making very good progress and I think a number of important decisions have been made, but, as you will perhaps have heard me and others say before, network-enabled capability is not a specific box of tricks one can go out and buy and incorporate. It is an approach to operations, it is an evolutionary approach and it involves not just technology, but also doctrine and processes. However, that said, we have done a lot of things. We have seen embryonic network-enabled capability working on recent operations. Indeed I would say that, as an air force, we have been involved in network-enabled capability for a very long time. I would point to the Dowling system in the Battle of Britain as an interesting early example of network-enabled capability, albeit steam-driven and manpower-intensive. We have had the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System, JTIDS, in the Tornado F3 force for a long time and in other aircraft, using Link 16, and this provides us with embryonic network-enabled capability, and we have systems that we have incorporated into the Jaguar and the Harrier, so we have got quite a lot of connectivity building up already. One of our key problems is that because of the way these have grown up, they are not all compatible one with another, so we have a programme of tactical information exchange capability which will rationalise all of that and provide us with the right degree of digital connectivity across our fast jet fleet which will enable us to move that information from sensors to decision-maker to weapon system very rapidly and enable us to respond to fleeting opportunities and enable us to execute time-sensitive targets. We have also made significant progress in terms of the ground segment of our network-enabled capability in terms of linking operational headquarters, in terms of linking them back with the United Kingdom and in terms of linking them with forward bases. So our network-enabled capability is growing all the time and we have a number of significant programmes in the future which will enable us to continue that, so I am pleased with the progress.

Q193 Mr Viggers: In the Future Capabilities document, there is a fictional illustrative scenario showing the benefits of NEC and showing an operation in 2010 and it envisages a sensor-to-shooter time of half an hour. Firstly, do you think that is achievable and, secondly, do you think it is fast enough?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes and no. It is achievable, but challenging and no, it is not fast enough and that cannot be the end of the journey. I want to see us get it down to a small number of minutes.

Q194 Mr Viggers: Are you satisfied that enough resources are devoted to this area?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes. It is a question of balance again. Network-enabled capability involves not just the connections, but all the other elements of your force structure. You must have the sensors, you must have the headquarters and the decision-makers, you must have the weapon systems, you must have the precise effects, so network-enabled capability must be viewed as the totality of your military force rather than just the bit that connects the nodes, as it were, and we have shifted substantial resources over the last five years or so into those areas of connectivity.

Q195 Mr Viggers: This Committee has visited Norfolk, Virginia and we have also had contact with our European allies and friends. A couple of weeks ago, wearing a different hat, I was giving German defence people a rather hard time about the manner in which they devoted their resources. Will we be able to stay up with the Americans without losing contact with the European allies? Where does the shoe pinch? Do you think we will have more difficulty keeping up with the Americans or more difficulty staying with the allies?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I think the real challenge is knowing where to aim. Keeping up with the Americans presupposes that the Americans know where they are going and we just follow on a little bit behind. Actually that is not good enough and we need to be there at the same time as they do, so we have to try to predict where they are going to wind up so that we are in a position at that moment in time to be interoperable, but there is so much here that is new in terms of technological opportunity, in terms of the implications for doctrine, process and procedures that we are trying to track a moving target, a very rapidly moving target. That is the great challenge. I think we are doing it well. We are keeping in very close contact with evolving thinking as well as with specific programmes, so that is helping us to aim off into the right area for the future. In terms of keeping aligned with other allies, then I think we are doing quite well there too. I think the problem is one not so much of understanding, but one of determination and allocation of resources and if a particular nation or a particular service decides not to make the necessary resources available for this purpose, then it will not be interoperable to the degree that we seek to be interoperable. That does not mean that we will not be able to operate together. What it does mean is that those nations that have not made the necessary investment will be constrained in what they are able to do.

Q196 Mike Gapes: I have some questions about personnel. You have given evidence to us before in our White Paper inquiry about personnel matters and at that time you referred to the need to reshape ourselves in accordance with the changing strategic environment and technological opportunities, but we also have to reshape ourselves in the light of the decisions in the Future Capabilities document to cut your personnel numbers more significantly than either of the other two services. In fact there is a 15 per cent cut, or 7,500 by April 2008 for the RAF compared to a cut of only about 1,500 for the Army and a similar number for the Royal Navy. Do you as a result of this and the problems of recruitment and retention that apply generally have any particular specialisms or trades currently in which you have particular problems?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: There are two halves to that question. The first one concerns the reduction in numbers of people. It is not, I think, fair to say that the reduction in numbers of people is driven by the White Paper and the announcement in the summer. It is fair, I think, to say that that announcement reflected the plans that we had already laid down. For example, one of my strategic priorities in taking up this post was to reduce the cost of logistic support to expeditionary air operations. Clearly one of the key ways of reducing the cost of that support is in reducing the number of people it takes. At the same time the Ministry of Defence was instituting what has now become the Defence Logistics Transformation Programme looking at the various studies such as the End-to-End study that have taken place over recent years, which are all about providing our logistics support outputs more efficiently. Since that was our aim, it would be very unfortunate if we were not to have plans to reduce the numbers of our people. Equally, we have been pursuing the Joint Personnel Administration System which is about providing our people with the administrative support they need and deserve in the 21st Century but more efficiently using fewer people. Equally, we are looking at co-locating our command headquarters so that we provide the command and control functions that we do now but with fewer overheads through using common resources. That too reduces our requirement for people. If we reduce the number of bases that we operate, for reasons I outlined earlier, then that is going to reduce to some extent our requirement for people, so all of these initiatives, which were in place before the July announcement and the work that predated it are about driving down our requirement for people. I would say that with regard to the Navy to some extent they were ahead of us in their logistic support arrangements. They have already put in place a warship logistics supply chain that incorporates a number of these efficiencies so to an extent the Navy have already reduced their personnel using the same processes that we are using. That said, we still have areas of pinch. We still do not have enough motor transport drivers and technicians, we are still short of medical personnel in general, and we have one or two other specialist areas in which we are undermanned. Just because we are reducing our total number does not mean to say that we will not continue to seek to recruit to full manning those areas where we are short.

Q197 Mike Gapes: What are you doing to recruit and to fill those gaps?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Specific initiatives for each and every area depending upon what the problems are. I would point to the success that we have been having. One of the areas that I have not mentioned is engineering officers. Another area I have not mentioned is our air regiment gunners. Both of those were pinch points 24 or 36 months ago but because of the specific actions we have taken, different in each case, we have been able to bring up our recruiting and increase our manning. So we do the same in every area but it is a different approach in each area depending on what the problem is.

Q198 Mike Gapes: Overall how far are you from full manning levels?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: We are very close to full manning levels. We are as close frankly as makes no difference but that is globally. There are areas where the shortfall is significant.

Q199 Chairman: We visited Deepcut yesterday and some establishments nearby and we saw at first hand the growing reliance upon Army personnel from the Commonwealth. We saw West Africans, Afro‑Caribbeans from Jamaica, we saw Nepalese from Hong Kong Fijians. What kind of reliance have you placed in order to meet your requirements, Sir Jock, on the new Commonwealth or old Commonwealth?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: We have not placed any reliance on it but, equally, we would not pass up an opportunity. For example, when the Royal New Zealand Air Force decided to dispense with its combat wing that threw up some fast jet pilots at a time when we were in need of them and we were able, through co‑operation with our colleagues in New Zealand, to recruit a number of those and to bring them over here and they are now giving us sterling service.

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.

Q220 Mike Gapes: Is there a gap if they do not come back?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I am sorry, you say "come back" but they have never been. These aircraft have never been in operational service.

Q221 Mike Gapes: Is there a gap without them?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Yes. We bought those aeroplanes because we needed them, so what we need to do is to get that capability which we thought we were procuring into service as soon as we can one way or another. What we do not have at the moment is a specific answer as to which is the most cost-effective way of doing it.

Q222 Mike Gapes: You do not know when you are likely to get that answer?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I do not. You would have to ask the equipment capability area.

Mike Gapes: We are back to the procurement area. Thank you very much.

Q223 Chairman: If you are concerned about helicopter crew overstretch, how do you feel about reducing aircraft and crews or withdrawing them from Northern Ireland?

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: The aircraft are committed to Northern Ireland at the moment but not required for operations in Northern Ireland, so it makes sense to bring those back. We are also, of course, talking about Pumas and Pumas, again, are scheduled to go out of service. In terms of overall efficiency of the helicopter force, the sooner we can reduce the overall numbers of types, the more output we will get from the force as a total. It is not just a case of extending old types in service to meet the requirement, that is not necessarily the most efficient way of doing it. As far as the crews are concerned, there are plans to increase the number of support helicopter crews, increase the number of pilots, for example, in each helicopter, so if more pilots become available then that may provide some flexibility to move those plans forward.

Q224 Chairman: This is my last question and I would not expect an answer, perhaps you can write to us. We have a big interest in terrorism and what happens. Should there be a substantial terrorist attack I think I pretty much know the situation in civil aviation and to a lesser extent in the Royal Air Force. If one was a terrorist a great way of causing mayhem would be to destroy a control tower, it would cause absolute chaos. I know what civilian capabilities are for replacing a destroyed control tower. Without replying here, unless you can answer in general terms, are you satisfied that you are capable, should there be a terrorist attack on a control tower, and that you have adequate back-up and, if not, what do you propose to do to remedy any potential deficiency? Any figures you might wish to send to us in writing rather than in public would be helpful.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: I will reply to that one in writing if I may.

Q225 Chairman: I fully understand that. Thank you very, very much, it has been very helpful. I certainly admire your ability to sit alone without recourse to vast quantities of briefing books or having back-up alongside you to help you. Thank you very much.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Chairman, thank you very much indeed.

Q226 Mr Viggers: Can I take the rather unusual step of seconding that, it has been an exceptionally valuable session and we are very grateful.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup: Thank you, sir.