Examination of Witnesses (Questions 600
- 619)
WEDNESDAY 12 JANUARY 2005
RT HON
GEOFF HOON
MP AND GENERAL
SIR MIKE
JACKSON KCB, CBE, DSO, ADC GEN
Q600 Richard Ottaway: This is a theme
which you have developed in recent months and General Jackson
just backed you up on it, yet it does not seem to be the line
being taken by the First Sea Lord who is saying something very
different in that he does need the platforms. For example, he
says: "My gut feeling is that we need a destroyer/frigate
force of about 30 ships". He goes on to say: "By losing
some of those ships, I believe we are taking a risk and we should
not delude ourselves", and he then says, "to maintain
each deployed standing task requires three ships and what I am
not going to let happen is a reduction in the number of ships
and no change in the number of tasks". Clearly he sees a
link between capability and task which seems to be completely
contradictory to what you are saying to the Committee.
Mr Hoon: I do not think that is
right. I have looked very carefully at the standing tasks that
we currently have and we are undertaking a review as to those
kinds of tasks and whether they need to continue in the future.
For example, two of them are what I would describe as clearly
Cold War tasks, they are tasks that I anticipate in the future
will not be fulfilled in precisely the same kind of way they have
been completed in the past. It is really important that this Committee,
looking at the kind of capabilities we have, looks to the future
and not to the past. I am afraid the way in which your question
is framed is very much dependent on the kinds of commitments we
had in the past. We are reviewing the standing tasks, we will
look carefully at what is required for the future, but I have
to say that in looking at a number of those standing tasks, they
are tasks that I anticipate will no longer be undertaken in the
way that they have always been.
Q601 Richard Ottaway: Are you saying
that the First Sea Lord has got it wrong? Can I give you another
quote from him: "What people do need to be wary of is that
there is a risk with these reductions. My concern overall is that
we are taking risk on risk". Is he wrong?
Mr Hoon: No, he is not in any
way wrong. I read very carefully the evidence that he gave to
the Committee and—
Q602 Richard Ottaway: It was not
to the Committee.
Mr Hoon: I am not aware of any
other official observations that the First Sea Lord has made.
As I say, I have read carefully the evidence that he gave to the
Committee and the evidence that he gave to the Committee was wholly
consistent with what I am saying to the Committee today. It is
necessary to look at the kinds of tasks but, equally, it is necessary
to consider whether some or all of those tasks are necessarily
relevant to the kind of operational environment we currently face
and in those circumstances to look afresh at the kinds of responsibilities
a country like the United Kingdom will have, bearing in mind as
well that this process of change is not just change that the United
Kingdom is engaged in. Every other country in NATO is also involved
in a similar kind of change and NATO itself is also changing,
looking carefully at the way in which it tackles its force planning,
trying to remove this kind of Cold War thinking from its approach
to future operations, and that is what we are engaged in.
Q603 Richard Ottaway: Are you saying,
therefore, that you agree with the First Sea Lord that we are
taking a risk?
Mr Hoon: What I am saying is that
there is no inconsistency between what the First Sea Lord said
in evidence to the Committee or what I have said today.
Q604 Richard Ottaway: I am not quoting
from the First Sea Lord's evidence to the Committee, I am quoting
from other sources.
Mr Hoon: In which case you had
better let me have a look at the other sources so that I can read
them in their entirety. I do not have the time to read it now
but I will certainly look at it. If you can tell me where it is
from and the occasion on which it was given, that will be a fair
way of proceeding.
Q605 Richard Ottaway: You have got
to trust me that these are legitimate quotes. He is saying that
there is a risk. Are you disagreeing with him that there is a
risk?
Mr Hoon: What I am saying is I
have looked very carefully at his evidence to the Committee.
Q606 Richard Ottaway: I am not quoting
his evidence to the Committee.
Mr Hoon: In which case you ought
to give me the opportunity of looking, in the interests of clarity,
at material before you selectively quote from it. That is what
you are doing.
Q607 Richard Ottaway: These are quotes
in the public domain. As far as I understand, they come from the
Navy's in-house magazine.
Mr Hoon: I will be delighted to
look in detail. I do not read every single line of every single
document produced in the Ministry of Defence.
Richard Ottaway: You should know what
the First Sea Lord is saying.
Q608 Chairman: I agree with you about
looking to the future, Secretary of State, my only concern is
that sometimes history has an appalling predisposition to come
back and haunt us.
Mr Hoon: Again, Chairman, I entirely
agree with that and that is why it is necessary to have the greatest
possible flexibility in the organisation and in the nature of
the equipment that we have because most countries too often have
made the mistake of organising themselves to fight the last war.
Inherent in all that we are doing, and this is absolutely relevant
to this question about standing commitments, is to ensure that
the way in which we are organised gives us the greatest flexibility
to face where the threats arise in the future so that we have
the kinds of capabilities that can deal with those threats, but
that necessarily requires change. Too much of our capability for
too long was based on a Cold War thinking. That has gone and we
have got to move ahead. If I may say so, the kinds of questions
so far have reflected the past and not the future.
Richard Ottaway: I was quoting the First
Sea Lord.
Chairman: We have had enough of the First
Sea Lord for a while, please.
Richard Ottaway: You may have done, Chairman,
but I have not.
Chairman: He is a great guy but you are
not going to get an answer to the question as you have posed it.
If you write to the Secretary of State, I am sure he will give
you a factual answer.
Q609 Richard Ottaway: Fat chance!
Mr Hoon: I am sorry, Chairman.
I do not know whether you heard the observation from the Committee
Member but I have never failed to reply to a letter from a Member
of Parliament and I do not intend to fail to in the future.
Q610 Chairman: We will move on. I
wrote to you at the end of last week about the possible deployment
of the civil affairs group. Obviously you have not had the letter
yet. It was almost a week ago. The Committee visited them in Kuwait,
they have expertise at liaising with host governments, they are
excellent, excellent people. I just wondered whether you were
considering deploying anybody to South East Asia and whether the
CIMIC Group had a part in your thoughts? If you have not, perhaps
you could have a look at the letter, please, and see whether this
is a possibility. I think they would be the kind of people who
would be ideally suited to this task.
Mr Hoon: Can I say that in effect,
Chairman, we have achieved that capability because we have a number
of reconnaissance teams, five currently in Indonesia and one or
two in Sri Lanka, working very closely with civil servants from
the Department for International Development and from the Foreign
Office. In effect, that capability has been achieved because I
do not think there is any doubt, and members of the Armed Forces
have received praise for this, that our Armed Forces are extremely
good at working alongside civil servants from whatever government
department is involved. The effect that you are rightly describing
as being beneficial I would say on the ground has actually been
achieved.
Chairman: Wait until you read the letter
and perhaps you could respond fully then.[2]
Q611 Mr Hancock: I do not want to
go back to the First Sea Lord but it is about the issue of consultation
and the way in which this whole process was handled. The point
that was being made about the First Sea Lord's comments was about
the risks associated particularly with the changes as far as they
affect the Navy and he potentially gave some indication of that
during his evidence session here, which you have read. I am sure
that he fought very hard for the Navy there. Were the risks calculated
in a way to accept fully what you have said to us this afternoon
or is it that the Government are planning not to put so much pressure
on the Armed Forces in the future to allow those risks not to
be so apparent as some of the senior officers feel they might
be?
Mr Hoon: What he was describing,
and this is why I am being wholly consistent with what he said
to the Committee, was a situation in which he was required, and
I can assure the Committee he would not be, to maintain all of
the existing standing commitments. If he were required to do that
in the existing and traditional way then I accept there would
be risks, but there is a review of those standing commitments
and I have made clear to the Committee that in my view a number
of those standing commitments can either be fulfilled in different
ways or, frankly, in the modern world they are no longer necessary
and, therefore, in those circumstances there is not that same
risk.
Q612 Mr Hancock: Can you describe
to us how the whole operation of this exercise was conducted as
far as you were concerned, about the consultation, where it went
and how you responded to that in various ways? In particular,
were there any significant changes or is there some indication
which you can give of where the thoughts that you first had have
been significantly changed because of the consultation?
Mr Hoon: This has been a long
process as far as the Ministry of Defence and, indeed, the Armed
Forces are concerned. The Committee will be well aware that more
than a year ago we published an outline in principle of the kinds
of challenges that face the United Kingdom, both domestically
and, indeed, in its role as member of a number of important international
alliances. That was itself built on quite a lot of work that had
been going on in the Department for some time about further reconfiguring
our forces for the 21st century. We then spent many, many months
up until my announcement in July working through some of the practical
implications of that and, again, as far as the future Army structure
is concerned we spent further months looking at and consulting
how that actually works in practice. I do not think anyone would
suggest that this has not been the product of a great deal of
detailed work inside the Ministry of Defence.
Q613 Mr Hancock: Can you point to
any proposals that you started out thinking would probably end
up being part of your plan for the long-term future which were
changed because of the consultation?
Mr Hoon: I am a great believer
in collective cabinet responsibility. I am not entirely clear
it helps the Committee to set out the various processes that affect
my mind in the course of our consideration. I am entirely content
with the White Papers that I have set before Parliament and the
statements that I have made to Parliament. That seems to me to
be the policy of the Government, and anything other than that
is simply my thoughts over a period of time which I am not sure
would be all that helpfully shared with the Committee.
Q614 Mr Hancock: You are satisfied
that members of the Armed Forces at various levels, and particularly
those who would have to implement this, the ranks of majors and
colonels who would have to implement many of the changes in the
Army, were fully au fait with what you were actually thinking
from those statements that you made prior to this? I think that
is probably pushing credibility a bit far.
Mr Hoon: I did not actually say
that, so I do not need to push your credibility or anyone else's
any distance.
Q615 Mr Hancock: Do you think it
will go aground?
Mr Hoon: If you will let me answer
the question. There are around 300,000 people, roughly speaking,
in the Ministry of Defence, including civil servants and members
of the Armed Forces. They are enormously talented, intelligent,
capable people and I do not doubt that there are some of those
somewhere or other in that enormous organisation who do not fully
share every dot and comma of my thinking. I would be pretty surprised
if that were the case because this is a very lively, intelligent
department full of lively, intelligent people who have very strong
views and opinions. In the course of the process that I have set
out to this Committee, I am absolutely confident that the position
that has been achieved has been achieved with the widest possible
consultation and with the agreement of the Service Chiefs, and
they are strongly in support of the decisions that we have taken.
Q616 Mr Hancock: Secretary of State,
do you think that your vision of what you wanted to see was clearly
known to those people taking part in this consultation, that you
were giving them a sufficient steer of where you thought you ought
to be going as the political head of the Armed Forces in this
country?
Mr Hoon: I think your question
implies at any rate a misunderstanding of the process of policy
development, certainly in a place like the Ministry of Defence.
This is not a top-down process in the way that your question suggests.
This is a consideration of a range of factors that have to be
taken into account. I believe that one of the great strengths
of the Ministry of Defence is that it operates as a very, very
good team and has an extremely close working relationship between
Ministers, the Service Chiefs and the civil servants, and there
is a tremendous contribution made by the military, by civil servants
and by Ministers. I do not think it is actually possible to separate
out little bits of things and say, "this is the contribution
that anyone made".
Q617 Mr Hancock: No, but it helps
if you get a proper steer from the chap at the top, does it not,
to know where he is leading it? If you are convinced of this,
and you have told us that this was a very long process, what effort
was made to pass on some of that information during that process
so that people could see how it was evolving so things could be
changed in response to that?
Mr Hoon: I am sorry, the question
does not conform or relate to the reality of what happens, certainly
in the Ministry of Defence and I anticipate in most other departments.
Most departments have a structure and they have elements within
that structure. The obvious structure in the Ministry of Defence
involves three Armed Forces, but even within those three Armed
Forces there are very considerably different elements and each
of them will have a view as to its current capabilities, what
it would like for the future, how it would like to be organised.
What this process has done, and why this is such an important
process so far as the future of defence policy in the UK is concerned,
is that it has brought together a whole range of different ideas,
different thinking, right across the Department. Inevitably there
have been choices, options, decisions, some of those have been
taken quite low down, some have been taken by the respective Service
Chiefs, some have been taken by Ministers. This is a complex and
detailed process. It is not the case that someone sits there with
a back of an envelope and says "I would like to see this
and that", and goes off to the Department to see how that
can develop; it just does not work like that.
Q618 Mr Hancock: I am sorry, Secretary
of State, I think we are entitled to bit more of a credible answer
than that. Maybe the General can tell us how it worked in the
Army and how this process was handled there. Is he satisfied that
the process worked well and that people understood what was expected
of them during this process and that the junior commanders now,
the future commanders of the British Army, were satisfied that
they were given enough opportunity and a clear enough vision from
maybe you and the Secretary of State about what was expected in
this exercise?
General Sir Mike Jackson: Let
me see if I can help you here. The way I see this process is as
follows: the first stage is that it is a matter for the Government
to decide upon the allocation of public funds to the functions
of state, one of which is defence. That is not for me. Then, when
that defence budget is defined, there is a very rigorous process
within the Ministry of Defence which makes the big decisions set
against the defence planning assumptions which tries to answer
the very difficult questions of how many of this and how many
of that? Whether they be people or machines or aeroplanes or ships.
There has got to be a balance in that, clearly. Once that is done,
I then know what size of Army I have got. We also—no doubt
you will be returning to this—even before this process began,
have been looking in the general staff about where the Army should
be in 10, 20 years' time, and we have done a lot of work on this.
So these things then mesh together. The Secretary of State has
reflected upon his initial statement which was just before Christmas
03, followed by the July announcement, and once we have got to
that point I can assure you that the Army has been involved in
taking all of this forward in a very intimate way. No doubt you
will be asking more about that in detail in due course, but that
is how I see this process.
Q619 Chairman: How many meetings
did the Army Board have, General, and ECAB have on the issue of
reorganisation?
General Sir Mike Jackson: Six
meetings of the executive committee, one full Army Board and it
started with a 36-hour away-day when we took ourselves off with
cold towels around our heads.
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