Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
SIR PETER
SPENCER KCB, DR
IAIN WATSON
AND LIEUTENANT
GENERAL ANDREW
FIGGURES CBE
12 DECEMBER 2006
Q140 Mr Jenkin: Could I ask General
Figgures what impact recent operational experience, particularly
in Afghanistan and Iraq, has had on your perception of the requirement
for FRES?
Lieutenant General Figgures: I
think the principal impact has been in the area of survivability.
I think it was suggested that we would have known about the threat
of hollow charges and so on, and indeed we had done a considerable
amount of work prior to this with respect to the threats in a
war fighting scenario and, indeed, the hollow charge and the medium-range
anti-tank guided weapon are the greatest threat. In a war fighting
scenario one does have the option of great freedom of action and
the ability to deliver lethal force, ie prophylactic fire from
the cannon, so you gain a measure of survivability from being
able to strike first so you can deal with likely missile posts
or you can deal with likely fire positions from which you might
be engaged by RPGs in a way that you cannot in peace enforcement
or peace support operations. Furthermore, there is the complexity
of improvised explosive devices. It is not to say that we have
not had experience of those in Northern Ireland, however both
the means by which these are initiated and also the nature of
them have been very much more demanding than perhaps we had experienced
in Northern Ireland, so we have had to take that into account.
Q141 Mr Jenkin: How does that actually
impact on the FRES programme or the FRES requirement?
Lieutenant General Figgures: It
means that we need to pay attention to hollow charge, explosively
formed projectiles, etc.
Q142 Mr Jenkin: Is it this kind of
alteration to the requirement that affects, for example, the in-service
date and sets the whole programme back?
Lieutenant General Figgures: It
is inevitably going to have an impact on when we can match that
problem with a particular solution and bring it into service.
We are back into Sir Peter's area of how quickly can industry
provide that.
Q143 Mr Jenkin: Does that not mean
that every time we go on another operation and face a different
set of threats we are going to be disrupting this programme again?
That seems to be what has been happening.
Lieutenant General Figgures: If
one would look at Warrior—Warrior is a very good example—we
have developed the protection survivability of Warrior and have
plans to continue to do so. Warrior has growth potential. Why
does it have growth potential? It has growth potential because
we can load the chassis more heavily than we did, and similarly
the CVR(T). We need something that gives us freedom of action
to develop it. If we have freedom of action both in terms of weight
and these days in terms of electronic architecture it is easier
to integrate counter-measures and all the rest into it and we
do not have the problem of rewiring the thing and so on. It is
foresight. Foresight costs money, it is technologically difficult,
hence our previous discussion, but, my goodness, if you have a
problem that you did not anticipate you can deal with it in a
relatively short space of time.
Q144 Mr Jenkin: Now that we have
acquired Vector and Mastiff in quite considerable numbers, does
that not actually provide some of the capability that FRES is
intended to provide and undermine the need for FRES altogether?
Lieutenant General Figgures: No.
I go back to my point of we intend to use FRES throughout the
spectrum of conflict, from war fighting down to peace support
operations. Vector and Mastiff are really tailored for the type
of operation. They are not armoured fighting vehicles, they are
a means of conveying people from A to B such that we reduce the
risk from these various threats that I have explained, so they
would not do what we require from FRES. They would not be able
to carry out offensive action in the way that we would anticipate.
Q145 Mr Jenkin: Can I ask a more
financially oriented question and it may be more appropriate for
Sir Peter. How have these urgent operational requirements been
paid for in terms of these two vehicle purchases? Presumably that
has to come out of somebody's forward budget. We published a report
last week which contained the evidence: "Everything has to
be paid for, it is all about money", and I am sure you have
looked at the report. Where does the money come from for the forward
support of these vehicles? Does it come out of the FRES budget?
Sir Peter Spencer: Some has come
out of the FRES budget. In terms of UOR action, a great deal of
the finance comes additionally from the Treasury in support of
the current operation and we make a case out for that.
Q146 Mr Jenkin: I understand that,
but of course when the operation is over these vehicles will still
be on the inventory and they will have to be paid for.
Sir Peter Spencer: We then have
to manage that, correct.
Q147 Mr Jenkin: Presumably you do
not have an urgent operational requirement approved until that
forward liability has been taken care of which has to come out
of an existing allocation, it does not come out of a new allocation.
Where does the money come from for those sorts of things?
Sir Peter Spencer: The money comes
from the budget in the Defence Logistics Organisation for managing
in-service assets.
Q148 Mr Jenkin: So these in-service
assets will have to be paid for instead of what other in-service
assets, presumably future armoured fighting vehicles of whatever
type that might include FRES?
Sir Peter Spencer: No. These are
two different budgets. One is the equipment programme budget and
one is the resource budget for running the current requirement.
Q149 Mr Jenkin: The reason why these
requests arrive so rarely on ministers' desks for approval is
because the whole question of financing the forward liability
of these vehicles, helicopters or whatever we are trying to put
in the front line, gets bogged down in this forward budgeting
process. Surely this money which is now going to be spent supporting
these vehicles will not be available to support other armoured
vehicles, new armoured vehicles under FRES, or will you have you
to throw them away, write them off?
Sir Peter Spencer: We will have
to manage the consequences in the normal way.
Q150 Mr Jenkin: You are saying you
can give me an assurance that this has had absolutely no impact
on the financing of FRES whatsoever.
Sir Peter Spencer: These UORs
have not impacted on the budget for FRES, full stop.
Q151 Mr Jenkin: They will have had
an impact on other budgets somewhere else?
Sir Peter Spencer: Some UORs have
limited life and others will come into the inventory and need
to be managed and across the whole spectrum of defence within
the Defence Logistics Organisation a judgment will be made on
something which is of much lower priority which will have to give.
Q152 Mr Jenkin: Exactly, something
else has had to give to fund that. Just returning to the whole
question of the disruption that these urgent operational requirements
have created and the in-service date, I understand that the Stryker
programme in the United States took pretty well 24 months from
assessment to in-service date. Are you not rather jealous of that
kind of achievement? Although Stryker might not be the ideal vehicle,
at least it is rough and ready and it is there. Does there not
need to be a change of gear when we are effectively at war rather
than at peace? Do we not need to move to a much more urgent system
for developing capability so that it is there when we need it
rather than just a theoretical capability at some very distant
date?
Sir Peter Spencer: I think the
equivalent will be what we did to Bulldog and the speed with which
Vector and Mastiff were provided. As we said earlier, when we
looked at something like Stryker it was not the solution that
the Army wanted to meet the long-term need and the Americans themselves
will not be able to support Stryker for very much longer because
of the limit of its development potential.
Q153 Chairman: Arising out of questions
that Bernard Jenkin was asking about urgent operational requirements,
you say that future servicing costs will have to be managed. Is
this one of the main reasons that money has to be found from within
the Ministry of Defence budget thus shoving a whole large number
of procurement projects to the right?
Sir Peter Spencer: As I said earlier,
we do deal separately with the equipment programme and with the
resource programme, the short-term programme and capital investment
programme. There has been no impact on FRES as a result of this
UOR activity.
Q154 Chairman: But the money has
to be found from somewhere?
Sir Peter Spencer: Of course.
Q155 Chairman: So when there is an
urgent operational requirement there is not a commitment from
the Treasury to fund that new equipment through its life, it is
just the initial phases that get committed to by the Treasury,
is that right?
Sir Peter Spencer: Yes, and then
the Department makes a decision as to whether or not it is going
to take something into its inventory and because it is a high
priority it will then reassess its priorities to spend elsewhere,
in which case it will continue to look after it. There are certain
cases where something is much less expensive and has a limited
life and is no longer used.
Q156 Chairman: Then we will no doubt
criticise you for allowing procurement projects or other logistic
projects to take longer than they previously would have done because
of this urgent operational requirement.
Sir Peter Spencer: Each year as
the operational circumstances unfold the Ministry of Defence has
to reassess its priorities to spend.
Q157 Chairman: I have one other issue
arising out of something John Smith said. If, because the in-service
date may turn out to be 2017, unless you can bring it back a little
earlier, you will need you said, General Figgures, to upgrade
the existing vehicles, the older the vehicles the more that will
cost presumably.
Lieutenant General Figgures: Subject
to the nature of the upgrade.
Q158 Chairman: Has the cost of upgrading
the existing vehicles been taken into account in assessing the
FRES programme?
Lieutenant General Figgures: Chairman,
in respect of aggregating it to the total sum of the programme?
Q159 Chairman: In respect of getting
better value out of getting equipment in early you save money
on upgrading the existing vehicles, an increasing amount of money
because these vehicles are so old. Has that been taken into account
in the budgeting for FRES?
Lieutenant General Figgures: This
is partly on my side of the house and partly on Sir Peter's. In
terms of our planning we make judgments about that and then, having
taken a view, we put it to the DPA and, again, it is the art of
the possible.
Sir Peter Spencer: The point you
raise is central to the new arrangements on accounting and the
enabling acquisition change recommendations make the point that
in future we should plan on through-life capabilities, so these
questions are addressed more methodically than they have been
in the past. At the moment the General's organisation is drawing
up through-life capability plans for armoured fighting vehicles
as a class group. When the DPA and the DLO merge to form Defence
Equipment and Support, each of the project groupings will then
be through-life. We will be announcing quite soon the name of
a newly created two star post to be the group leader for all armoured
fighting vehicles. He will begin in January on the FRES programme
as part of the increase to put the right degree of focus and drive
into beating the dates the industry have indicated to us might
be almost achievable. There will be a challenge set over the next
12 months to see by how much we can bring forward a sensible date
to roll out the initial capability. That will be done very much
on the basis of whole life because it will be that individual
inside the new organisation dealing with his equivalent in the
General's organisation who will be looking at the totality of
the budget and ensuring that when timings are being looked at
we will look at the downside of what happens to the in-service
capability if we delay getting to a new capability. It is because
of those considerations that we are determined to drive this programme
as hard as we can now that we have got a better understanding
of some of the technological issues than we had previously.
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