Examination of Witnesses (Questions 298-299)
MR QUENTIN
DAVIES MP, GENERAL
SIR KEVIN
O'DONOGHUE KCB CBE, LIEUTENANT
GENERAL ANDREW
FIGGURES CBE AND
MR AMYAS
MORSE
16 DECEMBER 2008
Q298 Chairman: Minister, good morning.
There is no need to introduce your team, unusually, because, apart
from you, Minister, they have all been in front of us before.
This is a delayed evidence session from last week because of the
announcement that was shortly to come out, which did come out
on Thursday, and so I hope that we can get some answers that we
could not possibly have got last week. Could I begin, Minister,
by asking about the short examination of the Equipment Programme,
which we were told would be completed "within weeks rather
than months" and certainly before Christmas. In view of the
Written Statement that came out on Thursday, does that mean that
the short examination is now complete?
Mr Davies: Well, thank you, Chairman.
Can I first of all apologise for my voice. I hope that it does
last the course; I trust that it will. To start off on a slightly
sombre note, which I think it is right to do in the circumstances,
sadly, we had another fatality yesterday in Afghanistan, bringing
to 133 the total losses we have had in that theatre. I mention
it both to pay tribute to the individual and to make clear to
his family that we are thinking of him, and indeed them, but also
because it is the sombre background to all our proceedings and
to all the decisions that I take in my present job. To move to
the equipment examination, as you know, I have had my present
responsibilities since the beginning of October, as has the Secretary
of State, and we arrived when the equipment examination had already
made some progress through official channels, but I am not sure
that it had actually reached the previous set of Ministers, and
so it was necessary for us to take a careful look at it and decide
what shape we wanted it to have. That no doubt prolonged things
a little bit. I believe now that it is an examination which has
achieved its purpose, and, as I see it really, there are two essential
purposes to this particular exercise, and it is a very useful
and indeed necessary exercise to go through. One has been to clarify
in our own minds priorities and particularly to distinguish between
the essential and the less than essential, what I tend to call
internally (and my colleagues will be more than familiar with
my use of the phrase) the "must have" and the "nice
to have" categories. The second thing is to strike the right
balance between the short-term, immediate operational needs that
we face with the current threats that we are facing, and the longer
term requirements for the broad capability for our Armed Forces
that enables us to have reasonable certainty of being able to
respond to a range of threats, none of which of course can be
predicted at this point. We need to retain that essential element
of flexibility and diversification of the means of response for
the future, so we do not want to sacrifice that to the short term
entirely. We have to strike a balance, which is why you notice
that we are continuing with a whole range of programmes, including
submarines, combat aircraft, air superiority aircraft, and so
forth, which very obviously do not relate to the present needs
of theatre, although we have made a number of adjustments which
are particularly influenced by the immediate operational needs
that we have. The FRES programme and the rebalancing within the
FRES programme would be a good example of that. To answer your
question is it completed; yes, but do understand, and I know,
Chairman, that you will know this extremely well and I think members
of your Committee will appreciate this immediately, there is no
such thing as a definitive, final certainty in this matter. That
would not be a responsible way to proceed. We can never be certain
of what is going to happen in terms of the evolving threat and
we can never be certain what is going to happen in terms of evolving
technology, so we have to be prepared to be flexible. The sort
of exercise that we have been undertaking will not be the last,
and it should not be the last in my view, and we should continue
to be alert and flexible and take the responsible decisions that
we need to take at any one time.
Q299 Chairman: Okay, thank you very
much. I was remiss at the beginning because while you, quite rightly,
drew attention to the death in Afghanistan yesterday, and also
brought us in mind of the previous deaths that have happened this
week and over the course of the entire campaign, and you were
quite right to do that, I also should have said at the beginning
welcome to the Committee because this is your first appearance
in front of us, and to do it so soon after you have got into office
may be difficult, it may not be, I do not know, but you have come
with a cast of thousands to support your appearance, so welcome
to all of you. As you rightly say, this is not the final word
in the equipment examination. In the statement itself it said
that there would be further announcements made as a result of
the Planning Round 2009. What sort of announcements do you expect
to make? Do you expect there to be major changes in the equipment
programme as a result of Planning Round 2009, in the spring perhaps?
Mr Davies: We made that statement
to provide, as I say, for the necessary flexibility and to recognise
that these matters are uncertain and we have to continue to keep
them under review, not because we have in mind any specific new,
dramatic announcements.
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