Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
189-199)
GENERAL SIR
DAVID RICHARDS
KCB CBE DSO ADC GEN AND
BRIGADIER JAMES
EVERARD OBE
27 JANUARY 2009
Q189 Chairman: Good morning and welcome
to the Committee, General Sir David Richards and Brigadier Everard.
This is a further evidence session in relation to national security.
General Richards, as CINCLAND, you are in charge of the military
aid to civil authorities and I wonder if you could begin by telling
us what that involves and what you do in relation to that, what
provision you make and what it is all about, please.
General Sir David Richards: Chairman,
it is very good to be back in front of you again. I have some
brief opening remarks which capture the essence of the answer
to your question, if you are happy for me to go that way, and
I will keep it very short. When it comes to the commitment of
military capability in support of the civil authorities, and even
though our doctrine and, I think, our procedures too are very
well-developed, the devil is in the detail in interpretation,
in resource, in expectation and, I think, very importantly where
we go next, which I suspect you will be wanting to explore. In
what is a complex inter-agency arena, we perhaps should not be
surprised at that, but getting to grips with it and getting all
those different elements to work coherently and in a high tempo,
I think, is an area that, as I say, we might explore. I have been
12 months as the Standing Joint Commander (United Kingdom). I
have certainly come in that time, having had no experience really
of it before, to better understand our approach, the risks we
take and the need for transparency. From this foundation, and
to inform your opening question, I thought I would just make the
following points. In my judgment, we have collectively made really
significant progress in the country's ability to respond to disruptive
challenges. The Cabinet Office's Civil Contingencies Secretariat
deserves, I think, great credit at delivering real cross-government
and inter-agency co-ordination. As Category 1 and Category 2 responders
have raised their game in response to that pressure, so the demands
on defence and, therefore, on my role have decreased. The Armed
Forces are relatively small when compared to the numbers of personnel
in the emergency services, the Health Service, local authorities
and the utility providers, so this reduction in pressure on us
is obviously welcome. As the SJC (UK), I am responsible for the
planning, force-generation, deployment, conduct, sustainment and
recovery of defence assets conducting military operations in the
UK, and I think it is important, though I suspect you know this,
but perhaps I may just reinforce this, to understand that I am
not at the centre of the web, if you like, but work to the MoD
in support of the civil authorities. Indeed, the Chief of Defence
Staff provides me with an operational directive and my role is
actually quite limited and very clear, and that is a small, standing,
joint, and I emphasise it is joint, command headquarters down
with the rest of my Land Forces headquarters at Wilton. That directs
this activity on a daily basis, supported by the Land Forces'
regional chain of command and joint regional liaison officers,
or JRLOs, generating defence capability in support of those responsible
for managing and commanding the response to disruptive challenges.
Now, this headquarters is pretty lean, but I think it is sufficient
and we scrubbed it last autumn to make sure that it was fit for
task. I am assured that the Committee does understand the range
of capabilities effectively guaranteed by defence, and I could
go through it if you want, but it is things like search and rescue.
In some cases, this level of support is very clearly articulated,
such as the SAR capability, but elsewhere there is a question
over exactly what is guaranteed.
Q190 Chairman: `SAR' being search
and rescue.
General Sir David Richards: Yes,
so what is guaranteed and in what depth. Our ECBRN, explosive
(ordnance disposal), chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear,
and technical response force capabilities are cases in point.
As C-in-C Land Forces, I concede to a concern that there may be
an inevitable gap between what other government departments expect
and what Defence is mandated to, and can, deliver, and this carries,
I think amongst other things, significant potential reputational
risk. Clarity, I think, is critical, as in all things, and I am
of the opinion that we should place defence support on a more
secure and transparent footing. We should look at establishing
clear statements of requirement with lead government departments
underpinned by, what we might call, service-level agreements,
and, as you know, others have reached a similar conclusion when
examining this area. Similarly, we have got a brigade called the
`2nd (National Communications) Brigade' and it does do what the
SDR New Chapter said it would do, providing the deployable element
of a national communications infrastructure and some specialist
communications in support of defence assets deployed on UK operations.
I visited them late last summer and I was very impressed by what
I saw; they do undoubtedly a first-class job. However, any assumption
that the Brigade provides an independent and dedicated communications
and information spine in support of civil effect across the UK
would be incorrect. I am clear in what I have tasked the Brigade
to do, but I again believe that a formal SOR of some kind would
be sensible.
Q191 Chairman: `SOR' being a statement
of requirements.
General Sir David Richards: Yes.
Q192 Mr Jenkin: We all knew that
of course!
General Sir David Richards: I
think the Chairman did know that, but certainly my wife, who is
in the audience, did not know what it was! In terms of wider capability,
the Civil Contingencies Reaction Forces, CCRF, concept is perhaps
the one measure falling out of the SDR New Chapter that has not
been exploited. I think that, when we looked at that, the bottom
line is that we have not faced an emergency of such scale and
complexity or duration that requires them and, as a result, we
have used regular manpower. The Cottam Review, which I know you
are aware of, has looked at the CCRF concept and the MoD is, again
as I think you know, considering the recommendations in that report.
My final point is that of additional augmentation of UK operations
from regular forces in the event of a national emergency, and
I am very clear on this. We basically do what we are told and,
yes, we must be clear that the skills, equipment and the capabilities
of the Armed Forces are designed primarily, quite evidently, for
military use. Now, given the pressure in Afghanistan and, for
now anyway, in Iraq, success on current operations in those places
is absolutely my top priority, as you would expect. However, we
all fully accept that in an emergency the Government will do,
rightly, what is necessary to protect what is necessary, and the
single greatest advantage of aligning the appointments of Commander-in-Chief
Land Forces and the Standing Joint Commander (UK) is my ability
to rapidly reprioritise in response to fresh orders, and I think
that is why I, for one, having genuinely looked at the command
and control arrangements objectively, and why we came down to
it remaining as it is, which I think a recent DOC audit also supported.
Finally, you mentioned him, but Brigadier James Everard runs this
on a day-to-day basis for me and, where I expose my limitations,
I am sure James will come to the rescue. He was my Chief of Staff
in 4 Armoured Brigade many years ago, so I think we can trust
him!
Q193 Chairman: Is there anything
in this area that keeps you awake at night?
General Sir David Richards: I
suppose at the back of my mind is 2012. The government ministries
are all alert to the necessary work and are getting on with it.
I would like to get clarity on what might be required of the Armed
Forces as soon as possible really because, with all the other
pressure on us, that would be helpful because, if we do have to
retrain, create new units, IED specialists and all that sort of
thing, the sooner we get clarity, the better, but, otherwise,
no. I have no axe to grind on this and I have been really impressed
going around at how much, over the last four years, other government
departments and the civil services have actually raised their
game immensely, particularly obviously the police, the fire service
and so on, so we really are providing routinely just a few niche
capabilities with that reserve against Armageddon that you would
all expect us to provide.
Q194 Mr Jenkin: Going back to the
foot and mouth crisis, do you recall the chance meeting of Brigadier
Birtwistle and the then Prime Minister in a hotel in Carlisle,
I think it was, which resulted in the deployment of military forces
to help with that crisis, and referring to your point about the
differences of expectation between what the military can provide
and what government departments expect, do you think other government
departments fully appreciate the capacity of senior military decision-makers
to plan and operate in unexpected circumstances? It is not really
a cost point because the back of the envelope that Brigadier Birtwistle
did for the Prime Minister which transformed the management of
that crisis cost nothing, but there had been months of stand-off
between Defra and the Ministry of Defence, and I do not know whether
it was pride or ignorance, but it really was a period in which
the crisis got considerably worse because of that lack of appreciation.
General Sir David Richards: I
think there was some of that, to be frank, but I do not detect
it today. We are routinely exercising with other government departments
and the people under them and my territorial regional brigade
commanders report the atmospherics as very good. I would say that,
when push comes to shove, as you are implying, our core task,
the thing we do better than probably anything else, is to analyse,
plan and implement under pressure, and we are there to help them.
Our JLROs are deployed with them on every exercise they do and
I have had some very nice letters, saying, "Thank you very
much for the role of Lieutenant Colonel whoever", so I recognise
what you are saying, but I think familiarity is breeding greater
mutual confidence and our methods, our staff skills, have been
imported to some of their processes.
Q195 Chairman: Does it matter that,
if the military are called in in aid of the civil authorities,
it might be seen as a criticism of the effectiveness of those
civil authorities, that they have failed?
General Sir David Richards: It
should not matter if it is required because clearly dealing with
the emergency is what we should all focus on and worry about reputations
later. I would like to think that the imperative of the moment
would be the thing that dominates who does what, but I can imagine,
as you are inferring, that maybe some people are rather over-focused
on the former, so yes, it is something to be aware of.
Q196 Mr Jenkin: Should there be permanent
liaison officers in police headquarters so that that cultural
divide is broken down between gold commanders and the Armed Forces?
General Sir David Richards: I
do not think it is necessary because the JLRO system, which is
quite cheap and efficient, those officers go round all the police
stations or the chief constables, the people they will work with
in a civil emergency, and I think they have got very good relations.
To find permanent liaison officers for every part of the UK, where
probably these things are containable under the current system,
would be quite expensive. Give me the resources to do it, yes,
it is a jolly good idea. The one area I would see, going back
to my point about 2012, is that at some point the command and
control arrangements for 2012 will firm up and I think at that
point there may be a case for that sort of detailed and enduring
liaison within the agencies that we know are going to deal with
any emergency wrapped round that, but, otherwise, I think we are
okay.
Q197 Chairman: In view of the internalisation
of the threats that we face, in view of the fact that the communications
between Pakistan and Afghanistan and many places in the United
Kingdom are instant, the fact that what happens in South East
Asia or South Asia and the United Kingdom is so closely linked,
do you think that the distinction between what the military does
in the United Kingdom, namely aid to the civil authorities, and
what the military does abroad is now an anachronism? This is a
Chris Donnelly point.
General Sir David Richards: Yes,
I have heard him talk about this. There is something in it. Certainly,
generally we do not yet know properly how to dominate the information
spectrum and just monitor it in the way we need and contain the
threats that can emanate through the ability to talk to each other
in the way you are suggesting. It is not a task that we have been
given to examine it. We do obviously work very hard on it abroad,
but, in that key linkage between places like Pakistan and the
UK, I am not qualified to go into any detail and it is certainly
not in my list of responsibilities, though I think it is an area
that other people are monitoring and working on, but I think that
may be something we would have to talk about not in a public session.
Q198 Chairman: But it merits further
consideration—
General Sir David Richards: Absolutely.
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