Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
SIR BILL
JEFFREY KCB AND
MR TREVOR
WOOLLEY CB
4 NOVEMBER 2008
Q60 Mr Jenkin: Objective 1, just
to remind ourselves, to "achieve the objectives established
by ministers for operations and military tasks in which the UK's
Armed Forces are involved, including providing support to our
civil communities", this is the only target which is fully
met, but we are not allowed to judge that measurement because
this is the one where the criteria for that target are kept secret.
Can you understand that we are a little bit frustrated by this?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: Yes, I can.
Q61 Mr Jenkin: How should we best
deal with it?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I think what
the Department certainly does, and the Committee has not been
slow to ask, is provide quite extensive information about current
operations. At root, the assessment of PSA1, as it was, rests
on quite detailed military judgments, and Trevor may be able to
remind me as to exactly what these are.
Mr Woolley: We try to give more
information on the criteria on the successor to this, the departmental
strategic objective 1, in the memorandum that we gave the Committee
recently in terms of what the criteria were that we look at in
establishing whether or not this objective is met.
Q62 Mr Jenkin: To give a specific
example, the operations in Afghanistan, I think it would be safe
to say, are problematic, and nothing I say should in any way be
seen as criticism of the Armed Forces themselves, we think they
are doing an absolutely incredible job, but the flow of drugs
money to the insurgency is up, the areas controlled by the Taleban
are up, every patrol that goes out is making contact with the
enemy, and it is difficult to argue that these military operations
are "a success" unless success is drawn in very narrow
terms. Can you elaborate in any way without compromising the secrecy
of those objectives?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I was trying
to find the relevant reference, but it is certainly objective
1 in the PSA agreement in this Annual Report over the whole period,
"Objective—achieve success in the military tasks we
undertake at home and abroad", and the assessment is that
this was met, and that is over that period up to the end of March
2008. Our first quarterly performance report, which the Committee
received a few days ago, for 2008-09 against departmental strategic
objective 1, which is the equivalent objective, says, "Some
progress. Security in Iraq improved. Operations in Afghanistan
have remained challenging. The operation of reserve force battalion
was successfully deployed to Kosovo", so it was a bit more
nuanced than simply declaring it met would imply.
Q63 Mr Jenkin: But is the target
really about successfully deploying rather than the outcome of
the military operation itself? Is that what the target is about?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: No, it is defined
in terms of achieving success in the military tasks. I do not
want to understate the significance of this, but this is an entirely
natural first strategic objective for a department like this to
have, and you would question us pretty closely if we did not have
this as our first objective. Inevitably, it is subjective in its
assessment and the only people who can make, in my view, a reliable
assessment of that are our military commanders, which is what
they do. But in the quarterly reports, like the one that you received
recently, we try, in a way that would not give heart to the enemy,
to give an honest account of where we think the campaign has reached.
I think what I have just quoted, "Security in Iraq improved,
Operations in Afghanistan have remained challenging", is
a pretty accurate description of the situation.
Q64 Mr Jenkin: I think it is impossible
to pursue this line of questioning, Chairman, and I do not know
whether we ought to seek a briefing in private on this matter.[9]
Perhaps that is something we could address with the Secretary
of State. Moving on to restoring capability, your memorandum states
that, "we continue to analyse the qualitative impact this",
referring to current operations, "is having and to develop
and cost a programme designed to restore full capability once
commitments return to level anticipated within defence planning
assumptions". Your memo says that you are assessing how to
restore full capability after current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When you have done all of this report, which covers all aspects
of operations and military capability, will it be a report which
you can share with us?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I would have
thought so. This is the work on detailed ways of restoring capability
and we will certainly be able to give the Committee a note on
that when the time comes.[10]
Q65 Mr Jenkin: As my colleague Mr Havard
referred to earlier, you say that you expect to restore full contingent
capability by 2013 or 2014. Can you first explain what you mean
by "full contingent capability"?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: It means that
the force elements that we assess for these purposes are at a
satisfactory state of readiness without significant or tactical
weaknesses. It means, in effect, reversing the trend of the last
few years when operational deployment has made these figures go
down.
Q66 Mr Jenkin: Are we perhaps straying
into over-optimism again because I have heard very senior and
respected figures, who no longer work in your Department, saying
very much later dates than that, 2017 or even 2020. Are we straying
into over-optimism again?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: It depends what
you are talking about. Mr Havard's question, I took it to be about
large-scale deliberate intervention and I think that could be
further off for the reasons that you imply, but there is an awful
lot of uncertainty about this. I do not want to sound as if I
am ducking the question, but the fact is that we do not know when
we will be in a position to really start the process of regenerating
what my military colleagues call the "seedcorn". We
know that it is going to be a principal preoccupation of the Department
as soon as we can get on to it, but we do not know exactly what
the condition of the Armed Forces will be when we get to that
happy state of lower commitments and, as you implied earlier,
we may find it hard to do so because we may be asked to do other
things. This is a world in which there is considerable uncertainty
and our task is to manage that uncertainty as well as we can.
Q67 Mr Jenkin: But how do you assess
risk? Presumably, there must be a way of making an assessment
of risk that this forecast will not be met, for example, and what
the risks are of being required to do something before full contingent
capability is restored and of not being able to do something perhaps?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: Undoubtedly,
one of the risks is that the commitments that the Armed Forces
are expected to fulfil expand in ways that we, at the moment,
know nothing of, but, as I said earlier, the working assumption,
which seems the best one for us to make, is that for some time
to come Afghanistan will be a significant commitment, but that,
as we move into the fundamental change in the mission in Iraq
next year that the Prime Minister has described, then we will
be able very substantially to reduce the 4,000 or so troops that
we have in southern Iraq.
Q68 Mr Jenkin: You say in your memo
that, if the Treasury decides to run the next Spending Review
for publication next summer, you will be in a position to ensure
that the necessary costs are taken into account. Is there some
doubt about that?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: About when the
next Spending Review will be?
Q69 Mr Jenkin: No. Presumably, there
are some costs associated with restoring full contingent capability.
Will all of those costs be taken into account in the next Spending
Round?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: We will need
to ensure that they are, first of all, identified and that it
is all costed properly and we will need to ensure that, in the
discussions with the Treasury in the next Spending Round, we register
them as important priorities.
Q70 Mr Jenkin: Is there some question
about not having the necessary data to enable you to do that?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I do not believe
so, no, and Trevor may want to comment. There is inevitable uncertainty
about some of this, but, if the next Spending Review is next year,
it will deal with the succeeding three years and we will need
to make our best estimate of how much recuperation we expect to
be engaging in over these three years.
Q71 Mr Jenkin: Presumably, the 2013/14
forecast is based on an assumption that these costs will be fully
funded?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I think it is,
yes.
Mr Woolley: What we are trying
to establish is what it would be necessary to do in order to ensure
that we would have that full contingent capability by 2013/14,
and clearly that involves a number of military judgments about
the capabilities of the Armed Forces, some of which give rise
to additional expenditure, and we will be seeking to identify
what that additional expenditure will be. There is though quite
a lot of uncertainty. It obviously depends on the level of commitment
in Afghanistan, and that might be higher or lower, and that in
itself then works its way into the level of additional training
that might be required for members of the Armed Forces who have
been focused specifically on training for Afghanistan rather than
exercising more general skills, and it depends to a large extent
on the state of equipment returning from Afghanistan and the extent
to which that needs to be replaced or refurbished, so there are
a lot of uncertainties. I think that we will need to offer a range
of possible costs and continually refine them in attempting to
establish what the cost of recuperating to a full contingent capability
will be.
Q72 Mr Jenkin: I think obviously
what this Committee would like to know is what the range of costs
are once you have established them, and then we would like to
know to what extent you are able to cover those costs out of the
allocations you are given. Is that a possibility?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: That is an entirely
reasonably request. At this stage, we do not know, but we can
certainly flag up the Committee's interest.
Q73 Chairman: It is not only a range
of possible costs, it also sounds to me as though it is a range
of possible dates because what you said in your memorandum was
not that you expected to restore full contingent capability by
2013/14, but that you are doing work to see how you might restore
full contingent capability by 2013/14. Why was it that date that
you chose? Was it that you did not expect any sudden need for
this contingent capability to arise before 2013/14?
Mr Woolley: I think it is more
a question that we think it, in practice, unlikely that we could
establish this in less than five years, and that is why we took
2013.
Q74 Chairman: Whether the need exists
or not?
Mr Woolley: Well, the need of
course could crop up at any time, but it is a question of when
we think it might be realistic to establish that full contingent
capability that our defence planning assumptions set out.
Q75 Chairman: So, if the need cropped
up in 2012, there would be absolutely nothing you could do about
it?
Mr Woolley: I do not think we
are saying that. At any one time, ministers and the chiefs of
staff reach judgments as to what might be deployable on particular
operations, but it may be that, in order to deploy on operations,
we would have to break some of our planning assumptions—for
example, our harmony guidelines for the tour intervals of members
of the Armed Forces. What we are talking about here is restoring
a full contingent capability that is consistent with our defence
planning assumptions. Clearly, to the extent that we are prepared
to break those defence planning assumptions in terms of harmony,
we can do more on an exceptional basis in a shorter time-frame.
Q76 Chairman: So 2013-14 is not just
a figure plucked out of the air, it is the earliest conceivable
time by which you could restore full contingent capability?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: I would say
that the earliest is the more realistic time and I do not think
one can ever be so absolute as to say that nothing can be done
in the meantime, for the reasons that Trevor gives. This is a
world in which we plan as well as we can, but still have to deal
with events.
Q77 Mr Havard: You have got various
mechanisms to help you with the planning assumptions, the Studies
and Assumptions Group and lots of other people who presumably
feed into all of this, but this all comes back to these assumptions,
so you are trying to make the process consistent with them. Is
there not an argument, and it is an argument which is going on
generally, about how those planning assumptions are dealt with
and whether or not we need a new Strategic Defence Review and
actually change what it is we are prepared or anticipating to
do, whether it be large, small or medium and the various combinations
of? Is this an active debate and an active piece of work within
the Department?
Sir Bill Jeffrey: Well, there
are two points there. The first is that, on the planning assumptions,
they are really what it says on the tin, they are the working
assumptions about the demands that one might expect to be made
on the Armed Forces and the capabilities from which they derive,
and the fact that we are operating above them and have been for
some years, I think, is a tribute to the military, in particular,
but the system as a whole. It does not mean that they were the
wrong assumptions, it simply means that, in the event, we have
ended up—
Q78 Mr Havard: If we have been tested
in battle, it is always the plan that goes first.
Sir Bill Jeffrey:—exceeding
them.
Q79 Mr Havard: Perhaps you need a
new plan.
Sir Bill Jeffrey: As far as a
Defence Review is concerned, you might want to ask my Secretary
of State about that when you see him in a week or so.
9 See Ev 43 Back
10
See Ev 43 Back
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