Examination of Witness (Questions 129-139)
MR JOHN
HUTTON MP
12 NOVEMBER 2008
Q129 Chairman: Secretary of State, welcome
to the Committee. You have appeared before the Committee before
jointly with the Foreign Secretary but this is the first of your
appearances in front of the Committee alone and you are most welcome.
I have to say that I always think that the inquiry we do into
the Report and Accounts is probably the most difficult one for
the witnesses to deal with because we can and do cover everything
across the board. For you to be faced with this inquiry within
your first month as Secretary of State does not mean that we will
be kind to you, but we recognise the Herculean nature of the task
that you are faced with. As it is your first appearance in front
of the Committee talking in a general sense, I wonder if I could
ask you please to give us a general idea of what your own personal
priorities are likely to be in your new department over the next
12 months. How are we to judge you? The division has given you
about 15 minutes' respite. You have some warning of what it is
you are going to be facing. I will adjourn the Committee.
The Committee suspended from 2.33pm to
2.53 pm for a division in the House
Mr Hutton: I think it is right
that my focus should be on operations so my priorities are Iraq
and Afghanistan and the necessary decisions that need to be made
to sustain success on both of those very important operations.
There are some equipment issues to deal with of course; there
are some people issues to do with that and that is self-evident
too. Given the scale of the operations the Armed Force are currently
undertaking it is right and proper that my focus should be first
and foremost to help continue to ensure success on those two very
important operational deployments.
Q130 Chairman: How will we judge
whether you have succeeded?
Mr Hutton: It will not just be
my view, it will be the views of the military commanders and the
guys on the ground. I understand that the Committee itself has
a regular quarterly report summarising some of the issues that
arise from the deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be
important, however, to be transparent, to be straight with the
Committee, the House and the country about the state of deployment
in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The country has the right to challenge
both the tactics and the strategy that underpin those two very
important deployments and I would want people to say of my time
as Secretary of State that I was as straight as it was possible
to be with the Committee and with the public about the status
of both of those operations. It is in no-one's interest to present
a picture that is not anything other than 100% accurate about
the state of play in both Iraq and Afghanistan and I want to make
sure that that happens at all times.
Q131 Chairman: My own impression
was that you made a good start with your speech on Afghanistan.
Mr Hutton: That is very kind you.
If you could write to me about that it would be very welcome!
Joking aside, actually it is a very serious subject and I think
it is first and foremost the responsibility of ministers who made
the decision collectively with members of the House to deploy
our forces to Afghanistan and Iraq to be regular in the reports
we make and to be straight with the country about why we are there.
Given many of the headlines and many of the complicated messages
that sometimes surround a deployment, particularly in Afghanistan,
it is important just to keep reminding people about what the basic
mission is all about and I intend to continue to do that.
Q132 Chairman: The Armed Forces,
as the Ministry of Defence tells us, are operating above the level
for which they are resourced and structured and have been doing
so for a long time. How do you intend to deal with that? What
do you intend to do about it?
Mr Hutton: I will try to answer
that question in several bite sized chunks. I think it is true
to start with that we have been operating outside the framework
of the planning assumptions that governed how we generate force
structures and so on. That is true; everyone knows that. It has
been true, actually, in each of the last five or six years. I
think it is an amazing tribute to the men and women that we have
in uniform that they have been able to do the job that they have
done and many of the other jobs we ask them to do simultaneously
as completing some of these very dangerous missions in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Next year we will see a very significant change in
mission in Iraq and that I hope will produce some operational
relaxation in the tempo under which our Armed Forces are operating
and that will be pretty welcome. In the context of Afghanistan
I do not want to speculate about force numbers or redeployment
to Afghanistan today; I do not think that would be very sensible.
I made clear when I gave evidence to the joint session (the two
committees) a couple of weeks ago that I think a first call on
any such assets would be helicopter assets because there is a
recognised shortage. Again, with the indulgence of the Committee,
I will not go into the numbers of helicopter assets that we are
talking about here but I think a Merlin fleet could play a very
useful role in Afghanistan. On the money side of itobviously
the other chunk that has to be digested hereI think in
historical terms the MoD has a good settlement. We are continuing
to see overall levels of spending on defence continue to rise
but I think it is quite clear as well in the context of the spending
review that the Ministry of Defence is going to have to improve
its level of performance in the context of value for money, in
terms of reducing administrative overhead costs both in the department
and all the way through the organisation. We have some very challenging
tasks ahead of us to do that. I think the key contribution in
relaxing some of the operational pressure will be if and when
we are able to make a significant draw down in Iraq which I hope
will take place in the first half of next year. Then we will have
to see exactly what our advice is about re-deployment, if any,
to Afghanistan. There are some very big issues to be decided there.
Of course we will make sure the Committee and the House are as
fully informed as it is possible for them to be about all of this.
Ministers have made it quite clear and the Prime Minister has
made it very clear that before any significant troop redeployment
took place to Afghanistan there will be a proper statement in
the Houses and I think that is right.
Q133 Chairman: I do not know whether
you lie awake at nights, but if you were to lie awake at nights
and you had a list of things you were worrying about, what would
be at the top of it?
Mr Hutton: Right now it is the
safety, security and well-being of our guys in uniform in Iraq
and Afghanistan. That does cause me and many others to spend a
considerable amount of our time making sure we have covered all
the basics there and continue to do whatever extra needs to be
done. Guaranteeing success in those two missions is absolutely
at the heart of what the Ministry is focussed on. We have probably
had many discussions in this Committee and elsewhere in the House
with all of us together privately and sometimes in public about
the nature of these missions. Although I am quite aware of some
of the doubts members of the Committee have about aspects of the
tactics and maybe even the strategy, my view I am afraid is very
simple, that we must succeed in Afghanistan. It is vital to NATO,
it is vital to our national security. That is what my priority
would be and if there is anything that keeps me awake at night
it is that.
Mr Hancock: Good afternoon, Secretary
of State. I am sure everybody in the room shares your view that
we have to get the right decision and the right solution for Afghanistan.
I share your view that it is important to clearly identify to
the public and remind people why we are there. At the same time
the public are continuously being told that the government of
Afghanistan has no real mandate across the country, that the government
is full of corruption and it is very hard to see how a military
solution that does not deal with the corruption inside Afghanistan
itself and the confusion over whether or not we can tackle the
drug trade properly can ever bring about the solution that you
and I would both want. Is there going to be a change of policy?
Is there going to be an initiative which is actually going to
give the British public confidence that your ambition can be realised?
Q134 Chairman: I will allow that
question, Secretary of State. Please give it a brief answer because
I do not want to go over the ground again that we went over in
the joint session with the foreign secretary.
Mr Hutton: Again in the context
of Afghanistan I think it is quite important that we do not over-egg
the pudding. Afghanistan has never been characterised as having
a strong central government. That is the first point. At least
this government has a democratic mandate. I accept it does not
run in every part of Afghanistan and that is because parts of
Afghanistan are affected by the Taliban-al-Qaeda insurgency. That
is what our guys are there to try to contain and eradicate. We
are making progress there; it is slow, painful, costly but necessary.
On the political side I think I would say that we have worked
very hard with President Karzai's government and we continue to
provide maximum support at all levels for the work that he and
his Ministers are trying to achieve in Afghanistan. Part of his
own objectiveswhich he has re-stated very clearly recently
which I think is very importantis to bear down on corruption,
to support a greater effort against the narcotics trade which
is the poison right at the heart of the Afghan society which is
feeding the insurgency which we have to deal with. We are prepared
to stand by the president and support his administration in making
progress in these areas, but progress there has to be. That is
something, I can assure the Committee, that we are very, very
heavily focussed on.
Q135 Mr Crausby: Secretary of State,
you have taken over a department that only met in full one of
its six PSA targets and even more worrying on the objective two
targetbe ready to respond to the tasks that might arisethat
target was not met. Are you surprised by how poorly the MoD has
performed against these targets? What is your initial assessment
of why the MoD's performance against its PSA targets was so poor?
Mr Hutton: I do not think anyone
in the MoD is happy that we only fully met one of the six PSA
targets. We are not delirious about our performance at all. What
is the best argument I can put forward today to the Committee
about that level of performance? I think it is a pretty good one
actually in the context of where we are. My view, the view of
the department, the view of the military chiefs certainly is that
the overriding objective, the absolute number one objective for
the department is to successfully deploy and maintain those deployments
successfully in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have tried to supply
the Committee with information about those deployments on a regular
basis. We can say to the Committee and to the country that those
deployments have been successful. We have sustained a very complicated
military and civilian effort in both Iraq and Afghanistan for
many, many years and we have produced some significant results.
I think my argument to you is that we need to do better; we are
trying to do better. Some of those PSA targets were not exclusively
within the realm of competence of the Ministry to deliver on its
own; some of them were shared with other government departments;
some of them depended on the performance of other interlocutors.
If we are talking about the Middle East peace process, for example,
which is one of the sub-targets in PSA two or three then I hope
people can cut us a bit of slack on failing in the time of this
Annual Report to actually deliver peace in the Middle East. I
hope there is a balance around the table about some of these targets.
Some are more straightforward than others. On the equipment side
for sure we need to do much better: value for money, cost overruns,
delivering some of the strategic equipment needs of the Armed
Forces. We have to do better. I am not actually going to apologise
to the Committee today for the department making, during the course
of the last 12 months, operational success its number one priority;
that is the right and proper thing.
Q136 Mr Crausby: I think that is
fair. The objective one target was met and that is a most important
target. However, it is the future that we are a little bit worried
about to say the least. Your Permanent Secretary told us last
week that there may be a bit of institutional over-optimism in
the MoD's forecasting of performance against its PSA targets.
How will you ensure that the MoD performs better against its new
Departmental Strategic Objectives (DSOs)?
Mr Hutton: I take responsibility
for the performance of the department and am not trying to duck
that point. My Ministers and I will be focussed very heavily on
the DSOs in the next 12 months or so, making sure that processes
within the department are focussed on delivery. I think there
is an obvious case, particularly in number two around equipment
and the issue of personnel, readiness, recuperation, manning levels
where we are very strongly focussed on seeing if we cannot make
a better fist of it next year. That is not in any way a criticism
of my predecessor who I think was a very fine and decent Secretary
of State, but I think some of these difficulties, particularly
on the equipment and manning sideagain it may not be the
best defence but it is worth putting on the recordhave
concerned every Minister since time immemorial in the Ministry
of Defence. We have with us today a very distinguished former
Minister in the department and, if he was able toI am sure
he would not want tohe himself could bear testimony to
how difficult some of these issues are. The other observation
I would bring to this Committee today is that if there was a magic
lever or wand or button to press in the department the Chairman
would have found it, his predecessors would have found it; we
would have found these problems solved a long time ago. The simple
truth is that there is not a magic wand. We are focussed on trying
to improve our performance and we are going to do the best we
can over the next 12 months.
Q137 Mr Crausby: The Q1 report on
DSO 2, be ready to respond to the task that might arise, says,
"No progressReadiness to for contingent operations
declined". The first measure of progress against DSO 2 is
no change.
Mr Hutton: That is absolutely
true; I am not going to argue with that. Again the reason for
that failure to make the headway we would have liked there, to
give the Armed Forces a greater level and range of response capabilities,
is because of our focus on Iraq and Afghanistan. The Chairman
was absolutely spot on ten minutes ago when he said that we are
operating outside the box; we are. This is what the consequence
of that is. Does it mean that we are not able to respond to any
type of contingent request for UK forces? No, it does not, but
it has shrunk the scale of that readiness. Am I happy with that?
No; none of us should be happy with that. However, I am afraid
it is a consequence of operating way beyond the parameters that
the planning assumptions specified for the department. That has
been true, as I said, in every year since 2002. I believe things
will begin to look better next year because of the likely draw
down of forces in Iraq and I think we have to make sure that one
of the things that comes out of that change is more of a breathing
space to allow some of the recuperation that I know the Committee
is concerned about to take place. Exactly how much of that of
course will depend on decisions that we and our allies make about
the level of appropriate forces that should be deployed in Afghanistan
but, as I said, I do not want to speculate about that. One thing
I am pretty clear about is that we have to seize the advantage
of that drawdown to give ourselves more of a breathing space to
allow training to cover a wider range of functions because the
Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force have been focussed
very heavily on those two operational deployments. We have to
give ourselves that space in which to take on some of the smaller
scale peace keeping roles that maybe at the moment look harder
for us to do but it will take time. We are simply not going to
be able to build up the sort of responsiveness and readiness levels
that we would all like instantaneously come the middle of next
year. That is not how things work out but I think we can begin
to turn a page on this issue next year. We have to seize that
as a gain for the men and women who serve our country in uniform
because if we go on with the current level of operational deployments
indefinitely then I think the consequences will be very significant
indeed and I do not want to contemplate that today.
Q138 Mr Jenkin: Secretary of State,
you have said laudably that you want to be as honest as you possibly
can be and we are not holding you personally responsible for some
of the difficulties you are discovering in your department, but
are you not rather shocked by some of the things you have found
in your department?
Mr Hutton: No, I am not shocked.
I have taken a close interest in defence for a long period of
time and what I discovered when I came into the department was
pretty much what I expected. If I can be really straight with
the Committee, the things that have surprised me are the extraordinary
men and women that we have working for the Ministry and our country
in the Armed Forces. I was a fan of the Armed Forces before I
came into the Ministry, but I do not think there is an adjective
now that I could use to describe what I feel about them today.
That has surprised me; I did not think I would be as surprised
by that as I was. Operationally we have some very significant
challenges to face and certainly some of the detail of that I
do not want to share in public today but I would be very happy
to try to share more of that detail in private with the Committee.
I do retain, I think, a strong sense of confidence in both operation
missions and an extraordinary commitment to delivering success
in the department.
Q139 Mr Jenkin: Do you not feel,
as many people now do feel, that first of all there has been a
deliberate act by the government to leave the Ministry of Defence
relatively short changed in view of the commitments it has over
a period of years, a deliberate act of policy? Secondly, the government
is relying on the goodwill, professionalism and dedication of
our Armed Forces perhaps to an unreasonably degree.
Mr Hutton: I disagree with the
first part of that question. I do not believe it is a fair or
reasonable criticism to make of the government. We have tried
to correct the tide of previous spending on the MoD and actually
turn it round so that the MoD can look forward to real
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