Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-45)
LORD DRAYSON,
MR ANDREW
MATHEWSON AND
MR ROBERT
REGAN
12 JULY 2007
Q40 Chairman: Ten minutes.
Lord Drayson: Thank you.
Q41 Lord Swinfen: What are the weaknesses
of the national self-certification system for ensuring that Battlegroups
meet operational criteria? Are there alternatives? In your view,
would it be possible to envisage peer review?
Lord Drayson: Firstly, this is an issue where
we need to recognise there are different standards and the principle
of self-certification is not so much in its infancy but in early
days. We do think that moving towards peer review is a good approach.
What we need to do is to level up standards, and that is something
which over time we believe can be achieved, but being pragmatic
and realistic about this we need to recognise that differences
in standards do exist. We must not come over as being critical
about those differences, we must be encouraging across the Member
States to get to the point where we can get to this levelling
up of those standards, and we believe that a peer review process
is a good way to do that.
Q42 Lord Swinfen: Do we invite other
nations to come and peer review our Battlegroups because that
would be a way to start the process off?
Lord Drayson: Perhaps I could come back to you
on that.
Q43 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: I am
asking about the "Milex 07" which took place in June.
Are there any lessons learned from that?
Lord Drayson: We have had a first impressions
report, I understand, which says that this exercise achieved its
objectives and primarily it showed that the communications worked
well. Following on from our previous conversation, it was a humanitarian
exercise that was being tested within the constraints of what
the exercise was intended to test, which was not the full range
it was in particular aspects of Command HQ communications process.
Q44 Lord Hamilton of Epsom: What
we would call a TEWT?
Mr Mathewson: It was a command post exercise.
It was based on a scenario of a fictional African country which
had gone through a conflict cycle, which I think you might recognise
from many African countries, and had terminated with a UN request
to the EU to deploy a Battlegroup to provide protection to humanitarian
relief. The exercise was an exercise testing the planning stage
involving activation of the Ops Centre in Brussels and a forward
headquarters based on the forward headquarters that the Nordic
Battlegroup will use at Enköping, I think is the place. It
was a test of the planning, the communications and the interchange
between the operational level and the forward level. It was generally
regarded as a success.
Q45 Lord Anderson of Swansea: Minister,
we have every interest in ensuring mutual self-respect and good
co-operation, a pooling of ideas through the military committees
of NATO and the European Union. We understand that relations are
not good at the moment. Can you comment on that and say what efforts
are being made to improve that?
Lord Drayson: here is certainly room for improvement
and I think we have touched on certain aspects of the tensions
which in part cause this. We also need to recognise that the different
doctrines which have existed, and certainly what I have seen in
the two years doing this job, and the particular way that nations
go about the business of running their militaries, and therefore
coming up with effective mechanisms to enable joint decision-making
to operate, is a challenge, it is difficult. In terms of what
we can do as a country it is to be sincerely making our best efforts
to improve this and I think that we are genuinely regarded in
that vein, but in terms of it being an issue, yes, it is and we
need to recognise that.
Chairman: Minister, I think we probably should
say at this stage thank you very, very much for coming and talking
to us this afternoon. Even though I have not had the chance to
ask the question, I was wondering when the peace support operations
would go over to crisis management operations because certainly
in the security strategy it might be seen that Battlegroups should
go beyond the Petersberg task in those directions at some stage.
I do not expect a response on that from you or Mr Mathewson at
this stage. I hope that you found it interesting to come and discover
the interest there is in the House in the work that you are doing
in the EDA and in other pieces of European co-operation. We hope
that if you do go as minister to the EDA in the future you will
be able to come and talk to us about it afterwards, we certainly
appreciate it, although we appreciate seeing Mr Mathewson and
Mr Regan if you are unable to be here. I would like to thank you
again. We will be sending you a transcript of what has been said
today for you to check and send back to us. Thank you very much
indeed.
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