EU Referendum and EU Reform (EUC Report)

15 June 2016

Motion to Take Note

Moved by Lord Boswell of Aynho

That this House takes note of the Report from the European Union Committee The EU referendum and EU reform

Lord Bilimoria:

My Lords, there is a great deal I do not like about the European Union. No one knows who their MEP is. MEPs have no connection with the people they represent and are not accountable or representative. The EU Parliament moving from Brussels to Strasbourg every month for a week is a ridiculous waste of time and money. The euro is a complete failure—one size will never fit all. It is surviving ​only because it is more difficult to dismantle than keep together. I used to think we lost out on tourism and business visitors by not being in Schengen; now we are fortunate, given the migration crisis and security concerns, not to be in Schengen. I am a true Eurosceptic.

However, given a choice, I have no hesitation in saying that we should remain in the EU. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and his committee for producing their reports. I came to this county from India as a 19 year-old student and I have seen the immense change in this country from the time I arrived in the early 1980s, when it was the sick man of Europe, to today being the envy of Europe. The transformation is remarkable. Back in the 1980s, this country had a glass ceiling. Today it is a country of aspiration and opportunity where anyone can get to the top, regardless of race, religion or background. We have seen the highest cumulative GDP growth rate in the European Union since the single market began in 1993. For the United Kingdom it is 62% versus Germany, for example, at 35%. On this point alone, the well-known economist David Smith said in the Sunday Times:

“Britain succeeds in the EU: we’d be daft to leave it”.

This country, with its flexible labour market and open economy, has given me the opportunity to build Cobra Beer from scratch. When we first exported Cobra we chose European Union countries to export to because it was so easy. Now we have exported to more than 40 countries.

I cannot believe that Vote Leave could put out a TV advertisement that states the UK pays £350 million into Europe every week, and then states the purported health spending that this could result in. This is complete nonsense. It should have been taken down by the Advertising Standards Authority. The Vote Leave campaign cannot even get its sums right. We get a rebate from Europe that brings it down to about £150 million a week. If we leave, our current growth rate of 2% a year might flatline or even go into recession. That would be a drop of well over £30 billion —four times our net contribution to the EU.

This country has to wake up and smell the coffee. The Vote Leave campaign is based on a number of bogus claims. Brexit bogus claim number one is about loss of sovereignty. What loss of sovereignty? We are in the EU, but not in the euro; we are in the EU, but not part of Schengen; we are in the EU, but we drink our beer in pints not litres; we are in the EU, but measure our roads in miles not kilometres. No one can tell this country what to do. We have total sovereignty.

Brexit bogus claim number two concerns the lack of democracy. There are elected Members of the EU Parliament. The EU Commission is appointed by elected representatives from each country. We are having a referendum on EU membership right now and we can pull out of the EU whenever we want. Where is the lack of democracy?

Brexit bogus claim number three: Vote Leave says EU regulations cost British businesses £600 million a week. Where has this figure come from? It is completely subjective to try to quantify the impact of red tape. The claims are made by people who have never run a business in their life. Of course there are unpopular regulations, but there are good regulations that protect ​workers’ rights. I can assure noble Lords that when you run a global business, as I have, you do not thinking about EU red tape, you just get on with it. The biggest barriers to business are the UK’s own overly complex, vast and continually increasing taxation, housing and planning laws. These are self-inflicted by the Government of the day and are nothing to do with the European Union whatever.

Brexit bogus claim number four concerns migration. Immigration has benefited this country over the decades. EU immigration has been continually demeaned and vilified by Brexiteers. There are 3 million EU migrants working in the UK. This has built up over a number of years and we know how hard-working they are. For example, surveys show that the Polish community is respected and appreciated by the British public and seen as contributing to our country. We have one of the highest levels of employment on record. We have one of the lowest unemployment levels ever seen—in fact, in practical terms we have full employment, despite 3 million EU migrants. Where is the problem? There are a few bad apples trying to take advantage of our welfare state, but, on the whole, EU migrants have helped us to become the fastest growing country in the EU and they contribute to this economy five times more than they take out.

People talk about a drain on public services. If we need 3 million people to boost our economy, our Government have failed if they have not been able to provide the necessary accompanying public services. In fact, our public services would collapse without the contribution of those 3 million people. Our country needs migration due to our ageing population. Misleading nonsense is proliferating from the Vote Leave campaign about immigration, which states that if we leave the EU we will be able to take in immigrants from elsewhere. Michael Gove has said that he wants to bring net migration down to the tens of thousands. We have net migration of 330,000 now, of which half—about 180,000—is from outside the EU. Even if EU immigration stops dead on Brexit, we still have well over the tens of thousands. Their argument is illogical and the public should not fall for it.

Brexit bogus claim number five is that we could negotiate more trade deals with other countries and we would be in control of our destiny if we left the EU—that we could engage in trade deals with India and America. We are the second-largest recipient of inward investment in Europe. Some 60% of companies operating in the EU have their headquarters in the UK. Would they continue to if we leave? Of course not. Our inward investment would dry up and London would no longer be the number one financial centre in the world. Other countries see the UK as the gateway to Europe. As a professor from the Harvard Business School, of which I am an alumnus, said, we would be mad to leave the EU. If we were to have a deal like those of Switzerland or Norway, we would still have to agree to free movement of people and we would still have to contribute—maybe not £8 billion, but maybe £4 billion.

The Brexiteers tell us that those advising against leaving the EU should not be listened to: “Who are they to tell us? They’ve been wrong in the past”. We do ​not live in a vacuum. We are an integrated member of the global economy. We are not a superpower, but a global power—we sit at the top table of the world: the UN Security Council, the G7, G8, G20, NATO and the EU. If we leave, we jeopardise our standing in the world and our future investment. I did not think I would ever quote the Prime Minister’s wife, but she said:

“I want my children growing up with the advantage of starting their careers in a country that is a big fish in a big pond, leading the way in Europe”.

If we leave the EU we will be a tiddler in an ocean.

Brexit bogus claim number six is that the EU is in a mess and our share of trade with it has been falling. That is quite obvious because we are trading more with emerging markets, but the EU still accounts for 44% of our exports and 55% of our imports. It is too big to jeopardise.

Brexit bogus claim number seven is that there will be further integration, leading to a superstate, and we will be dragged into EU bailouts. There will never be a united states of Europe. I come from India, a country that is a true federal state. Europe will never look like that. The Prime Minister’s negotiations have ensured that we are not committed to further unification and bailouts in the future.

Brexit bogus claim number eight is that there will be an EU army that will subsume the British Army. This is complete fantasy. This will never ever happen. It is also claimed that peace in Europe has been brought about by NATO. It has been brought about by NATO and the European Union.

Brexit bogus claim number nine is that Turkey will become a member of the EU and we will not be able to stop 75 million people coming here. Turkey is light years away from joining the European Union—this is scaremongering.

Lastly, Brexit bogus claim number 10 is that the EU is an economic mess, with youth unemployment up to 50% in countries such as Spain, Italy and France. These countries have been in a mess since 2008-09, when the financial crisis began. We, on the other hand, because of our flexibility and control of our destiny, have thrived. The fate of these EU countries has not prevented us succeeding and getting our economy back on track. Even if the economies of Europe absolutely implode and Europe breaks up, I would rather we were at that table trying to help out and knowing what is going on. As has been said, I do not want to jeopardise our own United Kingdom in a Brexit situation, where Scotland might want to leave. Then there is the huge number of years it has taken to get to the present Northern Ireland situation, which would be jeopardised.

Brexiteers try to say that they are the ones who are proud of Britain. I am proud of Britain—a country that has given me everything, that is not isolationist, selfish or blinkered. What speaks more about a country than anything else is its spirit and values. British people are respected around the world for their values. If we Brexit, we will be sleep-walking over the cliffs of Dover into huge uncertainty and instability. Even Brexiteers are saying that it will take years to renegotiate our position with Europe. A protracted period of ​negotiations, a possible recession, the loss of jobs—we have a fragile recovery and huge debt. We have a current account deficit and a budget deficit. Why risk all this when we do not have to? It is far wiser and far more productive for us to try to reform the EU from within. Why destroy the growth we have achieved? Why risk our standing as the fifth largest economy, with the highest growth rate in the EU and the largest amount of investment in the EU?

There is an African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together”. We are in control of our destiny and we have our sovereignty. I conclude with a very short poem—my favourite poem—written by the Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, which is so pertinent to what we are speaking about:

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake”.

Armed Forces Bill – Second Reading

11.02.2016

Moved by Earl Howe

That the Bill be read a second time.

Relevant document: 21st Report from the Delegated Powers Committee

Lord Bilimoria (CB): My Lords, the Minister started this debate by saying that the Armed Forces Bill would renew the Armed Forces Act 2006, which provides the legal basis for the existence of the Armed Forces as disciplined bodies. I have just returned from addressing the 71st course at the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington in the Nilgiri hills in south India. I have known the institution since my childhood. When I was a little boy, my father was a major attending the course. When I was at boarding school in neighbouring Ooty, my uncle, Lieutenant-General Sethna, was commandant. Later, in the 1980s when I was at Cambridge, my father, Lieutenant-General Faridoon Bilimoria, was commandant. I returned there eight years ago to address the 63rd course in 2008. When I was there this week, I was taken by the immaculate condition of the staff college. It was the best I have ever seen it, under the leadership of its current commandant, the Guards officer Lieutenant-General SK Gadeock. He reminded me of the motto of the staff college—“To war with wisdom”—and the mascot of the staff college, its emblem, the owl. Of course, the owl stands for wisdom.

Are we being wise as a country when it comes to the law and the Armed Forces? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, spoke of the fog of war, and we have been speaking about The Fog of Law. Penny Mordaunt, the Armed Forces Minister, has spoken openly about the spurious cases being brought by parasitical lawyers whose behaviour is the,

“enemy of justice and humanity”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/1/16; col. 203WH.]

We have heard of “lawfare”. Legal firms have brought more than 1,500 allegations of abuse and killings against British troops in Iraq. Ms Mordaunt said that that they are bringing morally unjustifiable cases on an industrial scale. For instance, Public Interest Lawyers, founded by Phil Shiner, has brought a case against British troops even though it was accepted 11 years earlier that Danish troops were responsible and Danish forces had already accepted responsibility and paid compensation in 2003. Ms Mordaunt said that we will take action against any legal firms we find to have abused the system and made spurious and fabricated claims. Will the Minister say why this issue is not being addressed in the Bill? IHAT has a huge backlog. It spent £57 million to find evidence of wrongdoing in only one case. A team of more than 145 detectives and staff will not complete its work until 2019. We hear that further allegations may be brought against troops who have served in Afghanistan. According to Johnny Mercer, the situation is out of hand. No other country has legislation put to the Armed Forces in the way we are experiencing here.

The Prime Minister wants to stamp out spurious legal claims against British troops returning from war and this awful no-win no-fee culture. The Defence Secretary has spoken of ambulance-chasing British law firms and said that there is a case for suspending European human rights laws when sending forces into action. Does the Minister agree? The Prime Minister has said that the National Security Council has been ordered to produce a comprehensive plan to stamp out this industry. Will the Minister update us on this? This is stopping the Armed Forces doing their job. How long will it take to finalise the proposed new British Bill of Rights which it is hoped will replace the Human Rights Act and make Britain’s Supreme Court more powerful than the European court? In the mean time, as the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, said, does the Minister agree that we can derogate from the ECHR, as we did after 9/11, to protect ourselves from being sued if we are going to a theatre of operations where we think compensation could be applied? After all, France has opted out of certain elements of the ECHR in order to protect its military from the threat of litigation. Portugal, the Czech Republic and Spain have all derogated in the way that France has. Why can we not? Why should we not?

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, spoke about fighting effectiveness and about lawfare. Surely the ECHR was designed for civilian situations to protect the public from the misuse of state powers. Instead it is being used to bring legal claims against the military during times of war. The Geneva protocols should apply in conflicts of war. Does the Minister not agree?

The Policy Exchange, talking about its report The Fog of Law, says that, “human rights laws mean British troops operating in the heat of battle are now being held to the same standard as police officers patrolling the streets”, of London on a Saturday evening. This is completely out of proportion. In fact, Article 15 of the ECHR allows countries to derogate in times of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation.

My father commanded his battalion of the 2/5th Gurkhas in the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. When they were about to take over a town, the brigade commander phoned my father and said, “I want that town taken by breakfast tomorrow morning”. My father said, “No, sir, I will not obey your order. I will give you that town by lunch. If I take it by breakfast I will lose too many of my men”. He did indeed take the town by lunch. Sadly, he still lost lots of his men. However, he made that decision in war.

I come to the question of adequate equipment. Since we are talking about the Gurkhas, whose 200th anniversary we celebrated last year, I say that my father’s battalion won three Victoria Crosses in the Second World War. I am on, and for six years was proud to chair, the committee for the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill. In the ceiling of the pavilion there are the names of the Gurkha Victoria Cross winners. How many of them had adequate equipment? Their adequate equipment entailed a kukri with which they would single-handedly combat troops with a cry of “Ayo Gorkhali”—“Here come the Gurkhas”. Field-Marshal Manekshaw, another former commandant of the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, famously associated with the Gurkhas, said that if a man says he is not afraid of dying, either he is lying or he is a Gurkha. This sort of bravery has no place for human rights lawyers.

Under the Geneva convention, lethal force is allowed as a matter of first resort against the enemy. Under the ECHR, lethal force should be used only as a last resort and only in exceptional circumstances. That is wholly inappropriate. The Minister said that the Bill is modest, and I am afraid I have to agree with him. It does not address a major issue. Last year was the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. What was the motto of the Duke of Wellington, one of the most famous heroes in this country? “Fortune favours the brave.”

In my talk to the Defence Services Staff College, which trains officers for armies, navies and air forces from all over the world, I spoke about the article 10 Things Entrepreneurs and Military Pilots Have in Common, written by Ron Yekutiel. Two of those 10 things were “Be bold” and “Just get the job done”. How can you just get the job done when you have the ECHR breathing down your neck and human rights lawyers ambulance-chasing you? This year at Harvard Business School, which I have attended for 14 years, we talked about the difference between playing to lose and playing to win. I believe that the British Army is famous for playing to win.

The SDSR 2015 was very positive, after the very negative one in 2010. Defence spending will rise by 5% by 2020-21. We will restore our lost capability after a decade of no carriers and no maritime patrols. We have one of the five highest levels of defence expenditure in the world. We are one of less than a handful of countries that now adhere to our 2% of GDP spending NATO commitment.

We are not a superpower; there is only one superpower on this planet and that is the United States of America. However, we are not a regional power or local power. We are at the top table of the world in every sense—the UN Security Council, the G7, the G8, the G20, NATO and the European Union. We are a global power.

The House of Commons Defence Committee produced a report, Flexible Response? An SDSR Checklist of Potential Threats and Vulnerabilities. It identified the following threats:

“Cyber-attack and espionage … Growing instability in the Middle East and North Africa … Increases in extremism, radicalisation and other enablers of terrorist activity … Non-state actors and hybrid warfare undermining the international rules-based order … Potential for conflict in the South and East China Seas … Potential for Russian aggression in Europe and the High North and possible dilution of the commitment to Article 5 … Economic dependence on unreliable partners … Inability to react to sub-conventional threats … Inadequate training opportunities for UK Armed Forces … Lack of numbers in UK Armed Forces and gaps in capabilities”.

On that note, when I was in India this time with the Indian Army it reminded me of when my father commanded the largest corps in the Indian Army. That corps has a strength of 100,000. The army that he commanded was 350,000 strong. Our troops now number 80,000. Lastly, the committee identifies:

“Lack of expertise in Whitehall”.

The report concludes:

“The SDSR must demonstrate adequate awareness of them all, and configure the Armed Forces to provide the flexibility, versatility and ability to expand which are essential for the defence and security of the United Kingdom”.

This is about the services. The motto of Sandhurst, where my grandfather was commissioned, is, “Serve to lead”. The motto of the Indian military academy where my father was commissioned, if I may paraphrase it, is, “The honour, safety and welfare of your country come first, always and every time. The safety and welfare of the troops that you command come second, always and every time. Your own safety and welfare come last, always and every time”.

We have had three varied and excellent maiden speeches today. The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, spoke movingly of the Armed Forces covenant. We now have an annual report prepared on the covenant. Let us remind ourselves of what this is all about. The Armed Forces covenant is an enduring covenant between the people of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty’s Government and all those who have served the Armed Forces of the Crown and their families.

The first duty of government is the defence of the realm. Our Armed Forces fulfil that responsibility on behalf of the Government, sacrificing some civilian freedoms, facing danger and sometimes suffering serious injury or death as a result of their duty. In return, the whole nation has a moral obligation to the members of the naval service, the Army and the Royal Air Force. Together with their families, they deserve our respect, support and fair treatment. Recognising those who perform military duties unites the country and demonstrates the value of their contribution. This has no greater expression than in upholding this covenant. The covenant is at the heart of everything. We have to address the major lack in the Bill. I hope that we do.

 

Earl Howe: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords will agree that we have had a very good debate today with contributions of the highest quality. It has been a debate enriched and adorned by three excellent maiden speeches. It is a pleasure for me to say that I agreed and identified with every word of all three of them.

The difficulty of doing justice to all contributions is, I hope, obvious. I shall do my best to respond to as many as possible of the points that have been raised, but I hope that noble Lords will bear with me if I do not manage to answer each and every one today. I shall look carefully at Hansard and will write to any noble Lord where I have something to add.

Perhaps I may begin by responding to the many noble Lords—including the noble Lords, Lord West of Spithead and Lord Empey, the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Craig and Lord Boyce, the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Bilimoria and Lord Burnett, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, and others—who raised a series of concerns falling under the broad heading of the law relating to human rights.

I turn first to the concerns about combat immunity and the so-called Smith judgment, raised by the noble Lord, Lord West, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce. Without any disrespect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, whose remarks I found very helpful, the Government are very concerned about the judgment, because the court ruled that some issues relating to military operations may be justiciable. This was one of the reasons for our manifesto commitment to deal with the huge volume of litigation currently engulfing the Armed Forces. We are determined to honour that.

Our particular concern is that the Smith judgment has left the position on liability for events on the battlefield unclear. We continue to defend the doctrine of combat immunity vigorously and a number of high-profile test cases are ongoing. We are examining the option of legislating, but we would look to do so using the most appropriate means. Once our proposals are mature we will announce further details. Clearly, it is important that we get this right and that operational effectiveness is not harmed.

Many of the noble Lords I just mentioned raised particular concerns about the volume of claims being brought against the Ministry of Defence raising human rights issues. Let me make clear the Government’s determination to address the risks arising from developments in international human rights law, which has the potential to impose ever-greater constraints on the Armed Forces and the MoD to operate effectively in defending the UK and its interests. The Government are committed to upholding the rule of law. Their view is that international humanitarian law, as embodied in the Geneva Conventions, should have primacy over human rights law for ensuring that military operations are conducted lawfully.

The Government are considering the options available to safeguard the ability of the Armed Forces to do their job, as I have said. Among our key objectives, we want to ensure that our service personnel are not pressured to become unduly risk-averse by the prospect of unmeritorious legal harassment, and that commanders can take necessarily rapid and often high-risk decisions. We are currently looking into a number of areas, including examining different areas of legislation where changes could be made and what more we can do to support our Armed Forces personnel and their families. We have established a programme to look at the different ways we can reduce the cost and volume of litigation against the MoD to ensure that our Armed Forces continue to operate unimpeded. The Queen’s Speech included a clear commitment to bring forward proposals for a Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act. We are actively working with the Ministry of Justice on the shape of the Bill to ensure that our Armed Forces can operate effectively in armed conflicts without overzealous constraint.

In addition, the Government are concerned to ensure that the extent of the doctrine of combat immunity is clear. We continue to defend the doctrine vigorously. As I mentioned, a number of high-profile test cases are going on. I reassure noble Lords that the doctrine of combat immunity continues to apply to those taking decisions in the heat of battle.

 

Lord Bilimoria: I thank the Minister for the very positive response to the points we raised, but the covenant was enacted in a way that was never done before. It is now reported on every year. It is a very positive measure. Why is it not possible for this huge issue to be incorporated in this Bill to protect the immunity of our troops, to allow them to fight with confidence and not worry about lawyers chasing them?

 

Earl Howe: My Lords, as I said, and I hope the noble Lord will agree, it is very important that we get this right. I was reassured by the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, who said he did not feel personally that this was the right Bill in which to enact any changes. I am as eager as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, to see this matter sorted out and I have no doubt that we can return to it in Committee—in fact, I think it would be useful to do so—but I am not yet persuaded that we are in the right place to legislate in the time available to us for the Bill.

The vast majority of UK service personnel have conducted themselves highly professionally and have acted in accordance with policy and legal obligations. However, in the context of the work done by the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, or IHAT, which has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, the law requires that allegations that crimes have been committed by members of the UK forces should be investigated. In our view, the IHAT is necessary, given the unprecedented number of allegations. Having this independent investigative body has enabled us to defeat the claimants’ attempt to persuade the court to order a single public inquiry, which would have taken many years and costed an estimated £200 million. The IHAT investigations can be completed more quickly and cheaply, ending sooner the uncertainty faced by service personnel.

It is true that the IHAT’s investigations have not yet resulted in any prosecutions. However, it has completed a number of investigations. The lack of prosecutions is because in some cases the evidence showed that no criminal offence was committed, while in others the evidence did not meet the domestic test for bringing a prosecution. It has taken a long time because it is far more difficult to carry out investigations into events in Iraq then events in England. Witnesses are often difficult to locate and to interview. The solicitors representing those claimants have also been extremely unco-operative, even though they called the investigations in the first place. I can assure the House that the IHAT is getting on with its job as promptly and professionally as it can. I urge the House not to interpret the absence of any measures on this in this Bill as an indication of our intent to do something. Work is in hand and we will set out proposals as soon as we are able.

My Lords, I am delighted that the Chancellor, George Osborne, has committed to the 2% target that Britain was instrumental in implementing at NATO. Our doing so was a crucial step in maintaining our capability to respond to unknown and unforeseeable circumstances, and yet the current plans the Ministry of Defence maintain for the reserves severely reduce our capabilities to respond to threats. I believe it is being used as a cost-cutting measure rather than as a means to improve our Army. It is means before ends, once again, just as it was in SDSR 2010.

The need to update our Reserve Forces is crucial. When the independent commission first investigated the Armed Forces, it noted that in 2005 the Army Reserve—then called the Territorial Army—was no longer required to support large-scale operations. Despite this, the reserve was not modified to reflect this, leaving 80 major units configured for operations. It is difficult to compare our military to America’s, given the wholly different size and nature of the Army Reserve, but in the United States, reserves make up 32% of the current army. In Australia it is 30%, and yet here in the UK it is only 16%. The Future Reserves 2020 consultation paper makes clear that the Canadian reserve force is far more prepared for active combat than our current force, drawing attention to the nature of graduate recruiting into the Army as preferable to that within our own Reserve Forces. The paper points out the effectiveness of Australian reservists in providing military aid to the civil authority for events such as the Olympics—as was required over here—in a manner instructive to the UK Army.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for initiating this important debate. I think the whole House would agree that reforms to modernise and upgrade our reserves are paramount. Yet I am concerned that the strengthening of the Army Reserve is primarily a cost-cutting measure rather than a military one. The integration programme has been poorly executed, to the extent that 65% of Regular Army members surveyed believe that reserves are currently not well integrated. Does the Minister recognise this? Given that the aim of the Army 2020 programme is to create a fully integrated force, this is worrying. These statistics demonstrate that the overall priority of the Government has not been to maintain the quality necessary within our Armed Forces. This is a real worry, because reserves seem to be making up for cuts in the Regular Army. For me, reserves taking the place of the Regular Army is an oxymoron. Surely the increase in reserve strength and capability should be something designed to complement the Regular Army, not replace it. Would the Minister agree?

Even with the course the Government have chosen to go down, it is essential that at no point are we left with an incapable force. Unfortunately, the current nature of the replacement programme leaves us threatened with just that. It is especially dangerous and leaves us vulnerable as a nation while the necessary transition to a more integrated force is being completed. As the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, said, the timeline of the recruitment and training of the reserves should be a cause of concern to us all. It was initially the case that the number of Regular Army members would not fall until the number of reserves had risen to compensate for the demand. Yet the projects set out in the Army 2020 plans are being used to cover for increasing weaknesses in the body of our Regular Army. The National Audit Office showed that recruitment of reserves is 67% down on required figures, and the figure for regular personnel is below target at 34%. Would the Minister confirm those figures? The figures confirm the fears that I and others have that the redevelopment of the reserves is primarily for budgetary reasons rather than military ones. Projections in this report have shown that we will only reach the 30,000 figure for reservists in 2025. In the years before achieving that objective and completing the transition to a fully integrated Army, we will be significantly less able to respond to threats. Would the Minister accept that? Such a reduced Army will mean that we are unable to exert ourselves significantly in the world or to cope with the so-called black swan events that are impossible to predict, and without the capability to respond swiftly in future years.

The United States Defense Secretary said, just recently, that Britain has always punched above its weight when it comes to our Armed Forces. Today is the 75th anniversary of the Royal Engineers’ bomb disposal unit. Today I heard Warrant Officer Karl Ley, who was awarded the George Medal for clearing more roadside bombs than anyone else in history—139, including 42 in a single village. He said that the British Army is the best-trained in the world, and he said it with pride. He said that because we are the best-trained in the world, “We train hard, we fight easy”. The British Army has to retain that culture and reputation of excellence as the best of the best in the world—something that is a matter of pride for all of us. The reform of our reserves to form a more integrated force is necessary to achieve that goal, but it should be pursued as a method to strengthen our Army capabilities, not as a method to save money and thereby weaken our capabilities.

My Lords, last week, when I asked the chief of the Indian army, General Dalbir Singh Suhag—from my late father Lieutenant General Bilimoria’s regiment, the 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles—what is the strength of the Indian Army today, he said 1.3 million. Yet today we have cut the British Army to 80,000—not even enough to fill Wembley Stadium. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, for initiating this debate. As he said, the Chancellor has now asked for a further £500 million cut in defence spending even before SDSR 2015.

 

The US Defense Secretary, the head of the US army and the US President have warned Britain about the impact of defence cuts in no uncertain terms. In the debate I was privileged to lead on the 200th anniversary of the Gurkhas last week, I asked the Minister to confirm that there would be no more cuts to the Gurkhas. They are now down to 3,000. Even when pressed, the Minister could not tell us that they would be protected. I find this deeply worrying.

 

It has also just been revealed how out of tune the Government are with the public when it comes to defence. PwC has just prepared a report titled Forces for Changeafter surveying the public’s views on defence. I declare my interest: PwC is the auditor of the Cobra Beer Partnership, my joint venture with Molson Coors. The PwC report says that 53% of the public want defence spending to be increased beyond the current £37.4 billion. Only 16% want the defence budget cut. Some 37% believe the cost of funding the military helps strengthen the economy. Frighteningly, 53% feel the Armed Forces are weaker than 20 years ago.

 

Words from the public that recurred throughout the survey were alarming: “underfunded”, “overstretched” and “unequipped”. The strategy of compensating for cuts in the numbers of full-time soldiers with reserves, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, is an oxymoron. Reserves are meant to be reserves and we have seen the challenge of recruiting high-quality reserves. Will the Minister confirm this? The PwC report said that 72% of the public had a positive view of the Armed Forces, and 69% rate the Armed Forces as trustworthy versus only 23% when it comes to Parliament. Some 65% also felt that modern threats are the biggest threats to the UK: terrorist groups, cyberattacks, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. No one predicted 9/11. No one predicted the Arab spring. No one predicted Libya. No one predicted Syria. Barely a year ago no one had heard of Islamic State.

 

As we have heard before, Britain has amazing soft power: the BBC, our universities—I could go on. But soft power alone, without hard power, is useless. As Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University said, a combination of hard power and soft power gives you smart power. SDSR 2010 was the opposite of smart. Quite frankly, it was negligent. We have no carriers, no Harriers, no maritime reconnaissance, cuts to our troops—means before ends. I urge the Government to be in tune with the British public, to listen to our steadfast ally, the United States, which has spoken out at the highest level, and to commit to the NATO 2% of GDP defence spending.

 

To conclude, this debate is on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. The Duke of Wellington’s motto was, “Fortune favours the brave”. One word the public mentioned above any other in the PwC report about our wonderful, best of the best, cherished Armed Forces—the best in the world—was the word “brave”. I challenge the Government to be brave.

My Lords, yesterday I was privileged to attend the Gurkha pageant held at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, where I was proud to be a commissioner for six years.

Throughout the pageant, my eyes welled up with childhood memories of being brought up among the Gurkhas—it all came flooding back. My late father, Lieutenant-General Faridoon Bilimoria, was commissioned into the 2/5th Royal Gurkha Rifles, Frontier Force, and commanded his battalion in the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh. His battalion suffered heavy losses and casualties, including officers I had known and grown up with as a child. How ironic that a couple of decades later I would found a brand, Cobra beer, which we supply to thousands of Indian restaurants in the UK, the vast majority of them run and owned by Bangladeshis.

I am on the commemoration committee of the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill and was chairman of the committee for six years. These gates exist because of the amazing tenacity of one individual, my noble friend Lady Flather. The Memorial Gates commemorate the contribution of the 5 million volunteers from the Indian subcontinent, Africa and the Caribbean. Inscribed on the ceiling of pavilion next to the gates are the names of the Victoria Cross and George Cross holders, three of whom were from my father’s battalion, the 2/5th Gurkhas—one posthumous.

Gaje Ghale VC and Agansing Rai VC were living legends, who I was fortunate to have grown up with and have been inspired by for the rest of my life. Agansing Rai VC was subedar-major when my father was commanding his battalion. Legend has it that when my father, as a young captain in a remote area in north-east India, received the telegram of my birth, Gage Ghale was next to him and jumped for joy. The ground shook, because he was such a large man.

What I learned about the Gurkhas really quickly is that they are the kindest, most caring and most gentle people. For example, when I took my South African possible future wife on her first visit to India, my father’s retired driver, Bombahadur, who continued to serve with my father at retirement, took me aside and said, “Baba, you should marry her!”. My father’s beloved Gurkha had given his approval, and of course then there was no question but that I was marrying Heather.

However, these kind gentle people in peacetime are the fiercest warriors mankind has known. Just reading the citations of the Gurkha VCs makes your jaw drop with feats that are, quite frankly, superhuman. Sir Ralph Turner, a former officer of the 3rd Gurkhas, had written:

“Bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had country more faithful friends than you”.

We are celebrating the Battle of Waterloo and the 200th anniversary of the Gurkhas’ service in the same year. I visited the site of the Battle of Waterloo earlier this year. If the Duke of Wellington had had Gurkhas among his troops, the Battle of Waterloo would not have been won on the playing fields of Eton or because Blücher came to the rescue; it would have been won because Napoleon’s troops, including his beloved Imperial Guard, would have been running in fear back towards Paris, fleeing from the fierce Gurkhas, just as the Argentinians did in the Falklands.

It was disheartening when I first spoke about the Gurkhas in this House in 2008 to start the fight for the Gurkhas who had served in Britain for four years to have the right to stay on in the UK if they wished to do so. It seems so unfair that a person could work for a company for four years and have the right to stay indefinitely, and yet someone who was willing to commit the ultimate sacrifice was not, at that time, allowed to. After that debate—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lee, who initiated the Bill—Joanna Lumley, whose father had served in the 6th Gurkhas, came to the fore and spearheaded a public battle that generated an outcry among the British public, who were overwhelmingly appalled at this injustice and unfairness. I will never forget in one television interview how Joanna Lumley humiliated the then Home Office Minister, Phil Woolas. Of course, we won the day and justice was delivered.

We should never take for granted what these amazing men have done in the past 200 years for Britain and India. I have been very outspoken in my criticism of the SDSR in 2010, when cuts were made to the Army that I believe were negligent, cutting the number of Army troops to 80,000—not even enough to fill Wembley Stadium. Today, there are barely 3,000 Gurkhas in the British Army, with the Gurkha regiments amalgamated into one, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, with just two battalions, and some in the Queen’s Gurkha Signals, the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers and the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment.

However, in India, the Gurkha regiments left with the Indian army after India’s independence have flourished, with six battalions per regiment, an additional regiment formed—the 11th Gurkhas—and Gurkhas serving in all other arms of the army as well. There are approaching 100,000 Gurkhas serving in the Indian army, recruited from Nepal and India, who, after they retire, settle in both India and Nepal. They are a vital backbone of the Indian army. Will the Minister agree that the 200th anniversary celebrations of the Gurkhas are for the British and for India? It was a privilege today to show General Dalbir Singh Suhag, Chief of the Army Staff of the Indian army, around Parliament—all the more for me because he is also from the 5th Gurkhas. When my father was commander-in-chief of the central Indian army, an army of 350,000 strong, I always felt it meant more to him to be president of the Brigade of Gurkhas and colonel of his regiment.

Could the Minister commit, where the Prime Minister is unwilling to in this dangerous world that we live in, to the NATO commitment of 2% of GDP spent on defence? Could the Minister also reassure us and confirm that there will be no further cuts to the Gurkhas? I look forward to the forthcoming SDSR report and hope that this time it is not about means before ends but about looking carefully at the needs first. It is our duty to look after the veterans, and I commend the work of the Gurkha Welfare Trust and all that it does for Gurkhas to live out their lives with dignity. Can the Minister confirm the commitment for future support of the Gurkha Welfare Trust to continue the wonderful work that it does? Will the Government reassure us?

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who was present at the pageant, said:

“The Brigade of Gurkhas is more than just a fighting force, it is also—in every sense of the word—a family”.

Particularly at this time, with the devastating earthquakes by which so many Gurkhas have been affected so tragically, does the noble Earl feel that we are doing enough to support the Gurkhas in Nepal? Will the Minister confirm that? Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected in the two disastrous, tragic earthquakes. Major-General Ashok Mehta, my father’s second-in-command, said:

“Two hundred years of distinguished soldiering have put a halo around the Gorkha in the hall of fame. In this hour of national calamity it is the Gorkha-ness of the Nepalis that will be the greatest enabler to confront the monumental tragedy”.

In my own company, Cobra Beer, I sent out 200 hundred letters to our Nepalese restaurant customers straight after the first earthquake to offer our support to raise funds, and I am delighted to say the restaurants have raised almost £200,000. That is the wonderful spirit of giving in our country.

A fellow Zoroastrian Parsee, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw—popularly nicknamed by the Gurkhas as “Sam Bahadur”—said:

“If a man says he is not afraid of dying he is either lying or is a Gurkha”.

Prince Harry, who was also present at the pageant yesterday, said that,

“there was no safer place than by the side of a Gurkha”.

This is the Ayo Gorkhali, or “Here come the Gurkhas”, the cry of the Gurkhas—the finest fighting force the world has ever known. The Gurkha motto is:

“It is better to die than be a coward”.

On the 150th anniversary of the regiment of the 5th Gurkhas in 2008, which took place at Sandhurst—I am proud to be a member of the regimental association— I heard a prayer written by the Reverend Guy Cornwall-Jones, whose father served in the 5th Gurkhas. That prayer said:

“Oh God, who in the Gurkhas has given us a people exceptional in courage and devotion, resplendent in their cheerfulness, we who owe them so much ask your special blessing on them, their families and their land. Grant us thy grace to be faithful to them as they have been faithful to others”.

As a nation, we can never thank the Gurkhas enough. We will be eternally grateful to them.

In his speech, Lord Bilimoria noted the slow pace at which the government proposed the military intervention, as well as critiquing the present state of the UK Armed Forces.

The debate ran co-currently with a debate in the House of Commons, which endorsed the principle of military intervention via airstrikes by 524 votes to 43.

My Lords, a year ago we were recalled and virtually every one of us who spoke in the debate said that we should not intervene in Syria. Today it is exactly the opposite way around, in that just about everybody is saying that we should intervene this time, and we have had the legal justification.

The question that I ask is: why are we doing this so late? Why are we doing this half-cocked? Sixty nations are already there, including 10 Arab nations. Five Arab nations have already taken part in the air attacks, and we are late to the party. We have had one of our citizens—as have the Americans—brutally murdered by ISIL. The whole world has watched while the innocent Yazidis were terrorised and fleeing for their lives. Why have we taken so long? As we have heard time and again, why are we restricting this to Iraq? The polls from the public have overwhelmingly supported intervention in Iraq, but they also show that the public would support us if we intervened in Syria right now, as the Americans are doing. After all, ISIL has completely erased the Sykes-Picot line. Will the Minister assure us that as soon as is required—not, as one noble Lord said, in three years’ time; I fear that it will be in a few months’ time, or even a few weeks’ time—we will consider intervening in Syria? We will probably need to.

Will the Government clarify that action will involve not just six Tornados from Cyprus but also the use of drones, ship-launched attacks, submarine-launched attacks and our best-of-the-best Special Forces? On the other hand, as I said last year, we have a Government who, in the 2010 SDSR, cut our defence capabilities. We still do not have aircraft carriers. We have a British Army that will not even fill Wembley Stadium. We are relying on reserves. Here we are, as we have been so many times since 2010, once again in a situation in which we need our brilliant Armed Forces—and we have been cutting them. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will stick to their commitment of a 2% of GDP spend on defence and nothing less, because we desperately need it?

The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, and others spoke of the necessity to win this battle on the ground. Is it not sad that at the Battle of Mosul in June an Iraqi army of 20,000 was forced to flee by an ISIL force of 3,000? It was left to the Kurdish Peshmerga to hold the line. But we were there for so many years, supposedly training the Iraqi army. What went wrong? Did we not train it properly? My father was in the Indian army. I remember that when he was serving, the Indian army had a training team in Iraq for years, headed by a lieutenant-general. If we want to train, let us put our might behind training the Iraqis and the Peshmerga as well.

We need to invest in that capability because the ideology is dangerous. As the most reverend Primate said, it is deep. As His Holiness Pope Francis has said, we might be in the midst of a World War III. This is not going to go away. This is very serious. If we are going to do this, we need to be with our allies. We need to be completely effective; we need to push forward, because we cannot rely on the UN. Once again, the UN has shown itself to be completely ineffective. Will the Government use this as another reason for a desperately needed reform of the UN?

In conclusion, we may have been late to the party but after today we will be at the table and we must go out there with full force, with a mission and very clear strategy to liberate the ISIL-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria from the evil of ISIL. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, that ISIL is not Islamic; it is not a state. It is a group of medieval, barbaric monsters.

My Lords, in his 2007 book The Black Swan Taleb was at pains to point out that the trick in dealing with black swans was not predicting them—as outliers, they frankly defy prediction of any sort—but rather with ensuring that you can cope with them and have the resilience to do so. Last year, would anyone really have assumed that we would have been looking at the invasion of a large eastern European country by a resurgent Russia? The answer is almost certainly not.

As the outgoing secretary-general of NATO has said,

“every ally needs to invest the necessary resources in the right capabilities … In the long run, a lack of security would be more costly than investing now and we owe it to our forces, and to broader society”.

The noble Lord, Lord Lee, referred to General Sir Richard Shirreff, who said:

“I wouldn’t want to let anybody think that I think that Army 2020 is good news, it’s not … The sort of defence cuts we have seen … have really hollowed out the British armed forces and I think that people need to sit up and recognise that”.

The number of troops is going down. The Army’s strength was 102,000 and by 2020 it will be 82,000, so we will not even be able to fill Wembley stadium. As Professor Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute, said:

“With 82,000 we’ve got a ‘one-shot’ Army. If we don’t get it right the first time, there probably won’t be a second chance”.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, for initiating this debate. He himself has said:

“When the Coalition took its decisions on the size and shape of the Armed Forces at the time of its Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2010, it did so in the midst of an economic crisis … but doubt has remained as to whether a regular Army of just 82,000 is sufficient for our needs, and whether the target of 30,000 trained reservists is achievable”.

The Armed Forces are undergoing a huge reduction. There will be a reduction by 33,000, or 19%, by 2020: 5,500 from the Royal Navy, 8,000 from the Royal Air Force and 19,500 from the Army. In a scathing assessment, General Sir Richard Shirreff has also said that Britain is now the only NATO state not to commit any of its naval forces to maritime operations. What I find shocking—the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, referred to this—is that when asked yesterday about Sir Richard’s comments, Mr Hammond said:

“Much of what I’m hearing is nonsense”.

This is our great military expert—our Defence Secretary. He dismissed calls from the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army, to halt the withdrawal of British troops from Germany in order to send a military statement to Putin, saying that tank regiments are more effective based in Britain. That was the great general, Secretary of State Hammond.

The head of the defence committee, James Arbuthnot, said that he thought Ministers should rethink the cuts to the Army’s permanent staff in the light of Crimea. He said:

“The sheer number of the armed forces are much lower now than they should be in order to protect our interests”.

 The Financial Times said that:

“A leaked report from the Ministry of Defence last year suggested the plans to restructure the army were in ‘chaos’ because potential reservists were being put off by a sense of gloom surrounding the armed forces”.

Can the Minister confirm this? It also said that Robert Gates, the former US Defence Secretary, has warned Britain that it would not have,

“‘the ability to be a full partner’ after the cuts because it would lack the full spectrum of military capabilities”,

and that:

“The defence committee report also criticised a lack of clarity from ministers in how to deal with cyber attacks, warning that ‘emphasis needs to be placed on ensuring that critical systems are resilient to attack and contingency plans for recovery are in place’”.

Can the Minister also confirm this?

The noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, mentioned clearly that when the cuts were announced, it was in a time of economic crisis. He has said that the international landscape is much more challenging now than in 2010 and referred to making a statement that greater military capability must underpin our diplomatic forces. The current Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Houghton, warned last year that Britain’s military could become a “hollow force”, with state-of-the-art equipment but no one to operate it. Even the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Peter Wall, has added:

“Ultimately history tells us that in some circumstances committed land forces may be the only way to achieve decisive outcomes in support of our strategic objectives”.

Will the Minister confirm that the cuts have all been about means before ends? We will have the smallest Army in 200 years. In 2010, the SDSR got rid of our Harriers, our carriers and our Nimrods. We have been fighting in Afghanistan and we have had one black swan after another: the Arab spring, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Crimea. What next?

Can the Minister confirm that the morale of our Armed Forces is in a very sorry state and needs to be addressed? What about the esprit de corps? Could he confirm the state of esprit de corps, which is the essence of our armed forces? We are at the top table of the world. We have tremendous soft power, but we need the hard power and we need the critical mass. To conclude, as General Sir Richard Shirreff said:

“We all support the efforts to get the deficit down, but it is all about priorities. What really matters? Well, the first duty of government is to protect the nation […] And the electorate need to understand there is no point in having hospitals and schools and welfare unless the country is safe”.

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