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CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 122-ii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE DEFENCE COMMITTEE
Readiness and Recuperation for the contingent tasks of today
VICE ADMIRAL SIR TREVOR SOAR KCB OBE, LIEUTENANT GENERAL DICK APPLEGATE OBE, AIR VICE-MARSHAL KEVIN LEESON CBE and AIR VICE-MARSHAL SIMON J BOLLOM Evidence heard in Private Questions 142 - 273
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Defence Committee on Members present Mr James Arbuthnot, in the Chair Mr David S Borrow Linda Gilroy Mr Mike Hancock Mr David Hamilton Mr Dai Havard Mr Adam Holloway Mr Bernard Jenkin
________________ Witnesses: Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar KCB OBE, Chief of Materiel (Fleet); Lieutenant General Dick Applegate OBE, Chief of Materiel (Land); Air Vice-Marshal Kevin Leeson CBE, Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Strategy and Plans) and Air Vice-Marshal Simon J Bollom, Director General Combat (Air), Ministry of Defence, gave evidence.
Resolved, That the Committee should sit in private. The witnesses gave oral evidence. Asterisks denote that part of the oral evidence which, for security reasons, has not been reported at the request of the Ministry of Defence and with the agreement of the Committee. Chairman: Good morning. Thank you very much for coming - many of you to return - to the Committee. This is a second evidence session on recuperation and readiness. This evidence session will be in private and, therefore, I will confirm that from the Committee's side everybody here is people who ought to be here and, Sharon, can you confirm that the witnesses, obviously, and the public gallery are all known? Ms Wroe: Yes. Q142 Chairman: Could I ask if you still have mobile telephones to please take the batteries out. Thank you. Please do not take notes, except for Karen who will be taking notes which will be kept in the safe. If you do take any notes about questions you want to ask and stuff like that, it will be held in your classified folders which will be kept in the safe. Please do not talk about this session outside the meeting. Who would like to begin? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Shall I start, Chairman? Q143 Chairman: Would you, please? If you would each introduce yourselves and say what your role is, that would be very helpful. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Thank you, Chairman. I am Kevin Leeson, the Assistant Chief of Defence Staff for Strategy and Plans. My responsibility, for the last 18 months, has been to set the readiness requirement for the force structure and managing the resourcing, prioritisation and reporting. Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: Good morning. Air Vice-Marshal Simon Bollom. I am currently employed as Director General Combat (Air) in the Defence Equipment and Support organisation, responsible for the acquisition of support and upgrades for air combat aircraft. I am representing the Chief of Materiel (Air) today, so I will be looking across the whole of the air capability sector. Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: Trevor Soar. I am Chief of Materiel (Fleet), so within Defence Equipment and Support; I sit on the Board of DE&S, Navy Board and, really, have responsibilities for procurement and support for the Navy. Lieutenant General Applegate: Dick Applegate. Chief of Materiel (Land). Rather like Trevor, I also sit on the DE&S Board and sit on the Army Board where I am Quartermaster General. As far as DE&S responsibilities are concerned, in addition to general responsibilities I have particular responsibilities for operations and I also run the Defence Logistics Grouping. Q144 Chairman: Thank you. Can I begin with you, Air Vice-Marshal Leeson? In the session we had last week - I do not know whether it is fair for me to describe it as this - I sensed a slight difference in the view amongst our witnesses as to whether the levels of capability that we had in 2003 were the levels to which the Ministry of Defence wished to recuperate. What I would like to find out from you is what level of capability would you say the MoD is intending and planning to recuperate to? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: In the simplest, mathematical terms, we aspire to recuperate to the position we were in before the period of operations that, in the case of the Telic theatre, are about to come to an end. That is our planning constraint and what we would wish to recuperate to, clearly the detail of force structure that existed in 2003 as we presented it to you in previous written evidence, has changed slightly over that period for all sorts of practical and normal reasons. There has been development in the force structure to deal with what is going on in the ever-changing world and the threats that are in it. So, clearly, what we have to deliver in recuperation planning is something that we can identify in a financial context and that has a baseline in the previously funded core programme. So we have done a piece of work which actually looks and takes as its start line 2003 and then looks at how we recover back to that position. That allows us to do the financial assessment, and obviously, the delta assessment, on the recuperation levels we need to achieve. What we will then do is issue a detailed directive, that will engage the gentlemen joining me on the Panel today, which will be flexed to reflect what will be a sensible force structure to actually recuperate to reflect the position we are in now, and the forces that we need into the future. Q145 Chairman: How would you quantify that, in terms of the Defence Planning Assumptions? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: In terms of the Defence Planning Assumptions, they are updated at periodic intervals as part of the programming round. So what the recuperation definition will be is in terms of range of quantity of equipment related against the planning assumptions as they are currently published. Q146 Chairman: You said what the recuperation level will be was a range of - equipment? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: What we will issue by way of a directive, will be a thought-through set of equipment and force capability priorities and a sequence, because it will be necessary to tell all involved in the chain to actually recuperate the systems that we need most fastest and the system that we need least slowest, so that all efforts can be brought to bear for bringing the capabilities that we need in the best possible profile. That will be our responsibility to set that as a detailed set of requirements on both Front Line commands and from the manpower and training position, and to our colleagues from the DE&S in terms of the equipment that we need to be delivered for that period. Q147 Chairman: Are you suggesting that the recuperation levels you are aiming at are based on equipment rather than on capability? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: No, no. The directive will clearly cover recovery of capability. In the context of this session, clearly, that will need to be translated into a range of equipment recovering priorities. Q148 Chairman: How do you prioritise drawing up your plans for the various force elements? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: We have not delivered that plan yet. Where we are, at the moment is, having established in the period running up to the end of 2008 that we actually have a start line to work from - i.e. assumptions for the drawdown in Iraq - we have then done a degree of assessment of the recuperation of those assets to recover the readiness levels that we should have for an effective and second medium-scale - and we briefed the Committee on that in our briefing session. We have delivered, therefore, across a range of analyses, munitions, the air sector, the maritime and the land sector, a series of issues where recuperation effort, both in resource and time, is needed. We will then discuss that quantification with our colleagues in the Treasury and establish what resource profile is then made available for it, and then issue the plan against where will we want to be. So we will then have an order of priorities on our scales of effort for what we would wish to recover. We would wish to have a small-scale focused intervention capability recovered first, because that is the highest readiness and the most likely to be used forces, then moving through the various categories of medium scale forces, and eventually, perhaps at a later point, aim towards the large. Q149 Chairman: I was going to ask you what will be the timescales for recuperation. However, if you do not yet know what the level of recuperation is going to be, I have to ask you instead what will be the timescales for deciding the level of recuperation? Air Vice-Marshal
Leeson: Our current programme assumption, as delivered
in the previous programming round - the Department's annual programming round -
***. So that is the programme the Department is currently working to. Now we have the drawdown plan established for
Q150 Chairman: We will come back, towards the end of the session, to the consequences of Iraq and Afghanistan, in terms of troop levels. This is a different question from that. What about the force elements and their constituent parts? What lessons have been learned about those from Iraq and Afghanistan? Air Vice-Marshal
Leeson: The Defence Board took a new Defence Strategic
Guidance last year published as DSG08, which identified that the nature of the
conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan had placed, if you like, differing pressures
on us to that which were previously captured in the Military Tasks within the
Defence Planning Assumptions. So a new Military
Task was introduced, Military Aid to Stabilisation and Development, to reflect
very much broader, across all strands of security and government, that more
capabilities were needed in those areas.
Part of what we have to do in Programming Round is to analyse that
principal change, to see, therefore, what formal elements of force structure
modification will be needed. These,
clearly will be, in some part, already implemented as a result of our responses
to the changing factors on the ground in Q151 Chairman: Again, when do you expect those decisions to be made about force elements? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: I think that will be a rolling process over a number of Programming Rounds. There will be some element of adjustment in Programming Round 09 and, obviously is happening at the moment, but the inevitable complexities of that will require us to, in some cases, be rather more measured in how we implement those adjustments. Q152 Chairman: *** Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: ***. Q153 Chairman: *** Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: *** Q154 Chairman: *** Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: *** Q155 Chairman: Even though our Ambassador to Afghanistan says that he expects the West to be there for 30 years. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: You will understand why, in this session, I would not want to be drawn on that. Q156 Chairman: I do understand that, yes. This is what you are currently working towards, but you have not had your discussions with the Treasury and you will not have had those until March. Is that right? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: No, no, we have had opening discussions with the Treasury on the recuperation element. The March date was, effectively, the conclusion of Programming Round 09, because, you will understand, there are essentially two tracks of what is going on here: there is the recuperation effort brought about by the fact that operations in Iraq will cease, and there is the annual Programming Round where we routinely adjust the force structure to reflect all other factors. Q157 Chairman: When, do you think, will all of this be significantly clearer? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Clearly, we need to commence recuperation as quickly as we possibly can. So the intention will certainly be to have the directive on colleagues here and who you spoke to earlier, in the first evidence session, by the end of March. Q158 Chairman: It seems strange that this is not a rolling matter. The notion of being able to do what the defence forces of this country are essentially there to provide is something that cannot just wait until you are ready to discuss it. Can it? Air Vice-Marshal
Leeson: No. Recuperation has two facets: there is rolling
recuperation as the operation continues, so throughout the Q159 Chairman: Which, in your analysis, requires an end of the operation. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Indeed so. Q160 Chairman: To be properly thought about. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Yes, to ensure that our core contingent capability within the Department is restored to the level of funding we have delivered. Q161 Mr Jenkin: *** Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: *** Q162 Mr Jenkin: That does beg the question as to whether Afghanistan should be treated as a standing commitment in Defence Planning Assumptions rather than as a contingent operation. Does it not? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: That is an interesting point. Chairman: Is that an answer? Q163 Mr Jenkin: I accept that. Air Vice-Marshal
Leeson: It is something we can develop. I am sure all my colleagues will have a view
on that. In many respects, the Q164 Mr Jenkin: The point I was going to make is I can see every incentive not to make Afghanistan a standing commitment in the traditional sense. *** Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: *** Q165 Mr Jenkin: The timing of recuperation and your inability to decide at this stage - presumably, that is a money question, is it? You do not know what resource you have got to recuperate with. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: That is probably a significant part of the equation on why one cannot issue a directive right here and now saying: "Here are exactly the things I want you to do and in this order", until we have established exactly the financial position that goes with that. Without it that will possibly not be a terribly helpful piece of work to do for the gentlemen beside me. In practice, of course, we are pretty clear what the capabilities that we would wish to deliver first are likely to be, because the very definition of "readiness" tells us that. The next aspect that has to be brought into play is, of course, the art of the possible. Some of these things are logistic enablers, which are heavily committed elsewhere, and therefore there could be little point producing a teeth-element capability which relies on a certain enabler that we cannot recuperate, so it would be a prioritisation issue. In that respect, therefore, we have to play in other factors, which is why at the end of the Programming Round the discussions are over the resourcing and then the practicalities that I know you discussed with deputy the Deputy Commands-in-Chief last week. Q166 Mr Jenkin: Can you quantify what you need in financial terms that you have not got, that you are bidding for in 2009? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: We are pretty well at that stage. Q167 Mr Jenkin: Are you able to put any kind of numbers to that? How far out are we? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: The broad order costings are of the order of £800 to £900 million over about the next four years. Q168 Mr Jenkin: In order to be able to recuperate on a satisfactory programme? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Yes. Q169 Mr Jenkin: That is very useful, thank you. If you do not get the money what would be delayed? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: I hope that is a hypothetical question. I see no evidence at the moment, from the Treasury that "if we do not get the money" is an issue; it is perceived to be, I think, a reasonable ask for what is on our list at the moment. The debate will clearly have to go against the overall fiscal position, at the moment, for both the main programme and the Reserve. We will need to do an element of prioritisation within that, I am sure, once we get into the detailed approval stage with HMT. *** Mr Jenkin: I do appreciate my questions may seem hypothetical but defence planning is about hypothetical situations. Q170 Mr Hancock: I just wanted to ask one question about the money side of it, the £800 million. Are the Treasury giving you the indication that this has to be absorbed out of a very minor growth in defence expenditure or are they, at the present time, considering recuperation over a four-year, or whatever period of time it is, and say £100,000 is going to be on top of any normal increase that the Defence Board would have expected? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: In the context of the discussion, it is absolutely in terms of the charge to the Reserve. It is net additional cost. Chairman: We will come back to the issue of the Reserve in a moment. Q171 Mr Jenkin: In the hypothetical situation that you do not get allocated what you need out of the Reserve, will it simply be part of the programme? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: We will have to face that if we get to it, clearly. If the Reserve does not fund that delta then the choice is quite stark; either, we do not recuperate to that level or if it clearly is an absolute priority that you must, then you will have to find the resource from somewhere else. Q172 Mr Jenkin: *** Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: *** Q173 Mr Jenkin: Can you give a land or a maritime example? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: *** Lieutenant General Applegate: *** Q174 Mr Jenkin: And maritime? Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: Maritime, clearly our focus is support to current operations, 3 Commando Brigade, in particular. *** so we will have to have a debate as well to see what is part of the recuperation bill. Q175 Mr Jenkin: In absolute terms - I appreciate it is all shades of grey and balancing risks - we are compromising future capability in order to support current operations? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: In absolute terms, our contingent capability is certainly much reduced because of the pressures of current operations. Q176 Mr Holloway: I am not quite sure why we are calling it recuperation when we are not really going to be able to do anything meaningful whilst we are fighting a medium-plus thing in Afghanistan. Surely, your priority is always going to be to make sure that you have the right people there with the right equipment, and so on. That is going to be the overriding priority for everyone in the MoD. So the thought of recuperation really is not meaningful when that is still your focus, is it? Air Vice-Marshal
Leeson: I
think it is. As we described in the
initial briefing (which I know not all Members of the Committee were present
for), the key capability in terms of, perhaps, the likelihood of something
happening is that we can deliver the medium and the small scales range of
effort. Q177 Chairman: *** Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: *** Q178 Chairman: *** Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: *** Q179 Mr Jenkin: *** Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: *** Chairman: *** Q180 Mr Jenkin: *** Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: *** Q181 Mr Hancock: Can I ask a question relating to what you have just said, Air Vice-Marshal, about the issue of priorities within the various categories you identify? One of them was manpower. If you do not have the resources to actually get the manpower you need and to get them trained, then you do have a problem, do you not? Recuperation becomes pointless, because it is one thing having the equipment but you have still got to have people who have the ability to use them and to keep them in the Services. How are you going to deal with the priorities within those four or five categories you indicated? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: As I understand it, you must have all: you have to have the manpower, you have to have the equipment, you have to have the training and you have to have the sustainability. Any bit of that missing and you do not actually achieve useful effect. That is why we have to be very methodical in the directive to make sure that all of those things are in place and we get, effectively, the best bang for the buck in the time available. Q182 Mr Jenkin: How is the money split between those four elements you have just described? Does most of the money go on equipment, a bit of the money on manpower? Can you give us an idea of the balance of expenditure? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Very broadly, the munitions recovery element is the single biggest chunk. *** Q183 Mr Jenkin: What about all the men who are now unfit for service because of combat injuries and death? Is that not quite expensive? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: In terms of the charge to the Reserve, that is not part of the quantification, at the moment, because we would seek to deal with - forgive me being rather clinical about this ---- Q184 Mr Jenkin: So casualties, injuries and fatalities do not come out of the Reserve; you have to fund that out of the core budget? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: A number of issues associated with covering the cost of bearing casualties ---- Q185 Mr Jenkin: Unbelievable. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: ---- are actually charged to the Reserve because what we are talking about in recuperation, in this section of work that we are in at the moment, is because of Iraq activity stopping and calculating the delta to get back, I pointed out there is a rolling recuperation that is always going on with net additional costs being charged to the Reserve. So, essentially, all of the additional costs to a peacetime core programme for the delivery of support to casualties, injures and the like, are charged on a rolling basis. Q186 Mr Jenkin: But in terms of replacing people who need to be replaced, that is not funded out of the Reserve? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: There is nothing to stop us if we, for example, have to increase the volume of the training pipeline to deal with a greater amount of service capability on a certain range of specialisms, to be charging that as part of rolling recuperation to the Reserve, as the need arises. Mr Jenkin: I am not clear on this. Is anybody else? Mr Hancock: Nor am I. My question is: a member of my family is
involved and has come back, and five of his colleagues are still in the
military but they will not be fit enough to return to active service in either Mr Jenkin: And why does that not come out of the Reserve? Q187 Mr Hancock: That is what I do not understand - why that is not a key Reserve component. The Army must be particularly hit by this. Air Vice-Marshal
Leeson: The actual costs of dealing with those casualties
- so, for example, taking the whole recovery pipeline, bringing them back to
the Q188 Mr Jenkin: We understand that point, but it is a question of recruiting new people to replace the people who are no longer fit for active service. That is additional recruitment now required, and additional training that would not have been required if that person ---- Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: If you have an additional cost because you wish to, for example, have more capacity in the recruiting machine to actually deal with increased throughputs, that will be charged to the Reserve. The manpower cost, however, to maintain, for example, a 102,000 manned Army is actually part of the core programme. So people will move through a recovery sequence or not, or a discharge to the Reserve or indeed to civilian life. As they move through, effectively, the resource follows the man and another one enters the front. So the core programme is supposed to have enough money in it to deal with the 36,000 Navy, 42,000 Air Force and the 102,000 Army. Lieutenant General Applegate: It is a concern, and I cannot pretend we have got an easy answer to that because we have to treat these people sensitively considering the commitment they have made to the nation. At the moment, we are committed to employ those people as much as we can in-service doing particular jobs which would make sense, in the sense of self-worth and enabling the recovery process. From my perspective the jury is still out about the longer-term consequences of that on funding for the sorts of levels of expenditure required to provide the support we would hope those people would have. From an Army perspective, we are having those discussions at the moment as to how we can maintain and give a future to those we can and how we sensitively handle those who, effectively, will have to return to civilian life. I cannot give you an easy answer. Mr Jenkin: You have been very helpful, but you are effectively saying that the Treasury assumption is that you are encouraged to get people who are unfit off the payroll and to replace them with somebody who will be fit for service. Mr Hancock: No, they are not. Q189 Mr Borrow: I just want to clarify because I was a bit confused. I can understand that if someone has been injured he is not going to be capable in the long term of returning to active duty in Afghanistan, or working at that level. There has always been a tradition in the military that if there were other posts that they could do and be productive, they should be found for them - as long as that can be done within the existing staffing complement and they were doing productive work there ought not to be any problem, apart from making life a bit more difficult in the HR department, and so on. When it does become a problem is if the military start employing people in posts that are not necessary in order to keep within the Armed Forces individuals who are capable of working but not capable of working within an operational environment. I would be interested in have we got to that stage, or are you indicating that we are approaching that stage and it is something which the MoD needs to look at and make some harsh decisions, or hard decisions, as to whether those people should continue to be employed in jobs that are being created for them or whether another system needs to be put in place which means they are helped into civilian jobs that they are capable of doing but they need more support? Lieutenant General Applegate: As an Army issue it is very much a concern for us because, as you will appreciate, we have got to try and maximise the ability of the resource we have (the human resource) to deploy on operations. If there is a limit to that, and we are finding increasing numbers who are unfit, that can only put pressure on those who are required to deploy. I do not know quite where we will find ourselves over this, but this is a very important issue. Q190 Mr Jenkin: But is it a money issue? Lieutenant General Applegate: I think there is an element of that because of the sorts of things that you need (and Kevin can come back in and give a particular view on this) but there is a money issue in terms of the resources that you want. There are areas where we have found the Treasury are willing to fund an element, but I think we probably have to present a better case. Q191 Mr Jenkin: What are they not funding, which you have asked for? Lieutenant General Applegate: I think I have got to wait out, really, on that. There are some things we will be asking for in terms of care and support to people. There is a debate about how much of that can be found in the core programme, or how much we might decide to claim upon the Reserve. Q192 Chairman: Is it possible to distinguish between the costs of the past and the costs of the current defence? If the costs of the past over the coming years and decades escalate, then even if our current defence costs are falling, it will appear as though the defence budget is rising. Is that a fair point? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Can I try to come back from a slightly different direction on the manpower issue, particularly, to give some clarity, I hope, on this issue for the Committee. We have not traditionally, when charging to the Reserve, looked particularly at charging manpower costs, because the technique with charging to the Reserve tends to be net additional costs identified in-year of an operation. The difficulty with manpower, and military manpower particularly, of course, is that not a lot changes in the year; it takes you four or five years to create a trained and experienced individual. Therefore, the core programme has been the vehicle that actually deals with ensuring we have the right number of trained and qualified people to do a task, and we have only ever hit the Reserve for things like incremental training needed for a specific operation rather than general operations and contingent operations. So manpower has required us, therefore, to look progressively over the years at how do we need to change the regular manpower structure, or indeed the reserve manpower structure, to deal with the current operations? We have done a little piece of work as part of Programming Round 09 to look at the casualty rates and how they differ to what the planning assumption was that created the various margins in the force structure which dealt with routine, peacetime casualty rates and sickness rates - that sort of manpower non-availability factored within the calculation. We have modified those a little bit this year to reflect a rather more realistic number of people in the injured and recovering pool and not able to be used in the regular force structure pool. So there will be, hopefully, by the end of the Programming Round, incremental adjustments to the authorised manpower level in the three Services to deal with an increased number of casualties that are not used but are on the books, but that will be core programme funded. Q193 Linda Gilroy: To put that into real terms, which is what I am trying to do in my own mind but, sadly, am unable to do because of the high rate of casualties from units deployed from Plymouth, at the moment. There are two extraordinary young men that we know of, Marine Ormrod and Marine Ben McBean, who have recovered to such an extraordinary level that when I 'phoned to speak to one of them the other day he had gone skiing, despite the fact that he has lost both legs. They are going to be doing work, administrative and, perhaps, recruitment work, within their units, and will therefore have a useful life within their units. However, they will have to be replaced in terms of active manpower, with all the costs of training associated with that. That, also, of course, will apply to increased rates of training for the number of fatalities that there have been in recent months, which are pretty high at the moment. So in terms of what you were saying just now, I was not quite sure how the costs of replacing that sort of capability will be covered, whether it will come from the reserve or whether an element of it will come from the core funding. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Ms Gilroy, it is a mix. So the fact that we need an increased margin in the Marines to deal with an increased residual level of non-employable manpower, our current approach would be that that is charged to the core programme. Q194 Linda Gilroy: Which are jobs which would have to be being done by somebody anyway. So part of that is reasonable but then part of it is not. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: That will be worked through in the detail of what it is exactly you have done. For example, if we are saying that there is a percentage casualty non-effective factor that goes from X per cent to X+1 per cent, then we will be paying from the core programme for those extra bodies. However, clearly, if we now are using those bodies to do a non-war fighting task, then it is conceivable under those circumstances that, perhaps, a civil servant or a contractor task or something has been displaced and therefore there would be an offset to that. Q195 Linda Gilroy: But maybe not to the extent of the cost of maintaining ---- Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Indeed, so these will be worked through in detail by the Front Line Commands as we actually make the proposals for what we will be doing at a global defence programme level, and a certain percentage adjustment to the total strength. Q196 Linda Gilroy: And the training will be fully covered from the Reserve. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Certainly incremental training on occasion by operations is something that we would definitely aim to charge to the Reserve. There are, clearly, interesting practical moments, therefore, in a large organisation in making sure you identify that alternative charging opportunity. That is something I am constantly having to stress to the Front Line Commands to be on the look out for, because we do have a pretty receptive Treasury when we advance cases to them. Indeed, those sorts of cases, quite frankly, do not get to the Treasury; they are dealt with by my own staff at three ring level in terms of approving such charges to the reserve. Q197 Mr Holloway: Is PVR a big issue? I ran into a couple of warrant officers from my old regiment the Grenadier Guards who said that quite a lot of the guys would be going because they felt that after a tour in Helmand they had done the business. Is there a significant cost to this, and are you worried about it? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: At all three services' global levels we are not adjusting our overall defence programming assumptions because of operation-driven outflow change. Indeed, the statistics continue to show, really, across almost all training specialisations, we are vastly more driven in terms of management of inflows and outflows by background economic conditions in the nation, than any operational matter. Q198 Mr Hancock: You cannot do anything else, can you? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: No, it is extraordinarily difficult to discriminate. We do have continuous attitude recording of people, trying to find out the reasons for going. Q199 Mr Holloway: Are you really not seeing an issue with people from infantry units leaving after their tour? Lieutenant General Applegate: Of course this is an extra factor, the fact that you have done three or four operations, for example; you might feel that a fifth might just mean your luck runs out, and there is pressure, obviously, from those who you live with. At the moment, what we know we will be attempting to do, from an Army perspective, is to try and do all we can within the core programme and, in the way we do our routine business, to actually relieve the pressure. There is no one, simple answer to the things we have just been talking about; we are making sure we make the best use of the people we have got. I would support what Kevin Leeson said with regards to: is it a discriminating factor? No, it is not, but it is worrying. Q200 Mr Jenkin: We know that equipment bought on UORs that you keep then has to be taken into the core budget. What effect is that having on recuperation? Does that distort recuperation? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: The extent of the assessment, at the moment, that we have done on the equipment that will be recovered from Iraq that is now carrying UOR delivered equipment and how we bring that back into the core programme, is that for Programming Round 09 we have identified the extremely important items that are applicable to the Afghanistan theatre or to training for the Afghanistan theatre. A package of options will be running in the Programme to bring those key systems into the core programme, to ensure we can retain them. Q201 Mr Jenkin: Surely, if they are being transferred from one contingent operation to another contingent operation they should remain on the UOR rather than being taken into the core? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: The technicalities of the rules is that it is not immediately in my gift; I need to discuss with the Treasury the transfer from one theatre to another because the Treasury would generally encourage us to deliver a core equipment programme that is actually configured to the nature of the operations we are likely to be in, in the short to medium term. So there is a principle that does not allow us to effectively "willy-nilly" transfer equipment from one theatre to the next without it becoming part of the core programme. Q202 Mr Jenkin: Again, can you give us an idea of the figures? Are we talking tens of millions, hundreds of millions of equipment that has been taken into the core programme as it comes back from Iraq? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: *** Q203 Mr Jenkin: Where does that money come from? Presumably, it has to come out of other capabilities. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: That is the next stage of the analysis that comes out of the directive I was talking about, because in some cases that equipment is not essential for contingent activity; the contingent forces are sitting there because it is very, very theatre specific. In some cases it is the sort of equipment that we will not have a significant need to use for training purposes, so it can be, effectively, secured and protected for contingent operations when called. In some cases it is fitted to equipment and has to be effectively maintained and supported because it will be in operation on a daily basis. That prioritisation will flow from the directive when we issue it. *** Q204 Mr Hancock: Can I ask, for the Committee's benefit, can you give us an indication of the amount of manpower - the numbers in each of the Services - who have been deemed in one way or another unfit for a return to active duty? It would be enormously helpful because there is a lot of speculation in the press about the number of soldiers, in particular, who are no longer able to return to theatre, but will remain in the Army. I think it is good that you are doing that. The second point is related to equipment that is coming out of Iraq. Will some of that equipment go direct from Iraq to Afghanistan? Some of it, obviously, will be returned to the UK but can some of it be re-engineered and tidied up outside of the UK but somewhere in that area? Is the plan in place for that to be done rather than having to bring everything back here and ship it all again to the other side of the world, to Afghanistan? Air Vice-Marshal
Leeson: Certainly we will give you a note to deal with
the casualty figures. I am afraid I
simply do not have those to hand. There
is a mix of what will happen, and the detailed recuperation planning by the Joint
Headquarters, at the moment, is doing exactly that. Some equipment will move directly. For a range of stuff - certainly, for
example, consumables - it clearly makes a great deal of sense to go through Lieutenant General
Applegate: But I think we should be realistic. Where there is serious engineering required
we will be bringing them back to the Q205 Mr Hamilton: Chairman, you said in that information on the casualty lists that one of the relevant factors will be how they may be retained within the Armed Forces. Is there any real problem with anybody not being retained after injury? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: I will add that to the list. It is not my area of expertise. Q206 Mr Holloway: With all this planning you are doing, you must have a range of numbers from X to Y that you might need to send to Afghanistan. Can you tell us what that is? Lieutenant General Applegate: *** Q207 Mr Holloway: I mean men. Lieutenant General Applegate: In terms of the men transferred? Q208 Mr Holloway: From what to what? You are making certain assumptions. Presumably there is a bracket in the numbers of men that may be redeployed to Afghanistan that you are working on. What is the sort of minimum and what is the maximum? What is the size of the envelope? Air Vice-Marshal
Leeson: No, this increment of recuperation assumes the
existing force levels in Chairman: We will come on to that later. Q209 Mr Hancock: First of all, congratulations on your future promotion to Admiral and your new role as Commander-in-Chief later in the year. It is nice that you have got that. What are the priorities for recuperation as far as the maritime environment is concerned? Where are you particularly worried about situations that you have had to cope with because of redeployment of resources within the Navy over the last couple of years to cover operational needs? Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: I think the first point I would like to make is that the articulation of those priorities between DE&S and Navy command is written in our Joint Business Agreement, which is a flexible agreement which we review almost on a daily but certainly on a monthly basis. The first priority is the maintenance of our standing commitments. We have eight standing commitments, so above and beyond obvious ones like Telic and Calash, they are Standing Naval activities, Atlantic patrol tasks, standing NATO forces, etc., so from my perspective I have got to make sure that we deliver the right levels of support to meet that. The second element of this is to recover the current under-performance. We know, and you heard evidence last week about the reduced support period and the impact that had had on the overall readiness of the fleet. I have a focus in the recovery of the fleet's readiness position. I think the third area, and one we have already discussed, is to achieve recuperation to the mandated readiness in relation to small scale, medium scale, etc. These are articulated in our Joint Business Agreement. We also recognise that the operational tempo of the fleet, because we have seen increased readiness with a greater the number of units deployed, all adds to that constraint. These are the priorities between DE&S and the Front Line Command (Navy command), and those priorities are clear. If those priorities change, so for instance the EU military task for piracy, then we can look to flex how we deal with those priorities. The relationship between DE&S, which is really what I am engaged in, and the Navy command, is in this Joint Business Agreement, and it is a joint team that looks at that. Q210 Mr Hancock: Come July, after you have been in command for a month, will you say, "I wish I had done more in my previous job to make sure that I have an easier job than I have now because I am now going to have to tell Ministers I cannot do all the jobs they want us to do"? Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: One of the key elements of this is actually recovering the under-performance of the Navy at the moment. We have clearly articulated where our concerns are. One of the principal challenges of this, of which some of the members here are aware, is the Maritime Change Programme. The Maritime Change Programme - and I can go into the detail if you wish - is really about changing the face of industry and the relationship with the Navy in delivering a much more improved and effective support arena to the fleet. Q211 Mr Hancock: So what would you say the biggest challenge is for the Navy? Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: The biggest challenge I have at the moment from a support perspective is really the destroyer and frigate force. We have fragility in the force; there is a high operational tempo with the force; we are seeing an ageing fleet, and in some elements we are dealing with the obsolescence; and we have seen some delays of replacement of those in both the Type-45 and Astute submarines, so managing that and ensuring that we maximise the resources we have to recover some of that fragility is one of the key elements on which I focus. Q212 Mr Hancock: How much help are you getting financially to help in replacement? It is one thing having an obsolete ship or a ship going out of service, but it is when the equipment fails on that ship and you cannot actually replace it like-for-like, and you are having to buy very expensive other equipment to come on board a ship. Are you getting support and help to replace that sort of equipment or are some ships at sea without the right equipment? Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: There are some ships that are at sea with fragility at platform level unable to meet the level of readiness required. The overall fleet readiness sits at around 70 per cent when it should be 95 per cent, so there has to be prioritisation and there has to be an element of choice within that. What I aim to do, and what I have done in this particular job is to make sure that within the resources the fleet have they can prioritise appropriately and make sure that the ships that are deployed in areas of high risk have the appropriate equipment to meet that risk. Chairman: Can I break in there; Linda Gilroy? Q213 Linda Gilroy: You mentioned the Maritime Change Programme just now. My understanding of that is that is what will shape the future of the Royal Navy's infrastructure and maritime industrial base over the next ten to 15 years. Key to that is retaining the skills base and a part of that is the Surface Ships Support Programme, as it is now called (it was the Alliance). To what extent have the decisions about the future carrier put at risk the maintenance of the skills base basis relevant to both the carrier and to the deterrent? Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: If I deal with the carrier first of all. Clearly the slipping of the carrier has changed some of the assumptions in relation to how the carrier alliance was going to deliver the carrier build and therefore its relationship with the volume of work, but we are bottoming that out with the alliance. It has been very positive in our relationship because of the Maritime Change Programme and our ability to understand what we call the key industrial capabilities required under the Defence Industrial Strategy to deliver our strategic capabilities of both building, in this case, the carrier, or supporting our ships and submarines in the future. Again, as you are acutely aware because we are having a debate this week in Plymouth on this, it has had some impact, but what we are doing is, because we have got a clear view of what the industrial capabilities required are, and we are in a very open debate with both Babcock Marine, BVT and BAE Systems, working through that in relation to the Maritime Change Programme. We do have an issue of about seven years downstream, and that is why we have a number of options to deal with that reduction in volume that emerges from the change of the programme. If you consider the overall programme, we have to look at both the build programme and the support programme. We have to look across the whole arena of the industrial capabilities and the volume of people we have, and how we manage that in the most appropriate manner. In the case of Devonport, we have a very clear programme in relation to the submarine refitting programme, and what we are doing now, in debate with Babcock Marine, is looking at how we maintain volume between the dips. The submarine programme is lumpy, and it is important we maintain the industrial capabilities in between those dips. That is where the Surface Ships Support Programme comes into its own, and that is really a debate that we are now having with the two companies. Q214 Linda Gilroy: I understand the debate but the question was: are the tensions now so great because the carrier programme has been slipped? The way I visualise it is that you say it is lumpy and there are the troughs, the dips, and the work that was destined to be for Plymouth on deep maintenance of frigates seems to be now slipped with the carriers to staying in Rosyth, so how can you maintain both skills bases with the same amount of work on the frigates but the troughs being affected? Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: Again, when
we meet later this week we can go into a much greater level of detail, but, in
some ways, the slippage of the carrier means that we do not need to build the
work force levels up to a much higher peak than they were before, and so the
carrier alliance has come up with, first of all, their means of delivering the
carriers with a smaller force level of industrial workers than we were planning
before. That does not mean there is a redundancy aspect. This is about how much extra recruiting they
had to do previously vis-à-vis how much they can manage the programme now. So the first key building block to look at is the
overall volume required for the carrier build, and that work is still on-going,
and will be finished by the end of March.
When we have got that clarity, then we will start to look at how we
maintain those industrial capabilities, and that will have to be then a
rebalancing of what ships we need to put into Rosyth for refit and what ships
fit into Devonport and Mr Hancock: But
(i) you do not have enough ships to satisfy that and (ii) you do not have
enough money to do it, because it is obvious, is it not, that some of the dips
have been because ships have stayed in service longer because there have not
been the resources there to refit them in the way that should have been done,
and that is one of the problems with the equipment. The workforce in Q215 Chairman: Is that correct? Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: It is correct that the levels of emerging work are greater than we had planned for. That comes down to the fragility of the fleet. That is why the Maritime Change Programme is absolutely fundamental because industry also recognises that whilst over the last ten or 15 years we have reduced the number of ships and submarines, we have not reduced the infrastructure that meets the support and the build. We have a position at the moment where industry understands that the volume of work downstream beyond the carrier will reduce. What we are doing now with the Maritime Change Programme is working with industry effectively to mend the roof while the sun is shining at the moment. We are now into the detail, which is why we are seeing some negotiation strategies emerging from certain companies. We are now at a level of detail where we have agreed the volume of work required, we have agreed what are the minimum key industrial capabilities to meet that, and we are in the negotiation position now of how do we best balance that between the build and the support yards. I am quite positive about the Maritime Change Programme, but we are now in a level of detail where we have got to make sure that we are absolutely clear on how we take this forward. As I say, the first building block is the carrier build programme. We are close now to getting agreements with the carrier alliance on how they are going to build the carrier under the revised assumptions that came out of the equipment examination. Linda Gilroy: I am glad to hear you say that you are confident about the Maritime Change Programme, but for the reasons that Mr Hancock has just given, it is a little difficult for people to see how the same number of ships in the Surface Ships Support Programme, with the slipping of the carriers, can maintain the skills base. It is not just the overhead issue as far as the submarines are concerned, it is actually, as this Committee's report on the skills and the deterrent showed, absolutely critical to maintaining the confidence of the workforce to stay where they are to do the very skilled work that they need to do. Certainly your confidence is not shared widely at the moment that that is fully appreciated and properly planned for. If I may just ask one question rather than an observation -- Chairman: I am pleased about that because it seems to have been a comment rather than a question. Linda Gilroy: It is an observation, you are right. Chairman: So you do not have to answer it! Q216 Linda Gilroy: The question flows from one which Mr Holloway asked earlier which is the extent to which all of these pressures play into the capability that is required to support the fleet in the future. We had a discussion - and no doubt you have read Mr Hamilton's questions and answers last week on the carrier - about whether we have sufficient capability to match the future carrier, and so I would appreciate your comments on that and some insight into what is happening to the Future Surface Combatant Programme and whether that, too, is slipping in line with the slip dates of the carrier and the stretch in the budget? Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: We are having a very close debate with industry in relation to the terms of the business agreement, both with Babcock Marine and BVT, and commercially we are at a very sensitive stage at the moment where we are close to reaching agreement on that. The key principles of those agreements are long-term sustainability of the right size infrastructure and workforce to deliver the support and build requirement of the future Navy. That is fundamental because we cannot stay as we are because we know our overheads, our infrastructure, et cetera, are greater than we can afford and it would be irresponsible for defence not to change. What we do have under the Maritime Change Programme is a recognition and a willingness by industry to change and to take a longer term view on providing support and procurement for the Navy now and in the future. Equally, I would say that the Treasury has been engaged in this, and we have regular discussions with the Treasury in how we best deliver this programme. So the Maritime Change Programme is the key to delivery of an affordable and long-term enterprise as a partnership between the Ministry of Defence and industry in delivering the support and build infrastructure we need for the future. I am absolutely convinced about that. Industry, equally, understands that. However, we are going through some very difficult commercial negotiations at that stage, which is why I am going down to Devonport this week to see you. Q217 Mr Hancock: I wish you luck in your meeting in Devonport and I am sure we will get a note of whatever transpires from it. What about the future of the Royal Fleet auxiliary? Are we really able to sustain that for much longer? Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is first of all operationally very busy because of the operational tempo, and that adds pressure, if you like, to our ability to recuperate. The second point is that the equipment examination, the MARS programme, was deferred, and so we were invited to re-examine the programme, and that debate is now going on as to how we deal with the difficult issue of single hull tankers. I am not sure whether this came up in the evidence previously. Q218 Mr Hancock: No it has not. Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: It is a real concern. Q219 Mr Hancock: It is a real issue. Vice Admiral Sir Trevor Soar: It is a real issue for both the Navy and I would suggest to defence, and we have to resolve that issue. We are looking now at how we are going to deal with that, both in the interim and in the longer term. What are we going to do to recover and get in a position of bringing afloat support into a long-term manageable and supportable arena. At the moment we are managing that and we are looking very carefully at what options we have, and this will then form part of the planning round that is going on in relation to delivering the support that is needed over the longer term, in particular the single hull tanker issue. Mr Hancock: I think Chairman if we go on much longer with the Navy, the Army the Air Force are not going to get a look in. Chairman: Let us move on to the Army then and Adam Holloway Q220 Mr Holloway: What are your priorities for recuperating in the land environment? Are there any particular areas that concern you? Lieutenant General Applegate: First of all,
rolling recuperation is the issue that exercises most of my time. In other
words, making sure that those items of equipment out on operations are kept fit
for purpose and also making the most of the opportunities to keep the fleet up
to an acceptable standard to support those ops, rather than waiting for, as you
have heard, broader direction of recuperation over the longer term. So rolling
recuperation is my first priority to support those operations. Next is the recuperation, specifically, of
the items from Q221 Mr Holloway: You mentioned helicopters. Are there any other types of equipment that are particularly knackered? Lieutenant General Applegate: Picking up
your term which is most eloquent, knackered is a good word considering how hard
some of this equipment is being used. In
no particular order, but certainly to give you the priorities, I would be
worried about making sure the Warrior that come back are returned to the state
which we would wish them so we can use them more fully. There are some
Challenger which I want to see done, Bowman and electronic counter-measures
equipment, to repeat once again, and of course, as you would expect in terms of
Merlin, to make sure that the Merlin work is complete before it is redeployed
to Q222 Mr Holloway: Just on the specific point of Warrior, we have got 700 of these and only 100 deployed. Surely we have 600 others that are not too knackered? Lieutenant General Applegate: *** Q223 Mr Holloway: So these are a different category then? Lieutenant General Applegate: Yes, the problem about dealing with operations, and focusing on operations, which is obviously from a land perspective the main priority, is that you have quite a lot of fleets within fleets, and you have small elements of those fleets which are at a high standard. One of the challenges is to manage those small elements, both in order to carry on using them in operations, and to ensure that they can be recuperated where we have flexibility because that is the sort of equipment we want for the future. Q224 Mr Holloway: Have reductions in stock holding of munitions and spares damaged your ability to recuperate? Lieutenant General Applegate: They have presented a bigger recuperation challenge, without
sounding too mealy mouthed about this. Where
we have had this is in the provision of spares, which is a priority to the
operational theatres, which has had an impact on those elements in the Q225 Mr Holloway: On that, you mentioned the figure of £500 million worth of stuff. Is that roughly what we have used in Iraq or Afghanistan or is it more than that? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: No, that is a figure on the capital weapons, forgive me. Q226 Mr Holloway: That is different from the ammunition? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: There is a minor technical moment in terms of resource accounting codes here, but literally all of that what you would call ammo (50 cal and all that kind of stuff) is in a particular category where we are authorised to replenish on a rolling basis, and it has already been charged to the Reserve Stocks and being kept at the levels needed. It is the capital assets, and the General mentioned three key ones, Hellfire GMLRS and Javelin, where we have been specifically dealing with the Treasury, and have in place this week the required forward order authorities to actually restore those stocks. The other classic items are rather more on AVM Bollom's side of the house,*** Q227 Mr Holloway: I appreciate that these are extremely expensive but there is not some question of not restocking to the same level? You are not going to have a situation where commanders on the ground are saying, "We can only fire three Javelins, boys"? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: No Lieutenant General Applegate: I hope not. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: No, it is fine. Q228 Mr Jenkin: Before you leave that point, why is there any question about restocking the levels of these weapons? Surely, it is a no-brainer and if we needed them before we need them now? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Because our stock holding numbers policy for replenishment is geared against one of the most demanding scenarios, *** and the rates of consumption that would be implied in those. Clearly, as you mentioned, these weapons have a long lead time and are extremely expensive things, and technology moves on, so the logic of not actually recovering on a rolling basis as each one gets used, to go and buy another one, is, firstly, not a sensible way of ordering these things and, secondly, you might not actually want those. *** That was back to the Chairman's earlier point of whether we are trying to recover to the 2003 level. The answer was of course in principle yes, but as modified by what you really need in today's world. Q229 Mr Hamilton: So doing it that way allows you also to take account of new developments that have taken place in that field? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Correct. The absolute classic of course would be where we have lost C-130K Hercules, we have not, under our insurance policy with the Treasury, had an old-for-old replacement. We have used that funding for what a new Hercules of that type would have cost, but used it to buy a third of a C-17. Q230 Chairman: Then you have a discussion with the Treasury, do you, about which element of that enhancement of the capability comes out of the reserve and which element comes out of the core budget? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: What is appropriate, absolutely. Mr Hamilton: That makes sense. Q231 Mr Havard: Apologies for being late. You may have covered this but this is exactly the point that I was trying to get at at a private briefing we had about standards. The language seems to change. It is about recuperation but it is the standards to which you recuperate. Is each one done on a case-by-case in that discussion with the Treasury, or is there going to be some list of new standards, as it were, as to what armoured vehicles are going to be looking like into the future? Is it done case-by-case as they come along, currently presumably it is on that basis? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: It depends on the urgency of need. We have a rolling recuperation programme which effectively runs automatically and replaces things that have been used. We have this moment-in-time recuperation where one operation is finishing and we are now trying to restore the contingent level previously held, but then within the totality of that we will have discussions with the Treasury and obviously fellow colleagues in the Ministry of Defence, on what then is the best use of that funding to replace that missing gap and how it should be used, is it the current position or just to restore us to the standard that we were previously at because that is satisfactory. Q232 Mr Holloway: Just finally on the land side, Merlin and Chinooks are so important to land forces; what is going to happen vis-à-vis recuperation? Lieutenant General Applegate: Primarily on a rolling basis. That is a classic example of where we ensure we keep flying hours under control. Actually we are bringing them back down at the moment. Because of some measures we took to increase spares for the Merlin, I am pretty content that these will be available for operations. There is one area which is still a little bit of a worry to me and that is we need to conduct some operational data recording on all of our helicopters just to see what the effect is on the handling flight characteristics and general safety, because we have had lots of UORs. In some instances we have changed the centre of gravity for example. That would be my particular concern, but I am pretty happy that we are on top of the helicopter issues to meet immediate needs. Q233 Mr Holloway: Just on numbers of personnel, are PVRs an issue or not? The economy may be going in your favour at the moment in terms of recruiting. How is that going to affect your recuperation if it is difficult to get enough people in? Lieutenant General Applegate: I would find it difficult at the moment to put my finger on a particular gap. I watch quite carefully some of our avionics people who are being used a lot by helicopters and for supporting UAVs for example, across the force, to make sure that we are not losing too many of those. There the pressures are somewhat different. I cannot put my finger on anything at the moment that causes me concern as far as internal capability is concerned to aid recuperation on an equipment basis. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Probably medical manpower would continue to be the significant stress for the Department at large, so the ability to recover a medium-scale capability with full medical coverage and the deficiencies and pinch point trades in medical would be a hazard there. Q234 Chairman: Getting back to Merlins and Chinooks, you said that 50 per cent of spares were going on 20 per cent of the Merlins. Lieutenant General Applegate: Correct. Q235 Chairman: Does the same proportion apply to the Chinooks? Lieutenant General Applegate: No, partly because of Merlin being newer and partly because of some of the problems we had earlier on with quality issues, people getting used to managing aircraft. It has been a more fragile fleet to develop, but I am happier now --- Q236 Chairman: For the Chinooks? Lieutenant General Applegate: No, the Merlin. I am happier now that it is getting better in terms of quality and capacity. A lot of effort has been put in. Q237 Chairman: In Iraq they were flying 85 per cent flying hours, 85 per cent of availability of the Merlin fleet, which was fantastically high. Lieutenant General Applegate: It is one of
those things, again, which one monitors.
It dipped down at various times for a variety of reasons. The average is around about 75 per cent,
which requires us to put spares in in the way I explained earlier on, in other
words using the Merlin fleet in the Q238 Chairman: So what is the availability of Chinooks? Lieutenant General Applegate: I cannot give you the actual figure. I will find out and I will ask them to dig it
out for you. As far as Chinook is
concerned, I think you have heard, the amount of hours we are getting out of
our Chinooks is incredible. I think
there is only one small company in the world which gets more hours out of their
helicopter fleet and they do logging activity in Q239 Chairman: What about the use of spares in Chinook? Lieutenant General Applegate: Again of course the important thing about that, first of all, is that there are more spares in the world which we have used our influence to gain, in discussion with Boeing, and hence the relationship with Boeing and maturity of our relationship with Boeing and the through-life support arrangements we have are hugely beneficial in keeping helicopters flying. With Merlin there is a smaller global fleet so we have been going around trying to find more airframes and the necessary support. Of course, we are using them at a rate we did not expect, so our recovery trajectory with Merlin is steeper, rather than with Chinook where we are happy where we are. We are maintaining a watching brief. Q240 Mr Jenkin: On the Chinook there are quite a number of out-of-service dates up to 2017 and immediately beyond. I understand that at about 2020 we will only have 14 Chinooks left in the British Army. How does that leave us managing a large-scale operation? Lieutenant General Applegate: I am not aware of those figures. On out-of-service dates generally, some things are obviously fatigue-critical, and it is primarily a matter of how much resource is put in to maintaining the capability. So if you are talking about recuperation, from a land perspective, I would wish to see an uplift in in-service support funding in order to maintain the OSD dates of helicopters, or any other piece of equipment. I am not aware of the figures you have just told me. Q241 Mr Jenkin: *** Lieutenant General Applegate: I can give
you the detail, bear with me. I can give you the various numbers that we would
be wanting to have in order to support particular scales of effort. *** The issue, as far as I am concerned is,
as we have mentioned on a couple of occasions, maintenance of support
operations in Q242 Mr Jenkin: I would advise you to check the official out-of-service dates; they may change I suppose. Lieutenant General Applegate: Thanks for your advice! Q243 Chairman: Were the out-of-service dates chosen before the Chinooks began to be flown so intensively? Lieutenant General Applegate: Yes, but helicopters are not the only thing. We have planning dates, as you know, in term of the overall programme to ensure when those capabilities are likely to be replaced. As I said earlier on, the issue for me is retaining those out-of-service dates through adequate provision of resources to replace the worn out bits, at its simplest. If that money is not forthcoming it may well mean to say that the OSDs will be brought forward, and then we have to decide whether we are going to have new money to replace that fleet or we will take a capability gap. At the moment my main concern is to get the money into the programme to maintain those OSD dates. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: We have
analysed, as part of the recuperation work, the changes to out-of-service dates
for the systems that are now freed up from Telic, and actually there are no
significant OSD adjustments that we need to make and therefore now charge
for. Essentially, for example, C-130K
has had considerable extra work done on it and while therefore its
out-of-service date did move forward, but that has been adjusted by the rolling
recuperation programme in that we bought new outer wing sets to bring them back
to the out-of-service date that was previously planned for them, and therefore
we know the Reserve is dealt with the C-130K OSD issue already. On C-130J, there is no doubt the work that is
currently going on in Afghanistan is continuing to advance that out-of-service
date, but it is still such a long way off that it is not actually at this stage
of the recuperation discussions with the Treasury that we need to take that
into account. That will be for the
post-Afghanistan phase rather than the Q244 Mr Jenkin: You are a fast jet man yourself! Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: Quite a lot of that background, yes. But I think in the point you were making on the helicopter numbers, you are quoting the current published OSDs for existing systems without reflecting Future Medium Lift and Future Heavy Lift helicopter programmes. We have not yet fully defined what those will be and therefore what the particular mix is that will then therefore give us a whole set of new dates to reflect those programmes because they are not yet in place. Q245 Mr Jenkin: How important are they for achieving recuperation programmes beyond 2017? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: I think I
hide behind the previous answer there - until such time as we know what the Chairman: A very sensible thing to do! Adam Holloway? Mr Holloway: Can I ask Simon Bollom this question. Chairman: You have been sitting here for an hour and a half without being asked a question and we are just about to break that now! Q246 Mr Holloway: Based upon my ignorance and my terror of flying, surely a knackered old Chinook or Tristar has got to be more dangerous than a newer aircraft? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: No is the simple answer. If I pick up the Chinook example in the first instance, there are certain what we describe as fatigue-critical lifed components that have been analysed, and their behaviours are well-understood, and provided they are replaced at the time set by the designer, by the manufacturer, there is absolutely no reason why it cannot keep going and replacing those items. The General mentioned earlier on another thing that we do which is called operational loads measurement, so from time to time you actually instrument that aircraft and record the sort of flying and the sorts of stresses that they are undergoing to check that they are actually representative of what you have got in your design models. Then of course you have got the experience of actually doing the deep maintenance itself, which helps to provide an indication of those items that are wearing out more quickly, where you might have technical issues, and where you might need to put in a focused engineering campaign. We are very clear that in terms of the safety standards that we apply to an aircraft, whatever age it is, it is the same for whether it is a new aircraft or one that has been in service for some time. Indeed, if you look at our current arising rates, actually the higher risk area is probably for aircraft that you have just introduced into service where you have got less experience of how they behave and how they are being used. Chairman: We seem to be moving seamlessly in the air environment. David Borrow? Q247 Mr Borrow: If I start off with the sort of question that my colleagues have asked of the other two Services, which is: what are the priorities for recuperation and which parts of the RAF give you most worry? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: *** Q248 Mr Borrow: Is that a mixture of capability within the RAF itself as well as the capability within the supplier? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: Yes. In the way in which we support most of our aircraft now, it is a combination of industry providing, if you like, some of the deeper technical skills and indeed their management of the wider support chain. We tend to place a certain amount of Servicemen in our deep repair organisations for two reasons, really. Firstly, it is to provide some recuperation from deployed operations, not necessarily a rest but recuperation from being away, and secondly it also provides the Service people with the deep skills necessary to be able to support smaller detachments of aircraft when they are in the forward domain. Q249 Mr Borrow: So is part of your concern over the type in particular, that once the production of Typhoon comes to an end and we move on to JSF, then there will not be that level of expertise within the company that there would be now? Is that an issue? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: Clearly the production element is manpower intensive and there is an issue there about deployment of skilled labour. I think as important for sustainability are the design and engineering capabilities that are being used to design new aircraft and design new upgrades. They are high-end skills and we need to make sure that our programme is configured so that we retain those people. Q250 Mr Havard: You say that an air sector strategy is required to do all of this? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: Yes. Q251 Mr Havard: Is there a particular workstream going on to do exactly that, because we have been told with DIS there is not going to be a DIS2 and all the rest of it so these strategic views of the relationship with industry seem to be problematic across the piece. Is there some specific work being done and what is the crucial date by which such work would need to be done? Is there a crucial piece of timing? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: DIS one set the tone in terms of our partnerships with industry. Rather than being a strategy that has got to be in place by a certain date, what we have done is put the processes in now so that we can sit down with those major manufacturers - BAE Systems, AgustaWestland, for example - and as a team we look at those issues and we manage the programmes to meet those. Q252 Mr Havard: So that is an iterative programme that goes on all the time? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: It is iterative, yes. Q253 Mr Jenkin: To come back to the question of old airframes, we are in private and I have got no intention of stoking this issue in public, but we have already had one tragedy with the Nimrod through mechanical failure and it stretches credulity to insist on the textbook answer that there is no additional risk with an older airframe, A former commander (Joint Helicopter Command) has said to me in private that he loses sleep over the aged SF Chinooks because they should have been replaced some years ago. Surely this has to have an effect on what you describe as capability in terms of this additional risk? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: I think it is a bit like any equipment that has run on a while; you have to take extra care. I do not accept the premise that we are taking more risk because I do not think we are. Q254 Mr Jenkin: But there are more unknown factors. Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: You say that
but actually I would turn it on its head and say there are more known factors,
provided you have got the systems in place to monitor the health of those
airframes, that you are doing your maintenance very carefully, and you do not
suddenly change the environment in which they are used. I think perhaps what recent events have shown
us is that you require with older aircraft that high degree of attention to
detail and, provided you do the right things, I do not see any major issues
with running on aircraft for long periods.
We brought the Chinook in 1978 and that has run on and it remains the
work horse for the fleet. It has had a
mid-life upgrade in the mid-1990s and it can go on. Similarly, if we look at helicopters, with
Sea King and Q255 Chairman: So if you have the systems in place to monitor the health of Chinooks they are okay? Do they all have cockpit voice recorders? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: They do now, yes. Q256 Chairman: Do they all have black boxes? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: My understanding is that they do but this is not my particular area and it would be better if I came back to you with a definitive answer on that. Chairman: I would like to know the answer on that. David? Q257 Mr Hamilton: I agree with the last comments about actually knowing, and the maintenance that you are doing that actually helps you, and therefore it becomes safer rather than not safer, but there does come a time on downtime with the amount of maintenance that you are doing, at which point does that downtime gets to the mark and you say that this cannot get on? Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: You have hit the nail right on the head there. Q258 Mr Hamilton: Thank you. Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: In theory you could maintain them forever. It is the same with vintage cars, you could keep them going forever, but there does come a point where the effort that is required is not worth it. I think from a military application probably more realistically it is the obsolescence, in particular the electronic and avionic obsolescence where the systems architectures in the aircraft will not allow you to embody things like secure radios and defensive aid system and you will not be able to successfully integrate them into the systems which is why we have brought things in like the Typhoon to replace the Tornado F3. Q259 Mr Hamilton: There is a difference between upgrading and at some point, because of new developments that take place, there must come a point where you say, "Hold on a minute, we can continue to do this but we really need to bring this new development in," because there are new system being developed all the time, it is just a balance. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: You are absolutely right, the nature of current operations has demonstrated a number of discrete areas where a more modern fleet, of whatever system, is actually a far healthier position to be in, and of course probably the ultimate Departmental example of that is Tristar. Q260 Mr Hamilton: My question then is if we are going to be in Afghanistan for the long haul, should that not be what we are doing right now, instead of just continuing to upgrade we should be looking at new equipment coming in? If it is agreed that we are going to be in Afghanistan, at whatever level, for a lengthy period of time, should we not really be talking about spending the necessary amount of money to get the new equipment and new airframes in and starting to make those changes now? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: We are mindful of those priorities at all times when conducting the Programming Round, so for example when choices are to be made on how you flex the available funding, clearly something that is at the wrong end of its life and is not as useful as you would wish remains an absolute high priority for replacement. So, for example, the Future Strategic Tanker programme in delivering an air transport defence aid equipment and is a highly reliable aeroplane that moves troops during troop rotations in and out of theatre to time and in a guaranteed way and that is not inefficient. With the older Tristar, we are not using the fleet as efficiently as we could because its age gives you start up reliability issues. Once airborne it is as safe as it has ever been but you just have to nurse it into the air, you have to have a spare aeroplane standing by, and the absolute right answer is the delivery of the A330s to replace it as soon as we possibly can. Q261 Chairman: Yes, because what has happened in Australia is they took our design and they have them in service. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: That is true, yes. Q262 Chairman: And we are still hoping to get some at some stage? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: I think it is rather stronger than a hope. The contract is in place and the delivery dates are secure, but I think the point you are making, Chairman, is our route to that has been via a PFI approach which has taken rather longer than we would have hoped to get into place. Q263 Chairman: Was that in order to save money? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: It was to make it affordable. Q264 Chairman: Has it actually cost money? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: No, it represents - and I will defer back to Simon - a very cost-effective way of doing business. Q265 Chairman: Except you have had to run on the old aircraft that keep breaking down? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: The programme dates have not been subject to significant slippage. I think the problem has been that the demands we have placed on the Tristar, because of the nature of the theatre of operations, have identified the deficiencies in running an old aeroplane in that maximised, high reliability and installed systems environment that was never really considered at the time the aircraft was designed and modified throughout its life. Q266 Chairman: In answer to David Hamilton you recognised the advantage of getting new airframes in, but actually it has been the constraints of Treasury that have cost all this extra time and money and the delays to our Armed Forces in getting to and from theatre? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: No, I would not --- Q267 Mr Hamilton: No, that is not what I said. Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: No, I would not say it is the constraints of the Treasury. It is most certainly the overall shape and size of the Defence programme and the priorities that we have previously set in it. If I could wind the clock back 15 years, there is no doubt I would be shaping that forward equipment programme for the longer term delivery systems slightly differently. Q268 Mr Hamilton: I think the other answer to that is that by saving money through a PFI it means they can spend money in other places. Air Vice-Marshal Bollom: The reality is of course that we as airmen would want the newest and most up-to-date equipment that we can get hold of. However, it is incredibly capital intensive, so affordability and massaging the programme such that we have got that coherent capability and it is affordable is one of the issues that any business would face, I suggest. Mr Hamilton: The reason I asked the question is because of an answer you gave earlier on and that was that, as we know, in 2017 there is going to be a major reduction in certain equipment, and getting to that financial change and getting the Treasury on board becomes even more important, therefore your lead in time must be even greater now than what it used to be before because you have got to convince the Treasury to come up with a financial system that will allow those dates to be transferred down. That was the reason that I asked it. That clarified it, thank you. Chairman:
Are there any further questions that we need
to ask about the changes in Mr Holloway: I do not have any. Q269 Mr Havard: There is going to be a new facility, as I understand it, at Bastian, which is going to be particularly for armoured vehicles. It is the relationship between a facility like that, which is essentially within an operational theatre, and the whole argument about recuperation. You will understand what I mean. You are going to be maintaining vehicles at that place, upgrading them, so how do those two things fit together? Lieutenant General Applegate: I will pick
that up because it is part of a review that we have just completed, in view of
the changing circumstances in Q270 Mr Havard: Is that seen as just an efficiency or is that seen as part of the broader discussion about how you will deal with this question of recuperation in the future? Lieutenant General Applegate: It is both. I would see it primarily being the business of rolling recuperation rather than recuperation for the long term. Going back to what I said before, it helps us to keep the current fight appropriately resourced. There is also an element of efficiency. But also in order to improve effectiveness I want to make sure that the people who are deployed in theatre have maximum impact on reducing the amount of logistic burden, that rather unfortunate phrase, and therefore ensure that we have got more turnaround, and that it is more agile and better able to support high-intensity operations. So I believe it comes back to not long-term recuperation but rather making best use of resources in theatre. Q271 Chairman: Air Vice-Marshal Leeson, you have told us that the recuperation dates that you have given *** are based on the current levels of resource in Afghanistan, yet we know perfectly well that we will be asked to increase our resources in Afghanistan. What size of increase in Afghanistan would mean not just that you had to slow down the recuperation dates that you are talking about but had to stop it? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: I am not sure I have the answer to that here and now because there are so many potential models in a hypothetical question such as that that one would need to go through to work out exactly what the key issue would be. Q272 Chairman: In your answer you accept the hypothesis, do you not? Air Vice-Marshal Leeson ***. Q273 Chairman: *** Air Vice-Marshal Leeson: *** Chairman: Unless there are any further questions, thank you very much indeed for a fascinating evidence session. Mr Jenkin:
Chairman, may I just add one other
comment. I think it is immensely
impressive how thoroughly the Ministry of Defence analyses this question. I do not think another Department in Chairman: Let us hope our analysis matches the quality! Thank you very much indeed, gentlemen, that is very helpful indeed.
[j1]Richard I think you have deleted something extra. |