HL Deb 20 November 1969 vol 305 cc1086-108

4.10 p.m.

Debate resumed.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for the information which he has given us, and although none of us wishes to have a major Defence debate this afternoon—we must not keep the South—West waiting too long—I think it is useful for us periodically to look at the nuts and bolts of defence policy. Like the noble Lord, I propose to confine myself entirely to personnel matters, and I should like at the outset to say now grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for having given us such a comprehensive review of the picture as he sees it to-day. I know that these matters are those in which he is deeply involved, and indeed deeply interested, and his very considerable personal interest and concern for these matters came through very much in what he said. I should like, first of all, to associate myself straight away with what the noble Lord said about our forces in Northern Ireland. They have done and are doing an extraordinarily difficult job extra-ordinarily well, and they are doing it just as well as I think we all expected them to do it. Many of us, of course, have been very concerned at the conditions in which many of our troops in Ulster are now serving. If I felt that the Government were not fully alive to the need to look after their material welfare, in so far as that is possible, I should have been extremely critical of them this afternoon. But I am persuaded that these needs are recognised and that action to repair the most obvious and glaring omissions and problems is being taken. May I say that I consider the decision to move the "Maidstone" to Belfast to be both sensible and imaginative. I spent a number of weeks aboard "Maidstone" myself during the war and I know what good accommodation she has. It was perhaps a stroke of good luck that Mr. Healey had not yet sent her to the knacker's yard. That said, I turn to the darker side of the picture.

For the past five years we on these Benches have expressed our concern about the rundown in our Armed Forces. Time and time again we have emphasised that a sensible defence policy must make provision for the unexpected. With that in mind we have deplored the Government's emasculation of our reserve forces, and we have emphasised that they were cutting the cutting edge of the British Army—the infantry battalions—dangerously fine. Now the unexpected has occurred. Who would have thought a year ago that it would now be necessary —and, indeed, it is very necessary—for us to station ten military units in Northern Ireland? This is, I think, the first time that this Administration has been confronted with what is only to be expected; namely, the unexpected. And what do we find, my Lords? Immediately we find all the signs and symptoms of overstretch and overstrain.

There is the undermanning of our units —or at least some of them—in Northern Ireland. I think we have it on the authority of Mr. Healey that 25 men is the minimum number in an infantry platoon. And of course numbers are particularly crucial when one is dealing with internal security. But when he visited Northern Ireland recently, my right honourable friend Mr. Ramsden, a former Secretary of State for War found that there were in fact less than eight men per section in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Green-jackets. Can the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, assure us that this under-manning is exceptional to that particular unit? I hope he can.

Another sign of overstretch is that in order to provide the necessary 10 units in Northern Ireland, Mr. Healey has had to call upon composite units. One of the units is an amalgam of two squadrons of the R.A.F. Regiment and a battery of a light regiment of the Royal Artillery. I very well remember the criticisms to which we were exposed when, confronted by a number of emergencies all around the world—in East Africa, in South Arabia, in South-East Asia—we called upon the Royal Artillery to fulfil infantry roles. But those Artillery units were trained for the internal security role, and it cannot be a good thing, especially when troops are undertaking internal security, the most delicate of tasks in a highly charged political atmosphere, to have to rely upon hastily-formed mergers.

The third sign of overstretch is the extent to which Northern Ireland has forced us to draw upon our strategic reserve. Despite all the fine words of our Minister of Defence about our general reinforcement capability, five of the nine battalions of the 3rd Division are now in Northern Ireland. Again, I recall that at all times, even when we were dealing with a number of simultaneous emergencies, we managed to retain in England up to strength a full brigade group of the strategic reserve. I hope and trust—and I shall be very surprised if this is not the case—that the noble Lord can assure us that that is indeed the position to-day.

Finally, and most important, there is the warning that the Government may have to draw upon B.A.O.R. in order to keep our garrison in Northern Ireland up to strength. Here again we have been subjected to a great deal of talk about the reinforcement of the British military presence in Europe. But of course those who speak a great deal about that refrain from reminding us that the Government have withdrawn one brigade, the 6th Infantry Brigade, from B.A.O.R., and that that brigade is physically stationed in this country at the present time. Now we are told that it is probable that a battalion from B.A.O.R. will be needed in the new year in Northern Ireland. The Ministry told us that it was not for reinforcement but for relief purposes. Well, my Lords, whatever the verbiage they wrap this around in, the fact remains that that battalion will not be with B.A.O.R.

Last spring my noble friend Lord St. Oswald and I spent some days in Belgium looking at our NATO force. We were both concerned, as all of us must be, with the signs we saw of the weakening of the Alliance's conventional military posture in Europe. There are threats of withdrawal from the NATO conventional strength all across the board. Time and time again it was brought home to us that the one obvious thing which we could do to stop this potential rot was to move the 6th Infantry Brigade back to B.A.O.R. I notice, incidentally, that there is a report in the Guardian that that may be our intention, and I should very much like to ask the noble Lord whether he can say anything about that report when he replies.

Be that as it may, I should also very much like to ask the noble Lord what is the actual strength, the actual numbers of British Army personnel at present physically on the ground in the British Army of the Rhine to-day. I hope that he can give me a perfectly straightforward and simple answer, excluding Berlin, excluding Belgium, excluding the 6th Brigade and excluding those units associated with it, like 36 Heavy Air Defence Regiment. By the same token, when the Government draw the contrast which they are very fond of drawing between the 19 battalions physically present in this country in June, 1964, and the 30 battalions present to-day, are they or are they not including the 6th Brigade in that total?—because I think there is sometimes a tendency for that Brigade to be double counted.

I have indicated some of the signs of overstretch and overstrain which this emergency has caused and I should like to explore the Government's intentions a little further. The emergency has of course high-lighted—if high-lighting was needed—the need for adequate reserves. I am not expecting any great change of heart from the Government here. I am glad to see that the total of TAVR II has climbed from 40,000 to some 47,000, but I need hardly remind the noble Lord that this is still over 10,000 below strength. Another thing which the Government could do is to defer the disbandment of our infantry battalions, at least until we can see the picture in Northern Ireland more clearly. We had 66 infantry battalions in June, 1964, and the total is now down to 59. We are due to lose six more next year and two more in the two succeeding years. In my view, a prudent Administration would, in prudence, review this programme, which, unless it is changed, will further erode our very slim reserves of infantry manpower.

The Government may, of course, be relying upon better recruitmenl—and, goodness knows! they need it. It is my understanding that in April of this year the Army was nearly 9,900 men short of peace-time establishment, and the Under-Secretary told us in June [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 25/6/69, col. 270.]: If the present trend in recruiting continues I estimate the shortfall on 1st April, 1970, as about 8,750— and that, of course, is with a considerably reduced establishment. The noble Lord has given us—and I was glad he was able to do so—some rather more hopeful figures about recruiting trends at the present time. He has told us that it is 20 per cent. up on recruitment for the corresponding period last year but he rather took the gilt off that gingerbread by reminding us that last year was in fact the nadia of our recruitment. He has also laid emphasis on the encouraging re-engagement trends, and he is quite right to do so—it is exceptionally important. But of course we cannot tell where we are going until we know much more than we do now about what the re-engagement trends are going to be with those who have enlisted on a three-year engagement; and he quite rightly said that. But I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he could tell us what is the present estimate of the Ministry of Defence for the Army shortfall, given the rather more encouraging recruiting trend at present. They were able to calculate that last summer: I am sure that their computers and their statisticians can calculate it now. There are two aspects of recruitment which the noble Lord touched on and which I should like to explore a little further with him. The first is the question of specialist skills, where competition with the civilian market is at its most acute and where the shoe pinches most, because all three Services now make extraordinarily clamant demands on specialist and highly-skilled manpower. We read in the Defence White Paper this year that in the Navy, for example, there are major shortages of recruits for the seamen, communications and electrical branches "— all absolutely key skills in the Navy of 1969. We also read that there were serious shortages in certain of the essential trades of aircraft mechanic in the Royal Air Force. I may have missed it, but I think that the noble Lord, when he was saying that the shortfall was something like 25 per cent., was referring to those specialist branches in the Royal Air Force; but I am not certain.

LORD WINTERBOTTOM

In the Royal Air Force, yes.

EARL JELLICOE

I am grateful to the noble Lord for frankly disclosing that figure. It is a very serious one, and no one knows that better than he does. Anything which he can say in amplification about that I should be glad to hear, because all three Services—but above all, perhaps, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force—depend tremendously upon these specialist skills and specialist manpower.

May I dwell, secondly, for a moment on the officer position? I know that we are concerned here primarily with the Royal Air Force and the Army, but I noticed that the Under-Secretary of State for the Army disclosed on a similar occasion last week—and, as a former naval person, I cannot help reminding the noble Lord, also as a former naval person, about this —that officer entries for the Navy this year were nearly 70 below the entries for last year, and that for the first time there is a shortage of entries in the Seamen (General List). I read those words with very great concern indeed.

I was also concerned at what was said in the White Paper on the shortfall of recruits in what I have always thought is one of the most important and most interesting avenues of entry into the Forces these days, and that is through the university. I read that the number of cadets for the R.A.F. in residence at universities was 137 against a target of 201. What I think the noble Lord has told us this afternoon has put a much more favourable gloss upon that particular figure, but I am still very unhappy about the position here as regards the Army. I think he told us that the number of Army university cadetships was now something like 29 or 31 (I forget the precise figures) and had risen, but in the White Paper we were told that the target here was 65. It therefore seems, if I am right in my statistics, that we have still reached only 50 per cent. of target, and that worries me.

Two further "nuts and bolts" questions, my Lords, because they both have a bearing on recruitment. The first concerns pay. In the debate in another place last week the Government spokesman produced figures designed to show that the Serviceman will gain a lot when the new scales are introduced next year. I would ask, first: can the noble Lord categorically confirm that the Government are certain they will be able to meet the April deadline for the introduction of the new system? I assume that he can, because his colleagues in another place last week expressed every confidence that this was so.

As for the figures themselves, I am uncertain whether I understand the new system—in fact I am pretty certain that I do not understand it, because it is extraordinarily complicated. But the Minister of Defence for Administration told another place last week: … the increase which Grigg would have produced since 1966 is between £75 million and £80 million".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 13/11 /69, col. 630.] He went on to say that under the new formula the Services wage bill will have increased, by comparison, by £130 million. This, I think, was designed to show that the Forces will be £50 million better off, paywise, under Aubrey Jones than they would have been under Grigg. That is all very satisfactory, if that is the case, and it obviously has a bearing (although one can exaggerate that bearing) on recruitment. But what I should like to ask the noble Lord is whether these two sets of figures are really comparable. As I understand it, the new system means that the Armed Forces will receive gross pay and will then have an amount deducted from that pay—doubtless before they get the actual cash—for such things as accommodation and food. Moreover, if they are receiving more pay, there may well be an increased taxation liability. What I should like to know is whether those elements had been taken into account in the figure of £130 million—that is to say, was the figure gross or was it a net figure—and is it strictly comparable with the figure of £80 million? My second question is to ask the noble Lord when the Government hope to receive the Report of the Committee on Boy Entrants—and here I may say that I think the Government have been right to establish this Committee to look into this very difficult subject.

My Lords, there is one further matter that I should like very briefly to touch on, and that is the question of our Service attaché representation abroad. We touched on this, of course, in the context of the Duncan Review Committee's Report yesterday. My noble friend Lord Selkirk drew your Lordships' attention to the very important contribution which our Service attachés make to our representation abroad, not least when the unexpected, the emergency, occurs; and I entirely endorse what my noble friend, with all his very great experience in this particular matter, said. It is quite obvious to any of us who know what Service attachés are sometimes called upon to do that they perform far more than a purely ornamental role.

As I understand it, the Duncan Committee, who looked into this matter pretty thoroughly, made a number of minor recommendations and three major recommendations. They came to the conclusion (in their own horrid terminology) that in the "Outer Area" we could cut our Service attaché representation by about a third. Next, they concluded that our Service staffs in the United States, which include the British Defence Staff in Washington and which amount to almost 300 people, could probably be cut by about a quarter. Thirdly, they recommended that it was vital for the Services to appoint Service attachés who were on their way up in their career, rather than on their way out. Here they were merely crossing a "t" where the Plowden Committee of five years before had dotted the "i". We learned only in general terms yesterday about the Government's standpoint: on Duncan—let alone on this part of Duncan —and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, will take this opportunity of telling us a little more about: their thinking on these specific recommendations regarding our Service attaché representation abroad.

My own views in capsule form are very simple, almost simpliste. I personally have some doubt whether it would be sensible to make the full cuts recommended by Duncan in the Service attaché representation in the Outer Area where the fabric and the crust of security is very thin in so many very neuralgic places. Secondly, I venture to say this. I am personally inclined to think that we could afford to make perhaps rather deeper cuts in our representation in the United States. This is only a personal hunch but I am a little inclined to doubt whether, but for the accident of history and the wartime heritage of the Combined Chiefs, we would accept anything like this figure of 300 as being in any way reasonable. My personal view is that what we need in Washington is a very high-level, small, military nucleus to which task forces for specific purposes like Polaris or Phantom could be attached—in fact one might be able to fly out short-term experts from London (Duncan's "flying Missionaries") when necessary. These are purely personal views.

Finally, on the question of Service attaché representation, I should like to say that I concur with what Duncan said about the quality. The only surprising thing is that Duncan felt compelled to repeat this recommendation when it was made five years ago by Plowden and, so far as I know, accepted then by the Government of the day.

Those are the areas which I wanted briefly to touch upon to-day. I have put a great many questions to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, and I await a great many satisfactory (or less satisfactory, as the case may be) answers from him.

4.32 p.m.

LORD BOURNE

My Lords, I should like first to say how much I agree with the two noble Lords who have already spoken about the conduct of British forces in Northern Ireland. The only thing I would add is that, however unpleasant and however much of a surprise it is to British Army units to be keeping street control inside their own country, I think we can rely on them to perform their duties. I must take slight issue with the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, because I see that a unit of the Royal Horse Artillery Regiment went there last week. I can assure him that they will be at least as good as any infantry battalion—with or without training.

This is not the occasion for a full-dress defence debate, and I propose to touch upon two aspects only—reserves and manpower, and to ask the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, two questions consequent upon my short remarks. It is almost exactly a year ago that we had a Statement on the reserves of the Army (and when I talk about reserves to-day I am referring to reserves of the Army); and during the discussion I asked the question: have the volunteers of the Territorial Army (which up to that time had been called TAVR III) a role? The Territorial Army has since been abolished, so that there is no need to ask that question this afternoon.

I also asked a question about TAVR II, which was, rightly, being reorganised by the Government to an establishment of 56,000—which we have heard they are gradually reaching. The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, told me that the role of this force was to supply reserves for the existing Regular units —I think he meant in Germany—and to replace casualties in them. I called this role "plugging holes". Anyway, however you like to look at it, and whatever expression you use, the fact remains that it is a front-line duty and not a reserve duty. There was no mention of home defence in the role of the Reserve; there was no mention of the damage to the volunteer spirit—which admittedly is not a pure Army question but a countrywide question; there was no mention of having a disposable extra reserve which any general, or any country entering a war, must have in order to be able to swing the campaign in their favour. I got the impression that we were going to war without any true reserves except for front-line duties.

Since the Defence Review was written in 1966, the emphasis on our defence role has been very much on Europe. I do not happen to agree with that; but that is not what we are discussing this afternoon. But in the European role I find it very curious that every NATO member except this country has a reserve Army separate from its contribution to NATO. That is what I am really talking about. In the Defence Review three years ago the emphasis was on very quick war. It said: The danger of deliberate war in Europe at any level is small so long as the potential aggressor believes this is likely to lead to a nuclear response. It was on that basis that we destroyed our reserves. The Defence Review later went on: We urged on the Alliance that it should abandon those military preparations which rest on the assumption that a general war in Europe might last for several months. Of course, it is anybody's guess what the future war is going to be like, but at least we in this House have learned to prepare for the unexpected. I cannot help feeling that the Government were right when they emphasised in successive Defence White Papers that defence policy must never remain static; that it must be kept constantly under review.

Since that Defence Review in 1966 and many similar Statements there have been many more Statements emphasising the need for preparation for conventional war. As a matter of fact, we had an example of conventional way, but without shooting, when the Russians put 250,000 men into Czechoslovakia very quickly. Admittedly that was behind the Iron Curtain; but that is the sort of thing that we might have to meet. So the question I should like to ask is this: have the Government had second thoughts about the character and duration of war, especially of conventional war, and consequently of the need for proper reserve forces?

I will now turn to manpower, a subject which will not take me many minutes. Nine years ago we had a Navy, Army and Air Force 608,000 strong. Admittedly, we were in the middle of a reduction programme from 700,000 down to 400,000 which involved giving up National Service and turning to Regular Forces. Now the plan is to reduce the total Armed Forces to 340,000. Of course, it is a subject for a proper Defence debate whether a force of 340,000 is or is not capable of meeting the defence role required by the Government.

An interesting feature of this. very much reduced force is that it is predominantly married and is therefore very expensive. Of the officers, 83 per cent. are married; of the sergeants, 92 per cent. are married; of the other ranks, 62 per cent. are married. I am speaking of all the three Services. The latest Defence White Paper puts the yearly requirement to keep this force going as 35,000 males. I was encouraged and rather relieved to hear the figures for last year's recruitment which the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, gave us, figures in which we are all deeply interested. They do not, unfortunately, prove the future; and I am sorry to say that the general tendency is down. I only have to quote from the present Defence White Paper to show what I mean.

In the Navy, in the last four years—1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968—the number of males recruited dropped from 6,688 to 4,305. I make this a drop of 35 per cent. which is very serious indeed and must eventually mean that the ships do not go to sea because there are not the men to man them. At the same time the figure for the Army dropped from 13,848 to 8,337 in four years, a drop of 40 per cent. We all know that this really hit the infantry, the men on the street, as is indicated by the strength of a platoon on the street—for example, in Belfast or Londonderry. It is vital, in my opinion, that a company of infantry should be 90 or 100 strong; otherwise it has to leave the street to be relieved. There is no getting away from it, if a section consists of only eight men they have to be relieved. We see pictures on the B.B.C. of soldiers patrolling streets, but those men have to be relieved and so the weakness is serious. If I am right in thinking that the long-term trend is a 40 per cent. drop in four years, I sincerely hope that the encouraging figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, will prove to be permanent. I happen to think the opposite.

I do not believe that at the present time the Defence Services have the status that they used to have. Defence reductions are the biggest single factor in causing this drop in status. The Services no longer have the appeal of adventure and travel which they once had. It is no use telling a young man who is thinking of joining the Army that he will exercise in Canada or Australia—Libya has been struck off, by the way, in the last week or two. It is no good emphasising to a young man that he will live on Salisbury Plain and do his exercises in the Commonwealth; that does not make him join the Army. What makes him join is the prospect of taking part in something really active, like the emergency in Kenya, Cyprus, or something of that nature. It is no satisfaction to me that in its latest Report the Prices and Incomes Board agrees with all these remarks.

So, my Lords, my question to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, is this Assuming that his fairly encouraging recent recruiting figures will prove to be more than a flash in the pan, but observing that any Ministry of Defence must make prudent plans in case they do not achieve these results; if recruiting does not achieve the very modest manpower requirements of our reduced Regular Forces—that is to say, 35,000 men a year—what do the Government propose to do about it? They must, I suggest, make the conditions even more attractive; that is to say, compete even more with industry, which I think is a hopeless chase—and incidentally covers up the fact that recruiting a young man for the Navy, the Army or the Air Force is quite different from recruiting him for industry. Or, alternatively, are the Government prepared to reintroduce National Service on a selective basis? Those are my two questions.

4.44 p.m.

VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY

My Lords, my intervention will be quite short. Going back to the rather complicated question of pay, the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, said that the discipline accepted by soldiers is different from that accepted by civilians; and this is clearly tight. But now the noble Lord is going to put soldiers on a civilian system of pay. Those who are in the forces are finding it increasingly difficult to understand and accept it, and those who are out do not even begin to understand it. There is a fear among those who are serving that this will be the finish of the "backbone", which is the unit system in the Army; the officers' mess, the sergeants' mess and the corporals' mess. If the men have to pay to live in mess and in addition have to pay for their food, they will live out. One has seen from the example of Continental armies the disastrous results of men not living in mess but in various places in a town. I am sure that the noble Lord will agree with St. Benedict, who said that if men must live without women they must not live without rules. I think that too much attention has been paid to the married officer and soldier and too little to the single soldier and to those who are married but who have to live as single men for operational or other reasons. That is the only point which I wanted to raise.

4.46 p.m.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

My Lords, may I say how much I agree with my noble friend Lord Jellicoe. I believe people in this country are getting worried that our defence system is too theoretical. We have a Secretary of State who is extremely theoretical. He is an able and indeed a vigorous Secretary of State, but what happens if his theories are wrong? In the debate on the Address the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, made a remark which I think went like this: that the question of reserves is a question of philosophy. My Lords, it is not. Reserves are a fact of life in any form of armed service; you cannot dispense with them in any theoretical form whatsoever.

May I say just one other word on the question of military attachés overseas. This question really turns on the structure of military government. I have come up against it once or twice, and it is not always quite what it appears. The man at the top is not really in charge. What normally happens is that there is a committee, composed of Colonels or perhaps Generals, who are very difficult to approach. In a sense they are rather like Parliament, except that they meet in secret. They appoint the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or whoever it may be. You may perhaps see the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary, but you very rarely get to the source of power, which is a semi-secret bloc of officers who sit back and really command the situation. Into that sort of fortress a military attaché can gain admission very much more easily than the ordinary diplomat, if I may say so with respect. The military attaché understands military language. There are many places to-day where there is military rule, and for all we know there will be more. These are places where a man with some military background may gain information which would not be readily available to other people. It is for this reason that I ask the noble Lord, and the Government, to think carefully about the kind of recommendations contained in the Duncan Committee Report.

4.47 p.m.

LORD BALERNO

My Lords, I wish to make one point on the references by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, to the new policy for officer entry into the Royal Air Force: that in future the normal entry will be through universities, and from the universities to particular air training, a policy which I was glad to hear welcomed by my noble friend Lord Jellicoe. The purpose of my intervention is to make an appeal to the universities to look after these young men. They may be scattered through the different faculties and departments of the universities, but they are being educated for a specific profession every bit as much as a medical student, a law student or a divinity student is being educated; and the universities, in accepting this policy, are undertaking a very considerable responsibility not only to the young men but also to national defence. It is to make that appeal to those noble Lords who are connected with universities that I have ventured to speak.

4.49 p.m.

LORD WINTERBOTTOM

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lords who are about to debate the problems of the South-West will not think that the discussion we have had has been a waste of time. I found it extremely helpful and interesting. I accept that no policy is perfect and that all the policies of a Government must be supervised by the Opposition of the day. Nevertheless, I am encouraged by the general agreement on goals, even though we may disagree on methods. I will first try to answer, as well as I can, the various points that were raised by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe; and I am grateful to him for having given me advanced warning of most of his "punches". The noble Earl was entirely correct: I think it would be dishonest to say that there is not an element of overstretch in our present position. We should not have the shortfall in our requirements for soldiers and airmen at the moment if we were not overstretched. I think that one is associated with the other. The noble Earl, unfortunately, is correct in his information about the 1st Battalion of the Green Jackets. They are exceptionally under strength for that very famous Regiment, and are undermanned in comparison with other units at the moment in Northern Ireland. The noble Earl will also remember, although he will not, I think, be very pleased about it (he has, in fact, already said that he regrets it) that the Green Jackets are due to contract to two battalions. That is all part of the reason for the undermanning of that unit.

Perhaps if I could get the B.A.O.R. position out of the way we might then turn to the question of drawing on our strategic reserves. The latest figure I have available to me is that there are at the moment in Germany 48,150 men, give or take a few. This excludes Berlin, NATO headquarters outside Germany, the Advanced Base in Belgium and 6 Brigade which, while redeployed to this country, remains under the operational command of B.A.O.R. The figure of 48,150 includes Headquarters Northern Army Group, some 600 men, and the Royal Malta Artillery, about 370 men. That is the position in B.A.O.R. at the moment.

It may be convenient if I touch on the question of the return of 6 Brigade to Germany. As the noble Earl knows, 6 Brigade was withdrawn in 1968 for balance-of-payments reasons, and there has always been the possibility that the Brigade, which has remained part of B.A.O.R., could be returned after the balance-of-payments problems were resolved: and I am sure we are all glad that, if we are not out of the tunnel in that respect, there is at any rate light at the end of the tunnel. This was one of the contingencies which was bound to be/considered in the context of NATO'S studies of remedial measures following the Canadian decision to withdraw some of its forces from Europe. It would, however, be premature to suggest that a decision is about to be taken. This is a matter in which NATO as a whole has an interest. That is the position to-day.

I have tried to find out the precise position on the matter raised by the noble Earl on strategic reserves. This, unfortunately, depends very much as a matter of definition on what is meant by strategic reserves. At the moment five of the battalions in Northern Ireland are out of the 13 battalions of 3 Division and the Parachute force, both 3 Division and the Parachute force being earmarked for assignment to NATO. This means that there is something more than a Brigade Group available in this country. The sending of battalions to Northern Ireland does not really withdraw them from the United Kingdom as a whole. They are tied up there, and if there arose an emergency more serious than that which exists in Northern Ireland to-day they would have to be recalled to face that more serious threat. But the skill with which the Army has handled matters in Northern Ireland—and I am grateful, as I am sure the Army is, to noble Lords who have expressed their congratulations in to-day's debate—should not lead noble Lords to think that the strategic forces of this country are stretched to a point of danger. They are of course taxed heavily, but there is still a substantial reserve capacity in this country which could be at once reinforced by recall from Northern Ireland.

I was glad that the noble Earl gave his support to the attempts being made to draw an increasing number of graduate officers into the Armed Forces; and I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, for the encouragement given by him to the universities to help in this way. He is preaching what he practises because, if I recollect correctly, he is chairman of the military committee of one of the great Scottish universities, and he has been a tower of strength to us in recruiting North of the Border.

The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, also mentioned R.A.F. mechanic recruiting as a major problem. I mentioned in my speech that this year we have introduced the R.A.F. mechanic apprentice scheme in an attempt to overcome this substantial shortfall of our requirements. I said that we had had a special presentation, followed by a conference of headmasters, in order to encourage applications to enter the R.A.F. Apprentice Training School, which is so famous and has produced so many famous men. I myself opened that conference and spent a substantial time discussing the problem with headmasters from all over the United Kingdom, including one from the Hebrides. I think they were surprised when they saw the quality of the training that we were giving to our young men and I believe that they will be extremely good as recruiting officers.

EARL JELLICOE

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I am not quite clear about the position. In the White Paper particular emphasis was placed upon the shortfall in R.A.F. mechanic recruitment. Has there been any improvement in the last nine months parallel to the improvement to which the noble Lord has been able to point, in, for example, general Army recruitment?

LORD WINTERBOTTOM

What I said was that the actual recruitment of apprentices was extremely encouraging. Apprentices, of course, are not frontline troops. They are given a very thorough training, and it will be some time before this increasing number of young men who are coming through the training machine actually reach the front line of the Royal Air Force. But we are very encouraged by the number of young men who are starting to train in the Royal Air Force, and we believe that in due course, although it will be in a substantial time scale, we shall get the numbers and quality of young men that we require. It is of course quality that is important in this field, because weapons of war get more and more complex and they cannot be maintained by untrained or semi-trained men.

The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, I think, put his finger most pertinently on a key question of recruiting. He asked, quite clearly: if Her Majesty's Government do not by their existing methods obtain the men required, will they introduce selective conscription? I think that, so far as this Government are concerned, the answer is No; we have pinned our faith to an all-Regular Armed Force, and we have to make our existing policy succeed. Success must depend to a substantial degree on the comparability of pay between what a man can earn in industry and what he is allowed to earn in the Armed Forces.

Perhaps I may have one more attempt to clarify the position of the military salary, and the other ancillary payments that it is proposed to make, and try to make a comparison between what might have been paid under the Grigg system and what will in all probability be paid under the Prices and Incomes Board's proposals. I sent the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, a copy of a letter written by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, but, of course, other noble Lords have not had the benefit of seeing it. I will do my best to make the position clear. Let us take the period 1966 to 1970—a period of four pay years. Using the Grigg formula, over this period, the Services might have expected increases of £80 million. My honourable friend, the Minister for Administration in another place gave a rather lower figure, but if we take it at £80 million, for simple arithmetic, this approximates to £20 million a year. The noble Viscount, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, mentioned the matter of tax. Grigg was gross, too. It was not a net figure; it was a gross figure, just as the Prices and Incomes figure is a gross figure, before tax.

May I make one point clear. There are three elements in this: the concept of the military salary, which is one element; job evaluation, which is a second element, and there is the x factor, the wear and tear of military life, which is the third element. In 1968 the forces received £27 million. In 1969 they have received £20½ million. In addition, it is calculated that £52½ million will be paid to them to implement the military salary; that is to say, the first element of the new concept. This is £100 million compared with £80 million over the same period for Grigg. In addition, for the financial year 1970–71, there will be £30 million made available to cover job evaluation and the x factor. This is the provision that has been agreed; it does not necessarily forecast what the Prices and Incomes Board's findings will be. They have made it quite clear that they are not in any way influenced by this figure. They are going to evaluate the equivalent of the various trades in the various arms of the Armed Services; they are in no way tied by this particular figure.

We are working against time, and time in fact means, first, job evaluation and, secondly, translating all the data into an appropriate form for including it on the computer, which has to pay wages from April 1 next year. Therefore, £30 million is the provision for the two other elements, the X factor and the job evaluation for the coming year. If this is incorrect it will have to be put right in the future.

The noble Earl in opening the debate from the other side of the House asked me if I was in step with my Service colleagues on whether or not we should achieve the carrying into effect of this new pay structure by April next year. Acts of God apart, we are confident that we can do this. The computer might have a mechanical breakdown; individuals might have breakdowns, but acts of God apart, we believe that this will be carried into effect.

5.5 p.m.

LORD BOURNE

My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves the point of manpower, may I thank him for the clear reply to my question when he said that this Government would not contemplate the reintroduction of National Service on a selective basis. That is quite clear and is rather the answer I had expected. The noble Lord did not answer the other part of my question. His very interesting description of the new military salary, which contains the three elements, the money, the X factor and job evaluation, and also how many more millions of pounds a year it was going to cost than Grigg, really amounts to paying people to attract them away from industry. I suggest—and other noble Lords may not agree with me—it has been proved many times that one thing that does not attract young men into the Services is money. What attracts them is adventure. If they want money, then they had better stay where they are in Birmingham, Liverpool or a place like that and not join the Army, the Navy or the Air Force. I am a little unhappy about the non-answer to that question.

LORD WINTERBOTTOM

My Lords, I was going to come on to the point made by the noble Lord. I thought that he had a double pessimism. He did not think that we were going to succeed in our policy. He seemed to say we would only succeed if we had a steady flow of troubles, or disturbances throughout the world, requiring military attention. I feel this is not quite the case. I am afraid that troubles come however skilled our policy is in trying to avoid them. We are always running into unforeseen difficulties. I feel that the people of the generation who will have to face the troubles of the future—those of them who think about the matter—are willing to join the Armed Services and face up to what may not have been as glamorous a life as existed in the days of the North-West Frontier, but, nevertheless, is a worthwhile life.

I have been enormously encouraged by visiting the university air squadrons and finding that for every young man that we take into them we have to reject none. I think I indicated that the Army, too, was receiving some real inquiries for the new types of commissions that are being offered to young men who are willing to make a career in the armed forces. May I say at this point that whereas it may not attract young people into the forces, the wage of a young unmarried soldier under this scheme is a very major advance on what he was getting before. If pay is satisfactory once a man has joined the armed forces, a larger number than the 50 per cent. who re-engage at the moment will, we hope, stay on, and re-engagement rates will increase. Thus, the hard core of trained men in the armed forces will be built up at comparatively small expense. I hope that I have made myself reasonably clear on the military salary question, which is a tricky one.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much for what he has said. He said that he would attempt to clarify this point and he has made a very gallant attempt to do so. I must admit that it is as clear as mud to me. He told us all about the x factor, but he did not tell us about the L.I. factor—that is my "Lack of Intelligence" factor. I will have private tuition from the noble Lord at another time.

LORD WINTERBOTTOM

My Lords, the noble Earl has had private tuition from me on the subject already. I can go no further until the job evaluation has been carried out, and until we finish this particular operation. We hope to finish the evaluation by the end of this month, and we are hoping to get the £30 million allocated by the end of February so that the computer can be "fed" in March. That is roughly the time scale. Let us hope that the computer does not let us down. I think I have covered all the military points made by the noble Earl, but may I turn for a moment to Service attachés. Before doing so, I would say that the point of the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, is very interesting and will doubtless be noted by my right honourable friend; I will bring it to his attention.

However, more generally, since the publication of the Duncan Report, officials have been working on the assumptions and criteria which will form the basis of a comprehensive review of all the Service attaché and adviser posts and of the complement of the British Defence Staff in Washington. Service attachés perform important functions in liaison work, in the gathering of information and in facilitating the sale of British defence equipment. The essential question is to what extent it is no longer necessary to perform all these functions on the scale which has hitherto been accepted as right. The review will provide the Government with an accurate indication of future requirements in this field and of any changes that may need to be made in the light of defence priorities.

That is a rather careful statement on the lines upon which the official committee will be working. What noble Lords have said will doubtless be considered by the committee. In view of the pressing business that still lies before the House, I hope that the House will accept that I have done my best to inform noble Lords, and if I have not been able to satisfy them I hope they will forgive me. But, once again, may I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate for the constructive attitude shown by noble Lords towards the problems which we on both sides are facing in ensuring that, within the limitations of finance and manpower, we get the best defence forces we can to serve us in the 'seventies.

LORD BOURNE

My Lords, before the noble Lord completes his winding up of the debate, I wonder whether he could give me a reply to my question about the Reserves. Can he say whether the character and duration of war, particularly of conventional war, have been reconsidered, and whether the Government have had second thoughts and, con- sequently, whether there is any need for reserves as in a good many other nations in NATO?

LORD WINTERBOTTOM

My Lords, I was in fact reproved by one noble Lord for using the word "philosophy". The point is that we are moving from a situation, the only situation open to us, of immediate nuclear response to an enemy attack, to a position where we have bought some time and are able to respond more flexibly to a threatened attack or a minor incursion across into allied territory. I do not think we have yet reached the point where reserves in the—what shall I say?—conditions of the 'thirties are applicable to our present needs. This is, however, a most important subject of defence theory, and perhaps might be better discussed in a full-blooded Defence debate, rather than in a debate on these Orders.

On Question, Motion agreed to.