Defence Committee
Oral evidence: Defence and Climate Change, HC 179
Tuesday 21 March 2023
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 21 March 2023.
Members present: Mr Tobias Ellwood (Chair); Robert Courts; Gavin Robinson; John Spellar; Derek Twigg.
Questions 154-203
Witnesses
I: Baroness Goldie, Minister of State, Ministry of Defence; James Clare, Director, Levelling Up, The Union, Climate Change and Sustainability, MoD; Lieutenant General Richard Wardlaw OBE MSc BEng MInstRE, Chief of Defence Logistics and Support, MoD; Major General Robert Walton-Knight, Director of Strategy and Plans, Defence Infrastructure Organisation, MoD.
Witnesses: Baroness Goldie, James Clare, Lieutenant General Richard Wardlaw, and Major General Robert Walton-Knight.
Q154 Chair: Welcome to this Defence Committee hearing on Tuesday 21 March 2023. I am delighted to welcome Baroness Goldie, who joins us from the MoD and will be here for two sessions. We are splitting our time into two, first as part of our continuing study of defence and climate change, and then at 11.30 a new team will join the Baroness and we will focus on the tilt to the Indo-Pacific.
I am delighted also to welcome Major General Robert Walton-Knight, James Clare and Lieutenant General Richard Wardlaw. I declare an interest: Richard and I were in the same east midlands officer training corps many years ago, and then at Sandhurst together—I think it was in Amiens Company. It is good to see you again, Richard. Who would have thought many moons ago that both of us would end up where we are today?
Thank you very much indeed for coming, Minister. We are going to focus on climate change but, of course, we had a major announcement on procurement yesterday—the written statement on Ajax—and it would be wrong of the Committee not to spend a moment asking a couple of questions about it. It is encouraging to see that we finally have an in-service date, but I hope it is fair to say that this procurement project has been one of the worst in a generation.
The journey began, let us not forget, back in 2010. The original in-service date was 2017, and it will now not be operational until 2029. That is simply far too long. It has taken a decade and a half to procure this vehicle and has cost £3 billion and counting. That means that, in terms of land warfare capability, the Scimitar, which we used back in the Sandhurst days and which entered service back in 1971, will now have to continue even further and will have been in service for more than 50 years.
Stepping back and looking at our land-warfare combat effectiveness, we have a main battle tank, the Challenger, that will not be upgraded in its entirety until 2030, and our armoured fighting vehicle, Warrior, is being removed and replaced by a wheeled vehicle that has no turret. All in all, it means that our British Army, from a land combat effectiveness perspective, is going through a very difficult time indeed.
Minister, do you recognise our concerns about not just this particular project but how difficult it makes it for the Committee, when we are wanting to fight for more funds for the Armed Forces and for the MoD in general, when we see procurement projects like this burn through so much cash without results?
Baroness Goldie: First of all, thank you, Mr Chairman, for the invitation to attend the Committee. May I say, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, that it is always a pleasure to be here?
In relation to Ajax, as you will understand it is not my specific area of ministerial responsibility. What I can say is that, as you have indicated, progress has been troubled. Nobody is disputing that. We have got to a much healthier position. As the statement indicated, two things have happened. Sufficient progress has been made to reassure MoD that this is now a viable concern. I believe that payments have resumed to the company, and I understand investigation is now being made of how to revise the initial operating capability and the final operating capability.
I totally understand what you are saying, Chairman, about resource for the Department, and where this leaves the land force in relation to its vehicle force. What I would say is, as the Committee is aware, we have had an unprecedented financial settlement for defence, from the first settlement back in 2020-21. That was an enormous boost to the Department. We have seen the recent commitment in the IR refresh of an extra £5 billion. That will be an enormous help. Then we got the additional information from the spring statement that there will be a further £2 billion spent over each of three years. That is another £6 billion, so there is a lot of resource there.
The one positive to come out of Ajax is that it is a very capable vehicle. I think the Army was always clear it wanted it. The second thing is, in relation to the very difficult progress of the contract, MoD has learned many important lessons, and those have now not just been incorporated but baked into how we are dealing with procurement in the Department. I am pleased to say that, although it has been a troubled journey to get to where we are, we are now in a very positive place.
Q155 Chair: Thank you for that. I hope you understand why we had to raise the question. Let us now turn to defence and climate change. This is quite topical, given the UN’s report yesterday, which makes grim reading, that we are simply not going to meet the 1.5°C target. The reason we introduced this subject are the consequences of that to global security and the impact that will have on our own armed forces and global engagement.
The first bit is about how the MoD itself is trying to meet its own targets. Could you begin by spelling out what the MoD is doing to meet what are quite ambitious Government targets of reaching an emissions target of net zero by 2050?
Baroness Goldie: Certainly. By way of preface, may I say that the Department is taking this very seriously. The Committee will already be aware of the extensive work that has been done within MoD in relation to climate change and sustainability. We do take that responsibility very seriously indeed. I want to say that it is set against the important caveat that we exist to protect the nation, and to contribute to broader global stability and security. That essential operational obligation has to be noted as a precursor.
Having said that, the integrated review refresh reiterated that climate change remains a pressing concern for defence. We are more than happy—indeed, we are positively enthusiastic—to play our role in endeavouring to contribute to the Government’s overall concerns. Obviously, the greening Government commitments are owned by DEFRA. As with other Government Departments, we work within those overriding directions on setting emission reduction targets. That has involved negotiation between the MoD and the rest of Government.
The GGC emissions target is for 30% reduction by 2025, against a 2017-18 baseline. That will include the impact of greening of grid, through any reduction in scope to emissions. Defence also has a direct emission reduction target of 10% over the GGC period to drive internal decarbonisation. That can be done through building efficiency and asset demolition. Currently, we are on track to meet our overall and direct emission targets.
An important point to make clear to the Committee, however, is that our capability emissions are not included, because we would not wish to restrict our licence to operate and prejudge operational tempo levels. A number of interesting measures have been taken, and I turn to my colleague, James Clare, to articulate what some of those are. He will be able to indicate where we are doing sensible, positive things to address emissions and reduce them, but also where we are doing some innovative things, achieving the reductions and arguably savings for our Department.
James Clare: On the GGCs, as the Minister was saying, our green Government commitments are focused on estate. To my right, Bobby Walton-Knight can talk about some of the technical things that we are doing across our estate but—to reinforce—quite a lot of our work to date has been just understanding where we are now, to give us the firm foundation for the work to come.
In your previous evidence sessions, you heard quite a lot from Richard Nugee and some other witnesses just to understand the breadth of potential impacts that could happen to defence. Following his review, we have really understood where we are, the risks not only to our estate, but to our capabilities and our supply base, and are thinking through the broader, holistic work that needs to be done to understand truly where we need to get to, to ensure that we can contribute fully to the UK’s net zero commitment, while preserving our capabilities, as the Minister set out at the start. An awful lot of work has been done to date, be it on the estate, in some of our commands or even in support, which Major General Richard Wardlaw can talk about in a bit.
To underscore some of the key stuff, for example, the Royal Air Force has a Guinness world record for synthetic fuel—the first ever synthetic fuel flight. You will have seen that in November last year we flew a wide-bodied aircraft on 100% sustainable aviation fuel, so we have proved that this can be done in a military context. By proving it, we can understand the implications, we can look at the infrastructure risk, and we can send a signal to wider defence and wider industry that we want to play a part.
Q156 Chair: Okay. This is all very innovative. We visited RAF Marham—an impressive base, where our F-35s are flown from. We were invited to go around the base on electric scooters, which was interesting, but we could not help thinking that the offset that we were saving in our fuel would not even match what is required just to get an F-35 out of a hangar. It is good to see that we are looking at other ways to get an aeroplane off the ground without using avgas, but the F-35, the Typhoon and the next-generation Tempest all run on traditional avgas. Is that not right?
James Clare: We have already done an awful lot of work to ensure that our aviation engines can take a blend of sustainable aviation fuel—that is half of what the wide-bodied flight was about—but we also need to flash forward in terms of where we will be in 2050. In 2050, we will still have our F-35s and probably our carriers. We are saying that we should be assuming that we will be using a blend of hydrocarbons. That is not the same as saying that we have avtur and avgas; we should be using sustainable fuels across all our platforms, and indeed many of our platforms can already take it. The questions that we have are, is there enough supply of that fuel, and when will the price points come down so that we can use that fuel vis-à-vis value for money against conventional fuel? We want to do it, but those are the kinds of changes that we as defence are thinking through, as well as the commercial aviation sector and the commercial maritime sector. We are not unique in this.
Q157 Gavin Robinson: Good morning, Minister and colleagues. Minister, you know and have mentioned the 2050 net zero target. The UK was the first major economy to agree such a target. You will also know that when it comes to Government emissions, the MoD makes up 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. Do you believe that the MoD’s own policy of contributing to net zero by 2050 is sufficient, given that your Department is responsible for half of all greenhouse emissions?
Baroness Goldie: I think it is important. I guess only time will tell whether it is sufficient. As has been communicated to the Committee, we are on a journey—a journey where we probably have more unanswered questions than answers to our questions. That is why we are learning with everything we do.
The one thing we are aware of is that, since we began this journey—the Committee will be aware of this—the pace of our activity has really intensified. We were talking about the RAF a moment ago and about mixtures of sustainable aviation fuel. The Army is building solar farms and electrifying its fleet. With Project Prometheus, it has a very interesting development at its transport depot; it has constructed its first solar farm at the Defence School of Transport, and that is set to save approximately £308,000 in its first year alone.
This is why I say there are a lot of questions at the moment to which we really do not know all the answers, but we are learning very fast as we go. With the progressive steps we have taken, our potential to accelerate our pace is becoming obvious. As we get more information and data, as James Clare was indicating, to inform us and what we can do, we can see that pace of change really ramping up. That will then greatly assist us in understanding better where we aim, what we can do and where the areas are where we can really make a difference.
We have talked about the RAF and the Army, but the Royal Navy has cutting-edge catalytic systems that are reducing nitrous oxide emissions from its patrol vessels, so across the three services we are seeing a whole range of different activity. It is important to stress that to the Committee, because the Committee will probably want to ask us in due course how all this work works within MoD, who is in charge and who monitors what is going on. We work on a devolved, delegated model of activity, because the three different services have very specific, different needs and are therefore placed to make different decisions about types of equipment.
The commonality across the three services is probably land—base estate—where we can exchange ideas and share information. We are already building more efficient accommodation. We are demolishing old, inefficient accommodation. We are strenuously improving accommodation that is still usable but needs upgrades.
Q158 Gavin Robinson: Are you clear about where the services think they are going? We talked about the RAF, which has enhanced our global UK commitment to net zero by 2050 by introducing RAF net zero by 2040. We know that they have that target. Do we know whether the Army has a similar target? Do we know whether the Navy has a similar target? Within each of those three services, do we understand what realisable and attainable goals they are working toward to meet those targets?
Baroness Goldie: I am going to give a general response, and I might then pass to Lieutenant General Wardlaw.
The answer is yes, because the RAF has chosen a 2040 target and has very honestly described that as a stretch target. That is interesting, because the RAF—principally concerned with land base and buildings and things that fly—is perhaps able to make a clearer analysis of what the potential is for change. The Chairman mentioned visiting RAF Marham, and I am glad the Committee managed to do that. I have had the privilege of visiting RAF Brize Norton, where that first Voyager flight took place using 100% sustainable aviation fuel, and it was interesting to hear about that. What absolutely fascinated me was learning direct from the RAF about three separate research projects going on at the moment, where the potential to transform what it is doing is absolutely incredible.
I am going to pass to Richard Wardlaw, but I would say that I am satisfied that the three services understand what they are doing. I think the RAF has set an ambitious target. Do you know what? Bless them. Let’s do that. They will quickly work out whether they are making it or whether they are slipping. We need that honesty of information. The Army and the Navy are working within the 2050 targets. They have different and perhaps more challenging emission ranges to deal with. However, I am going to pass to Richard Wardlaw.
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: Mr Robinson, I think your question about sufficiency is well made, but it needs to be seen in the context of where we were barely two years ago. Armed with the overall Government ambition for net zero ’50, our first step in defence had to be to baseline our understanding of our actual emissions. In common with the commercial world and our allies—I was with many of them last week in Washington—we have been investing considerable effort in baselining our emissions. We understand the size of the challenge and the prize.
It is not easy, across a very complex enterprise like defence, to baseline our scope 1 and 2 emissions, which are our direct emissions. It is even harder to baseline our scope 3 emissions—those that are produced indirectly by our suppliers. The fact is that within the last two years we have developed a good understanding of our scope 1 and 2 emissions, and we have commissioned work to get after the scope 3 emissions around my area, the support enterprise—logistics and enabling. We are now commissioning work to understand, by platform, the emissions that we expect of both in-service and future platforms. That is providing us with the essential baseline from which to develop what is seen outside as best practice, science-based targets for defence to meet. That is where we are at. We couldn’t magic that up.
Q159 Gavin Robinson: When do you think we will get those? I don’t dismiss what you say about baselining and getting a clearer picture so you can set realisable goals and targets, but when do you imagine we will have those for the three services?
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: I wouldn’t commit to a particular date, but we have armed ourselves with the opportunity to do exactly that over the next 12 months. Of course, it has allowed James’s team in particular to take that understanding of our baseline emissions and map them to what we have adopted as the sectoral approach—in other words, we are mapping defence’s basic business functions to that which we see outside—to understand the trajectory that we need to be on in individual sectors such as infrastructure. How do we make sure defence maps to the best practice that exists outside? James can probably comment on that work more authoritatively.
James Clare: To go back to the heart of your question, net zero is a macro-level target for the UK. It is a netting off across all sectors. Defence actually has emissions in pretty much every sector of the UK economy, and not every sector will be zero. Essentially, in the sectoral approach we have mapped those macro-level policies to defence emissions to understand what the impact is and to give us an understanding of what the trajectory is. Then over time we will be able to put those targets in place.
We are trying to marry up with the overarching Government intent for carbon budgets and so on to try to have that trajectory and understand the impact, in terms of risk and cost. That gives us an evidence base so we are able to make choices. The timescale that Richard mentioned is about 12 to 18 months, because that is the work that we are doing.
Q160 Gavin Robinson: The first five years of a 30-year endeavour will be establishing what you are going to do.
James Clare: The strategic approach that was published two years ago was about setting the foundations for those first five years. It goes back to what the Minister was saying at the start: you need to set the firmest of foundations to build up your understanding and change the mindset so we can move forward.
Chair: We need to make a bit of progress. Derek, you had a quick question on this.
Q161 Derek Twigg: Baroness Goldie, a short while ago you said you have seen the potential to accelerate change. Could you quantify that?
Baroness Goldie: I would hesitate. I was merely explaining how we see the trajectory of progress on this issue within MoD. I want to reassure the Committee that it is demonstrable, positive progress. What we do, the decisions we make and the money we spend will be informed by what we are currently learning. It is important that within MoD we make sure we have the governance, the measurement mechanisms and a means of ensuring we know what progress we are making.
Q162 Derek Twigg: Where can you see how you can accelerate change, then? Which areas can you accelerate change in?
Baroness Goldie: James or Bobby Walton-Knight might want to comment on that.
Major General Walton-Knight: I work in defence infrastructure. Defence has a huge infrastructure portfolio, in terms of size, scale and complexity. As General Richard Nugee highlighted in his report, infrastructure is one of those areas that we can perhaps start getting after early. We are already making steps in reducing the emissions from the infrastructure that we have.
Q163 Derek Twigg: By when?
Major General Walton-Knight: By when what, sir?
Derek Twigg: By when will you get after improving the position on infrastructure?
Major General Walton-Knight: We are already. We have a programme spending £5.1 billion on defence estate optimisation, which runs out over the next 20 years. That is already putting in place greater insulation in our buildings—
Q164 Derek Twigg: So it is quicker change. We are talking about potential for change—so it is going to be quicker.
Major General Walton-Knight: It is an area where we could potentially accelerate. It is a question of resource to make it happen if we want to do it more quickly.
Q165 Derek Twigg: Achieving change requires a good leadership structure, funding and resources, and, of course, the right culture. I will address this question to you, Baroness Goldie, but I will be happy if you want to palm it to one of your team. Regarding the climate change challenge, can you demonstrate where defence has prioritised those factors—defence structure, funding and culture—to achieve change? Can you give me some examples?
Baroness Goldie: Well, I guess partly in structure, because we have moved on significantly from where we were even four or five years ago. We have a directorate—James Clare leads it. As I described, we have a delegated model so that the single services know what they do. They have appointed climate change teams.
I asked my officials about the structure, because I wanted to be clear that I understood exactly how all this worked, and there was produced an organogram—I think that is its technical name. I am very happy to share that with the Committee, because it will help the Committee to understand where all the strands are. I think that would reassure you, Mr Twigg, about, first, how we have a structure that is gripping this, and—
Chair: We only have half an hour left in this session, but if you submit that to the Committee, it will be very helpful.
Baroness Goldie: We will happily do that.
Q166 Derek Twigg: You have done the structure. Can you give examples of the funding that is in place, and evidence of where the culture has changed?
Baroness Goldie: One of my colleagues is probably better placed to answer that.
James Clare: I will bring together a few questions. On the structures, you mentioned the targets. We have a 10% direct emissions target for our estate. That is not the greening of the grid; that is actually making a discernible change to our estate to drive decarbonisation. For the first time, we are disaggregating targets through our delegated model through the defence plan, and the services will be held to account for delivery of that.
That is being overseen by essentially two committees, both with the service chiefs on board—the top-level budget holders and the chief executives of the enabling organisations—because it is being prioritised at that level. They are the Defence Delivery Group and the Defence Safety and Environment Committee. They are overseeing the agenda to drive those changes.
Q167 Derek Twigg: How often is that reported to Ministers?
James Clare: The DDG or the—
Derek Twigg: The actual improvements that you are bringing about. How often is that reported?
James Clare: I report frequently to Baroness Goldie. We are talking—
Q168 Derek Twigg: Once a month? Twice?
James Clare: Yes, once a month. I think we have fortnightly calls with—once a month, yes.
Q169 Derek Twigg: Once a month on these improvements. And the funding and the culture?
James Clare: As you said, culture and the change in mindset takes an awfully long time. The directorate is still relatively new, but we have people at the centre of the Department. Each one of the services, as well as the enabling organisations, has built its own climate change and sustainability teams to do its own internal change. The size of the teams changes from about three to seven depending on where you are. The model is working in terms of driving the change and ownership.
Q170 Derek Twigg: What evidence can you give the Committee that the culture is changing?
James Clare: I think the answer is that we are at the start of the journey. We have the capacity in place, the capability is building, but this is a long-term endeavour.
Q171 Derek Twigg: So we are at the start of the change in culture.
James Clare: Yes.
Major General Walton-Knight: If I can provide one example, all approvals above a certain threshold for infrastructure will be considered in terms of whether sustainability and climate change have been considered as part of the decision making.
Q172 Derek Twigg: When did you start looking at climate change seriously in the Department?
Baroness Goldie: About 20 years ago.
Q173 Derek Twigg: And the culture is still not there yet.
James Clare: I would say that—
Baroness Goldie: Well—
Derek Twigg: You have just said the culture is still ongoing.
James Clare: Some of this is a rollercoaster. We had the Climate Change Act in 2008. Quite quickly after that, we had austerity. So the changes actually happened. Where we are now is fundamentally different from where we were in 2010. Richard Nugee’s report in 2021 was the catalyst for understanding the wider implications—understanding the impact, to move forward. Again, it is a foundation stone that we are building on to move forward.
Q174 Derek Twigg: So it is 20 years since we started taking climate change seriously and we are still looking at the culture. Can you tell us about the funding? Where are we in terms of the funding that you have put to this?
Baroness Goldie: There is central funding, obviously, to sustain the Department. There is the interesting potential, which, as I explained earlier, is becoming obvious in some of the climate change measures already being implemented where savings are being made, and that will help individual budgets. I would not want the Committee to have the impression that this is some passive progress; it is not. I am very happy to leave the Committee with our Sanctuary magazine. It might do a lot to reassure Mr Twigg that we are absolutely bubbling with ideas, delivering change—
Q175 Derek Twigg: You cannot give me a figure of what the Department spent on taking forward climate change challenges?
Baroness Goldie: There is a core budget to the Department—
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: There is a core budget to the Department, but let us look at the two principal areas of infrastructure and equipment. Bobby has already spoken to the £5.1 billion that we are investing through defence estate optimisation, a significant element of which will be about modernising the estate and introducing low-emission heating systems for all of the new accommodation that we put in and ensuring that that is built to the modern building regulations standards in terms of efficiency and emissions.
On the equipment side, we are doing a number of things. We have invested in a number of areas. The most obvious, I suppose, is the white fleet—the non-military vehicle fleet that we have in defence. There are 15,000 vehicles, making it one of the largest fleets in Government, and, indeed, one of the largest fleets when compared with our commercial partners outside. Twenty-five per cent. of that fleet, as of this month, is now ULEV—zero emission, green emission vehicles—and 100% will be achieved by 2027.
We have also invested in a range of innovation, research and experimentation through the DSTL. We have a distinct programme now investing in sustainable technologies. That is programmed over the next three years. The intention is that, as we understand better the technologies that only defence can invest in, mindful of the fact that the commercial world is spending across the globe $1.3 trillion now on green technology, it would be wasteful for defence to try to replicate that. What we are trying to do is fill the gaps.
Q176 Derek Twigg: You do not know how much you are spending on green technology or climate challenge—
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: I know that I am spending £15 million over the next three years on targeted innovation, research and experimentation. I know that the chief scientific adviser is, through the frontline commands R&D programmes, investing in understanding the technologies that that equipment should exploit. I do not have the precise figures, because, of course, if you are buying a new ship, there is a huge figure attached to that, but there are sums associated with the new technology.
Q177 Chair: General Richard, I remember when I was Defence Minister you showing me a map—I think it was of either Hyde Park or Regent’s Park—and saying, “If we covered this with solar panels, that would produce enough energy to feed the Army’s requirements.” That was a few years ago. Have you been successful in securing that energy source?
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: I would not want to talk for Bobby, but the project you are referring to is Project Prometheus, which I did initiate and which Bobby can talk to in terms of its roll-out. The analogy that I was giving you was that if you put 650 hectares—the size of Hyde Park—under solar, it would represent something like 0.2% of the defence estate and service 15% of the Army’s energy needs through the summer. That project has now initiated. Bobby, you might wish to talk to that.
Chair: Just quickly.
Major General Walton-Knight: Prometheus is in place at Leconfield. It is providing electricity, and there are the options to extend that to a whole series of other sites.
Q178 Chair: But, at the moment, you are not making all the power that you need for the Army’s land forces.
Major General Walton-Knight: No, it would be a very significant challenge to produce all of the electricity that defence needs from solar panels.
Q179 Chair: But apparently you just need a quarter of Hyde Park to do that.
Major General Walton-Knight: That is 15%. It is a significant amount and defence does not have a huge amount of surplus land to put this on. The land that we hold is generally held for training.
Q180 Chair: You do not have the land? Three per cent. of the British Isles is owned by the MoD—you’ve got a lot of land.
Major General Walton-Knight: It is closer to 1%, and what we hold that is uncommitted and not built on is used for training. If we covered it with solar panels it would interfere significantly with our ability to train on it.
Q181 Chair: I was not suggesting in the middle of Salisbury plain, but there is an awful lot of MoD estate that could be used.
Major General Walton-Knight: We have looked across the estate and identified those areas where we can put solar panels in the way that we have done at Leconfield. To be fair, it is the Army who are leading in terms of generating options to roll it out.
Q182 Chair: We have 20 minutes left on this subject. I am grateful to see Robert Courts, who will take us forward shortly, in his place. Before that, can we focus on the impact of climate change internationally? Minister, I ask a simple question: what is the biggest long-term threat facing the United Kingdom?
Baroness Goldie: The biggest long-term threat facing the whole United Kingdom from any source? I think we all understand from the integrated review refresh that it is a potent mixture of newly emerging geopolitical threats, tensions, hostile state agitators and potential small and difficult-to-detect terrorist groups. Across that you have to set climate change, as the integrated review refresh recognised.
Q183 Chair: I am glad we got there; I was hoping that you would say that up front.
Baroness Goldie: It was given pride of place in the integrated review refresh.
Q184 Chair: The other threats that we face will certainly impact this century, but there is an existential threat of climate change. What I haven’t picked up in the integrated review are the consequences of climate change when it comes to overseas operations and our military capabilities—simply being able to function in increased climates.
Mr Clare, you work in another Department—you have a long business card.
James Clare: I do: “Levelling Up, The Union, Climate Change and Sustainability”.
Q185 Chair: That’s two business cards sellotaped together. Did you have an impact or a say in this document at all?
James Clare: To go all the way back, on strategic approach, just to reassure you, I was Richard Nugee’s review director. Even back then, in terms of shaping the actual agenda—I totally agree. Going through the IR refresh played a part. We have engaged with our strategic hub to make sure that our lexicon and our words were in there.
As you can see, the IR to the IR refresh has expanded the UK’s central understanding of climate change and nature—that existential threat that you are talking about. The key thing for us now is to make sure that that wording and impact is in the defence command plan refresh, which is where the defence implications are going to be held.
Q186 Chair: The concern that we are exploring and perhaps illuminating in our studies is that a lot of our land-based warfare—certainly our maritime capability—will be severely impacted by climate change. Some of our ships will not be able to operate in warm waters because of the requirement to cool engines and things like that. Our surface fleet will not be able to operate in places with very warm temperatures such as the Caribbean—nor will our nuclear submarines, actually.
James Clare: As you were saying, and to go back to the Minister’s comments, if you look at the US national intelligence estimate you see that they view climate change as the long-term shaping influence for all strategy going forward.
We are procuring against a high environmental envelope, exactly as you are saying. It is not just high temperatures, but the acidification and salinity—all those things need to be part and parcel of our capability development requirements. That is what is being done. The severity, frequency and all that are part of our actual programming and of the standards we are procuring against.
Q187 Chair: Before you come in, General Wardlaw, has any cost analysis been done on the additional funds required to mitigate the consequences of climate change? For example, the base in Cyprus—you have Akrotiri, Limassol and Dhekelia there. The temperatures there are going to get above 40°. How will you be able to make sure that the personnel, vehicles and so forth can all operate? If they cannot operate and you do not have any additional funds, that will impact on our operational capability.
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: I am delighted that you have raised that. Last autumn, we commissioned and produced a defence sustainable support strategy, signed off at the highest levels of defence, that has identified six areas that we must tackle to address the sort of challenges you are referring to.
The first centres on ensuring that we understand the vulnerabilities faced by our global logistics and support network, of which Cyprus is a component part, in a climate changed world. We have now completed the work on understanding what those vulnerabilities are and the investments and technologies required to ensure that those bases continue to function as they do today in a climate changed world. That money will now be sought through the forthcoming ABC and integrated review spending rounds.
Q188 Chair: Minister, we have the Command Paper. We have been told that, as last time in the integrated review, the defence Command Paper will come out in June. Is that when you are expecting it? It will be the response, if you like, to No. 10’s document.
Baroness Goldie: My understanding is that the Command Paper is scheduled for the summer. I believe I have heard June mentioned. Just to reassure the Committee, the Secretary of State’s Office for Net Assessment and Challenge, known as SONAC—that is a very high-level strategic team—is working on understanding the implications of climate change for systemic competition. We have got, across defence, a defence climate risk assessment model. We are in the process of implementing that across all defence organisations, so that precisely the scenarios you have described are now being absolutely factored in, as a matter of course, to what we see as a changing environment internationally.
Chair: I welcome that. I simply invite you, if we as a Committee can humbly do that, to make sure that your new Command Paper has its own chapter on the impact of climate change with all these areas that we are focusing on. We would be happy to make contributions to that if you need assistance in any way. Let us move forward, given the time.
Q189 Robert Courts: We have talked a lot about the challenges that defence faces, and certainly they are self-evident. But there are also some opportunities, and I am quite keen that we look at the positives. I would just like to explore what you are doing on those. There are some fairly obvious examples: perhaps solar panels are deployable on operations so you can reduce the logistics tail, and I would be particularly grateful if someone would look at small nuclear reactors. There are also things like the US army’s TVEK programme—you do not have the engine running, so you reduce the acoustic and thermal signature, making it harder for your enemies to operate. There are some logistical and operational tactical advantages to some of this technology. Can you talk through what we are doing to make sure we can take advantage of these?
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: Thank you for asking the question. Again, you are speaking directly to how I see the world, too. I believe that sustainability and the green technologies that the world will be introducing over the next 20 to 30 years are a solution for the future force that we face, not an imposition. As I mentioned earlier, we have written the sustainable support strategy, which is about galvanising our thinking around how we exploit those opportunities. It is centred on four key pillars: maintaining and improving our capabilities by the use of some of those technologies; reducing our vulnerability to the environmental threats that we face; reducing our impact on the environment; and, in doing so, adopting these green technologies—whether they are nuclear or other technologies of that sort—and promoting the efficiency and effectiveness of the force, because those are always natural bedfellows of those kinds of technologies.
To pick up on one of the six initiatives that we are driving through that strategy and are now in the process of implementing, our operational energy strategy is a piece of work that we are doing in concert with industry and with our allies. We have recognised that over the next 30 years, the world is about to go through the greatest energy transition that it has ever witnessed, at a pace that makes previous energy transitions look positively sedentary. We have recognised that there is a huge opportunity to map out, for all our 150-odd platforms, the different energy forms that they could potentially adopt in that period, and to look at the maturity of the technologies that we might have to adopt, whether that is methanol, ammonia for ships, sustainable aviation fuels for our aircraft or electrification of our tanks. We are looking at how those technologies are likely to mature over the next period and understanding where the opportunities and the decision points lie for procurements as we come to them.
One thing is for sure: if we are fast in following the green technology investment that is now occurring in the commercial world, and if we adopt the right technologies into the right equipment early, we will gain competitive advantage over our enemies and ensure that the force we have today is not only able to continue to fight in an environmentally changed world, but actually better placed to do so. If we are slow in adopting those technologies or we miss those decision points, we could find ourselves at a point of disadvantage if our enemies choose to go after the same opportunities.
You asked specifically about nuclear, and what I would talk to is micro-nuclear. The reason that I was in the United States last week was not only to talk to my US colleagues on our operational energy strategy, which I have just set out—I describe it as charting our route through the energy transition to ensure that we have the energy to fight and win—but to visit an American company that has just been awarded a Pentagon contract for investing in micro-nuclear technology. It is very early stages, even for the US, which invests in—
Q190 Chair: What is the name of the company?
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: BWXT. It was awarded a contract by the Pentagon last year and is now in the early stages of developing the prototype technology. I cannot go any further in describing the technology, for reasons of security, but I would observe that micro-nuclear technology of that sort, which can be put in a very small ISO container and transported into a deployed environment, offers the prospect of a level of energy density directly on the battlefield without any logistical supply chain. It offers huge opportunities to the fielded force.
The biggest constraint on operational commanders today is their logistics tail and it has been for the past two millennia—and inevitably their fuel logistics tail. In Afghanistan, depending which statistics you want to take, anywhere between 40% and 60% of our casualties were taken protecting our logistic convoys. The fuel that we finally got into our forward locations cost not the $2 or $3 that we expect to pay for our litre of fuel but many multiples of that.
Getting ourselves off that logistics constraint is absolutely the heart of my strategy and at the heart of the work that we are doing on understanding the opportunities that these technologies present. Nuclear should be in the mix, but, Mr Courts, you will understand that there are many policy and regulatory barriers or constraints that we have to circumnavigate in doing so.
Q191 Robert Courts: There are. I will come back on a couple of things. I am keen that the Government support this, and that is where the regulatory side of things comes in. On that point, Minister, could I turn to you to find out what the Government are doing to support the deployment of these ultra-small tactical nuclear devices to help cut down the logistics tail, even from an investment perspective or from the regulatory point of view that the General has rightly just referred to?
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: Perhaps if I talk and then allow the Minister to come in. I am closer to the issues. I have been working on them recently. I am currently in negotiation in the MoD to secure the money for investment in micro-nuclear and the innovation and research money that we think we need to spend here in the UK. I expect to have a decision on that by the end of this month. One of the reasons I went to the US was to get a little bit of ground truth on what our US allies are doing and to understand to what extent we can learn from that and not have to spend the same money twice.
I am also engaged with the Defence Nuclear Organisation, which has the conscience, if you like, for the nuclear enterprise within the MoD, and which currently manages all the regulatory and policy issues associated with nuclear deployment. Self-evidently, since 1958 and the agreement we had with the US, we have developed an extremely impressive body of understanding around what it takes to deploy nuclear. Maritime is where the main effort currently resides, and we should, where possible and without distraction to the maritime nuclear programme, leverage that understanding and insight to address some of these issues.
Q192 Robert Courts: Thank you. I would like to pick up—sorry Minister—a couple of things that you have just raised. One is the tactical ramifications of the use of nuclear in a battlefield area. Of course, it provides the opportunity to shorten or remove our logistic tail, but if I was the enemy I would be looking to lengthen or remove your logistical tail. That is one thing if I am knocking out a conventional power plant, but if I am knocking out a nuclear device, it has other ramifications from a safety perspective. How are you addressing that?
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: It would, of course, if you were talking about deploying the kind of nuclear technology that we are familiar with, which is deployed at large scale here in the UK. The kind of technology that sits behind micro-nuclear technology employs a very different kind of fuel, which is encapsulated in such a way that, even a direct kinetic hit on the battlefield would not lead to any kind of large-scale contamination. As a military man, I made sure that that was one of the first questions and lines of inquiry that we started some months ago when looking at this, and which I confirmed in my visit last week.
To put it into context, nothing is de-risked on the battlefield. If a nuclear reactor was taken out by enemy action, as long as the casualties and the implications were no greater than the current paradigm of potentially 40% to 60% of our casualties being taken protecting logistics convoys, I would say that it is a risk worth taking.
Q193 Robert Courts: Thank you. May I pick up on something else? You have mentioned in the context of maritime both ammonia and nuclear. I am conscious of the fast-follower approach of looking at leveraging what commercial is doing. Is there not a difficulty? You were right when you talked about the compressed period when this change of fuel is happening. In the past it has been much more relaxed—sail was succeeded by steam on a relatively relaxed basis. That is not what is happening here because we are compacting the changeover period. Isn’t there a point at which you have to decide whether it is going to be ammonia or nuclear so that the investment is put into the right place? We are in danger of getting into a chicken and egg situation here, aren’t we?
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: That is precisely why we are writing the defence operational military strategy, which I hope will be signed off by the Department by the end of May. That strategy is absolutely looking at all the different platforms we have in service and which we expect to bring into service over the next 20 years. It is then overlaying on that an understanding of all the technologies—hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, nuclear, the list goes on—looking at their relative maturity, the trajectory of those technologies in terms of their growing maturity and what industry is spending its money on, and then mapping those to our particular platforms and environments. In doing so, we can identify where the last safe moment decisions lie for technology adoption.
We have to be clear that a number of the platforms and technologies that have either come into service recently or are about to come into service in the next five years are simply not mature enough yet to be adopted. What we will probably have to do is ensure that the equipment we are procuring are sufficiently adaptable to accommodate changes in those energy forms going downstream.
For example, if we were to change our ships over to methanol or ammonia, will the tanks that we are putting on those ships be able to accommodate that? If we are looking at introducing new weapons systems on to our ships downstream—such as directed-energy weapons, which is something we are looking at—does the ship have the space for the energy form that would be required to service those kinds of weapons?
All that goes into future-proofing our capabilities as we bring them into service. I would also be the first to say that in the ideal world, you always want to design in, not design in afterwards, but we simply do not have that luxury. If I were to wait until 2040 to commission the next ship because I am waiting on the technology, that would not represent the right outcome for defence.
Robert Courts: Thank you very much, General. I appreciate that. There is much food for thought there, and I look forward to seeing the strategy in due course. Chair, I am conscious that the Minister and Mr Clare would like to come in, but then I will hand over.
James Clare: It was just to add that the other layer of complexity is that we are not going through this change alone. What are the US navy doing? That interchangeability and interoperability are the other overlay that we need to be aware of. That is the only thing.
Q194 John Spellar: Does that lead us, then, to doing what so often the MoD do rather than supporting British industry, which is buying in from the United States, because DoD’s buying power enables them to get a step ahead?
James Clare: So that goes back to the use cases and why we are actually driving forward and coming up with the defence operational energy strategy: it is to enable us to make those interventions now, to offer guidance to the capability development teams, and to speak to industry and actually engender the innovation.
Q195 Chair: I just want to pick up and emphasise as strongly and powerfully as I can how we are missing a trick on the modular nuclear reactor. We invented these things years ago. They are inside the Astute-class submarines, and they have been there for a while. I really do not understand why it is taking us so long to get approval to advance the modular nuclear reactor. Actually, I do understand—because it is stuck in the Treasury. I hope the announcement made by the Prime Minister will advance that.
Can I just say how pleased I am that you have gone to the United States to look at what they are doing on micro-reactors? To lead on from John’s point, this is something that we have the capability—which needs finessing, clearly—to advance. I remember visiting Kandahar and, indeed, Helmand, and seeing those supply chains going all the way down to Karachi that were so vulnerable and bringing the fuel needed to keep those bases operating.
Micro-reactors are clearly the answer—not only that, but it would actually assist with other countries if we can develop this capability. The frustration is that we have had this technology and capability sitting in front of us for decades, and we are bumping into red tape and Whitehall inertia. I wonder if it is possible to invite the MoD to make this a priority and to push the machine forward, because there is a demand, given the fact that Baroness Goldie said—we got there eventually—that climate change is the biggest long-term threat we are going to face.
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: Chair, if I may come back to you on one point of detail, you are absolutely right to state that the UK has led the charge with nuclear, certainly down to small and medium reactors—SMRs, which is what you are referring to. That is technology that the UK is a recognised leader across the globe in.
The micro-nuclear challenge, which is for reactors up to 10 MW output, is new technology. That is not technology that we have been sitting on for the last 10 years. This is a very new way of applying, yes, the basic, first law of physics nuclear understanding, but also a very different kind of fuel and a different way of configuring the reactor. Of course, there are strands that we can draw on from our years of doing this in the maritime domain, but it is not a simple case of taking what we have had on our submarines and putting that into the land environment. This is a very different technology and a very different approach.
Q196 Chair: I do not want to quibble about the detail. Rolls-Royce has not been approached, saying, “You’ve been doing this for a little while in our submarines. If you park up a submarine next to Plymouth, you can plug it into the national grid and it could help.” I am clearly simplifying. I would like to ask the MoD to have a meeting with Rolls-Royce to see what it can do with micro-reactors, not just modular reactors. The point has been made: we are good at this—Britain is a leader at this; let us not have to buy off the shelf from the DoD in the United States.
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: I have met them three times since July last year. They were on my visit in the US and I will be meeting them again at the end of this month.
Chair: I commend the initiative you are taking; I just hope it is backed up by MoD Main Building. The final question is on the support that the military gives to other Departments when the weather goes bad.
Q197 Derek Twigg: Given the impact of climate change on the UK, what are the MoD’s risk and planning assumptions around the scale of the likely request for military aid to the civil authorities over the next 10 years plus?
Chair: So MACA.
Baroness Goldie: As the Committee is aware, we have a very positive record in responding to requests from other Government Departments. Let me make clear that these are always responded to with a very careful filter. Is there any other civilian agency that can provide the help, because we are not there as a default civilian support? Can we then accommodate the request without compromising our operational activity?
Derek Twigg: Sorry, we understand that. The question was: what are your risk and planning assumptions for the future?
Baroness Goldie: Well, we are first and foremost a military presence that defends the country. We have been able to accommodate MACA requests because we apply a very careful filter, but if there is an intensifying escalation of national disasters or catastrophes, it is not for the MoD to deal with; it will become a strategic decision for a Government of the day to consider whether it has enough resilience in its civilian contingency response.
Q198 Derek Twigg: Are you saying that the MoD has no risk or planning assumptions about future needs to help the civilian authorities?
Baroness Goldie: What I am saying is that we constantly assess, as we have been doing, where the MACA requests come from and what they are likely to encompass. We have dealt with flooding, covid and the impact of industrial action—and we have been able, for the most part, to respond to that. Mr Twigg, it is a relatively small proportion of our military that is deployed to do that, but we are there first and foremost as a military security agency—
Q199 Chair: You have made that point a number of times and we agree. The point that needs to be rammed home is the fact that increasing requests are being made to the MoD because of climate change, so as much as you might say, “We are not there as that back-up,” I am afraid that you are the go-to people that No. 10 calls up.
A simple question: over the last five years, have MACA requests gone up or down, or stayed the same? If you don’t know, it would be great if you could give that information to the Committee later.
Baroness Goldie: I think, Mr Chairman, they have probably gone up because of covid, when we had an extraordinary draw on us to respond to MACA requests. I point out to the Committee—this is an important point to note—that the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 does not list the MoD as a categorised responder to civil—
Derek Twigg: Whether that is the case or not, the issue is that you are requested to help.
Baroness Goldie: Yes, and we constantly—
Q200 Derek Twigg: So you make no risk or planning assumptions for the future; that is what you are telling us.
Baroness Goldie: Yes, we do.
Derek Twigg: What are they, then?
Baroness Goldie: We constantly analyse what we are asked to do and predict where we may be able to help, but at the end of the day—
Q201 Derek Twigg: So what do the risk and planning assumptions that you have done tell you about what will be needed over the next 10 years for the MoD?
Baroness Goldie: We work on the basis of what we have been asked to support in the past. I think the most recent flood request was 2020—was it?
Lieutenant General Wardlaw: If I may, Mr Twigg—defence aligns itself against the threats for which defence is designed, which is dealing with our enemies. What is force driving for defence—the number of ships, aircraft, tanks, soldiers, sailors and aviators we have—is to deal with our enemies. As we are currently constructed, if that force is available to support with MACA tasks, of course it is then directed to support that, but at the moment the policy is that we are not force driven by MACA requirements. That may change in the future, but there is no assumption at the moment that it should. I don’t think that you would want a situation where we as a force had optimised for MACA only to find ourselves facing a foreign actor, whether Russia or any other threat we might face—
Q202 Derek Twigg: With respect, the ability to do that means you have a certain amount of resources, but if you are also being pulled the other way, to provide resources to the civilian authorities, that has an impact, doesn’t it? Am I missing something here?
James Clare: There is no easy answer. This goes back to the points that you were making before, in terms of just understanding the actual risk faced by the Department. You will know that all Departments have to have their adaptation plan; it is part of the national adaptation programme. That actually has, behind it, some of the points that we need to make, in terms of, “What are we planning for?” and of a two degree world versus a four degree world. That is essentially what we should be doing to really understand those wider risks. That is the work that the Minister mentioned before—in terms of our defence climate risks methodology—to understand those risks, to understand the two degrees and the four degrees, and understand the impact of our outputs.
Q203 Chair: I suggest this might be worth having as another chapter in the defence Command Paper, because, as Derek, I think, is trying to tease out, what you are there to do may well not be written on paper. I am afraid that it is a fact that No. 10 regularly turns to the armed forces to bail out a particular situation that you did not foresee. Covid was one of them, the Olympic games in 2012 was another, and there is certainly flooding and so forth.
When you look at the World Economic Forum’s global risk report, its top five concerns—the biggest threats facing the world right now—are climate change failure, extreme weather, biodiversity loss, natural resource crises, and human environmental damage. Those are all things that I am afraid the MoD will have to come to terms with; your door will be knocked on to say, “Help us out.” Our request is to understand what planning you are doing to prepare for that and to learn about the pressures you are under. We would like to see how many MACA requests have been made over the past five years, and how many you have refused. We would be grateful for that information.
Baroness Goldie: We can provide that information. We do routinely prepare and plan for anticipated MACA requests, but I think the Committee is hinting at a bigger issue. If that bigger issue is, as I said earlier, an intensifying programme of catastrophic disasters—whether floods, land erosion, storms, hurricanes or whatever that may be—there is a broader issue for Government to determine how they deal with that.
James Clare: Going back to Mr Twigg’s point, it is not just about the MACA; it is understanding it in terms of our scenarios and war gaming. It is getting it as part and parcel of the processes. You mentioned cultural change before; it is important, with all this, to mainstream MACA into our processes to properly bed in these considerations, so that it isn’t a choice but is actually part and parcel of our processes, so that everything works the way that it should.
Derek Twigg: We know, from what you have said, that it is not a—
James Clare: Yes, it’s a journey.
Chair: Thank you. That was a lively end to what I think has been a very informative discussion. Thank you very much indeed for your help. We will call a pause to this part and resume in a couple of minutes’ time, when we turn to the Indo-Pacific.
Thank you to General Richard Wardlaw; it is great to see you again. Baroness Goldie, you are staying with us. James Clare, thank you for your help as well, and Major General Robert Walton-Knight, thank you very much indeed for your time.