23
Examination of witness
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton
Q1 The Chair: I welcome you, Sir Richard, as Chief of the Defence Staff to the International Relations and Defence Committee of the House of Lords. The session will be livestreamed on the Parliament website and a transcript will be taken. You will be sent a copy of the transcript and you can make some small corrections if they are necessary. Members will be obliged to declare any interests before speaking today. I should declare that I am a senior counsellor with the Cohen Group in Washington DC, and I was the lead reviewer in the strategic defence review published last year.
Sir Richard, we had originally intended that this session would be devoted to the follow-up to the recommendations in the strategic defence review but, since that intention was declared, events have moved very fast. We might therefore ask a few questions about the current situation, if you are willing to answer them, before we get on to the particular issues concerned with the strategic defence review. We are very grateful for you taking time today to come and address the committee. Perhaps you would like to say a few introductory remarks before we ask the questions.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: It is a pleasure to be here. I would be surprised and disappointed if you did not ask about defence spending and recent activities, but I have found that, generally, the best thing is to get straight into the questions, so please over to you.
The Chair: I would like to exercise the privilege of the Chair and ask you about the resignation of the last Defence Secretary, John Healey. It appears from the leaks in the press that only £10 billion in new money was allocated to the defence investment plan as proposed to John Healey, which provoked his resignation. In your view, was that uplift enough? What do you think the appropriate level would be?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: Very clearly, NATO and our allies agree that spending 3.5% of national income and GDP on defence is what is necessary to deliver the NATO capability targets. I would also argue that it is necessary to deliver the vision that you set out and which we support in the strategic defence review. The key question is what the trajectory is for delivering that 3.5%: how quickly do you get to 3% and 3.5%? I think that was what the Prime Minister was referring to in his interview with Chris Mason on Friday: that trajectory and the incremental increase in defence spending. We cannot overturn the 30-plus years of spending the peace dividend overnight. I was in Germany recently talking to my German opposite number about their experience. Germany is planning to spend 3.5% by 2030, and the challenge is how to do that in a really effective and efficient way without leading to inflation in the defence industry because demand is outstripping supply. How we build up the defence industrial base and increase in a steady, incremental fashion, as the Prime Minister pointed out on Friday, to get to 3.5% seems to be the aiming point that we have to drive towards.
The Chair: The Defence Secretary says that by 2030 the projection is that we will only be spending 2.68%—nowhere near the 3% he thought was the objective. Is that quick enough? Is that realistic enough?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: The former Defence Secretary said in his resignation letter that he was aiming for 3% to be spent by 2030. As the Prime Minister set out on Friday, he has found a way to increase defence spending beyond what was agreed in the spending review a couple of years ago and recognised that that would still need to be incrementally increased, which is why he talked about defence being the number one priority in the next spending review and in subsequent spending reviews. Ultimately, these are decisions for Ministers to take. My job is to lead the Armed Forces and give clear, robust and honest advice on the implications of any settlement and the resources that Ministers decide to allocate to defence.
The Chair: What would be the capability implications of only moving to 2.68% by 2030? Will it mean cuts in the Armed Forces?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: These things are always complex. There are thousands of decisions, but the faster that we increase defence spending, the quicker we can reverse the hollowness, the quicker we can improve readiness and the faster we can accelerate the modernisation of the Armed Forces. If you increase defence spending faster, you can do those things more quickly. The new Defence Secretary is in right now. I know he is in a meeting about the defence investment plan and I will join him again later this afternoon for further conversations. He needs some space to understand the choices and options. But even in the strategic defence review that you were part of and to which Ministers agreed to all the recommendations, the plan was for some capabilities to be removed from service because they could be modernised and delivered in more effective ways, learning the lessons that we are taking from the war in Ukraine, the war in Nagorno-Karabakh prior to that, and the war in the Middle East.
The Chair: In the Defence Secretary’s letter to the Prime Minister he said that it would involve cuts in operational capability and that he was not willing to accept that. If the defence investment plan remains as it is, do you agree with what John Healey said: that it will lead to reductions in operational capabilities?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: The thing that I am most concerned about is the level of day-to-day activity funding—we call it RDEL, the resource departmental expenditure limit—because that funds operational activity and drives exercises and training. Those are the things that make sure the men and women of our Armed Forces are as ready as they can be with the equipment they have today. Without changes to the settlement, as John Healey set out, those areas will come under pressure.
The Chair: Do you mean that we will have to reduce the capabilities we have in some areas?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: We will have to dial back our activities and our exercise and operational activity if the level of resource funding that is available to us does not increase. That is still to be debated and decided.
There is a really important point here, and I know this committee is sophisticated in its understanding. Looking back at the position 20 years ago, the split between resource spending and capital spending was about 80:20. Today, it is about 60:40, with 60% on activity resources and 40% on capital. On the current projection, by the time we get to the early 2030s, it will be 50:50. The reason for that is that the significant increases we have had in defence spending over the last few years, which of course are positive and welcome, have largely been in capital. We know that we have been through a period of really significant inflation post-Covid, which has driven up costs in terms of infrastructure. Fuel costs are 88% higher than they were this time last year for aviation fuel, for example. All that puts pressure on us.
The levers that we have to pull to reduce that expenditure are principally around our activities, which means exercises, training and operations. Clearly, we would prioritise those around what the Government care about most, but it would be disingenuous of me to suggest that there is going to be no impact as a consequence of the settlement. But as I said, the Prime Minister is committed to reviewing that situation in the spending review, and I will continue to make a clear and robust case for what I think the Armed Forces need in order to be able to be ready to do what the Government ask of them.
Q2 Lord Bruce of Bennachie: The defence investment plan was supposed to be published nine months ago. It has now been promised for next month. As I understand it, the whole defence sector is waiting with bated breath to know where it can invest and what can and cannot be done. What impact is this delay and uncertainty having on morale within our own forces and within the supply chain that is waiting, and on our allies and, indeed, Britain’s standing as a leader within NATO? How does that look? How do you feel, with your interactions, this is affecting both the morale and credibility of the UK?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: There is no question that settling the defence investment plan and publishing it will be helpful. It will be helpful for us to be able to get on and execute the plan. It will be helpful for industry to know where our priorities are and where it needs to bring private sector capital to focus. I am eager that we get on with it and publish it as soon as we can. You will know that the Prime Minister had committed to publish it before we get to Ankara.
On the point about leadership, I have been in this job nearly 10 months. One of the things that has struck me is just how valued the UK’s leadership is in NATO and more broadly. The UK is still the third-largest cash spender on defence in NATO. Although we are falling down the rankings at the moment in terms of percentage of GDP, there is no question that we are a large country and other nations look to us to lead. That is why the UK, alongside France, is leading this maritime multinational mission in the Strait of Hormuz. It is why the UK, alongside France, is leading the multinational force Ukraine and the coalition of the willing effort should there be a peace deal in Ukraine. It is also why the UK is the framework nation—the lead nation—for the Joint Expeditionary Force. We should be very positive about the UK’s position, but NATO expects us to spend 3.5% of GDP on hard defence, which is a commitment that the Prime Minister has made. That is what all the other nations, bar one, have committed to do. It is essential that we do so to retain that credibility and leadership position, which is why I am so pleased that the Prime Minister has consistently committed to it.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie: The Prime Minister has now said that, even with the publication of the defence investment plan, the long-term commitment will depend on spending reviews this year and next year. It is continuing uncertainty, is it not, in terms of how and when we are going to get there?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: That is a natural hazard in government. The spending reviews occur every two or three years, depending on the political cycle and the intent of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. What we need is a clear path to that 3.5% for us to plan on. I recognise that the spending reviews will only take us forward two or three years, maybe sometimes four, but we need, as we have always had in defence—Lord Houghton will remember this—a clear planning assumption for defence. I am clear that that needs to be 3.5%, as per the Prime Minister’s commitment in Parliament and at The Hague. We will need to settle what that trajectory is, because it is that which gives us the ability to plan and industry the ability to know what to expect.
The Chair: We have a former Chancellor, Lord Lamont, who would like to ask a question.
Q3 Lord Lamont of Lerwick: I wonder if I could again refer to the previous Secretary of State’s letter of resignation, where he quoted to the Prime Minister some words the Prime Minister himself had used: “It is our intelligence assessment and the assessment of other countries in NATO that there could be an attack by Russia on NATO as soon as 2030”. He is talking about the threat, not the pathway to finance. What is the significance of 2030? Is it just a comment on the relative strengths of NATO vis-à-vis Russia, or what is it?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: You will have heard me talk publicly about this being an era that is more dangerous and more unstable than any I have known in my 35-year working life. That is as a consequence of changes in the international system and the re-emergence of great power competition. The specific risk that NATO is focused on is Russia. You will have heard the Supreme Allied Commander Europe say last week that Russia is not looking for conflict. Today, Russia is tied down in Ukraine. It is losing casualties: 1,300-plus soldiers a day. It is spending an enormous amount of its budget and its taxes on the defence industrial base, but in doing that it is learning and developing capability. At some point, the war in Ukraine will come to an end and the assessment of NATO—you will have heard Mark Rutte, the Secretary-General, talk about this—is that the risk from Russia is growing, and it feels that it peaks around 2030. Our job in the NATO alliance has to be to do as much as we can to deter Russia from doing something daft within that timeframe.
That is the logic that the Defence Secretary is setting out. It is not an absolute risk; it is not a guarantee that Russia will attack NATO. It is that the risk and threat are growing as a consequence of the situation in Russia and the position in Ukraine. There are many things that will influence it. The ending of the conflict in Ukraine will be a particularly big part of it, but we recognise that the trend in the threat is growing, and that is the point I have made publicly on a number of occasions.
Q4 Baroness Blackstone: I wonder if I could ask you about modernising the defence spending that you have some involvement and responsibility for. It seems to be generally agreed that the nature of warfare is changing somewhat. We are moving into much more cyber warfare: the need for large numbers of drones and perhaps less need for old-style conventional warfare, whether weaponry or boots on the ground. Could you tell the committee what kind of savings you might be able to make from conventional warfare in order to spend more on the new kinds of warfare, where there is a need for some increases?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: You are right that what we are learning from the war in Ukraine, the Middle East and, as I referenced, Nagorno-Karabakh is that the emergence of technology—much of which has come from the commercial sector—is changing the character of conflict. It is allowing nations to exploit cheaper drones that provide great levels of precision and are relatively cheap. The consistent view across western nations, and actually in Russia and China, is that the future will be a blend of cheaper drones that deliver mass and large scale alongside the more complex and more expensive assets. If you want an example of why those are still relevant, you will note that when President Zelensky was here a couple of Sundays ago he was still talking about the UK providing Storm Shadow cruise missiles. They are more sophisticated than drones, travel longer distances and have special capabilities.
I think we will see a blend of those things and that the capability we have today in, for example, ships or fast jet aircraft will be augmented by these cheaper, less sophisticated, uncrewed systems, which will be how we increase the survivability of the crewed platform and their lethality. I was talking to the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation yesterday evening about the examples of the work that he is doing and work we are doing in the UK. One of the things its experiments have shown is that actually, if you take an attack helicopter that has a set of drones flying with it, the mission success improves quite dramatically compared with if you just had the drones or just had the crewed platform, so I think we are going to see a blend.
Your question was specifically about where we could save money. There will inevitably be opportunities to change the profile of commitments we have made to long-term conventional programmes in order to create the space to buy more modern technology, drones, and maybe invest more in areas like cyber or space. Ultimately, I foresee us adding to that capability. I know there has been a lot of commentary about the availability of ships, but over the last number of years the number of UK capital ships has declined. They are going to be replaced by Type 26 frigates, which are world-class—that is why the Canadians, Australians and Norwegians are buying them—and by Type 31s. We will augment those ships with autonomous systems to help with surveillance and, potentially, to push forward weapons to target our adversary. It is going to be this mix. Right now, I do not foresee huge savings in the conventional force because we are at a level where we actually need to enhance it through investment in more modern technologies that you describe.
Cyber has been a very significant investment since the previous integrated review in 2020. From the experience of watching Ukraine, and Russia attacking Ukraine, we have learned that cyber is a critical part of any kind of campaign, but it is not in itself decisive. My perspective is that it is about how we combine the capabilities in space, cyber space, on the land, at sea, under the sea and in the air. It is the combination of those things that are delivering the really decisive effects in operations, which is something the UK and the West are really sophisticated at and something Russia really struggles with. That is an area where we need to focus our energies and efforts.
Baroness Blackstone: If you do not see huge savings in conventional warfare, whether equipment or personnel, do you see some savings at least which might oil the wheels a bit for decision-makers?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: Potentially, yes.
Baroness Blackstone: What might they be?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I want to leave room for the Defence Secretary to examine these things, but if you have already bought a thing then you have already spent the money, so you are not going to save it at that stage. If it is things you plan to buy in the future, you can choose exactly when you will buy them, particularly if you have an open production line. That provides the Defence Secretary with some choice over exactly how he will create some space to invest in some of these modern technologies.
Q5 Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: It is good to see you, Sir Richard. I declare for purposes that I was Minister of State at the Foreign Office at the time of the last integrated review. Both the Defence Secretary and Al Carns in particular, as Minister of State, said when they resigned that, certainly in Al Carns’s case, they did not see the defence investment plan until it was almost a fait accompli. The Defence Secretary also said on resigning that the Prime Minister was “unable” and the Treasury “unwilling” in terms of the resources that were needed. As the practitioner delivering the outcome of whatever the defence investment plan is, at what point were you involved initially in the process of setting priorities? Do you feel, with the resignation of the Defence Secretary, that you are fully integrated and involved in the refresh or relook that is happening?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I have been very intimately involved since I started in this role on 2 September last year. I have lost count of the probably hundreds of hours I have spent involved in that. One of the things we did as chiefs right at the start was to ask ourselves: how should we fight? What is it that the UK can do that offers the greatest contribution to NATO and its NATO plans? At the heart of the strategic defence review, as Lord Robertson knows, is this commitment to being “NATO first”, which means meeting our NATO targets and delivering against the NATO plan. That requires us to spend 3.5% of GDP but, clearly, we are not at 3.5% today. We need to understand what would make the most difference and how that might inform the sequencing of investment and capability growth.
We thought about the things that the UK can do, and in these conversations we sometimes forget about the quality of our people, the quality of the equipment that we have and the exceptional contribution that we are able to make to NATO, which leads to the UK’s ability to lead and the credibility that we have. That analysis allowed us to inform decisions about what was in the current plan and what we would need to adapt or add to it. That is how we have been engaged through that process. It was one that was led very firmly by the former Defence Secretary, John Healey, and those close to him. As the Chief of the Defence Staff and with the service chiefs, whom we meet every two weeks, I would be pressed to find a meeting in the last nine months where this issue has not been discussed.
Q6 Lord Houghton of Richmond: I declare some commercially related interests with Blackstone, Draken, Defence Holdings, Secure Cloud+ and Thales.
It seems to me, and we can probably agree, that wherever this DIP lands in the next couple of weeks, it will probably disappoint in terms of the money we would have liked and the speed at which we can rebuild, as it were. The National Armaments Director, who is coming along tomorrow, sometimes explains this in passing as as much a matter of timing as it is a matter of money, because if we have 3.5% by 2035 we are going to have plenty of money, but we do not have the money to spend now. There has been some noises off about whether a solution to this is borrowing, either through bonds, private equity or those sorts of things, to take some of these big problems away—for example, the married quarters estate modernisation and all that. Once the DIP is closed and that is all out, and we face some of the challenges, is there a strategic thought within the discussions of the Ministry of Defence about how more spending can be accelerated in novel ways to get over the current problem of not having enough and not quickly enough?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: The short answer is yes. It is important that we recognise the context. I am in a position that none of my predecessors over the last 30-odd years has been in: I am looking forward to an increase in defence spending throughout my tenure and beyond, which is not a position that we have enjoyed over many years. That is a recognition that this Government and the previous Government made about the changing threat environment. It is important that we recognise that, but you are right that the rate at which we increase defence spending matters. I have made that point already.
One of the options may be to enter into novel mechanisms by which we are able to access private sector capital. I am told regularly by people who have healthy portfolios like yours that there is private capital out there ready to invest because they can see, right across the western world and certainly across NATO, that defence spending is growing rapidly, so there is a market and an opportunity. Some of the technology is changing, which is opening up the market to new entrants. You will probably have heard the commentary about the multilateral defence mechanism, which is something that the Chancellor is championing. There was some commentary over the weekend about the defence, security and resilience bank. These are clever mechanisms to provide access to additional funds from the private sector, either for industry or, potentially, for us in the context of MDM. If we can get that right, it will allow us to be off balance sheet. It would enable us to procure with our allies, which could be really beneficial. I will be honest with you, that is not an area of expertise, and I am sure the National Armaments Director will be able to talk to you about it in a bit more detail when he comes tomorrow. The short answer is yes, there are opportunities to do that; Rupert is really good on that.
The Chair: Thank you very much for being frank and open with us on the current situation.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I always worry when people say that.
Q7 The Chair: We will see what gets quoted outside. We now move to talking about the strategic defence review and the programme. This committee is committed to looking at the 62 recommendations to see how they are going. How would you assess the progress that has been made with implementing the recommendations? Where have you been pleased with the progress and where have you been unhappy?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I would describe it as good, steady progress. Of the 62 recommendations, one or two of which were slightly idiosyncratic, as you know, 19 were due to be delivered by the end of May and 17 of them have been delivered. Another eight that did not have a specific date on them have been delivered, and eight more have been partially delivered. So there has been clear progress. From inside the department, it was an absolute focus for the previous Defence Secretary. He gave specific responsibility to junior Ministers for specific recommendations. Members of the so-called quad—the CDS, the Perm Sec, the National Armaments Director and the Chief of Defence Nuclear—were all given specific recommendations for which we are accountable. It was reviewed at the Defence Board. There is a secretariat within the strategy hub within defence that tracks it and provides us with the management information. So there is steady progress against those recommendations.
The most significant issue is the one we have just talked about: the defence investment plan, because that is what gives life to some of the big decisions that will need to be taken. Although a lot of progress has been made, I am told that, since summer 2024, there have been 4,000 contracts let, over 1,300 of which are for more than £1 million. Work continues to deliver. You only have to look at what happened over the weekend, what has happened in the Middle East, the carrier deployment, or the soldiers in Estonia: defence continues to deliver and we should be proud of that. One of the things I have always said in these conversations with Ministers is that we must remember that the SDR is not everything that defence does. It is about some of the changes, and we should definitely get after that. That is what the Government have asked us to do, and we have made good and steady progress, but making sure the men and women of our Armed Forces are trained and ready is the principal responsibility. We continue to do that alongside these changes.
The Chair: How are relations inside the quad—the big players in the ministry? How do you assess that relationship going?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I feel that it is very strong. We have now had just over six months with all four of us in post. Madelaine McTernan is Chief of Defence Nuclear and was already in post. I came in in September, and then we had Jeremy Pocklington as the Permanent Secretary, and Rupert Pearce came in towards the end of the year. That has given us a firm foundation. What is very clear to me, and was clear to me as my time as Chief of the Air Staff and as a more junior officer, is that in big, complex organisations, such as defence, nothing gets delivered in a single stovepipe. You can only deliver anything meaningful that makes a difference if you are able to work across those different organisations.
The defence reform model and the establishment of these four heads has given very clear accountability and responsibility for narrow things. My responsibility is absolutely about the readiness of our Armed Forces, but I cannot do that without the support of Rupert, the National Armaments Director, who lays the contracts to generate the servicing and maintenance that is required for our ships, tanks or aircraft. I am really confident that if you spoke to any of us, we would say the same thing: we are clear about our accountabilities but also clear that we have to work closely together to make defence work effectively. We meet weekly. The executive committee of defence is the body we sit on with others, such as the vice-chief, the chief information officer, and the finance director. That is how we run defence. As I said, we meet routinely and are very clear on our accountabilities and on the need for us to work closely together.
The Chair: You are the first Chief of the Defence Staff who has actually had the budgetary power. How do you relate now to the rest of the department differently from the way in which Lord Houghton used to be able to do?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: Very well, if I may say.
Lord Houghton of Richmond: I had to use charm and humour.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: The budget flowing through the Chief of the Defence Staff and then into the commands is a significant change. It enables us to make clear prioritisation decisions across all four of the commands and it is part of the way in which we will implement the integrated force model that is set out in chapter 4.1 of the SDR. But I will be honest with you: there is a mismatch between the budget and the plan. As long as that is the case, you cannot really exercise the benefits and opportunities that come with that. The defence investment plan will close that gap when the funding is settled and the plan is agreed, which will then allow me, alongside the chiefs, to exploit the benefits and opportunities that come with that clarity, make sure that we are getting the most out of the resources that we have and focus it in the areas that are most important to me as the Chief of the Defence Staff, as the principal adviser to the Prime Minister, but more importantly to the nation.
The Chair: We will move on to questions about the national conversation.
Q8 Baroness Prashar: I want to ask about one of the core recommendations of the strategic defence review. A year on, what do you think has happened? What progress has been made? Are the public more aware and more engaged in this issue?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: That is a really excellent question. You will know that I have spoken on this topic a number of times. It was my Royal United Services Institute lecture prior to Christmas, and Lord Robertson and I shared the stage on Thursday last week where we talked about national resilience and the national conversation. The progress made is set out in some polling data we have. In preparing for this, I refreshed my memory on the topic. I have a couple of data points for you that might be helpful. Today, polling shows that 50% believe spending on defence should increase—a 33% increase from the position in the mid-1990s—and 78% think that we need strong Armed Forces. If you look at the history of this over the last two or three years, we have seen a steady rise in society’s perspective on this, but we have quite a lot more to do to engage society more broadly in this conversation.
You will probably know that when I gave evidence earlier this year to the House of Commons Defence Committee, I talked about the need for this to be led at a political level, for it to be cross-government, and for it to be supported by people like me who can talk about the threats and what the Armed Forces are doing, in order to raise that level of awareness. My personal view is that this becomes real when you do practical things. I was talking to my Dutch counterpart a few weeks ago; I visited him in The Hague. One of the things that the Dutch now do is write to every 17 year-old in the country when they turn 17 about the armed forces, the opportunities and to seek information from each of those people, which has had a really big impact. Many households in the country get the letter, which means that those in the household are thinking about this. He told me that, over a period of less than two years, it led to a net increase in the Dutch armed forces of 5,000. It is these practical steps that are critical. It is similar to the booklet in Sweden that comes out, I think, every year about resilience. It talks about flooding, lack of power and loss of mobile phone signal, but also includes an armed attack on Sweden. For me, that is how we will continue to develop that thinking.
The other observation is that there is a real opportunity at a local level. I live in Cambridge and was speaking at an event there. There was a real appetite among those in the community to learn more about the issues and risks, and what they could do about them. The local resilience fora that have been established, often chaired by the fire service, because they are very close to some of these natural disasters, are a route into the local community. In the summer, we intend to start conducting war games and engaging these local readiness fora to build understanding and develop awareness of the risks and what can be done at a local level. I am quite optimistic about the benefits that will come through that route and about some of the practical steps I described. Lord Robertson knows this because I have said it to him: politicians all know it is about how you speak to society. You are the experts in this, so we need your help to do that as well. It is not just about the Government of the day; it is a broader conversation, and I would ask for your support and help.
Baroness Prashar: You said this should be cross-government. Are you working with other government departments? Is there buy-in from them?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: Yes, very much so. This is actually led out of the Cabinet Office; the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister has the lead. Defence has clearly got a significant part to play, but so does the Home Office. DSIT has a part to play. A very broad swathe of Government that has a role to play in this, with the Cabinet Office having overall responsibility. We are playing a part as defence.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: Following on from Baroness Prashar’s conversation, you talked about political leadership. I remember that a former leader in my own party, Michael Howard, once said that to be representative, you have to be a party for all Britons. Survey upon survey continues to show a trust deficit, particularly between minority communities within the United Kingdom. That is also perhaps reflected in recruitment. What specific measures are you taking to take that message through the national conversation and ensure that our Armed Forces reflect the proud traditions of what Britain is? A history lesson that I often give to colleagues when they talk about ethnic minorities in Britain is: let us not forget the services of different communities during both the two great wars, the First World War and the Second World War.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I strongly agree with that final point. We have a proud tradition in the Armed Forces of people from many nations and ethnic backgrounds serving with great courage and bravery, and many battles and successes that we are proud of are partly as a consequence of the service of people from those communities. I do not have the precise numbers in front of me, but this is a topic I particularly focused on as Chief of the Air Staff; as Chief of the Defence Staff, I look more broadly across the armed services.
If you look at the recruitment statistics, we have seen a steady increase over more than a decade, as I recall, of the percentage of those joining the Armed Forces who come from ethnic minorities that are non-white. That is a trend that I expect to continue and is the result of conscious efforts to ensure that, as we try to increase the size of the Armed Forces and get back the strength to the requirement following the exits that happened after Covid, all society recognises the value of service. The outreach conducted by the three services and the overall campaigns around how we increase awareness among young people of service in the Armed Forces is manifested in some of the increases that we are seeing.
I do not think it is right that the national conversation should be about recruitment, but if we get it right and people recognise the value of working in the Armed Forces, the skills they learn and the contribution they make to society then that will have the happy effect of enhancing our ability to recruit from areas of the community that traditionally have not joined the Armed Forces. It is a thing we need to continue to focus on, but it will be a very positive by-product of a national conversation and the raising of awareness of the Armed Forces.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: On the wider issue of gender representation, again, the UK has a proud tradition on women, peace and security. Is that reflected within your priorities? How are the achievements that we have made in that respect communicated?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: One thing I have talked about in public before is that we need a set of Armed Forces where people are able, irrespective of their background or gender, to fulfil their potential and be the best they can be. What I want is the strongest possible Armed Forces that we can have for the nation. That requires us to select and promote the very best people, irrespective of their background. For me, it is about not just gender or ethnic background but the very best people being able to do the very best that they are able to do for the good of the nation. That is the totality of the environment and culture that we set in the Armed Forces.
The Chair: Lord Grocott is with us virtually; he has a question.
Lord Grocott: This is partly an observation from earlier exchanges. I very much like the idea of a national conversation on defence, though I would be slightly wary of opinion polls on what the public think about these things. I dare say they would be fairly positive if they were asked about a national conversation on education, health or any of the other major areas of government activity. What I am quite clear about is that the public tend to become engaged, rather like the media circus following wars, when something significant has happened and is leading the news. In that sense, you will never have a more fertile period to engage the public than at present because so much attention has been given to it, quite rightly, as there is a war in Europe; if that does not engage people then nothing will. Is there a need for this to be a structured and continuing debate that is not entirely dependent on where the television cameras are?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I strongly agree with that. This has to be something that endures, not something that is focused following events in the Middle East or the war in Ukraine. The trajectory of the threat is upwards; that is what demands change in the Armed Forces and is leading to increasing demands on the Armed Forces. I do not foresee that changing in the next three, four, five or six years, so this conversation needs to endure irrespective of the specific events in Ukraine or the Middle East, as an example. I strongly agree with your observation.
Q9 Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie: A year and a bit ago, this committee wrote a report, Ukraine: A Wake-up Call. One thing that came out was not only the importance of mass but the ability of the Ukrainians to mobilise and deploy effective reserve forces. I am really concerned by your points on the pressures on the RDEL funding and progress for the implementation and strengthening of the Reserve Forces. I have to declare an interest: my daughter is a serving reservist officer. Your focus is on operational activity. What progress is being made for the reserves? Are they trained and ready?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I am delighted that your daughter is one of our people and serving.
The reserves are a critical part of the way in which we will deter our adversaries from trying to challenge us—I was going to say doing something daft. The reserves and the structure of the reserves we have today are born out of the Future Reserves 2020 work that Lord Houghton led when he was the Vice-Chief of Defence Staff. It was constructed and configured around the threats, risks and opportunities of the day. Those have changed and shifted. We need to adjust and change the structure and roles of the reserves within that.
As part of our work to be more war-fighting ready, we need to do, and are doing, the work to understand precisely what role the regular reserve that your daughter is part of should play, both before war starts and in that transition to war. We have amazing people who do incredible things. I am always struck, when I meet the reservists, that they are doing two jobs to support us. I have the utmost respect for them. We owe it to them to make sure that we give them the right training and equipment for the task that we want them to undertake. That task is changing and will change. It is about how we use the expertise and skills the reservists have in their civilian jobs or the private sector to contribute to increasing mass and scale in wartime. There are experts in cyber defence in the private sector who we cannot possibly hope to hold at those numbers, but they are ever so keen to be part of the model that will defend our networks should things change.
As we go through this year and we refine and develop the war books, as they are sometimes described, and plan for that transition to war, from that will emerge further details about how the reserve will need to change. We have a new Assistant Chief of Defence Staff for Reserve Forces and Cadets, Lord Lancaster, coming to join us this month, who you all know. A key part of his role is to oversee that and make sure we are ready. I am very clear that the reserve play a critical role in what we do.
The experience of Ukraine goes beyond the position that I have described. War started and it became clear that it was going to be prolonged. That required us to think about how we mobilise the population and how we mobilise those who are ex-regulars, now in civilian jobs or even retired, and get them back into uniform. That is what we call the strategic reserve. One thing Ministers have directed us to do for a major exercise we are running with NATO in 2027, Steadfast Defender, is to exercise the call-up of elements of that strategic reserve.
The final component to it is the current commander of our joint homeland command, Lieutenant-General Griffiths. Part of his role is to develop a plan for how he would organise the Armed Forces that we have in order to train and grow the number of Armed Forces that we might need in wartime. My objective is never to need to do that. Our focus has to be on how we deter our adversary by persuading the adversary that, if they were to try something, they would not succeed or it would be so painful for them, the cost would be so high, that they choose not to do it. Part of the way to do that is to demonstrate that we have regular and reserve forces that are strong, capable and ready. That is my principal focus.
Q10 Lord Houghton of Richmond: I am not certain whether I should be wildly excited or a bit afeared that the integrated force appears to be, if you like, this SDR’s alchemy for making certain that we can get away with less money. Historically, there have been alchemies that have been doctrinal, efficiency or modernisation. Now we have embarked on the idea of an integrated force that demands a huge sophistication of our digital conversion of a defence kill web, effectors and sensors linked. When you put alongside it the relatively small amounts of money that we actually invest in R&D and technical superiority, and our own experience with Defence Digital, which has laboured for a while in Joint Forces Command and now has moved across to the NAD, and appears to have spent huge amounts of money not getting very far with the digital spine of the integrated force, do you think that we are running the risk of again submitting to a delusion? After all, our enemy has a vote. Can we genuinely suggest that we can have a situation of permanent technological advantage in terms of an integrated force that acts, as it were, to give us a special edge? The Chief of the General Staff certainly is. Is it nine times the lethality of the previous force? To what extent do you genuinely think that, strategically, in terms of our deterrent posture, the integrated force is realisable?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: There is a lot in there. On the first point, there is absolutely no intent that this is alchemy or in some way about how you can get away with doing less. It is super clear: we need to spend 3.5% of GDP to meet the NATO targets and deliver the totality of what is committed to in the strategic defence review.
The strategic purpose of the integrated force model was a top-down design of the total force, not the aggregation of the individual domain forces in a joint operation. That was the big idea that the authors had. The benefit, if you get it right, is that you then have a force that is best able to maximise its capability and capacity by joining it up in a way that removes inefficiencies and frictions. Strategically, it makes a lot of sense.
That chapter of the strategic defence review also reflects the fact that NATO does not fight like that. NATO fights by joint force command region and domain. What the SDR authors recognised is that you need to be able to switch between those two things.
I was in Ukraine last month; it was the fourth time I had been since I started. What you can see very clearly in Ukraine is the value and importance of data, your ability to understand what your adversary is doing, and to apply force from the land, the air, the sea, cyber space or space in an integrated way that delivers the effect you are trying to achieve.
My view is that, if we are going to win in the future, this is essential for us to be able to do it. One reason why Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was so hapless was because it was unable to do joint all-arms manoeuvre. It was unable to integrate air and land battle effectively. That enabled the Ukrainians to blunt its attack and outmanoeuvre it. I said in a speech last week at the AI conference that it was able to move and preserve its air defence assets so Russia could not target them. That enabled it to gain some control over the air and hold Russia back.
It is definitely not about how you save money; it is about how you make the force more effective. The forces have to be able to operate inside NATO, which operates in a different structure. Chris Donahue, the land component commander for NATO, was in London a couple of weeks ago. When you look at how he is going to achieve his mission, it is very clear that it is through using drones, one-way effectors launched from the land, integrating fires from missiles fired from submarines, F35s and Typhoons. He is going to need some localised cyber capability and he is going to need space assets to be able to help him. Even though it is a land battle, he is going to have to exploit all the components to deliver overwhelming force and effects on Russia. The integrated force model is about trying to ensure that the force is able to do that.
Critical enablers for that are the digital backbone and the so-called digital targeting web. I would challenge a bit your characterisation of a large amount of money being spent without a lot of impact. The chief digital data and information officer has just retired. He had been with defence for eight years or so. He has, in many respects, transformed the position we find ourselves in but he and I would acknowledge that there is more to be done from an operational perspective.
What the digital targeting web is doing in its first iterations and focus—there is a commitment in the SDR to have a minimum viable product in 2026 and I am very confident that we will have that—is to drive a much faster and larger scale targeting enterprise. I was talking to the air-vice marshal running it, and he said that there has already been a 900% increase in the Permanent Joint Headquarters’ target management capacity as a consequence of applying tools that already exist to data that we already have to enable us to do these things much faster. There is much more to come on this but it is an essential component of our effectiveness, not about making us cheaper or more efficient. I am not sure I would be confident that we are going to win in a future fight without it. I want us to win overwhelmingly and for Russia to know that.
Lord Houghton of Richmond: You are probably just in the act of confirming my supplementary. If anything therefore has the category of a protected species within the DIP, would you suggest that the integrated force and its enablement definitely is?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: Yes. The reason why I paused slightly is that the integrated force is the force. The smart bit is how we design it, and then how we make sure it is joined up effectively. That requires us to update our doctrine and our professional military education.
I was at the advanced command and staff course recently talking to the students there about how NATO, nuclear, and integrated force thinking is being imbued in them already. It is a critical part of our ability to succeed in the fight that we face.
I was just looking at my notes; you also asked about R&D. This is an area I have spent quite a bit of my career in. We have exceptional scientists in the Defence Science and Technology Lab. We have exceptional engineers who are able to use those things and we still have capability that our allies really value, even the most powerful nation on earth, the US.
The plan to invest more in R&D is something I strongly welcome, and it will help us retain that credibility and advantage. We also have to recognise that, 50 years ago, most of this technology was coming out of the Government and military laboratories. Today, a lot of this technology is coming from the commercial sector: cloud computing and artificial intelligence. The trick for us, which is why I made a speech last week at the AI conference, is how we exploit that technology to deliver things such as the digital targeting web so that we can make faster and better decisions than our adversaries and keep us on the front foot.
Q11 Baroness Blackstone: You said earlier that the UK is the third-largest cash producer from a defence point of view within NATO and therefore has an important leadership role. I would like to explore that a bit with you. As an important aside, the combined GDP of all NATO members is hugely greater than that of Russia by many times. That might lead to some sceptics asking if it is realistic or even necessary to go as far as a 3.5% increase by 2035. That is not what I want to talk about, which is the problem of fragmentation. That money is fragmented within NATO. Can you tell us a bit about interoperability, which was recommended by the SDR, and what progress we are beginning to make on it within NATO so that it can be much more effective than it is at the moment?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I mentioned I was with the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation yesterday; this is a key focus for him. We have developed our own road map, in line with the recommendations made in the SDR, which has to dock into a wider NATO process. To give you an example of the role that we are playing, the UK has a really critical role in establishing the standards—STANAGs as they are known—for the exchange of digital information, partly through our work with the digital targeting web.
One thing that my fellow chiefs around the NATO chiefs of defence committee worry about is the fragmentation that you describe and the limited capacity there currently is in the defence industrial base across Europe. Understandably, many Governments are spending a lot of their taxpayers’ money on enhancing defence capability and they want to spend it in their own nation. If we stick to that approach in a highly doctrinaire way, we will continue to get less value from that money than we would do if we were able to co-ordinate more effectively across NATO. There are two parts to it. The first is about joint procurement. We are very clear on where our requirements overlap and we go into those procurements collectively. The second is acknowledging at a strategic and political level that, for the good of the alliance, we will have to buy capability from nations other than our own. The best argument for that is to demonstrate the value for money, but also to allow nations to develop capability where they have expertise.
One of the advantages of modern technology—these drones that we describe—is that the facilities and capability required to produce them are less sophisticated than, for example, to build a fighter plane or a ship. What we are going to need, if a war starts, is an ability to ramp that up quickly. We will need, across NATO, to understand where that capacity might come from: how we can turn a mobile phone factory, for example, into one that is able to manufacture drones or harnesses for vehicles. It is the deliberate and conscious act of thinking through that that will be important. This is definitely something you should pick up with Rupert tomorrow when he comes in because, as the National Armaments Director, part of his responsibility is to build the national arsenal—the capacity and capability that the nation needs. I strongly believe we have to do that with our allies, and that will require some compromises and acceptance that we will buy some weapons from Germany or the US in order to get the most efficient and effective capability into the hands of the men and women in our Armed Forces.
The Chair: I understand that you have agreed to spend a little longer with us.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I am always happy to. I did not know I had but I am very happy to.
The Chair: I had a signal that you may be willing to do that.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I am always very happy to stay.
Q12 The Chair: If you take the nuclear deterrent out of our budget—it gets no credit whatever in NATO—then the amount we spend on conventional defence is actually very close to what Portugal and Spain are spending in terms of proportion of GNP. Does that not weaken our role within NATO?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: If you look at the whole nuclear enterprise—the attack submarines, all the infrastructure, the new bombers, and the new warhead—some of which contributes directly to NATO targets, such as the submarines, then about a quarter of the defence budget is being spent on it. That has gone up quite significantly over the last few years because we have to replace our strategic bomber, the Dreadnought submarine, and we have to invest in a new warhead. The infrastructure associated with that is decades old. We have also committed to a programme to replace our Astute attack submarines. Taken together, that is a significant chunk of our defence spending. It means that there is definitely less available to spend on the conventional force, but that is part of the reason why, when we started this session, I was very clear that we need to spend 3.5% of GDP to deliver our NATO capability targets and to reverse the hollowness, improve our readiness and ensure that we are ready for war-fighting.
The Chair: That 3.5% would add £36 billion to the existing defence budget.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: Per year.
The Chair: An extra £36 billion a year. Do you think that is realistic?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: As I said right at the start of this session, it is not going to happen overnight. My experience with my German colleagues demonstrates that you need to increase that investment steadily in order to enable industry and private capital to respond and build the capacity. I do not think it realistic that we would step up and spend 3.5% next year, but the quicker we get to that the faster we will reverse the hollowing out that you talked about in your report, the readier we will be, and the quicker we will be able to accelerate the modernisation and transformation of the force in the way we have discussed.
The Chair: The Government, according to John Healey, are only going to get to 2.68% by 2030. That does not seem like a very ambitious road towards 3.5%, does it?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I go back to what the Prime Minister said on Friday. He has had to increase spending on defence outside a spending review. What he committed to on Friday was to make defence the number one priority at the next spending review and to chart that course to the 3.5% he has committed to.
As I have said, my role in this is to lead the Armed Forces but also to offer very clear and robust advice in private on the implications of whatever resources Ministers plan to or decide to invest in defence. We went through the risks, challenges and the things I am most worried about earlier in the session.
Q13 Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie: We have recently doubled down on both the AUKUS and GCAP programmes. Are we doing enough? We recently announced the AUKUS pillar 2 programme. Is there more to come? Are we keeping up our end of the bargain on this?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: On your second question, emphatically yes: the UK is keeping up its end of the bargain. The UK is committed to investing more in the GCAP programme than our other partners right now. We are leading that from a technology and an engineering perspective. The programme started in the UK with the future combat air strategy in 2018, the work for which I set up in 2014. It has a long history. The UK is absolutely holding up its end of the bargain.
On AUKUS, I would say exactly the same thing. The UK has a critical role to play in the design of the submarine, and the industrial capacity in the UK is how this programme will start. Clearly, it is being built up in Australia but it cannot happen overnight.
On pillar 2, I was with the Defence Secretary, Secretary Hegseth and the Australian Defence Secretary in Singapore at their most recent meeting where they announced this first step of a pillar 2 project that is directly associated with the underwater to battle. At that meeting, they committed to examine other options, so there is more to come.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie: Lord Bruce and I were in Australia recently and AUKUS has a higher profile there than here. We picked up that the Australians needed to ratchet up their skills and were relying on us for support. There was a nervousness on that.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie: Japan has also been complaining about delays on the fighter programme because of uncertainty over the budget. How do those things square with what you said?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I said earlier that publishing the defence investment plan would be very helpful. It will set the plan and then we can get on and execute it.
On Australia, last week I was at the AUKMIN meeting, which is the Foreign and Defence Secretaries’ joint meeting. It is a really big programme for Australia. It has not had a nuclear submarine before. It took a big political decision a few years ago in recognition of the requirement and threat in its region. It is really hard; designing, building, and assembling nuclear submarines is difficult. There may not have been any—or only one—nuclear engineering master’s degrees available in Australia before AUKUS started. There is a lot to do to build up those skills. Part of the reason why HMS Anson visited Australia in March was to allow them to understand how these submarines are maintained and operated. There are Australian navy personnel on our own and US submarines. It is very impressive to see the progress that has been made but it is a very tough road ahead in what are big, complex and expensive programmes.
Q14 Lord Alderdice: You indicated that part of your role is providing advice to the Prime Minister and his colleagues on the risks, challenges and difficulties that lie ahead. You have also indicated that, within NATO, because everybody cannot do everything, we have to parcel out some expertise. One large area of expertise is that of the United States. This committee has recently produced a report on the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States, which indicated that there was a substantial degree of potential risk of the United States not being an entirely dependable ally in the future. Is this part of your risk assessment and part of the risk you transmit to the Prime Minister and his colleagues?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: When these questions come up, it is worth starting with how it feels today. I can tell you that, on a military-to-military personal basis, the relationship that I have with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with Supreme Allied Commander Europe and a whole range of US four-stars is as good as I have known it. I have every confidence in the strength and quality of that relationship. I want to reassure the committee around it.
It is true that the US has signalled, and has been signalling for some time—you will remember that Barack Obama talked about the pivot to the Far East—that its focus is broader than simply the Euro-Atlantic and NATO. The most recent announcements that have been reported in the media, and have not been released publicly because they are classified, have been a manifestation of the national defence strategy and this shift. It is the US recognising that, if there were to be a conflict in the Far East, NATO should not rely on the US’s ability to put those assets into Europe. The Prime Minister has talked about a stronger Europe in NATO, and that actually delivers a stronger NATO.
Part of our thinking about how we and our allies in NATO evolve and develop our capabilities is to think about the gaps that might be produced. In the most recent conversations, the US asked us and other nations to identify assets we have that are not currently declared to NATO and that we could declare to NATO in order to bolster the capacity. The UK is a leading light in what it attributes to NATO; almost everything that we have is attributed to NATO. We are leading the way in that. As the situation on US policy settles and becomes clearer, it is definitely a factor that we must consider. This will be a key part of conversations at the defence ministerial meeting, which is due to happen in Brussels on Wednesday, and at Ankara. It reinforces the importance of the increase in defence spending that the Prime Minister has committed to.
The Chair: The defence ministerial in Brussels tomorrow is going to be quite a lively and interesting one; somebody said “spicy” to me this morning.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: On AUKUS, signed in 2021, one key deliverable on pillar 1 was about new advanced submarine capacity. There have been delays in Barrow-in-Furness in terms of infrastructure support. Going back to the defence investment plan and Lord Bruce’s question on GCAP, do you think there is enough? You started rightly on RDEL/CDEL comparisons. Are those shortcomings being incorporated into the defence investment plan, particularly in terms of infrastructure capacity?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: Yes, absolutely. I was at Barrow recently. The progress that has been made there over the last few years is remarkable, and the rate of work and production is really significant. You can go there and see the Dreadnought submarines being assembled. Several thousand more workers are now in the programme than two years ago. It is very impressive.
It is very clear that, to stay on or as close to schedule as you can, you need to invest in the enablers and infrastructure is a key part of that. A key announcement around the strategic defence review was increasing the capacity at Barrow to enable there to be an overlap between the Dreadnought production and the SSN-AUKUS production. That will be fundamental; it is a key part of it. It is part of the reason why the expenditure on nuclear is so much higher than it was 10 years ago. You have all these things coming at once: a new bomber, a new warhead, new infrastructure, and a new attack submarine. That is a real challenge for industry but I was really impressed when I went up to Barrow recently.
Baroness Crawley: You will be very glad to hear this is the final question.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: I will try to listen to your question all the way through now; I am going to get excited.
Q15 Baroness Crawley: Thank you very much for your plain speaking. You said in answer to one of the earlier questions that it was about the quality of the people as well as the equipment and platforms. My question is on one of the major cross-themes of the SDR, which is the continuing need for cultural change in defence. In that sense, it is linked to the national conversation. As CDS, how do you go about driving that cultural change in issues such as negative behaviours? When I was a defence Whip 1,000 years ago, the military was a toxic place for a lot of women, for instance. I am sure things have improved enormously but, going back to Lord Ahmad’s question, for minority ethnic communities, the LGBT community, or for women, what has changed as far as those toxic behaviours are concerned? How do you get cultural innovation? How do you get “NATO first” interoperability? How do you get people to operate and partner with each other culturally in those areas?
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton: That is another question with a lot in there. At one level, culture change sounds easy because it is just the way we do things around here. You set the right example by putting in place the right standards, processes and structures, you educate people, re-educate them when they get it wrong and, ultimately, throw them out if they fall below the standards. It sounds easy, but we know from all our experiences that it is hard. The survey results from the work we have done in the MoD—we are the only department that has surveyed sexual behaviours—demonstrate that we still have a problem. As I said to Lord Ahmad, my objective is to have an organisation where, irrespective of background, colour, sex or gender, you are able to do the very best you can do and you will feel valued, cared for and safe in the environment. It hurts me that some of our people do not feel that.
We have a real benefit inside the Armed Forces because, when people join from society, we have them for several weeks, where we can develop them, set the standards, train them and educate them. That is the purpose of that training. Through the Raising our Standards programme, which is a cross-departmental programme—there is a big part for the chiefs and me to play in leading in the Armed Forces, but it applies right across the Armed Forces—we have worked on ensuring that we have good data and know what is going on.
We are very clear about the standards we have set, that we have a common education process and that we take action when people fall below the standards that we expect. I was with General Rowell, who is our head of the Defence Academy. The work it has done on establishing a common leadership system, called Leadership Edge, for the whole of defence, not just for those of us in uniform, is a critical part of how we will do that. The data that we are gathering will tell us the progress we are making. There are then a whole lot of steps we need to take to ensure that we standardise our approach in responding to unacceptable behaviours across the services, making sure that we are able to tell people what has happened.
One benefit of the military strategic headquarters and new model is that it all comes together with me. The chiefs of the three services, all four commands, the vice-chief and I can set those standards and drive those things together.
I will be very honest: it is not where I want it to be. It is not as good as I would want it to be. I know this will be a thing that I need to continue to work on throughout my three or four years in this job, to create that environment where people feel valued, safe and able to do the very best they can do, because we need that for the nation. We need that to ensure we are able to protect our interests and the citizens of our country.
The Chair: Thank you very much. You will be reassured by the fact that the new ministerial team includes a former RAF officer among the number you will face. You have given us a lot of time at a very important point. We are very grateful to you for spending your time with us this morning. We will let you go back now to educate the new ministerial team on what is ahead of them. We are enormously grateful to you for spending so much time arguing and answering in such a candid and open way. We wish you well. Thank you.
