16
Examination of witnesses
Louise Sandher-Jones, Ben Fender, Robbie Bulloch, Brigadier Ben Halsted and Damian Johnson.
Q213 The Chair: Good afternoon. Thank you all very much for coming and spending time to help us with this important inquiry. I should remind you that we are being broadcast live; this is a public session. In a couple of days, you will each receive a transcript of the session. That is your opportunity to spot any minor errors you want to correct or any gaps where you wish you had said something but you did not and you want to give us supplementary comments in writing.
Unusually, we have five of you on the panel today. Please do not repeat what somebody else has said, if you can avoid it. Some questions will be directed at either the MoD or the FCDO, while others will welcome responses from both departments. It is extremely helpful for us to have you both here. We have you all for about an hour or so. Mr Johnson, we heard from you a few sessions ago, so do not feel that you have to go over any ground you did before because we have that on the record already. Obviously, we have a lot of questions to ask you. In your first answer, if each of you could introduce yourself briefly for the record, that would be helpful.
I turn to the Minister first. My question is about the national conversation—a phrase that is on everybody’s lips at the moment. The strategic defence review recommended that we have a national conversation on defence and security. What will the Government do to ensure that this happens across the whole of society? In particular, what will you do, or what plans do you already have, to make sure that you engage young people in the conversation? We have gone out of our way to try to consult young people as part of our evidence gathering. I am very aware that public attitude surveys on this topic have thus far been with only people aged 18 and above.
I have seen a flavour of what the Government might be up against in this national conversation in the past couple of days. I was looking at a particular social media platform, which had 1.5 million responses to the government recommendation so far—it has had a lot of publicity over the past few days—about the need to stockpile water and food in the face of the next phase of El Niño. It was quite striking to me that the overwhelming response from those 1.5 million young people on that social media platform was utter mockery, saying, “We don’t believe a word of this. The Government are hiding something. Why don’t they tell us the truth? It’s not extreme weather. They’re preparing for war. Why don’t they just come out with it?” That was the flavour of the response, which has provoked my question about what you will do specifically for young people. Obviously, please tell us as well about the broad context of how this national conversation is going to be conducted and planned.
Louise Sandher-Jones: I am the MP for North East Derbyshire and the Minister for the Armed Forces. Thank you very much for doing this topic; it is really close to my heart and played a big role in me deciding to stand for election. For those who do not know, I spent a few years in the Army.
It has been clear for some time that we are facing challenges of the future. This is certainly the first time that we have faced them in my lifetime. It is certainly a whole different framing of the problem than I was used to when I was growing up or, indeed, serving. I have responsibility for the national conversation in the Ministry of Defence, as I am sure you are well aware. The overall responsibility lies with the Cabinet Office, but the MoD has a very important role to play.
As the SDR rightly noted, national resilience is important for a number of reasons. Some of those are to do with the growing challenges posed by climate change, of which we are all very aware—particularly over the summer, with the wildfires we had, for example. We also have challenges from underperforming areas of our infrastructure that pose challenges without any other actor. More and more, we are aware of the threat posed by state and non-state hostile actors. We have a whole range of risks and concerns, ranging from non-state actors in cyberspace to the land domain, across all kinds of different domains. Of course, there is also the info domain. I will come to your wider point about messaging to young people in a minute because the info domain is a really key thing to talk about.
As you are aware, we have already begun a number of endeavours on the national conversation, but it is fair to say that there is a lot more that we need to do. Our big muscle moves are probably still to come. We have the launch of a big awareness campaign coming up in the next few months. For defence, we have a big exercise coming up next year, which will test a wide range of the MoD’s resilience and reactions on a scale that we have not seen for a very long time; that is tied in with wider action as part of NATO, of course, with the NATO exercise programme.
I turn to the awareness campaign. This is an interesting one because I tend to find that we can sometimes frame this conversation as though we are introducing it. We are bringing in a topic that most people have not thought about and will react to in a certain way. Certainly, from speaking to my own constituents and people I come across as part of my ministerial duties, I know that a lot of people out there are, in many ways, further ahead than we are. They are well aware of these growing concerns when it comes to hostile threat actors and the other challenges that we are facing. They are waiting and expecting to see the Government take decisive action there.
It is also interesting because this conversation has started in so many different corners of the internet, so many different places and so many different cafés and pubs that it is uniquely vulnerable to misinformation. We cannot be naive to the fact that it will be exploited on Facebook, on platforms that we use and on ones that we do not. I do not use TikTok, but there are all these different platforms that are being used to help amplify misinformation and active disinformation.
That underlines the importance of making sure that we have an awareness campaign that is loud enough and targeted at those different audiences. We need to be able to put forward the truth and the facts to say to people not only, “We need to focus on resilience in a way we haven’t for a long time”, but some really basic things such as, “Do you have water?” This is very useful for an average power outage. It is important to be able to know that you can rely on this. I found myself with a power cut the other day. To my shame, I did not necessarily have what I needed to make the next day relatively comfortable. This is just simple resilience that everybody needs to have in the back of their heads.
When we look at those narratives, I have also been shocked when I have been speaking to people and they have raised rumours that they have heard online about what something means or does not mean. It is quite shocking to hear some of that, because it has no basis in any actions that the Government have taken.
To come to your point about young people specifically, there are two points here, from the MoD’s perspective. We have a role to play, particularly through our cadet organisations. As you will be aware, we have ambitions to expand the cadet programme by not only expanding current units but making sure that we have more units, particularly in schools or in places that are not well served by those cadet units. They provide a really trusted organisation for young people where we can have trusted message carriers, if you like, to deliver there. Of course, it is a wider challenge across government; that is why this is a whole-of-government approach. There is really important work that must be done, both by the Cabinet Office and anywhere that has a touchpoint with young people—education being an obvious one.
It is about not just what we are saying but who is saying it. Again, it is about having trusted message carriers. The MoD has a big role to play there. We have very authoritative voices in defence when we talk about threats. We have very trusted voices, and we have to make sure that we are using them. Disinformation and misinformation are not being targeted at just the young; they are definitely being targeted across all age groups. These things are a constant fight.
The Chair: It is encouraging to hear you say that the whole of government, as well as the whole of society, is very important in this exercise. Do your MoD colleagues have anything to add? No? What about the FCDO? Do you envisage a role for the FCDO in this national conversation?
Ben Fender: Yes. I should say that I am the director of the Defence and International Security Directorate
For years, we have been calling out the behaviour that Russia and other threat actors have been up to in the UK and elsewhere. We see that as an important part of this national conversation. It can be as long ago as the Salisbury chemical attacks to what happened in Leipzig just a few weeks ago. The Foreign Office’s role is often to comment and act on what hostile powers are doing, more than communicating to the UK public, which is obviously an area where the Cabinet Office has slightly more responsibility. We absolutely want to make sure that those things are joined up.
We are also very conscious that the messages we give our own population are heard by our adversaries and what we say to our adversaries is heard by our own population. One of the things we have been working quite hard on recently is making sure that all parts of government get the tone right in how we talk about, for example, hostile Russian behaviour so that we do not undermine deterrence but, rather, add to it. This is definitely a conversation that we are part of.
Q214 Lord Spellar: I fully understand the analysis of the problem, and I absolutely accept the point from the Foreign Office that it has been quite good at rebutting some lines. What I am unclear about is whether anywhere in government is pulling this together in the way that, first, our adversaries do. Russia has been doing it for a century. In China, you have the United Front organisations and all the rest of it pumping that out around the world. To what extent are we doing that?
By the way, we used to be rather good at that during the Cold War. I am not clear that we have maintained any of that machinery for, first, deciding what the line is; and, secondly, for expressing it in ordinary terms in order to develop a campaign for people to understand the threat here and in a wider international context. Is there a centre that is actually doing this job?
The Chair: Is there a national message, as well as a national conversation, in the offing?
Lord Spellar: Is there a message centre beside that? The landscape keeps changing the whole time, both for defence but also for putting our opponents—and some of their apologists—on the spot.
Louise Sandher-Jones: When you say “centre”, is that as in a specific unit or organisation or as in driving across government?
Lord Spellar: Just saying, “It is the Cabinet Office”, is not enough because it has so much responsibility all over the place; I am not clear on exactly how that operates. It seems to me that there needs to be interaction and engagement. That needs to be driving it out, rather than just being a co-ordination of the good efforts of different departments.
Louise Sandher-Jones: I agree that it needs real heft put behind it because this is taking it to a level that, frankly, we are no longer used to; that is probably fair to say. I cannot comment on where we were during the Cold War, but certainly what we are looking for is to be much more ambitious than we were five or 10 years ago. I certainly see that as my role. As I said at the beginning, this is really important to me. My role is to make sure that we as the MoD are underlying the need and the impetus for this. I appreciate what you have said about the Cabinet Office, but I can see those wheels turning to grip this and take it to the next level. Obviously, we have been through a period of change, but, when we are having discussions about the threats, as we understand them, I feel reassured that we are going to get there.
Lord Spellar: You referenced what we did in the Cold War. The Foreign Office had the Information Research Department, set up by Ernest Bevin; that was controversial, maybe, but it was actually very effective. Denis Healey was one of the driving forces in that department. We had a centre of gravity in the system driving that on. I do not detect any of that now.
Ben Fender: Can I add a word on that? One of the big moves that the Foreign Office has made in the restructuring we are doing at the moment is to create a hybrid threats directorate because we recognise that this area needs significantly more resource. We are trying to bring together in one place what we know and are doing on these serious issues.
To your point about working cross-government, from where I sit, this is a very active and regular effort. Communications directors meet very regularly on this agenda. The deputy National Security Adviser convenes people to talk about hybrid threats on a very regular basis. It is an active co-ordination. Certainly, my department is investing very heavily in this. Indeed, it is probably the area where we are seeing one of the greatest amounts of increase in resource and focus here in London.
Q215 Baroness Paul of Shepherd’s Bush: Mine is a very simple question. I am very interested in this co-ordinated effort across government. Who is in charge? Which department is it? Which part is in charge of convening those meetings and making that happen? One of our concerns is that it is not very clear or transparent where the responsibility lies for things. You are having meetings, but whose meetings are they?
Louise Sandher-Jones: The Cabinet Office is responsible for driving it.
Q216 Lord Farmer: Thank you for coming here today, Minister. I want to touch on nuclear risks, on which this committee has not really touched. We were advised by the National Preparedness Commission that they are in the “catastrophic” category, but it emphasised a very low estimated likelihood: a nuclear accident or major overseas radiation release was estimated at less than 0.2% probability over five years. To my mind, that is probably how the public see it as well. What are the reasonable worst-case scenarios for civil and military nuclear risks? How are these perceived by the public, and how should we educate them about them?
Louise Sandher-Jones: Sorry, what are the other risks?
Lord Farmer: Nuclear leaks from a power plant or Mr Putin getting old and angry.
Louise Sandher-Jones: There is a whole range of risks to do with military, civil and nuclear, be that as a result of an accident or some sort of deliberate activity, that are kept under continual review. Certainly, when it comes to the safety and security of the nuclear capabilities for which we are responsible, a huge deal of effort goes into ensuring that they are as safe as possible and that every risk is mitigated.
Lord Farmer: How do you understand the public understanding? Do they have any perception of a nuclear risk?
Louise Sandher-Jones: That is an interesting one. I am afraid I do not have the answer to that. I cannot say anecdotally. I have been asked about it before, and I do not know if my perception of the risk reflects the average person on the street’s reflection of the risk.
Lord Farmer: To my mind, if there were a nuclear accident or a nuclear threat, it would induce panic, if there had not been preparedness. What preparedness are you presenting to the public? Maybe Mr Fender will have a response.
Ben Fender: I might point to a couple of examples from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, where we have had rhetorical threats from Putin about nuclear use and we have seen, even in the last few days, some concerns about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine. On the latter, there has obviously been a lot of planning across government as to what that would mean, and an effort, in our communication on it, to make sure that there is good information out there but also not undue concern about it.
On Putin’s nuclear rhetoric, we are keen to make sure that that is seen for what it is: an attempt at coercion more than actual threats of nuclear use. It is not the right thing for there to be excessive nuclear rhetoric between the nuclear powers about such scenarios. Again, we have tried to be sober in responding to it, while also pointing out what the agenda is: an attempt to scaremonger and coerce rather than, we believe, an actual intent to use nuclear weapons.
Q217 Lord Oates: My question is in two parts, but in the interest of time I will ask them both together, so you can pick who to answer which. First, can you tell us how the Government are addressing the international nature of the threat environment through multilateral co-operation, including with our European partners? Secondly, what risks do you see applying particularly to the overseas territories, and how could those risks affect or create wider risks for the UK?
Louise Sandher-Jones: I will briefly address that. The nature of many of the threats we face absolutely does not respect any borders. International co-operation is absolutely vital to face any number of the challenges and threats, be they military or not in nature. Working with partners and allies to understand the nature of those threats and then be able to co-operate in ways to mitigate, prevent or deal with occurrences is hugely important.
As you are aware, we have the “NATO first” policy in defence, which does not mean NATO only, it just means NATO first. We are continually looking at ways to deepen our partnerships with our partners in NATO, be that by working as part of NATO or with bilateral arrangements. For example, we have a strong agreement with Norway—Lunna House—on how we can work more closely together there, and there are things such as the JEF, which is a subset of now NATO countries. This is a huge priority for us. When you look at the risks that the MoD can identify, many of those will be dealt with satisfactorily only as part of a wider partnership. We saw in Ankara this year the commitment that was made to building a stronger Europe and a stronger NATO. I can point to whole other partnerships that we are trying to deepen, but I will not just to save time.
I will move quickly on to the overseas territories; I will let my colleagues talk in more depth on them. The risks they face can vary greatly from the rest of the UK. In some areas, they will perhaps face greater challenges from climate-based risks. For example, we obviously play a big role in hurricane season in the Caribbean. It is important to make sure that we have that risk understanding for each territory and are able to adjust what we need to have accordingly.
Robbie Bulloch: I am Director for Overseas Territories and Polar—and, as of today, also the ocean; it is quite a broad remit. I will come in support of that. I understand about the risks, but I want to put on the record that the relationship we have with the UK overseas territories is fantastic for the territories and for the UK. It gives us global reach and a strategic advantage. They are home to many of the world’s largest financial centres. Some 94% of the UK’s biodiversity is to be found across the overseas territories. That is why, on balance, managing those risks is well within the national interest.
As the Minister has said, because of the location of the territories—many are very remote—the climate risks are large. We work very closely with the overseas territories’ Governments in building that resilience ahead of and during hurricane season, in particular across the Caribbean and Bermuda, while also working with some even more remote territories such as Tristan da Cunha, Saint Helena and the Pitcairn Islands to help them respond to any climate emergencies. A very good example of that happened earlier this year. You probably all heard about the hantavirus that spread through five of the territories. The MoD played an absolutely critical role in delivering aid where it was needed to inhabitants of a very remote territory.
There are of course economic risks as well. I have mentioned that there are four territories that house significant financial centres. Making sure that there is resilience there, in terms of both normal economic resilience and cyber security, is an area where the UK can help play a convening role.
Then there is the defence and security relationship, whereby the UK is responsible for all the inhabited territories. We are responsible for taking a role there as well.
Lord Oates: Just very briefly, you specifically mentioned the financial centres as being a significant benefit, although you said there were some risks around that. What about the risks of those financial centres themselves being used by hostile actors and the reputational risks to the UK around the world?
Robbie Bulloch: Absolutely. Both of those are concerns. That is why we have been working very hard with the territories, including registers of beneficial ownership. We are making sure that there is transparency around who is investing and how they are investing. We also work with them to ensure that their domestic regimes are secure against cyber and other hostile actors.
Q218 Baroness Helic: My question relates to the UK Government’s approach to international frameworks that have been adopted, or are being adopted, by the UN and the EU. How do you assess them? Are there divergences or alignments with what they have produced? Is there anything that we can learn from them?
Louise Sandher-Jones: This comes back to my earlier point about how we absolutely recognise that these resilience challenges will take a lot of international co-operation, both within Europe and across the globe. We actively engage with partners, be it the UN, NATO or bilaterally, to share those lessons and adopt best practice. Certainly, a focal point of my international activity has been through the lens of resilience.
We work with NATO on civil preparedness, continuity of government and critical national infrastructure because we recognise the importance of that, how it underpins and how we will need to work together, particularly when that resilience might get tested. We are regularly reviewing lessons from exercises or contingencies we face here in the UK, and we also regularly reach out to international partners to make sure we have the right approach to our own resilience and are taking the best practice from around the globe.
The Chair: Lord Marland has one more question in this section before we move on to a different topic.
Lord Marland: I want to go back to overseas territories. I declare an interest as chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, and I travel quite extensively among some OTs. You are painting an over-rosy picture. There are tensions. There is a view among many of the OTs that, if there were a violent issue or an immigration issue, the UK would be very slow in responding to that in terms of its Armed Forces capability. There is a PMQ in a minute on the Falkland Islands, which would be a case in point of how you would respond to that. If you read some parts of the media, they say we do not have a chance and we do not have the capability, but if you read others, they say that we have. I would just like to push you further on that, in particular in relation to immigration issues. Haitian immigration is moving into some Caribbean dependencies.
Robbie Bulloch: Yes, certainly, Lord Marland. Just to be clear, immigration is devolved to the territories. Although the UK has an interest and a responsibility in terms of overall security, immigration itself tends to be run by the overseas territories’ Governments themselves. You mentioned—
Lord Marland: Sorry, my point was that the Cayman Islands, for example, has a potential very big onslaught of illegal immigrants coming to the country. It does not have the defence mechanism for it and would rely on the UK. The UK did not respond very positively to the last incident that it had.
Robbie Bulloch: You mentioned the Cayman Islands specifically. I can tell you that we are working closely with the Cayman Government through our governors. Each of the territories has a governor who is answerable to the OT Government but also to the King. We run a large security programme from my directorate in the Foreign Office that helps to support all of these kinds of things. Our Minister for the Overseas Territories, Uma Kumaran, is in the Turks and Caicos Islands today. One of the things that she has been talking about is the threat of illegal migration from Haiti.
I am not trying to underestimate the scale of the challenge or how easy it would be for us to step in to help to respond, but this is a partnership. We work in terms of both upskilling the OT ability to respond itself and coming in to support if there should be a catastrophic failure.
The Chair: Before Lord Peach comes in with the next question, I must point out that we are just past the session’s halfway mark, but we are not yet halfway through all our questions. Could everybody try to be brief and concise?
Q219 Lord Peach: Thank you for coming, Minister, and the rest of the team. My question is really about NATO and how we are going to meet the trajectory we have agreed at various summits, not least recently in Ankara, specifically—noting the nature of this committee—the 1.5% additional to defence spending on security and resilience. I declare my interest as president the Council of Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations.
Louise Sandher-Jones: You will be very well aware of the commitments we have made to meet our NATO commitments to reach 5%, of which 3.5% will be on core defence spend and 1.5% on related expenditure. I hope you forgive me for saying that the path to that will be set out at the next spending review, which will include the date by which we would reach 3% on core defence and will set out getting to the overall target in due course.
Lord Peach: Is there anything on reserves, specifically?
Louise Sandher-Jones: Sorry, what was that?
Lord Peach: Is there anything on reserves?
Louise Sandher-Jones: Anything specific about—
Lord Peach: Are you setting out a plan for the UK to build its reserve base?
Louise Sandher-Jones: Yes. There are two lines of effort there. First, within the resources we have, we are looking to expand the volunteer reserves. Secondly, and most crucially, there is the role of the strategic reserve. Again, this is a part of the reserves that has been certainly a lot less used in my lifetime. I should declare that I am a member of the strategic reserve myself. When I left the Army and found out I was in the strategic reserve, I just filed it away and never thought about it again.
We are definitely no longer in that space. The strategic reserve is a real commitment for those who are in it. They will be exercised as part of our exercise programme next year, where we will go through measures to call out, to use, to equip and to do all the rest of the procedures we would have to go through to be able to use the strategic reserve properly. As I am sure you are very well aware, you will have seen some changes coming through in legislation around the strategic reserve. Certainly, we need to be looking at that as a real step change with the strategic reserve from what we were doing 10 years ago.
Lord Peach: Of course, under NATO Article 3, NATO sets out the resilience requirements. We have covered that with a number of other witnesses over the course of our work. Specifically, do you think civil preparedness and resilience get enough clarity? For example, we have recently visited Finland, and we spent a lot of time with the Scandinavian ambassadors. Finland has just finished the biggest civil defence exercise anyone has ever held since the end of the Cold War. Through our work we are noticing a thirst for some form of structure for civil defence. I am not suggesting it has a form and shape yet, but civil defence is not going to go away as a thought. How we structure ourselves for it is a question.
Louise Sandher-Jones: Yes, and that is an excellent point to raise. Finland is definitely showing the way ahead on a whole number of different things to do with resilience. The point you have raised is definitely pertinent.
The Chair: We have heard evidence that suggests that the Government should publish their performance on complying with NATO’s seven baseline commitments on civilian resilience and incorporate any identified shortcomings into the national resilience assessment. What is your response to publishing performance in compliance?
Louise Sandher-Jones: Damian, what do we publish already?
Damian Johnson: We publish a general update on our capabilities that we are planning to build in response to the national risk register. It would be a choice for the Government about how much we reveal. With a transparency agenda, clearly we want to be as transparent as possible, without undermining and exposing some vulnerabilities that the Government would not want to give to their adversaries. There is always a balance to be struck.
Louise Sandher-Jones: Yes. We are meeting that target as set out by NATO. The thing that is just making me pause for thought is the balance between transparency and then revealing more that would be helpful to our adversaries.
Q220 Baroness Paul of Shepherd’s Bush: I hope this is a straightforward question. Like my colleagues, I am delighted that you are here. When will the defence readiness Bill be laid before Parliament, and how will it define the role of key actors, including industry, operators of critical national infrastructure and local government? Just to repeat that little phrase that is running through quite a lot of what we are saying, how will it set out responsibility and leadership?
Louise Sandher-Jones: The defence readiness Bill was a really key recommendation in the SDR, I could not agree more. We are committed to delivering this legislation within this Parliament. As you know, we have to bring forward legislation in line with the legislative process when parliamentary time allows, but I will underline how important I see this legislation.
We have obviously already begun work on it. We are looking at measures about improving our ability to defend against sub-threshold threats, as you would expect. We are looking at improving resilience both within government and across industry, how we can ensure protection of our critical national infrastructure, and indeed—to come back to the point—how we can improve our mobilisation of the strategic reserve. We are obviously working across government on this. As you will appreciate, a lot of this is much wider than the MoD. Of course, we will consult with key stakeholders outside Government as well.
Baroness Paul of Shepherd’s Bush: You say within this Parliament; do you have any thoughts about within a year or later? No?
Louise Sandher-Jones: I am afraid it is just because of the process. Sorry; that is not in my control.
The Chair: It is one of those “in due courses”.
Baroness Paul of Shepherd’s Bush: “In the spring”.
The Chair: We will not go any further on that. Would you at least agree that, when we see a defence readiness Bill, it should be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny?
Louise Sandher-Jones: Yes, that is a pretty standard—
The Chair: It does not always happen.
Louise Sandher-Jones: No. I do not want to make a commitment on behalf of my colleague, but I am sure it will go through all the usual processes, yes.
Q221 Baroness Northover: We touched on this a little at the very beginning. How will the Government ensure that there is clear responsibility across different departments for delivering home defence, including in the event of conflict? How do you ensure that you have the leadership there? How do you make sure that all this is joined up? Again, we have just come back from Finland, and it is very striking that every ministry has somebody who has responsibility for security. All these people are then joined up in a committee that involves others, as well. You can see the co-ordination; you can see every ministry having to think about this, but you also have to make sure that you have the appropriate leadership in place in terms of who takes the key responsibility in certain areas. I wondered if you might be able to address that.
Louise Sandher-Jones: Yes, we obviously have the Cabinet Office playing its part, as I am sure we have spoken about before. It has the home defence programme, which is designed to do just that: identify and progress these measures across government and across all departments, because it really includes every department. Indeed, we are accelerating the updating of the War Books, which are the crisis plans that we will exercise next year as part of Operation Albiston Shadow. Again, there is the national conversation awareness plan, which should be coming later this year. There are some really big muscle moves that show that, across government, we are starting on that journey to get to that level of co-ordination that we would expect to see with the level of the risks we face.
Baroness Northover: There is also the point about clear leadership in distinct areas, so you know who is going to be responsible for what.
Louise Sandher-Jones: Yes, and that is a really interesting point, certainly one that I am going to be taking back. From my perspective, we have a clear lead in the MoD, in me. I know that each department will certainly be thinking about this. Based on the representatives at the meetings I have been at so far, being able to take us to the next level is positive.
The Chair: One of the submissions of written evidence we received pointed out that what is called the Civilian Stabilisation Group, including the deployable civilian experts’ network, falls within the remit of the FCDO. I had never have heard of either of these before. I would really like you to tell me more about them—whether they still exist, how they are kept up to date, and how civilian experts would be deployed in an emergency.
Ben Fender: I might have to come back to you on that, as it is not my directorate. I can tell you how it used to work, and it may still work this way. When we had the cross-government stabilisation unit, there was indeed a register of experts in certain areas, and they could be deployed forward to deal with various crises. For example—
The Chair: You are talking in the past tense.
Ben Fender: Indeed. That is what I need to check. I think it still exists, but I would need to check that.
The Chair: We would welcome some supplementary evidence in writing on that, please. That would be very helpful, because it sounds as if it is something useful.
Ben Fender: Yes, and there are a variety of initiatives in this area, specifically to deal with resilience challenges. For example, NATO—as Lord Peach knows well—has its counter-hybrid support teams. In terms of the work that goes on across government on defending democracy, we have had experts go forward to other countries. It is very much a live thought, but I would need to get back to you on exactly whether that register still exists in the same way.
The Chair: That would be very helpful. Thank you.
Q222 Baroness Hunter of Auchenreoch: Thank you all very much for coming. We have been told by the Cabinet Office and others about the military gap year scheme. It is going to be devised and facilitated between the MoD and DWP, and it is just going to give young people a taste of military life. I instinctively think this is a brilliant idea, so I would just appreciate—we all would—a bit more information about it, its progress and where we are with it.
Louise Sandher-Jones: This is still in its first year of running. In essence, it is roughly a one-year commitment for a young person to make into the Army, the RAF or the Navy. What they do is very dependent on different services, where they will do some training and then hopefully get some good experiences in the wider military. They will in effect be just like any other recruit or person in their first year of service; at the end of that first year, they can then decide if they would like to stay, transition to the reserves, leave altogether—they have that right—or move into one of the other services, depending on what they would like to do.
This is in its very first phase. It is certainly being taken forward as we learn lessons from each phase about what works best and how we can make sure it is a meaningful experience, while people are also conducting activity in line with what they have been trained to do, as I am sure you will appreciate. We have other measures as well, such as a partnership with the DWP to help young people in search of careers fully understand what a military career might offer to them. Of course, we have the cadets work that we have also briefly spoken about.
The Chair: Brigadier, did you have anything to add to this particular question?
Brigadier Ben Halsted: I am the head of counter-adversary strategy and home defence at MoD. I have nothing to add other than the fact that I did a military gap year under the old short-service limited commission scheme some time ago before joining; I am not involved in the work around this one. My own experience was in the Army and seeing warts and all what service life was like and what challenges were there for you. It was part of the reason that I joined. I was not put on this panel to give you a puff piece: provided we are showing honestly what people would experience, it gives you some exposure, which is what I had, and I wanted to get a bit more of that. The scheme then was such that, even if you do not want to come back, you leave with a better appreciation of what those people do, which is also a positive.
Lord Peach: I would like to make a brief comment. I promise to be brief. Do you think that, as we learn the lessons quickly, we could scale it up quickly? It might meet what, for example, the NEET programme is thinking about. If it proves to be very successful, it might be something we can move faster and quicker.
Louise Sandher-Jones: Yes, for sure, within the bounds of practicality about training estate et cetera. It is also important to note that most roles in the military have a relatively short minimum commitment anyway—three years or whatever. We should also be making more of that: the length of a university degree is not a huge commitment to sign up to. Certainly, the military has a role to play in combating NEETs, as you say. Cadets are a hugely powerful tool in doing that. Expanding cadets in schools would have a measurable impact on the stats, for sure.
Lord Oates: Since the end of conscription in France, I understand it has a National Defence Day every year in which there is a touchpoint with all 18 year-olds, so that they can explain the opportunities, what the armed forces are doing and what opportunities there are in them. There is obviously a good advertising campaign going on at the moment, but often people are not necessarily aware of these opportunities. Have you looked at the French scheme and considered whether it might be relevant?
Louise Sandher-Jones: Do you mean the day?
Lord Oates: Yes.
Louise Sandher-Jones: We have looked not at that specifically but at certain similar measures. Obviously, we have Armed Forces Week, and perhaps we could do more around that, for example. We have National Cadets Week coming up, which is not about joining the Armed Forces but none the less raises the profile of the wider military family, and the conversations we should be having with young people and school leavers. Up until now we have focused on going through the DWP or traditional recruitment, but we are constantly asking ourselves how we can improve the offer. I had a great time in the military, and the opportunities it gives are fantastic, particularly to people who may not have many opportunities where they are. The more we can do to highlight that would be only positive.
Q223 Baroness Mobarik: Good to see you. Thank you for coming. My question is probably for the Minister and perhaps the brigadier. Should the Government invest in sovereign launch capability to ensure assured access to space and resilient satellite communications for defence, and reduce our strategic dependence on US launch infrastructure when circumstances require it?
Louise Sandher-Jones: Yes. Space is becoming an ever more important part, and the SDR recognised that. Assured-launch access to space is obviously a really important part of that. That is why we are carrying on our support—as I am sure you are well aware—for the development of SaxaVord in Shetland, which I hope will have its first launch soon. Having assured launch really underpins wider UK security, but we will continue to assess the risks, threats and vulnerabilities to make sure that we are using the most effective service to give value for money and the resilience that that service will need. Of course, we would consider UK-based launches as part of that.
Baroness Mobarik: Can I just ask whether there is an argument that says that you have to build in redundancy? At the moment, all our focus is on one spaceport, when we should be looking at multiple spaceports to really be effective.
Louise Sandher-Jones: This comes back to assessing risk versus reward, just to make sure that we are making effective use of our resources. Space is a very expensive endeavour, as I am sure you will appreciate. As always, we need to be looking at what redundancy that is and, again, not necessarily just through the lens of a UK-assured launch but through Europe, NATO and wider than that. I take your point.
Q224 Lord Farmer: I am turning this on its head a little. In fact, it applies in all areas. We seem to look at things from the defence point of view. In other words, we have nasty characters planning to do nasty things to us, so what are we going to do to defend ourselves? One hears very little about our attack capabilities. In fact, you read in the media that our Army is not up to it, our jets are not up to it and, in fact, we are not able to retaliate. Coming to satellites, if our satellites were attacked by—I am not quite sure what you attack them with—lasers or something like that, do we have the capability to do the opposite to the enemy?
Louise Sandher-Jones: We are continually assessing threats and what is needed to counter them. I would hate to go into detail that is not appropriate for this forum.
Lord Farmer: It would be quite good to hear if you are confident about our response capability.
Louise Sandher-Jones: I am always confident.
Lord Farmer: One should not always be confident if it is not reasonable. I am just asking because the media seem to present a picture that we are not confident in retaliating.
Louise Sandher-Jones: In the SDR we recognise the importance of space and the capabilities to have. There was a significant sum therefore put against it in the DIP, and that shows our commitment to it.
The Chair: Is there anything we have not asked you that you think we should have that you would like to tell us? No? In that case, miraculously, we have reached the end of our questions and we can let you go. Thank you very much indeed; you have been very helpful.
