Select committee: Defence Committee
Conclusion 57
First Report - Ready for War?
Published 4 Feb 2024
Addressed to Ministry of Defence
Defence Committee Armed Forces Readiness All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Both Generals Lord Houghton and Sir Nick Carter questioned the RAF’s ability to engage in peer-to-peer warfighting. General Lord Houghton suggested that the RAF had “good kit” in relation to its platforms and weapons but not enough of them—and a pilot shortage problem.110 He went to note that the RAF was rarely asked to carry out a short notice operation (other than QRA111) on its own, meaning that whilst it worked well in alliances on standing tasks, it would face difficulties in a warfighting situation because the 102 Q311 103 Q315 104 Q320 105 Q322–3 106 Q325; 336–7 107 Oral evidence taken before the Public Accounts Committee on 22 January 2024, HC (2023–24) 451, Q48–50 108 HC Deb, 20 November 2023, col. 3 109 HC Deb, 24 Jan 2024, Col.400; Col. 401 110 Q100; Q143 111 Quick Reaction Alert—the rapid deployment of RAF Typhoons against aircraft threats. Ready for War? 25 RAF “can force packet—that is run from CAOC112—in a way that is impressive, but [is] far more ugly with ground combat”.113 Professor Justin Bronk was in agreement with this assessment, telling us that: The big thing on munitions is also that they are not the right kind of munitions. We have a reasonable number of munitions for permissive or semi-permissive environments—for, essentially, very precisely blowing up technicals, killing snipers on rooftops and things. … [On fighting the Russians] we would have to beat them on the ground, but, ultimately, our armies will never be resourced or the size required to beat them land for land. Our strategy is predicated, as is the entire western military instrument, on air superiority. Put bluntly, we have a Russia problem if we cannot establish air superiority over where we have to fight.114
From: Defence Committee, First Report - Ready for War? (HC 26), 4 February 2024
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 25 April 2024 (deadline 4 April 2024).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees there is no regular mechanism to scrutinise readiness and offers an annual open session, releases some Defence Planning Assumptions headlines, and sets out its position on stockpiles, recruitment and procurement.
- On transparency, the government "recognises that the Committee should have public access to more information on planning assumptions and readiness" and releases headlines from the 2023 assumptions, committing to release "as much as possible" of the next iteration "when national and NATO planning processes have matured".
- It agrees the response time for the inquiry was slow and "will make every effort to ensure this is not repeated".
- On the £1.95bn from the Spring Budget 2023, it states the money "will be spent in full on measures to address gaps in our capabilities". It says exact stockpile holdings are "not releasable on the grounds of national security".
- On recruitment and retention, it says a formal response to each Haythornthwaite Review recommendation "will be published during 2024", with next steps for delivery and implementation for each.