Revised transcript of evidence taken before

The Select Committee on the European Union

Foreign Affairs, Defence and Development Policy (Sub-Committee C)

Inquiry on

BRITISH-FRENCH DEFENCE RELATIONS

Evidence Session No.1. Heard in Public. Questions 1 - 31

THURSDAY 3 FEBRUARY 2011

10.10 am

Witnesses: The Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP, Lt General Simon Mayall and Mr Jon Day

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Members present

Lord Teverson (Chairman) Lord Inge Lord Jay of Ewelme Lord Jones Lord Lamont of Lerwick Lord Lee of Trafford Lord Radice Lord Roper Lord Selkirk of Douglas Lord Sewel Lord Williams of Elvel ________________

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: The Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP, [Secretary of State for Defence, Ministry of

Defence], Lt General Simon Mayall, [Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Operations)],

and Mr Jon Day, [Second Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence].

Q1 The Chairman: Secretary of State, can I welcome you very much to what obviously

must be your first appearance in front of this Sub-Committee. Perhaps I could just go

through some of the house rules to make it clear that this is a public meeting and is in fact

being televised. We will be taking a transcript of the meeting and you will be given a copy of

that to correct any errors that you see in it.

We have one or two Members from the House of Lords here today, and we also have Lord

Roper, who is the Chairman of the House’s EU Committee, of which we are a Sub-

Committee. As you know, we are very specifically looking at the UK-France Defence

Treaties today. The reason this Committee is involved in that subject is because of the

political dimension, and Lord Sewel and I—with James Arbuthnot and the Vice-Chair of the

Commons Defence Committee—have an involvement with the French Parliamentarians. So

we have this specific remit within this Committee as well.

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You are very welcome to make a short introductory statement if you would like to. I would

also be very keen for your colleagues to introduce themselves as well as we start, and then

we will move into questions.

Dr Liam Fox: Thank you. We will break the ice by doing the introductions.

Jon Day: Jon Day. I am currently the Second Permanent Secretary in the MoD, but I am

here because until the New Year I was the Director-General for Security Policy, and I was

involved in setting up the arrangement last year.

Lt General Simon Mayall: Lieutenant General Simon Mayall. I am the Deputy Chief of

Defence Staff, Operations. I am responsible for the policy on operations. So a background

clearly of interoperability with the French, anyway, as regards Afghanistan, but under the

Anglo-French Agreement I am the senior responsible officer reporting to the Secretary of

State for taking forward the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force concept.

Dr Liam Fox: As the briefest of introductions, can I just say—as a background to this

particular co-operation agreement—that this was not something that happened suddenly

when the new Government came to office. This was something that, in opposition, the

Conservative Party had worked at hard with the French for about two years. We took the

view that the Sarkozy Government represented a dramatic and genuine shift in French

policy, that it was a genuine reorientation towards NATO and a genuine commitment to

NATO. Therefore, we took the view that we should work with that as much as we could

because we believe that to be in NATO interests, UK interests and French interests, and we

were keen not to let the moment pass. The Treaty itself had quite a lot of work that had

been done in advance. I think if you look at the hard facts, that the UK and France constitute

more than 50% of continental European defence spending and about 65% of continental

defence research spending, there could not be a more natural relationship inside NATO.

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The Government has also been very keen to develop a multilayered approach to security.

Some things we will have to do on a unilateral basis; some will be bilateral; some will be in

small groups. For example, the Northern Group that the British Government helped to set

up dealing with our Nordic and Baltic partners on security; the strong relationship with the

United States, the strong relationship with France, we believe underpin and strengthen the

multilateral organisations and provide us, as a country, with more levers in a world that will

have a wider range of security challenges.

Q2 The Chairman: Good, that is very useful. I think, to many people, it did seem quite

sudden and that is very useful to have that background, Secretary of State.

I suspect what we are trying to get at most is where this is going and how we understand its

progress as time goes on. We are aware that three weeks ago there was a meeting with the

French Defence Minister, Mr Alain Juppé. We would like to understand what your priorities

are for further developing the British-French defence co-operation and what your

benchmarks are for success. I think we are particularly interested in that. Are you confident

that both sides can sustain their commitment to co-operation on defence over the long

term? Defence is quite a difficult and technical area. As I know you have often said

yourself—in terms of procurement or other areas—it is one of the more difficult areas.

How is that going to be sustained over the longer period?

Dr Liam Fox: If I could maybe first give the Committee some idea of the feel and the

chemistry of that particular meeting. Of course I had met Mr Juppé before, but this was the

first opportunity in Paris we had had time to spend any real period together. It might best be

summed up in the phrase that he jokingly used towards the end of the meeting, when he

said, “Well, try as I might, I can’t really find any difference of opinion to have with you

whatsoever”.

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First of all, I think it is very important to emphasise the importance we attach to the

seniority of Alain Juppé in that particular post, because it emphasises and reinforces the

importance that President Sarkozy gives to that department. Also, the personal chemistry

between Mr Juppé and myself is very good and I do not think that we should ever

underestimate the importance of personal chemistry in these relations. I think, in

international relations, getting those particular personal relationships right is very important.

So it was a very warm, very cordial meeting.

We covered a pretty wide range of issues and we discussed NATO reform, Afghanistan,

coming out of the Lisbon Summit; we discussed Russia, Iran and Pakistan. It is a fairly wide

range of issues where we are in a very strong position of agreement. There is only one issue

where we are not, and that is Turkey. That is an issue that we park because we have well

rehearsed arguments on both sides. But the bilateral defence co-operation is of huge

importance to us both. We are trying to achieve better interoperability; because, if we are

going to be jointly deployed, if we are going to work together to deal with international

security challenges, interoperability is key. A lot of what we will be doing is around that area:

maximising our capabilities, recognising that none of us can do everything, so trying to utilise

our relative capabilities in a way that maximises and is synergistic to our aims; also to

maximise our efficiencies to get economy of scale where we can to ensure that we are not

spending money reinventing the wheel at enormous cost to our taxpayers and diminishing

our overall efficiency.

I would sum it up as being pragmatic but basically common sense. In the world in which we

live, two large powers next door to one another can have a synergistic effect, especially

when there is such an overlap in terms of policy analysis. So those areas: interoperability,

capabilities and efficiency, are the benchmarks that we are setting for ourselves. It might also

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be helpful at the outset if we set out what our actual involvement is likely to be over the

coming months to give the Committee some concept of where that is going. Jon?

Jon Day: Yes. This is a relationship that has set off at a considerable pace. The joint nuclear

project, which we might come back to later, is already under way. The earth has been cut.

You have heard the Secretary of State visited in January.

The Chairman: Sorry, I am finding it slightly difficult to hear.

Jon Day: Sorry. The Chief of the Defence Staff and the National Security Adviser, Peter

Ricketts, are in Paris today where they will be signing the 2011 common objectives; in other

words, the road map for the next year. The Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff is there next

week, followed by General Simon Mayall who will be visiting in mid-February to start

operationalising the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force concept. In March there is a High-

Level Working Group meeting that brings together all of the equipment co-operation. Then

over the course of the year there are two planned major exercises: SOUTHERN MISTRAL

in March, which is between the air forces and is a long-range deep strike exercise. Then, in

June/July, Exercise FLANDRES 11, which is an army exercise that brings together a British

and a French brigade headquarters under a French divisional headquarters for a major

exercise. We are looking at a major maritime exercise for the autumn. So this is moving at

pace and is real, not just rhetoric.

Q3 The Chairman: On the issue of the road map, will there be a publicly available

version of that so that we can see how progress is moving?

Jon Day: I am not sure that we have given any thought to publication, but we will go back

and look at that and make sure that there is nothing that would be difficult. But in principle I

see no reason why we should not.

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Dr Liam Fox: I am instinctively welcoming to that. Undoubtedly there is some scepticism

about this relationship, so the more that we are able to be explicit about the mechanics to

show the pace at which it is operating I think the better. Transparency must be a good thing

in this particular case.

Q4 The Chairman: Indeed. On interoperability—we will come on to the more technical

side—I remember that Lord Sewel and I had preliminary meetings I think with members of

your own staff in the Ministry. Those were excellent briefings. We asked why

interoperability was not better already, given the NATO context. One of the statements

that struck me very strongly then was that the only area where there had been real

interoperability was fuel. That is as far as it had got and beyond that everything got terribly

difficult. I don’t know whether you have a comment about that or the ability to get to that?

Dr Liam Fox: There are specific areas that we are looking at, like complex weapons,

submarine systems; areas where we do require considerable investment. As I said earlier,

there is little point in us both reinventing the wheel so to be working together to develop

systems that give us natural interoperability is important.

Then, of course, I am going to ask General Mayall to say something about how we are

working in terms of doctrine; another very important element of how we operate together.

It is probably worth me commenting that this interoperability, however, is not an invasion of

sovereignty because it enables us to be able to operate together more smoothly where we

choose to do so. It is not a locking device and I think sometimes the arguments are

misunderstood. To be very clear, this is about two sovereign nations trying to develop

common systems so that, should we choose to act together, the barriers are removed.

The Chairman: I think Lord Lamont will come on to that in just a second.

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Jon Day: Just to say, I am a longstanding NATO force planner in previous lives. What we

have inherited is the consequence of France being outside of the NATO military structure

for 40 years. What we are now seeing is the benefits of it being back inside the integrated

military structure and they are very keen to put themselves on to the same basis as all of the

other NATO allies.

Q5 The Chairman: I think that is an important point. Can I just ask one last thing myself

and then I will bring in Lord Radice. One of the areas that did come out—and perhaps with

your permission, Secretary of State, I could ask General Mayall this—is: are the basic

philosophies, or whatever the word is, of the two armed forces similar enough that,

however interoperable they are, the thinking or the way of working is compatible?

Lt General Simon Mayall: Your question is very well put. Under NATO, as Jon and the

Secretary of State said, France stood outside the military structure. We became quite used

to working with Germans, Italians, Dutch, Belgians and Americans. But even then, you will

recall, when we had a particular scenario for which we were planning we largely sliced up

the battlefield, because that is the reality. But the interesting thing was that the

communications, the chain of command, the whole set of standards—and Lord Inge will

remember this extremely well—allowed us that.

The reality is we have moved into more complex operations. So despite the fact that even in

the intervening period we work within NATO, and again with old NATO allies, the reality

was with the complexity of operations and the policy differences even then it meant

interoperability can only be taken so far, but there was familiarity. Now, the French have

come back quite late into this, at a time when arguably operations are even more complex.

So there are undoubtedly issues over doctrine; there are issues over information exchange;

issues over information management. Disregard the straight nuts and bolts of manoeuvring

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that we have to sort out, there is a very strong difference between ourselves and the French

over logistic doctrine, funnily enough, and that inevitably drives a lot about your concepts of

expeditionary operations and how you support them that we will have to manage through

this. Hence exercises, like SOUTHERN MISTRAL and FLANDRES 11, are very useful early

opportunities precisely to do sensible things—not defence diplomacy. That says we are the

most likely European allies to operate together. We have to have a really strong, hard gap

analysis look at this, because the next time we do this we may well be in combat alongside

each other and we owe it to our armed forces. But we are going to have to have very

honest recognition of where those gaps are. Then we will have to use this road map to fill in

those gaps so we are prepared when we come out of Afghanistan, because we are both

committed to this operation for the next few years, to be actually eyeballing each other to

say, “No, we can’t do this” and we have put in place the mitigation.1

Q6 Lord Radice: I am asking a question as a staunch supporter of this initiative. Secretary

of State, how will we be able to judge, after a year or so, whether progress has been made?

Given the fact this is not the first attempt at Franco-British co-operation over defence—the

last Government tried after the St Malo agreements, and so on—how will we be able to say

this one is working in a way that the other one perhaps did not work as well as we had

hoped?

Dr Liam Fox: As I said, I set out the benchmarks of interoperability: are we getting greater

efficiencies; are we getting greater overall capability, but are we continuing with the political

momentum? One of the reasons, Chairman, I think it is attractive to publish this road map

1 The Ministry of Defence have clarified this statement as “The UK and France are going to have to consider carefully those areas where we might not be able to operate alongside each other as effectively as might like. Once identified, we will then focus efforts on developing our level of competence in that area so we can successfully deploy together in the future – which we do not envisage doing until we have both met out operational commitments in Afghanistan.

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and to set out the future meetings is it does give us a reference point against which to

measure future levels of activity. I think that is a good way to do it.

The thing with this initiative is that we saw it as being not a big bang but an incremental

approach to seeing through the problems that General Mayall has identified, to see where

we have differences, over a period beginning to work them through so that we create a

genuinely concrete model. The worst thing would be to have a great blaze of, “This is the

great turning point yet again in Anglo-French defence co-operation”, but nothing to come

out of it. We have been very outcome-focused in this process. Obviously, we have the work

being undertaken between our military and our defence industry, as well as at the political

level.

So I think you will judge its success on whether we show the same level of commitment in

two years that we are showing at the outset of the process; whether we are seeing real

deliverables in terms of elements of joint procurement, on training, on exercising, and

whether it lasts. I would much rather be in a process that was incremental and long lived

than dramatic and all over before we can begin to count it.

Q7 Lord Inge: My question is to an extent in the weeds. First of all, I am delighted we are

going down this path. It will not surprise you to hear that, I think. But we have tried it before

and one of the stumbling points was not so much at the ministerial level, it was within the

French armed forces themselves. I would be interested to know what the reaction is to that.

Secondly, this is the question that is in the weeds: is the Legion part of it or not part of it?

Dr Liam Fox: I will ask General Mayall, but I think that there is an element, if I may say,

above that, and that is genuine political commitment. I go back to the point, if I may, that I

began with: I think that there is a genuine sea change under President Sarkozy in the

orientation for France.

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Q8 Lord Inge: It also goes all the way down.

Dr Liam Fox: But it needs to be led and it needs to be consistent over time. We were keen

to seize the moment where we thought there was a genuine political shift to do that. I fully

appreciate the points that change in behaviour takes much longer and there are long and

historical differences that we can work through, but General Mayall is the expert on that.

Lt General Simon Mayall: Oh, hardly that. I do not know the answer to the question

about the French Foreign Legion. I am assuming, given that that is their most expeditionary

capability, they would not have ring-fenced it. As the Secretary of State said, this is not about

pooling sovereignty this is about pooling capability rather than setting up some locked-in-

stone political construct. Everybody retains sovereignty.

On your wider point, I think there is a generational issue, as there always is within armies as

things change. At certain stages people very used to the old politics are slightly

uncomfortable because they know our commitment to NATO on this. We can see this is a

very useful building block within NATO, and coalitions are also bilateral. But I think the

younger element—and I say middle rank and below, who have seen the complexity of

operations, who have seen the disadvantages of standing outside the NATO military

structure, our relationship with the Americans and the complexity of the operations we

manage with the Americans—are quite keen on this. Certainly, my opposite number,

Admiral Bernard Rogel, who has been tasked with this, has seized the political momentum

the Secretary of State has talked about and I think connected it with the enthusiasm from

the middle-ranking element. As you know, in air and maritime this interoperability is more of

a given; it is the land environment that is the most complex for this.

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Q9 Lord Lamont of Lerwick: Like others, I am a very warm supporter of this initiative.

My question was about sovereignty, but I think perhaps the two of you have already

answered that question. The question was: how would deployment of combat forces

happen? Would there be any infringement of sovereignty? I think in a way you have

answered that; I think you were saying: it is only when both agree. Does that mean that this

would only be used outside the Common Security and Defence Policy and outside NATO?

Not at all, I gather from the shaking of the head. If it is when there is agreement, is that

going to be added value outside the context of NATO and the common security policy?

Dr Liam Fox: If we get better interoperability; if we get better alignment of doctrine; if we

get better alignment of logistics, and so on, that does bring a benefit should we choose to

operate as a Franco-British operation, or within NATO or within any other construct where

both countries are involved. I think we win whatever way you look at it.

Let me be very clear about the sovereignty. One of the reasons that we were very keen on

this model was that it allowed us complete sovereign control. This was about two major

European powers willing to act together when it is in our common benefit to do so, but

retaining the levers to act separately when our national interest required it. I think it is a

sensible way for us to proceed. It allows us the benefits of co-operation. It allows us the

benefits of potential interoperability economy of scale should we require to use that for

military purposes, but it also enables us to be able to act independently when we want to.

So, no loss of sovereignty whatsoever, which is why I was particularly keen on this model

because there is no supranational element of control over our military assets, which to me

would be unacceptable.

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Q10 Lord Sewel: Would it be fair to say, Secretary of State, that the important thing is

to maintain a distinction between interoperability and interdependence? Because if you move

to interdependence you have a big problem.

Dr Liam Fox: Indeed, and there is an element of being able to maximise our capabilities, as I

say. We do not have infinite finance so it makes sense to be able to maximise those

capabilities, but it is key. I stress again exactly that point, that we remain independent when

we choose to do so. It is possible to have an element of having your cake and eat it in this

business, and I think this arrangement is about as close as you can get to that.

The Chairman: Lord Inge.

Lord Inge: No, I have done mine.

The Chairman: You do not wish to press on the NATO side?

Q11 Lord Inge: I am sorry; I have partly had my answer. How do you think this will

strengthen—and I have got the message, strengthen—what I call threats to European

security, and what is the reaction within NATO itself to these potential changes?

Dr Liam Fox: Generally very positive, I think, especially from a US perspective. To have

France more focused on NATO, to have them back properly in the integrated structure and

to have a strong bilateral European element inside NATO I think is a strengthening all round.

There are some countries who have expressed the view that are you not bilateralising

security policy. I do not think that it is an all or nothing. I think that strengthening bilateral

relationships inside a multilateral organisation can be hugely beneficial. No one has ever

suggested that the very strong relationship between the United Kingdom and the United

States inside NATO weakens NATO, so why should that be true for an Anglo-French co-

operation? I think these are all elements of strengthening the wider fabric.

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I think that the overall view has been a very positive one. However, I think it would only be

fair to say that there is a certain amount of “wait and see”; let us see whether this does

represent a real change or whether it is what there has been too often in the past, which is a

false start. How we approach that is very important and it is very politically important, I

think, in France as well for the French Government, to be able to show that the renewed

engagement of France with NATO, with a more Atlanticist approach, has produced a

tangible benefit in the relationship with the United Kingdom. So, from the UK Government’s

perspective, I think we are also very keen to be able to show French opinion that there are

genuine and visibly demonstrable benefits of this initiative.

Q12 Lord Inge: When you were in that discussion did you cover things like key capability

gaps, whether they were operational or actual military capabilities where there were gaps, to

make this relationship a really good and strong one?

Dr Liam Fox: These are elements that we are looking at in the road map—as Jon Day was

describing—to make sure that we are having all the engagements at the political level, at the

military level and the industrial level to identify exactly these areas. Because there are some

that do need to be worked through and we are aware of them. We are not going to do

them overnight. Simon, do you want to—

Lt General Simon Mayall: As we said originally with our French opposite numbers, this is

not about defence diplomacy. The one other thing about interoperability with the French is

they are another nation that is prepared to pull the trigger, as are the Americans, which is

why we do have an ethos of combat that still underpins our capacity to be serious players in

the expedition. But when you talk about interdependency there are issues we are also aware

of. Funnily enough, the synergy actually allows us to operate at a higher level. The capacity of

the British armed forces to deploy a full division nowadays is going to be under strain

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because of resources, and so on, and the range of enablers you wish to have. Our

connection with the Americans allows us to play on a higher level. Our connection

technically with the French may also allow us to put a larger joint contribution into a force.

Things like airlift, sealift, unmanned aerial vehicles; there is a range of joint enablers

absolutely critical to the capacity to conduct these very complex operations nowadays that

each individual nation can only afford so many of them. So there are areas not so much being

interdependent but just saying, “If we pool them”; it does not stop us operating

independently at this level but by pooling them we can jointly operate at a much higher level.

I think there are some real advantages there.

Q13 The Chairman: That is the NATO side. On the side of the EU Common Security

and Defence Policy, do you think there is a risk or maybe a hope that this might undermine

that moving forward, or do you see this as complementary to the efforts to bring together a

common European security and defence force?

Dr Liam Fox: I think, however you define it, greater Anglo-French co-operation on defence

cannot weaken European security and there has been far too much obsession with what you

call it rather than what it is.

Jon Day: One of the big developments is that, in the past, we and other bigger allies have

encouraged the smaller nations to do this. We said to the Belgians and the Dutch, “You

need to co-operate more together”. This is symbolically important because it is two big

nations doing it. It has also been picked up as a model by some of our friends outside

NATO; the Australians, for example. So I think there is a great deal of interest in this

because it is two big countries that are serious about defence.

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Q14 The Chairman: I suppose one of the comments that one might make to that as well

though, is: does it give the other European nations—between the other 25, say, members of

the European Union that do the other 50% only of the budget—more of an excuse to opt

out of even more of their responsibilities? Is there that political risk?

Dr Liam Fox: I would hope it sets them a good example: that you can get into this level of

co-operation if you are willing to deploy and you are willing to fund. Other countries have

said, “Would we be able to have a similar relationship?” Our view has been very

straightforward as a Government: Britain and France are the two biggest budgets. We have

shown a willingness to deploy in a range of situations. That is the example that we want to

be followed. Countries that are unwilling to deploy, that do fund or are unwilling to fund,

cannot expect to be in the same level of relationship.

The Chairman: Perhaps there is a risk of a free ride. I do not know at all, but we will

move on.

Q15 Lord Jay of Ewelme: Like others, I strongly support this initiative. Firstly, I think it

is good for Britain and France, good for NATO and good for European co-operation. Having

been with the previous Prime Minister at St Malo and seen that not having quite come to all

we hoped it would, I think it is excellent to hear what you have said, Secretary of State.

I just wanted to ask a slightly more specific question, if I could, about aircraft carriers. I

noticed that Alain Juppé offered to train British crews on board aircraft carriers, I think, to

lay the foundation for future co-operation in this area. That is good, but I wondered if you

could say a little bit about the future co-operation in the area; in particular—you say quite a

lot about interoperability—whether there is a real chance of our aircraft carriers being

interoperable with French planes landing on ours and our planes landing on theirs. Because if

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there is not, or if there is difficulty about that, then the chance of genuine co-operation

between us and aircraft carriers seems to be significantly reduced.

Dr Liam Fox: Had we simply continued with the plans we inherited, the level of

interoperability that there would have been would have been virtually nil, because the

French planes required a catapult and arrestor system. That was not in the design for the

carriers. One of the more obvious absurdities that I thought that we inherited, in terms of

defence policy, was that we were going to spend a vast amount of money building aircraft

carriers that neither the American navy nor the French navy would be able to land on, which

did not seem to be a very sensible proposal from the point of view of interoperability. The

change and the technical changes that we have introduced will allow that to be much greater

over time, and that was one of the driving forces behind the decision that we took.

Obviously, that will take time as we fit our carriers with those systems. There will be a gap,

in terms of UK carrier strike, which has been well discussed. If we are able to continue

training—with both the American navy, which has already made a similar offer, and the

French, so that we do not have a gap in skills—that would be very welcome.

Then later on when we have our new carriers there is the element of how we operate

together. For example, it would make a great deal of sense to co-ordinate when our carriers

are in refit so that we always have a European NATO carrier available. Again, that strikes me

as being no more than common sense and it is something that we will want to build into our

thinking. So I think both the training side and ensuring that we retain a NATO carrier

capability adds to what NATO gets out of the relationship.

Lt General Simon Mayall: One should not underestimate that there are some genuine

military issues with this proposal: it is one thing to bring a US navy Joint Strike Fighter on to

a British carrier because in terms of support, actually physically landing, that Rafael will be

able to land and take off, but if you are doing carrier operations just so that—

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Q16 Lord Jay of Ewelme: On ours?

Lt General Simon Mayall: On ours. The whole support element on a British carrier on a

routine operation will be configured to support the Joint Strike Fighter, all your spares, et

cetera, and your mechanics. So the landing and taking off is not the issue but true

interoperability is havingthe capacity to bring on board the spare support for Rafael if we are

operating together. That is what I am saying.

Q17 Lord Jay of Ewelme: Therefore, are you saying it is more an operational question

than a design question? The design will permit each other’s planes to land on each other’s

aircraft carriers, but there are genuine problems, operational problems?

Lt General Simon Mayall: It is not a problem, it is just an issue. It is a bit like bringing a

French tank regiment into a British brigade: you just have to bring all the spares support and

engineering support across. That is all. It is a straight military thing. The concept is fine. Just

as I say, it is more than simply landing and taking off, that is all, if you want proper military

capability.

Jon Day: It is back to the issue of interoperability and the doctrines that we were talking

about earlier.

Q18 Lord Jay of Ewelme: When I was jetted on to the Charles de Gaulle in the

Mediterranean, when I was Ambassador in Paris, they made a point of having an American

plane coming and landing shortly after I got on, in order to—

Lt General Simon Mayall: As I say, that is part of it, sustained operations requires genuine

military capability, which is very firmly in the logistic support area.

Dr Liam Fox: It is greater interoperability but we are not compromising our independence.

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Lord Jay of Ewelme: I completely agree and I agree with the point that Lord Sewel said

about the importance of the difference between interoperability and interdependence.

The Chairman: Perhaps we could move the subject on to theatres further away.

Q19 Lord Selkirk of Douglas: Like Lord Jay, I strongly support this initiative. But I

would like to ask the Secretary of State, if I may, whether he believes that this co-operation

between Britain and France will lead to increased co-operation and effectiveness of military

operations in Afghanistan. As a subsidiary question, may I put to him that the suggestion has

been made that, on the subject of helicopters, co-operation has not been delivered to its full

potential? Can we anticipate increased co-operation on that particular subject?

Dr Liam Fox: I think this is an excellent point of specifics with which to explain and illustrate

the generic, that the helicopter initiative was launched by the previous British Government.

It needed around €60 million to deliver 10 helicopters to Afghanistan. It has only generated

€28 million and delivered three helicopters. Within that, the UK has provided €8.6 million;

France is the second largest contributor at €5 million. Some of Europe’s richest nations have

failed to deliver in this project, in particular Germany and Italy, and most of the other

contributions have come from non-EU or CSDP countries: Norway, Denmark and Japan.

Again, I think it illustrates that it is the same countries who are doing the deployment and

doing the funding, and the same countries who are missing from the equation. If we are

attempting any relationship and we do not make either the funding or the equipment or the

manpower available, it will fail.

I think, on the generic point here, this is about the two countries genuinely using what we

have in a way that is, I hope, synergistic. It is not about double-hatting. The whole problem

with some of this interface and some of these initiatives that we have seen—and with EU

initiatives we have seen—is that double-hatting does not increase capability. If you are trying

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to do more things without additional funding you are very likely to get diversion away from

your originally intended objective, which is why this is a much more hard-headed project.

So, will it deliver? Hopefully, in the long term it will. Hopefully, we will be able to get into

joint development in some areas. Afghanistan: I think it unlikely there is a particular initiative

to deliver much in that theatre in that timescale, but every improvement we get in

interoperability is likely to bring benefits wherever we are jointly deployed.

Q20 Lord Jones: How is the institutional dimension in this very welcome policy

progressing? I know there is a high-level working group. A subsidiary question: we know the

huge importance of the British defence industry. Is it linking up? Shall it? Are there plans?

Will we benefit from a bilateral arrangement on defence industry?

Dr Liam Fox: The defence industry has shown a huge amount of enthusiasm for this. We all

understand the limitations of the finances that we face and it is a similar picture in France as

it is here in the United Kingdom. There must be areas of greater co-operation—I mentioned

areas such as complex weapons—where it makes no sense to be doing very similar research,

sometimes in the same companies or on this side of the Channel and on the French side. So

there must be an economy of scale to get in some of these areas.

It remains to be tested, I think that is fair to say, just how open the defence markets are in

terms of the defence industrial side. There is a tendency in the UK for defence companies to

say, “We find it difficult to access the French defence market. We find a number of hidden

obstacles”. We will want to explore those, and where we can show that such obstacles do

exist then we will want to deal with that in a very challenging way inside the relationship. But

I think there is also a question to be asked of British industry as to how willing they have

been to engage inside the French defence market in the past, and we will want to encourage

them to do so. One of the other aims of the UK Government’s policy is to see Britain’s

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defence exports increase and we intend to use every opportunity we can for that. So, I think

there are opportunities and some unknown hurdles to be crossed, and I think that will only

come through time. Jon, did you want to add to that?

Jon Day: I talked earlier about the range of meetings. In response to the initial part of your

question, I think the institutional relationships—at the centre of Government, with the

Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office and Defence—are working extraordinarily well. We are

developing not simply institutional relationships but personal relationships in a way that will

have a knock-on effect elsewhere in our ability to work together, for example, in NATO on

resources and streamlining.

Q21 Lord Jones: Personal relationships: it occurs there are cultural differences between

France and Britain. In your work do you come across these in any way at the highest level? I

am thinking, of course—it is all history—that there was a great and terrible king, Edward I.

There was the Hundred Years’ War and, of course, nearer to time, the withdrawal at

Dunkirk. Is all of that gone? Is it history?

Dr Liam Fox: It all adds to our respective personalities, I suppose. Let me say this. When it

comes to the relationships we have, history is a factor. Whether or not we have traditional

friendships is a factor. By far the most important is mutual self-interest. Mutual self-interest

is the best basis on which to build any relationship, including a defence one. It is very clear

that we have a strong overlapping view, in terms of analysis of the strategic threats and the

urgency with which we should approach them and the financial constraints under which we

operate and, therefore, the need to maximise our output. That, perhaps in a nutshell, is the

hard-headed reality of where we are. So, yes, all these cultural things set a background. I

would hope that it was our real-world analysis, and our understanding of our own national

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interests overlapping, that will actually be the strong underpinning for this relationship.

Sentiment is nice, but it tends to not be a very strong foundation.

Q22 The Chairman: I was going to say, going back to the Hundred Years’ War, I think

we should remember the relationship between France and Scotland is very different to the

one between France and England.

Dr Liam Fox: Chairman, I am so glad in the context you did not mention that England and

Scotland are, but the—

The Chairman: Sorry, yes.

Lt General Simon Mayall: Chairman, could I just say particularly in the land environment

with regard to your point: absolutely personalities are important, and what General Mattis

refers to as “hand con”, as opposed to any operational command status. I was Deputy

Commander in Baghdad with the Americans. Just the fact of operating consistently, training

together, being on operations, means a lot of us have an awful lot of very strong professional

relationships. If we build up a series of events and a series of operations or exercises, and so

on, the reality is we will begin to know each other better. That means an awful lot again in

these complex, very politicised, battlefields at the moment. So it has to be good, despite

everything else. As I say, it is totally in our self-interest but encouraging a series of

occasions—particularly for the younger element to meet, as they will then continue to go

through their career on this sort of basis—can only be helpful.

Dr Liam Fox: Lord Chairman, if I may say, this mutual self-interest is also manifested at an

industrial level. For example, if you look at the co-operation that is now taking place

between BAE Systems and Dassault on UAVs, they are able to do together what it would be

much more difficult for them to do separately or certainly it would take a lot longer. So

there is an advantage to both of them. There is an advantage to both countries and there is

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an advantage economically, so I think we are basing it on hard-headed self-interest rather

than hoping that we might be able to do something in the future that might be politically

beneficial. Hard-headed economic benefits are much better.

The Chairman: Lord Williams, did you wish to come in on this?

Q23 Lord Williams of Elvel: How far is our defence industry dependent on American

technology? If it is dependent on American technology, is there a risk of that spilling over in

a way that the Americans themselves might not like?

Dr Liam Fox: America has been generally very welcoming of this. It is very difficult now to

look round the world and see a purely British defence company, a purely French defence

company, a purely Italian defence company. We are all very interconnected now. Yes, some

of the restrictions that the Americans have on exports of defence technology are always an

issue, but that is an issue that would exist with a British company as much as it would with

an Anglo-French co-operation. We work our way round all these issues in a world where

we are increasingly interdependent. If an American company is making things in the UK,

providing jobs in the UK, is that any different from a British-owned company making things

in the UK and providing jobs in the UK, or a French defence company doing the same things?

We have huge British defence interests in other countries. I think that interdependence is

just a reality that we work with. It is not something that we choose or do not choose.

The Chairman: Lord Lee, is there anything else you would like to add to this area of

defence industry?

Q24 Lord Lee of Trafford: Yes, thank you, Lord Chairman. Secretary of State, to what

extent will the MoD’s procurement planning around 2011 make the most of opportunities

for bilateral co-operation with France? Given that, as I understand it, MoD procurement

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policy is now going to be rather more geared where possible to off-the-shelf purchases, do

you see anything on the French shelf at the present time, in the short to medium term, that

we may be acquiring or, indeed, the other way round? Is there a likelihood of us seeing

words turning into specific action?

Dr Liam Fox: One of the subjects I discussed with Alain Juppé was the fact that it did not

make any sense for us both to be developing future lines at great cost when we might be

able to utilise one another’s capabilities. There needs to be a trade-off there. It cannot all be

going in one direction. So one of the measures of the maturity and the success of this

relationship will be how we get some of that balance right. I do not think that is going to be

an issue, in terms of PR11, but hopefully it might be in some of the future ones where we

are able to get better economy of scale. I think there are a lot of potential gains to be made.

On this issue of off-the-shelf, we should remember that two years ago Britain was the

world’s biggest defence exporter and last year we were second behind the United States. A

lot of the shelves are British shelves. A lot of the products are made by us or in co-

operation with others. So, I think there is nothing to fear in that. But just for clarity I would

go back to the point that I made repeatedly in the House of Commons, which is that the

primary purpose of the Ministry of Defence in procurement is to get our armed forces what

they need, when they need it, at a reasonable cost to taxpayers.

Q25 Lord Lee of Trafford: Could I just come back and press you? Is there anything

specific that you are aware of that we might be likely to buy, in the short to medium term,

from France?

Dr Liam Fox: I would not want to go into specifics because they are obviously commercial

and sensitive issues. But to give an idea of some of the areas, we have been looking at

submarine systems; we have been looking at complex weapons; at satellite communications;

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unmanned aerial vehicles, a whole range where there may be things on both sides where

there will be an element of sharing, which I think would be very positive.

Q26 Lord Inge: It is not directly related to this; I did not know I was coming in quite so

quickly. But in the examination of this co-operation—which, as I have said earlier, I am

strongly in favour of—when you look at it, where do you think the capability gaps are in the

military capability that we need to give priority?

Lt General Simon Mayall: Once we have a policy that supports this co-operation, clearly

we need to look at the concepts and doctrine: do we view the world through the same

perspective, i.e. do we believe that the type of operations we are going to be involved in in

the next 10 to 15 years are ones that we share? I am going to say we do with the Americans

because our concepts and doctrine organisations are very close. On that basis, we are

where we are at the moment and there is not a lot of money around. We should then be

saying, “We require the following capabilities”. A lot of it is to do with information

superiority. A lot of it is to do with ISTAR assets. There is a certain amount on the logistics

side that we will need to do to support the ground manoeuvre. On that basis, if we share

the capability requirements we should then be able to share the equipment capability that is

going to support that, and on take capability development forward.

A classic one on logistics—and I am not going to talk about individual projects so much—is

we looked at a particular French vehicle that took a very long time to change the engine.

That is because their assumption of logistic support was to take the vehicle off the battlefield

and bring a new one on; perfectly respectable. We have always worked on the principle we

need to change an engine very fast because we are going to support equipment forward and

bring bits and pieces forward to it. That is a very low level example, but it is those sorts of

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things that say, “Is our doctrine compatible?”. We want to work out this gap analysis in a

hard-headed manner so that we genuinely can operate alongside each other.

Q27 Lord Inge: Related to that, do we have planned exercises to test the system for

real?

Lt General Simon Mayall: As Jon has said, the first one we have is SOUTHERN MISTRAL.

The air component is a different thing from the land component. FLANDRES is very much

command and control, information exchange, information management, communications, et

cetera. But the next ones definitely need to take that forward. Inevitably, with Afghanistan at

the moment, we do not have a strong programme of exercises. We need to build those,

hopefully, within areas like NATO exercises perhaps, where we can hang elements of the

Anglo-French co-operation within an existing programme that we are supporting on behalf

of NATO, and look to those opportunities.

Jon Day: You talked about capability areas. This is not so much current capability gaps. It is

areas where working together we can do things either more cheaply or more effectively.

The Secretary of State mentioned a couple of them—

Q28 Lord Inge: Can you give us an example of what you are talking about?

Jon Day: The support package for the A400M: do we do this as two national support

packages or do we do it as a single package? Future mine countermeasures work: we both

have a current capability that will wear out at about the same time. Can we work together

to have not necessarily the same ships but the same kit that goes in the ships? Satellite

communications: we have a similar requirement in the longer term towards the end of the

decade. Rather than do them nationally can we do them collectively? The other areas,

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specifically are unmanned air systems and complex weapons where our requirements are

broadly the same but we have tended not to co-operate in the past.

Q29 Lord Sewel: Firstly, could I say, Secretary of State, I am glad that the policy is being

directed by the old dictum that the interests never lie, which I think is a sound way forward,

quite honestly. My question is at a different level from everyone else’s. It is simply that as this

relationship develops, this Committee will be involved; the Lord Chairman and I have been

involved in meetings with French colleagues already. I think the important thing is to make

sure that we are adequately informed from the Department on what is happening. Could

you give us your thoughts on how that will be achieved?

Dr Liam Fox: I am very open to how we take that forward. I know that Lord Astor has

been acting as a conduit of information. We certainly want to continue that. How we can

deepen the political engagement on both sides is something we will want to look at. We

would certainly welcome any suggestions from this Committee, or indeed any of the other

Committees in the House of Commons, as to how we would better get this process

integrated. There is no secrecy in this process. We are very keen for it to be as open as

possible. We are keen for it to be developed as widely as possible. The point I made right at

the outset was that the personal chemistry is extremely important and the more that we can

underpin the central relationship with surrounding relationships so much the better. There is

nothing to be lost. So we will certainly look at ways in which we can ensure that any

information that comes through this process is disseminated in both Houses.

Q30 Lord Sewel: I think it is very important in discussions that we avoid being unsighted

on issues with colleagues.

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Dr Liam Fox: Indeed. Lord Sewel makes a very important point. We all feel exactly the

same on a number of issues.

Q31 The Chairman: I am sure that a public version of the road map would be very

useful, although road maps tend to have a bad reputation generally, don’t they, in the world

these days? Secretary of State, perhaps lastly I could take you up on one thing. I was struck

particularly by your mention of the relationship that you have with Alain Juppé on a personal

level. We are aware there are French presidential elections next year. Obviously, we do not

know the outcome of those but often after presidential elections there is a change in

Government, even if there is not a change in President. How sustainable is this agreement

beyond the current French political regime, if I could put it that way?

Dr Liam Fox: It would be wrong and possibly impertinent of me to go too far into that

territory, but we were very keen to take this initiative forward while the political ground

was favourable. Then I guess that we were waiting to see what the political reaction would

be in France; would it be that this was President Sarkozy going out on a limb and doing

something that was out of kilter with French political thinking in the mainstream, or would it

be regarded as a genuine step forward that was not party political but based on our

combined interest? As I said, I think the response that there has been in France has been

extremely gratifying—from the French media, from the French political environment—that

has been very welcoming of this. Of course, there are always changes of emphasis with a

change of Government, which is also why we decided to make this a treaty-based

arrangement and we have both countries tied into this arrangement. So, it should be less

subjected to the vagaries of the ballot box than might otherwise be the case. So I hope that

what we have set here is a strong and enduring foundation, which does not depend on the

short-term calculations of politicians but of national interest. I think, on both sides of the

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Channel, the welcome that it has received has been extremely gratifying to those of us who

for a very long time have thought this was a natural relationship for us to develop.

The Chairman: Good. Secretary of State, General, Mr Day, thank you very much indeed

for your evidence this morning. At that point, I end the public hearing. Thank you very much

indeed.