 Good afternoon, my name is John Geerson. I'm the director of the Centre for Defense Studies and also of the Freeman Air and Space Institute under whose auspices this event is being brought to you today. Reflections on the integrated review in conversation with Air Marshal Andrew Turner and he will be in conversation with my colleague Lady Moira Andrews. I'd just like to tell everybody that this event is being recorded and will be live streamed and if you want to ask questions please use the Q&A function and we will get round to some questions later in the session pretty much on any aspect of the integrated review. Air Marshal Andrew Turner is deputy commander capability for the Royal Air Force, responsible for delivering its strategies through people, equipment, training infrastructure and support so that the RAF can deliver air and space power for the nation and project power and influence around the world. He's a helicopter pilot, I was going to say former I'm probably not the case but anyway a helicopter pilot and has served in the RAF for 36 years. He's a keen rower and he tells me a self-professed optimist who certainly needs it with the integrated review. Lady Moira Andrews is a visiting professor in the Department of War Studies at Kings College in London and is a member of the Freeman Air and Space Institute's advisory board as is Air Marshal Turner as it happens. Lady Andrews was formerly a senior government legal advisor and now runs her own law firm specializing in all aspects of national security. She also sits on a number of company boards as well as government bodies, advisory councils and committees. The format is that Lady Andrews and Air Marshal Turner will have a conversation for about 25 minutes to 30 minutes and then I'll open it up for our pass-on questions that have been proposed. So with that I'll hand over to Lady Andrews. Thank you and well welcome everybody. As all of us here know the paper Global Britain in a Competitive Age to give the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy its full title was published on 16th March. It follows several notable developments since previous reviews in particular the UK's departure from the EU, the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent economic downturn, the rise in the use of hybrid warfare techniques particularly by Russia and China and several terrorist attacks. It also follows the merger in September of last year of the FCO with DFID to form the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. The integrated review was followed closely by the publication of the Defence Command Paper in which the government outlined its planned investments in and savings to defence in response to the ambitious set out in the review. So we've now had about you know some 10 weeks to absorb the review and to work out what it means. So in fact in the in the Times only this morning Max Hastings described the integrated review as an admiral statement of where Britain would like to go, bereft of plausible explanations about how it might get there. And last week there was an excellent Kings event in which Lord Peter Ricketts was in conversation with Professor Sir Lauren Spreedman to launch his book Hard Choices and no he hasn't paid me to to plug this but his take on the IR which he described as comprehensive but not integrated was that there were too many competing priorities in it and that it failed to choose which headline wants to go with. So I'm going to put my first question to A. Marshall Turner and say do you think that these criticisms are fair? Elaine Morris thank you very much indeed. I think we are unbelievably clear about what we need to do next and in what order and sequence. Firstly the review led on you know a fairly fundamental shift in how we view and see our place in the world. Secondly what defence is part in that is both in terms of fundamental security projecting the sense of the nation and raising and enabling prosperity for us you know which I think are three valid and reasonably stable goals. And thirdly there was a dramatic germ and gene inside the sorry gene not germ inside the review which led us to you know substantial modernisation across our equipment portfolio which ties very closely to the ways of warfare the integrated operating concept has set out and you know behind all that was a shift towards you know substantial opportunities from technology. So I mean I don't think those are undue priorities for us to take forward and they're all discreet and able to be moved forward equally. I think it takes you to a different sort of approach for the Minister of Defence and the Royal Air Force inside that. It takes you to you know greater presence around the world in different places perhaps more unusual places than we have been contemporary relevant and used to particularly the departure of Aquilinesworth HMS Aquilinesworth last weekend was notable in that regard. Not least with you know the fifth gen air power on top of it enabled by space power you know the space command forming as it did on the 1st of April the previous Freeman conversation obtained so that you know and then a journey of shifting from essentially analog platforms for us to digital platforms across the enterprise so I think actually I think you know we're very clear on what the priorities are and you know the sequence we'll get after them in so I think perhaps you know when you if you zoom out and reflect across government in the round that might be the case but it's certainly not the case for us we're very clear on where the Secretary of State and Defence and COBRA wants us to go. Mike well in fact you mentioned a lot about technology there and the Defence Secretary stated that this review is going to deliver for the armed armed forces that are fit for tomorrow's battle by switching from traditional warfare to technological warfighting and that those armed forces would rely on technology to deliver speed readiness and resilience instead of maths and mobilization so do you think that the review achieved this or are there still some gaps in the capabilities? Well I mean from the Royal Air Force perspective it definitely has achieved it for us we you know we're moving away from what we have had for many years which is a numbers of aircrafts fleets you know I think some 40 I joined the Air Force in the 80s and we had some 30 fleets then so we've grown in a far greater scale in the numbers of types of aircraft we've operated in in most cases actually the number of each aircraft in each fleet has reduced so I think you could argue that over time there are our equipment portfolios become less efficient so by reducing them by focusing on less types and growing the capabilities you've each within that like Atlas like the new protector like Lightning and Typhoon you know we'll end up with a either far more lean organization but is more productive more available and able to go in and be in more places so that's the first thing the second thing I think is that you know as we shift to digital platforms the ability to analyze the data that how they're working and operating will allow us to enhance you know their availability through better logistical interventions or optimize stock holdings of spares you know and actually not undoing and unfolding aircraft to try and work out if they're broken or not so leave them until they tell you that they're broken because they've got digital management systems just like modern cars and many modern systems do so I think those things for me tell me that we'll be in our capacity to do to operate will be greater I think it's also true that the the nature of the modern battlefield has shifted to a sort of new technological leap so if you go back to go for one in the early 90s and the art of precision weapons which was novel and relatively low in number proportionally about less than five percent I think so now it's almost not possible in a modern battlefield when you take into account the constraints and right constraints of if you say collateral damage and legal and ethical sort of implications that you need to be a lot more precise it's also the case that you don't need quite so much firepower to achieve the same effects and some of the weapons we're thinking about are temporary not necessarily destructive outcomes so this is all another form of technology another one is that you know as we shift towards greater force generation through synthetic devices decision-making analysis supporting in M.O.D through you know gaming machine type philosophies this allows us to become a bit more precise with our choices which is you know in the end will become more resilient and then thereafter we'll be able to generate the forces in an online way through simulation and synthetics that otherwise would previously would have made great set piece exercises which you know in a modern world is perhaps less efficient doesn't mean we'll fly the aircraft less it just means that when we're flying them there'll be in sort of difficult places for the Prime Minister not flashing around in circles in Lincolnshire which might have been the case in the 70s also so it's just technology will take us to new levels I think the last point actually is that the battlefield itself is highly technologically dependent so you know the timing signals for traffic lights in redding today and the dialysis machines in Oxford and the financial transaction systems in Edinburgh you know critically dependent on space on the on the on the timing signal these things are germane to the battlefield as well so there are areas and places now where technology is absolutely central to our ability to you know prosecute armed forces activity whether that's protecting our interests engaging our partners or constraining our enemies wherever we might want to and then ultimately of course fighting as the Opsie says is something we must be ready for so there will be a case for mass I think that will endure ground holding land formations will still need to you know prevail in certain circumstances but technology I think will be a foundational part of everything we do in a way that is a different you know a different level in order of magnitude than before and so how do you think the creation of the national cyber force might play into this well cyber is one of about five domains so land maritime airspace and cyber and I think you can see through the way our adversaries are are impacting us whether it's through solar winds or other other attacks on our system that you know these are techniques that can disrupt the normal way of life both not just the military and security dynamic but also you know the way commerce works and how populations move around and expect a sort of standard of living and amongst other things so site cyber both in the defensive and offensive side is actually a really important dynamic to be very mindful of the defensive side is really important to make sure that our systems are resilient to attack we can repair them fast and it doesn't disrupt our tempo and offensive cyber has been used by our adversaries routinely to disrupt people in a slightly gray zone sense away from should we say rolling out armor and tanks and warships and jets but to allow operations to carry on in a in a slightly more oblique and opaque way you know that those techniques you know are slightly more difficult to attribute you know there isn't a badge on the side or the remnants of a shell case so you can work it all the way back to a sovereign capital for attribution and therefore holding people to account in the united nations or between capitals in any other way so is it is a slightly more complex form of warfare but nevertheless like the cyber domain is a crucial you know five of five for us which you know is going to be part of our thinking in every aspect of defence from here on you could argue in fact let's flick it around slightly that we have our five domains it's almost impossible to conceive of a circumstance now where any one domain would operate in and of itself and without the support of any other domain except for cyber cyber is the domain which could act independently without implications or impact on the other domains and it's not possible in my mind to conceive of an act in the armed forces space that wouldn't be dependent on some other area of of defence so you know the uni domain act is is dead I think from this point forward right so we've talked a lot about hard power and but in November last year so in November in November last year the the government announced you know four-year surge in defence spending was some 16.5 million and but that announcement came hot in the heels of a significant cut in the overseas aid budget so this seems to send quite a strong message about the UK as a purveyor of hard power rather than soft power although the IR actually talks about UK's ambition to be a soft super power superpower in fact it says I think it's ranked third in the world for that so how do you see this being reflected in the size and shape of the armed forces and do you see the armed forces as being able to take up maybe some of the slack in projecting that soft power? I can't comment on the sense of slack but certainly I do think we have a huge amount to offer in the area of soft power and I think that's one of the you know great reasons for the carrier strike groups deployment over the next seven to eight months or so that you will be able to see play out whether that's the convening power of significant armed forces activity arriving in a port or over an airfield or on on the land in some place to bring about other opportunities for government in the nation and I recall with you know with great reflection on 2016 when we had typhoons going to Japan and the Red Arrow is in China it's sort of duality of hardened soft power you know allowed all sorts of opportunities to be springboard from that I think the Red Arrow's chore was quoted by great great Britain the number 10 enterprise of having catapulted £2 billion worth of inward revenue to the UK you know just through whether it's you know the some of our key corporate partners that we were working closely with or just the wider ability to to close out deals you know that were basically brought about by long periods of negotiation but then a significant event like a high profile public tour so I think the UK armed forces increasingly will be being used to be present on the world stage in more places than we've been before as I said earlier you know potentially it's the more unusual occasions I think our equipment need we need to see that increasingly through the lens of the opportunities for a growth in sales which the Air Force and their power has done for years through marketing you know great British products but through the lens of the armed forces for downward sales I think that will extend and broaden to not just Type 31 and other platforms like that but also to the land equipment domain as well and possibly into space who knows as that grows momentum in due course so I think we'll be using more more isn't that I also think we can use our the kite mark that is the British Armed Forces to to sort of develop training enterprises that you know can build on sort of land warfare techniques put into everything from flight line security to port management freight management logistics systems medical services even HR operations we have something to offer for other nations in their own development because I think that's an opportunity where we can use soft power inside the armed forces and then finally of course you know if these things don't work and we're already down range in difficult places learning and knowing the world in a better way understanding the local population the international relations geometry and some of the some of the social dynamics that will help us act more effectively if you know if we have to move towards constraining an enemy or fighting them so I think the soft power angle to the armed forces will it will increase because the IOPSI integrated operating concept tells us that Secretary of State and certainly the Prime Minister have strongly indicated in their speeches in Parliament around the use of the armed forces being in in more places in and for more reasons and purposes I think it remains the responsibility of us as public servants to support British business where if we possibly can not a prime task but nevertheless it should absolutely be in our minds where if we are so so I think there's opportunity for all in this and I think you know for me if you're joining the armed forces today instead of 36 years or so ago what an exciting portfolio ahead I've by myself a 90 page passport not a 30 page one because you probably will need a whole of it in any one 10 year span. Well you mentioned international relations a minute ago and obviously following the UK departure from the EU relationships are you know perhaps a little fraught in that direction at the moment but the integrated review nevertheless states that the UK is going to be the single European contributor the largest greatest sorry largest single European contributor to the security of the Euro-Atlantic area to 2030 and it also makes mention of reinforcing the Lancaster House treaties which underpins underpin the the British French Defence and Security Corporation. So how do you see that squaring with the tilt towards Indo-Pacific which the IR majors on and is it perhaps in Lord Wicket's words a slogan not a strategy? Well I mean the first point is around Europe and we were all of our all of the European nations are pressured unreasonably by Russia on the sea below the sea on the sea sea bed through cyberspace and in the air and so this this persistent friction is you know unnecessary and unreasonable and we need to find a way to hold Russia to account for these their acts and push back and so whether it's our partners in Ukraine or in the Baltics or the middle European nations around France and Germany or those in the periphery around Greece you know and in the Mediterranean these are places where you know we can act and provide valid valued and valuable support and we have done for years I think with the advent of our of a space command with the the sailing of the first of two of our aircraft carriers with the acquisition of lightning and with the reconfiguring of the land forces domain and the expansion well not expansion but the restatement of our capabilities in the high north you know are all material to our ability to act with great power and poise across Europe and let's hope that the balance of power you know remains stable and that we and some of these acts are the ceased none of that though prevents us from also being in in the Asia Pacific region and that's you know part of what talked about through the integrated operators and the command paper is this ability to aggregate quickly forces that are widely dispersed for effect in different places and I think the ability to move quickly and that would obviously be you know definitely something that the air forces you know it's not an attribute of air power means we can move quickly but also we can move quickly to aggregate land forces or you know quite often activities that see you know don't prevent the ability to move a carrier over great distances or or warships or submarines so I think the natural capacity of our forces as a consequence of the review the sixteen half extra billion pounds will help enormously in that over this settlement period and I think it doesn't deny our ability to to be present in more than one place across the world at any one time so our you know our efforts in the South Atlantic in the Sub-Saharan African in the Middle East today across Mediterranean Europe and at home are all continuing despite you know the various pressures we face the advent of the aircraft carrier in this particular tour will take us through Singapore and the Malacca Straits not into the Far East which will help us sort of put a reasonably routine presence back in that area you know it's not for the it's not it's not the first warship to go through those waters to Japan in the last in the most recent few years and it won't be the last so our ability to prosecute those operations will continue and I think through pulsing air operations to Singapore to the FBDA nations through the Bassama Lima activities are continued engagement with India and Pakistan in the region you know will continue to show a presence in in that area I think it's also probably true that whilst you know there are substantial markets there that the government will be looking to access through wider national prosperity reasons you know we share the security dynamic in the Far East which you know is with our principal five IS nations Australia New Zealand Canada and US and ourselves and so that's something through better closer coordination with them through force flow and sharing assets and using the coterminous basing of logistics for for us platforms like the F35 for P8 Poseidon for E7 Wedgetail for A400 Atlas you know where there are types operated by other nations it should make it much easier for us to pulse around the world without having to carry a sort of freight train of logistics behind us so we'll be able to be a more agile as well and therefore you know a tilt is not just you know a shift in mass it's actually an ability to be there quickly as well so I think you know both both are feasible and you know they're very both are very much in our minds okay and I'd like to take you in a different direction now as it were because I know that you're also a diversity and inclusion champion for the RAF yes and although the IR it's a search that culture diversity and inclusion are among its priorities for reform analysis of the narrative actually in the IR and and the defense command paper so little more than lip service it actually paid to diversity and unlike the SDSR which actually had specific targets for women and BAME communities it makes no reference to women or ethnic minority representation in the armed forces do you think that you know does that concern you at all um so I can't comment on the references in the paper but what I can tell you is that it is a is a huge piece of work for us inside all the armed forces and the and strategic command right now we have also signed up to levels of ambition which are really stretching and we've signed up to a moving towards 50% recruiting of women into the into the Royal Air Force and moving to 30% of Black Asian ethnic minorities into the armed force into the Royal Air Force so these are figures which are you know pressing us and last year we doubled the number of women that were recruited and tripled the number of Black Asian ethnic minority people that were recruited so the journey is not just a christening of a start point we're already in in year three of that of mobilization if you like of that policy but you know why is this important I mean what what we've both described there is aspects of visible diversity you know what one looks like and what's really important to me isn't so much what people look like although that's a this is a great way of making a difference in this area what's really important to me is what people think like cognitive diversity a slightly more invisible form of diversity now you can change what that looks and feels like by recruiting a different type of person women and Black Asian ethnic minorities and other ways because we're all cognitively different um my wife tells me on put me on the spectrum which I'm very comfortable with but you know as Nick Hynes declared recently and quite publicly my naval counterpart he is neurodiverse and I think that's really good that the armed forces are accepting and embracing and people who think differently but what's really important to me is we get this cognitive diversity around social background around ethnic backgrounds religious and geographic reference points so that we can have a much much more richer workforce which itself will mean that the decisions we made have found on better insights and understandings of the world that we face which will make our decisions more resilient we'll get more challenged as Chilcot set out for us that we should be thinking about more vigorously and that will make our decisions more robust and hopefully make them last longer so the visible diversity journey that wasn't perhaps referenced as strongly as it has in previous years in the command paper was is absolutely a huge thing inside our all of our services the targets are really stretching but appropriate and but the targets are an indirect method of getting to a better place which is a more thinking service that allows us to be much more challenged and challenging internally which hopefully will mean that we're you know more successful on the battlefield and you know frankly and between the services in the boardroom as well. Oh indeed yes I noticed that GCHQ was advertising recently specifically for dyslexics to join GCHQ because they're good at pattern spotting so I'll ask you probably just one final question and if you could go back in time and do it all again would you approach it differently and if so how and how are you going to prepare for the next defensive view? Yeah that's a good question and you know we've learned a lot of lessons out of this last 18 months or so and because it's I think what if you look back over defensive the last five years it's gone through a series of annual sort of reviews and one way or another starting with the said well work nearly four years ago now and so we had a you know if you like a really good start point because they have been so much analysis done ahead of this integrated review whether it's the way government works through the fusion doctrine or whether it's about the balance of prioritization of resource or the way the government scrutinizes its choices, the way it forms its national security implementation groups across in the cabinet drawing on three star DGs from across the security departments. All of that brought some you know great rigor and intellectual analysis and data to the fore but if your question was what would you do differently and how would you prepare for five years or four years time but the answer is to try and find the way in which those things came about through organizational happenstance in a way and make sure that they exist for us in the four years ahead and I think that the approach that we'd like to take is use things like Freeman Institute, use things like our academic placement programs, use the university short course structures, use the sort of should we say that the ways in which we can learn more about the world and how it will become to be ready through internal mechanisms rather than relying on cross-government structures. So we have a conceptual steering board which the Freeman Institute itself contributes into. We have all of our academic placements in the end full course in Cambridge, the Oxford bases that we keep and all the other university approaches that's the first thing. The second thing is we need to stay really close to technology because I think the evolution of technology these next five years in particular will outpace most predictions that's been the case for the last 12 years anyway but I think importantly it's going to be moving at the same speed in this bit which means that we will fail to predict what's possible in 2024-2025 even now. So you know those are things we need to do differently I think. The other one I'd say is that we need to probably join up with our partner air forces in particular the five eyes but our other close regional ones like France you mentioned Lancaster agreement earlier so that we can develop and learn together because there's got to be some benefit in the there's a pooling of resources and the catalyzing of outcomes through basically different groups of people looking at problems. So you know I certainly have a strong conversation with all those nations I've mentioned in trying to share ideas and investments and capability developments and that's a really valuable journey that might actually help us reduce the investment we need to make to potentially get a greater return. I mean one of the things that I think is definitely the case is that I believe that most of the things that we want to get out after are already fielded somewhere they're likely to be in service perhaps in a different sector of the nation's workforce and maybe in farm or FS or manufacturing but quite a lot of things we'd like to do to modernize the armed forces in the Royal Air Force in particular are fielded somewhere so most of the challenge is actually on discovery finding things and then it's about bringing them into the service. There's very little that I think that will be on the edge of creation you know the Dyson Hoover moment much more about buying the Dyson and accelerating its employment and use within that. There's not to say I'm endorsing Dyson's Hoover or hairdrying products but you know the point is that that's an impressive journey of creation ideation creation and into industrialization I'd rather join that journey at the third step rather than be at the beginning that others make those difficult decisions investment or otherwise fail fast if you like so that we can capitalize on the things which are proven to work. I think that yes here's gone to feel some questions. Thanks very much to both of you and in fact I'm going to abuse my position and throw a question to the two of you myself before I turn to the Q&As. As I think you some people know who on this call we're going to be publishing a series of commentaries and articles about the integrated review and one of the things that's come out of the the drafts that I've been reading is that in terms of industrial defence strategy and the integration of the commercial sector and the private sector the ambitions of the integrated review I think I can give this away are celebrated and seen as ambitious but there is a question mark over whether we have the capacity in Britain yet to actually deliver on that ambition and specifically whether the cultural barriers to that effective working in this what will be a new environment to some extent if it goes as planned in the integrated review can be overcome. I just wonder if you could just perhaps reflect on what some of those challenges might be and how we would get around them. Thanks so it's a very good question so I think there are there are challenges associated with our ability to do rather contradictory to my last point around developing and bringing on new equipments and I think this is an area where we'd like to focus as much on the small immediate enterprises which often are the kernel of good ideas before they get assimilated into bigger bigger programs that's the first thing I think there are different ways of running people that we'd like to get it after as well which I think is a many of the Royal Air Force's approaches to human relations and you know the way we've run people were cast in the 1930s and are largely still of a 1970s process so there's a substantial amount of change feasible there much of that is in flight already commissioned I think that will lead us naturally towards a journey of greater automation you know things actually done by more effectively by machines more reliably more predictably and you know through a 24-hour period that that itself will release the workforce to be re-skilled in different areas which is one of the approaches is to shift our employment structure from branches and trades to to professions that will allow us to skill people for the modern workplace the modern equipments the modern forms of warfare in a much more agile way that also will have the secondary benefit of removing quite a lot of people several thousand from our training schools which you know by definition are not at the front line and therefore the workforce is biased towards you know the training regime in a way that we could perhaps optimize it I think that a third area will be how we support and look after equipment you know there are modern ways of logistic support and maintenance of failures if you like sort of redundancies on aircraft and systems that we should be able to harness and there's some great ideas here not least in the in you know airport luggage management is actually a really interesting case in to study around the data management and the fluid dynamics of products around a place so there's some interesting ideas which come out of that I think the other point is around infrastructure in our estate so we've got a load of estate quite a lot of it was cast pre pre second war a lot of it is still fixed in you know literally lead pipes and old old infrastructure facilities which need recapitalizing so there's quite a lot required in that area but it also needs we need just need to be sure that we're renewing refreshing and building on a state that we want to keep for the long term and at the same time we need to remain a bit resilient from disruption by our enemies and adversaries on the the number of bases that we retain last point would be I haven't touched on them but their crucial point of our future which is our reserve forces which we see being grown into a new direction around still doing many of the things they're doing today but growing in the technological skills where we might find it difficult under price points for people's pay which is a bit illiterative apologies for that but the amount we pay people to hold them in regular service and that might be an area where we can actually draw on cyber type people coding and information war is perhaps some people from the space industry where you know I expect all those things will grow in our in our field and list of capabilities but we probably don't want to hold all their skills inside the service on a permanent basis so there's something around the reserve forces which is an interesting domain last one is around industry you know we're critically dependent on industry for maintenance support and management of our systems that's obvious we're a technological service but we ought to be able to work better with them a more smooth and integrated way around the workforce and this relates to sponsor reserves the ability to flex people in and out of a polo shirt to a dpm shirt you know of a day or a month through a week or an annual basis so I think there's you know in each of those areas there are great ways which we can think and act and work differently with society with our key partners and amongst ourselves we don't know it all by long margin but what I do know is that most of the things as I said to Moira earlier most things we want to do are being done somewhere and it's actually accessing in that insight so we can move quickly and adopt practices that have been proven to work elsewhere that's the key for me some of this is in the whole force concept which we've written about before Moira you'd like to come in I was going to say that Britain's exit from the EU actually does free us up to be more flexible about procurement so we're no longer bound by the EU rules on government procurement but one of the big challenges is that I mean obviously you get defence company giants but 90% of the security sector is made up of SMEs and but you know government has a real challenge try it cannot maintain you know relationships with the thousands of SMEs that are out there so actually I know that industry is in dialogue at the moment with government to see you know what sort of procurement model we could come up with that is more fleet of foot and sort of irons out some of these wrinkles because I do think that that's quite a big challenge because there's there's a huge amount of fun sort of pent up innovation that is in the SME sector yeah I think that's one of the big challenges isn't it about having that dialogue beyond the normal for in moving this forward lots of questions coming in so whilst I'd like to carry on with this I will move on Isolator asks how will the UK balance affordability with the desire for so many F-35 aircraft and yes it's a good question sorry go on so we've got a really good plan of a plan for our combat air force firstly we're shifting quite a lot of it towards uncrewed aircraft to the acquisition of our swarming drone squadron the loyal wingman additive capability which Spirit Aerosystems is developing a demonstrated before so that will be fielded and flying inside this parliament and obviously moving into Protector which you'll see a version of in UK later this year from General Atomic so bigger force than we've got for Reaper able to do more fly higher longer and carry more so that's the first point the second point is that in the in the crewed combat air force we are planning for Tempest the F-CAS the future combat air system crewed fighter element to take over from Lightning sorry from Typhoon in the mid 30s into the early 40s time frame so there were two there was two billion pounds worth of money in technological development money put into that that in the settlement period so that's a really exciting step forward that should see us literally close in with a you know flight demonstration in and around the end of this parliament the second point is that we grow the growth beyond 48 lightnings is is planned we know roughly how many we need to keep the carriers afloat with an air wing until 2068 but at the outer service stage of the Queen Elizabeth class so that's quite a long way away 47 more years of lightning so you'll you know you'll expect us to be growing that over time and then I think we'll get to a point probably in STSR 25 if that's when the next one occurs but around that time frame where we'll have to make a judgment over you know the future longer term balance of lightning and collision so we're committed to 138 we have a significant work share based on that and we're in negotiations with Lockheed Martin and the US Air Force and the DoD as to you know what that future buy looks like so there's much more to come what we know is we don't need those planes now so we need to be thinking we'll be acquiring them in the 30s not the 20s and therefore we could take a bit of time before we make that judgment all right um I've got a couple more procurement questions and then I'd like to come back to a question for both of you so if I just summarize a couple of them Tim Robinson asks provocatively is the integrated review already dead on arrival it's ambition to buy British kit if possible seems to be in trouble with the new block to Chinook procurement rumored choice of US Jag M over Grimstone for the Army Air Corps A H 64 E's and then on iStar Moe Abdallah asks iStar capability requirements are carefully scrutinized actually no I'll come back to that actually um yeah an anonymous attorney says why did we see so much less capability detail regarding platform numbers this year than in 2015 so perhaps if you answer those two I'll come back to the iStar one in a minute yeah okay Tim great you could hear from you a long time since we spoke but the um the first point is I think there's a load of things that we are buying which are very British and you can look at the future armored program for the land forces our own acquisition of Atlas or Lightning Lightning you know 20 manufactured across the UK lots of return on that and we get I think the total the total inward revenue for UK combat air acquisition program is 40.6 billion so that you know we're earning money on the back of the the sales of UK manufactured components that's a really big deal for us um there are future opportunities I think with something like Chinook there is just um very little choice actually globally and there's no European or UK based product that can they can do what Chinook can do so uh so with you know some of the capability areas we are um rather fixed until uh industry develops a competitive program I can't comment on unfortunately on the jagged position on on on Apache but I can say is that the spear cap family of weapons coming through MBDA you know are world leading and as we saw you know with brimstone in the first instance there are things that the other nations simply don't have the precision the weight and the utility of different launch points spear cap three in particular some of the things that we're doing with that weapon you know will be world you know is world leading now but once it gets into production manufacture will be in a very very different place and I I would also cite Meteor as a comparator against Ambram so there are lots of UK products Stevenage and other places besides all over the country where there's inward uh inward revenue opportunity and I think if you're looking into the land domain there's a early and emerging opportunity with the Puma replacement um to focus on you know British acquisition whether it's British IP or jobs whatever way there are choices there for the department to consider uh John what was the second question that was about uh um sorry lost the ball on the second question uh sorry I get to my um catching up with my questions on me oh it's about it's about platform numbers platform numbers yes okay yeah so so the platform number is already a matter of record whether it's 138 times lightning or whether it's 422 Atlas or our 14 Voyager you know these are numbers already in the public domain so they weren't labored in the documentation because there are other things to talk about there are other choices ahead though I have to say you know as we as the IOPSI and the command plan begins to develop in time you know we'll see different investment choices that are probably possible towards the end of the decade uplifts in different types I think the key for me is we we're reducing the number of fleets and increasing the number of aircraft in each one that capital investment in need to disaggregated fleets you know in synthetics and logistics and command leadership management industrial relations spares it really really hurts us and therefore we need to reduce the number of types we're looking after and grow their individual utility that's the key to modernizing the front line thank you um John Bodie from Canada asks recognizing the advancement of cyber warfare warfare and attacks do you have a view on whether international humanitarian law is keeping pace with these advancements paying particular attention to the principles of distinction and proportionality and I think this is something perhaps for both of you to have a go don't know who wants to go first well I was going to say yes I thought I might be um thinking for that one I mean law never keeps up with um developments I mean it's it just um cannot develop as fast as um you know as as technology can develop and as events unfold um but actually I was going to pick up in fact on um something that Andy mentioned earlier in which which is the you know the increasing um move to development of unmanned aerial vehicles um because you know I don't think we're when I can't envisage um as ever being in a position where we are going to be you know engaging in any operations as a as a single unit sorry you know as the UK I'm sure we will always be doing it alongside allies so that actually brings us sort of um you know yet another dimension in that not only do we need to sort of agree on how on on what the law is but also on how we interpret it because I think past experience has shown that it's not that we don't all play by the same rules it's that we just don't actually um interpret the same rules in the same way and so that makes for a lot of complication particularly when one is um engaged in operations alongside allies so yeah that's my take on it I think the only thing I'd add to that actually more is the principles of use of armed forces about about discrimination proportionality military effect you know those those those principles that we apply to um using the armed forces will continue to apply I think the point that the question is leading to though is that is the um is the ability to detect and predict the consequences in the cyber domain of fiddling with somebody else's ones and norse that is obviously less straightforward than it is of blowing up a small building in a remote piece of a piece of terrain somewhere but but the principle will still apply and this is the the ethics around targeting do not change with the advent of the cyber domain um so it just makes it more hard more difficult which means that we will need increasing experts around cyber and coding in particular to understand the second third fourth order consequences of a cyber attack in some way or other both inward and external thank you um Tony Osborne asks um how many of the integrated review changes to the area for dependent on positive outcomes from project astra and the supplementary what are the next steps in project astra so in a funny way um the IR is astra and astra is the IR and the reason I say that is that we christened all sort of the gestation of astra was back in May 19 it was written out in a directive by the chief in December 19 and we've been rolling out since as broadly three things sort of big rocks programs big things we want to do from the top which I'm broadly responsible for a network of ambassadors who are agitating from the bottom on stations and units with the ability to horizontally share good ideas and um you know a substantial uh network of sort of communication and enablement by the front line by my counterpart so in a in a way that everything that we set out to get after in astra we then seem to have a freeze at the moment um i'm going to turn it we'll just hold on a second if it returns to us ctics and the dimension of space those are the four things we went after and the IR has returned all four um the enabling things around um people policies around weapons are all in there as well which are things that we've been hunting for and aim to do the reason why I hope this will be successful I say I hope I mean there's been no reason why it shouldn't be is that the IR outcomes are now expressed in parliament they're in on record in handset secondly they are sold into our bottom lines no I think he's um Andrew we've we've lost you again I'm afraid um your picture's frozen but we also heard you for a while but now we've lost very against the titles we said Andrew I'm afraid we we've lost your audio and your picture's frozen I don't know if you hear me okay so we lost we lost you or your voice as well several times but so okay apologies for that can you hear me now yes we can yes okay so I was just saying that the um we've sown many of the IR outcomes which were astra in nature at the origin into our command plan into personal objectives and into the financial structure so there's a um you know there's a Andrew we've lost you again I'm afraid can you hear me still John I think you're on mute now yes we actually lost you again Andrew and your your screen is still frozen I'm afraid okay but can you can you hear me okay no you keep breaking up I'm afraid um so we heard half the answer I think okay let's let's try another question and then we'll see how we do um Merb Dalla asks um refers to ice star capabilities being carefully scrutinized in 2015 as requiring 20 protectors five AEW systems to replace the E3s and now you're committing to 16 protectors three E7s and and the F the F35 is this are you content that you have the equipment needed despite the reduction in numbers and he adds um the independence see of the UK since odd given the dependence on bearing Lockheed Martin in general atomics in this area yeah so we are confident and we're confident because these equipments have got um since we initially looked into them have got more capability than we originally thought whether it's protectors ability to um to carry different systems and operate in different domains or wedge shell E7s ability to contribute in different ways to the ISR um fleet and at the same time F cas the the trant the tier one swarming drone the law wingman drones these can contribute to the ISR network as well and in the meantime we're also expanding into the low earth orbit space geometry with new earth observation satellite constellations so I think what we've seen is a is a it's like shifting the numbers but an expansion in the types of platform that are contributing into this uh into this ISR domain did you get any of that yes we got it all thanks yeah um so uh Matt Withill asks what are the opportunities and sustainability in defence presents both for the department and broader UK interests perhaps you will both get a stab at this but I'll give it to Andy first okay so I mean this is a big area for us um we uh have been surprised but you know it's only right that how much the youth youth in our service are really excited by the net zero agenda so we have the chief has recently issued a strategy that will see us get to net zero quicker than government wishes through a combination of methods of of generating power on our estate through the normal things that you'd expect us to get out of which single use plastics and use more electric vehicles those sorts of things a movement of synthetic fuels for our aircraft and a movement away from flying aeroplanes for training purposes and into synthetics which I touched on earlier all of these programs have uh seek to access existing capabilities that are already in place around the world and all of them are proven so the question we're now facing internally is uh is given the recent allocation of our budgets to us from the centre um which was towards the middle of this month now we're just judging the balance of our of our investment to work out how fast we're going to move on this particular policy agenda so I think you know there's huge amounts of opportunity and we want to contribute the greatest possible part we can on getting to net zero as early as we possibly can thank you um I mean Sophie Andrews my colleague asks um what do you see as the RAF role in selling AI and autonomy to what she describes as a suspicious public even of commercial drones and she refers to a survey last year two years ago which found that less than a third of the British population were positive about civilian drones yeah so it's a good one isn't it I think um I think I to a certain extent the British public is probably not fully aware of what's going on I'm afraid we've lost Marshall Turner right now um I'm just trying to think if I want to push a question to actually I whilst he's reconnecting Moira um Sophie Lane asks uh considering supporters of Brexit pushed investing in the future of Commonwealth as a reason to leave the EU why do you think there was little reference to the Commonwealth in the integrated review perhaps you might want to take a stab at that I mean I I think a lot of course a lot of the Commonwealth is encompassed of the Indo-Pacific region which is the big focus of it but I think I get what what she means and yes I mean I suspect actually it's it's just that you know um it was focusing on other things and sort of bigger bigger picture not that the Commonwealth you know isn't part of the bigger picture but it was really just coming at it from a different angle and I I suspect that I wouldn't have expected to necessarily see specific reference to the Commonwealth in that but I just wondered actually if not bucking that question if I could come back to the the question that you just put to Andy about the unmanned aerial vehicles again and it's really interesting that there seems to be quite a lot of skepticism about UAVs and the use of drones um and that sort of thing yet you know since since the invention of the longbow warfare has become more and more detached and and more remote um and so it is it's not it's not really uh you know logical that the um you know we we seem to be skeptical and and seem to have this sort of thing feeling that you know it's just not cricket to use drones whereas you know other methods of remote warfare seem perfectly acceptable yes thanks um I'm not sure if um Marshall Tern's going to be able to join us again um I'm just I'm just hoping that he uh he's able to to connect although we've only got time for probably one more um question and I'm just trying to think what I can uh hit Moira with uh which is I'm unable to answer this in the details of UAV in how we're moving forward I think he's back now can you hear me Andrew are you I can see you're reconnected oh hello good you're back can you can you hear me Andrew hi John hello well done yep Moira was just taking us through why the Commonwealth isn't mentioned a lot in the IR I think we've got time for maybe one one maybe two questions uh to go um a quick one from David Jordan which you can answer nice and quickly how important is Tempest to the future vision for air power in the UK vital full stop okay um Jamie Gray asks with the reduction in the numbers of aircraft across the board tranche one typhoons transport small acquisition of E7s is there not on worry that we don't have the capability to carry out interventions such as Libya or even Afghanistan anymore no because the the scale of our frontline capabilities are not changing and I'm not sure if you lost me when I was talking about um the expansion of our ISR footprint being not just about you know E7 about being Leo's satellite surveillance other things besides so you know we're not reducing from seven typhoon squadrons we're you know we're driving up to three lightning squadrons exactly as per the plan the width of our surveillance capability no change um you know the movement to Atlas which is double the size of C-130 uh you know that's growing up the the task line availability scale so no I don't think there's a reduction our ability to prosecute operations I think we just do it differently with more precise weapons more sophistication and across all five domains not just in one all right with two minutes left two really tough questions uh number one anonymous attendee asks uh you said you wanted to avoid uh fail fast culture but doesn't this have the risk of stifling innovation a key strategic cornerstone for the future REF but one minute on that and then there's a nice easy one in Scotland okay so I didn't say fail I didn't say I want to avoid fail fast I wanted other companies to do it for us in the sort of ideation creation journey that um but we have got an organisation the rapid capabilities office based at Farmer in Cody Park whose job it is to fail fast so we want that innovation culture to be acceded across the organisation that's why we have 1300 astra ambassadors to try new things on our air bases wherever they are what we need to do is be you know it's an organisation more comfortable with failing and that is not in our DNA because we're an institution of last resort and the the Royal Air Force like the army navy and strategic command can't fail but that's not the same as having a go uh at anything whether it's playing rugby or trying a piece of software we must we must have that culture in at the bottom in at the beginning all right and the last question is a nice easy one from Tom Burridge uh on the question of Scottish possible Scottish independence and how it might impact on the IR's goals uh would resource investing creating a workable solution for Clyde must be mouthed distract from the IR goals has any thought been given to this no because it's well beyond my purview to comment on Scottish independence so we're very comfortable with the footprint of Scotland that we have we're investing and deepening in it and it will be vital to the UK national interests and national security as a consequence so Lossy Mouth is absolutely crucial to the UK sovereignty and security great thank you very much well done two difficult questions in under a minute uh a minute and a half um I'd just like to thank uh Lady Andrews for uh having a conversation with Air Marshal Turner and again coping with my throwing her some what are they called googlies during the interruption uh and of course uh Air Marshal Turner thank you very much for being so game to answer questions on a wide range of topics actually uh taking us beyond just not just but beyond air power and and space policy uh and giving us some some really interesting thought things to think about for the for the future um I will return to some of these on what we hope will be our launch event for our series of commentaries probably on the 24th of June uh date to be confirmed in the next few days um when we can continue this conversation but thank you both very very much indeed um for an excellent conversation thank you and thanks to the questioners for their really really penetrating questions thank you very much indeed thank you also bye bye thank you