Ukraine (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, it is a huge privilege to serve on the International Relations and Defence Committee and particularly so to be part of this inquiry. I add my thanks to our chair my noble friend Lord De Mauley, our previous chair the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, and congratulate and thank enormously our wonderful committee staff.

As other noble Lords have said, much has happened since the publication of this report in September. I completely agree with my noble friend Lord Soames that a wake-up call has indeed become an alarm call. We looked at this subject because we wanted to look at the lessons for the UK. We were not trying to second guess what might happen in Ukraine, so that is where I am going to focus my remarks today.

There is a huge amount of support from around the Room today for the reserves. This report noted that Ukraine was able to draw on a large pool of reservists at the start of the Russian invasion. The establishment of the TDF—the Territorial Defence Forces—empowered local communities to take an active role in national security. In evolving from volunteer militias into formal branches of the armed forces, they have boosted the essential mass of the resistance at multiple levels. As other noble Lords, and our chairman in his opening remarks, pointed out, our report pointed to the reserves in the UK as providing a cost-effective model to do just that—build mass—yet a reduction in reserve workforce numbers confirms that the capability of the reserves, as my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford pointed out, has declined.

Others have already highlighted the RFCAs. To follow up, in an Answer to my Written Question asked on 3 February, the Minister acknowledged the multiple ways that the RFCAs offer support to recruitment, in some cases seeing a 200% improvement in expressions of interest, so I trust he will heed the warnings he has heard today regarding turning them into a non-departmental public body at this time. Surely we have to encourage all links between defence and the wider public, particularly in community and employer engagement, and in areas across the country where local knowledge and understanding may perhaps be limited within the MoD.

I understand that the Minister for Veterans and People is a current serving reservist, as—I declare an interest—is my daughter. We have been told that the Minister is conducting yet another review to determine how defence can utilise our reserves forces. Could he not instead respond to and implement the recommendations already set out in the RF30 review conducted by my noble friend Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton? If the UK is going to send peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, we are definitely going to need highly trained reserves. In our report, Professor Vince Connelly’s evidence noted how history shows that in past crises reservist units were deployed irrespective of their readiness level, making it essential that we put systems in place to enable them to be ready now. This is now personal for me, so I urge the Government not to consider deploying reservists such as my daughter for any task for which they have not been fully prepared. Recommendation 15 of our report states that the Government should prioritise reinvigorating the reserves, and I hope the Minister will today confirm that they will act rather than just wait for another review.

Like many others, my daughter performs her military duties outside core working hours, and I suspect her employer has absolutely no idea of what she does or what she is being trained to do when it gives her time off. We have to straddle the military and civilian landscapes and vocabulary. The population is losing its connection to our Armed Forces. The Minister will know that I had very limited knowledge of military vocabulary until we took part in the AFPS scheme together. This detachment and lack of understanding of what defence means is coming through in the political challenges that the Government have in the population understanding the need to increase the defence budget, and there is alarmingly low public awareness of the threats that face the country. Our report urges the Government to pay greater attention to homeland defence. Others have referred to the Scandinavian all-of-society approach and the need for collective preparedness. Should we be expecting a duty to contribute from individuals, private companies and public organisations? We know that from the start Russian forces targeted critical national infrastructure in Ukraine, and here in the UK we are daily experiencing potentially devastating cyberattacks from malicious actors, which at the very least cause us severe economic loss. I suggest that protecting the UK’s critical national infrastructure should be not only a key defence priority but the responsibility of us all.

I understand that the Cabinet Office is leading on whole-system crisis and resilience planning, which will incorporate a whole-of-society approach, and this could include work on the contribution of the general public to national security and resilience. Can the Minister say any more about this work? How are wider civilian non-governmental organisations being included? When might we expect to hear any details on timings and outcomes?

Our report outlines how the war in Ukraine illustrates that engaging the whole of society in defence is crucial for building a resilient and prepared nation, and I urge the Government to prioritise reinvigorating the reserves, fostering wider public-private collaboration and enabling a more candid narrative about the meaning of defence and its value to us all.