Reserve Forces

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) on securing the debate. I start by paying tribute to the contribution of both our regular forces and our reserve forces. As a former Defence Minister, I have seen at first hand the contribution of both, and in Iraq and Afghanistan, the contribution that reservists made, not just in medical services but on the frontline, was sometimes overlooked. We ought to pay tribute to them.

The hon. Gentleman raised the important issue of ensuring that we monitor the Army 2020 process. He welcomed the Chancellor’s announcement yesterday of an extra £2 billion for special forces, but I ask him to look closely at the details, because as usual what the Treasury announces is not what it seems. If it includes the £1.5 billion that was already announced in the Budget, and if the extra equipment for the SAS is coming out of the 1% that has already been announced, it does not appear that there is any new money at all, so I ask that the hon. Gentleman look more carefully at that.

Importantly, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted, as he always does, the contribution made not only to the regular forces but to the reserve forces by people from his part of the world—Northern Ireland. We also had contributions from the hon. Members for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman), and for Stirling (Steven Paterson); the latter highlighted the important role of the reserves and the contribution that his constituency makes to recruitment to the reserve forces.

I was sad to see the Scottish National party then revert to its usual victim mentality; it argued that Scotland was not getting a fair share of its resources. As for the idea that the Royal Navy is not present in Scotland, I was the Minister who oversaw the relocation of the submarine force to Scotland, and I think that it has a large footprint in, and makes a large contribution to, Scotland.

The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) argued that the non-replacement of the nuclear deterrent would free up resources. That is a myth, and she needs to explain to her constituents and voters in Scotland the economic black hole that would occur in the defence budget and the economic contribution to Scotland if that decision was taken. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stirling is chuntering from a sedentary position, but unfortunately the Scottish National party does not want to address the real issue of the contribution that defence already makes, not only to Scotland but to the entire UK.

The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) has been consistent in his criticism of Army 2020. He put his finger on the problem with Army 2020, which is that it was not conceived from strategic need and thought; budgetary considerations and the Treasury were in the driving seat. In 2010, the strategic defence review argued for a reduction in the Army from 102,000 to 95,000. To meet budgetary restrictions, it was announced in July 2011 that the Army would be reduced to 82,000, with an increase in the number of reservists from 19,000 to 30,000. As the hon. Gentleman highlighted, the then Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), said that the reduction in the regular Army would take place only if reservists filled that gap, but that has not been the case.

It is clear from the National Audit Office report of 2014 that the future size of the Army was determined not by strategic needs but by financial savings. The comments by General Sir Peter Wall, the former Chief of the General Staff, were quite revealing:

“I remember the genesis very clearly. It was a financially driven plan. We had to design a new structure that included the run-down of the 102,000 Regular Army to 82,000, which is pretty well advanced now, to follow a funding line that was driven by the austerity with which everybody is very familiar...It triggered the complete redesign of the Army”.

As he has told the Defence Committee on several occasions, the head of the Army was informed by the permanent secretary at the MOD what the future size of the Army would be. The former Defence Secretary made the point that the cost envelope was the driving force behind the proposal, not any strategic needs, and I believe that is the problem.

I do not in any way criticise the Minister for his determination or his enthusiasm for reservists, but we come back to the fundamental question of where the 82,000 figure came from. Unfortunately, it is being reinforced in the present defence and security review, and the fact that the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force will have to take the bulk of the cuts seems to have been overlooked. There is an opportunity now to review not only Army 2020 but the entire strategic defence review process. Unfortunately, the Conservative party, having nailed the figure of 82,000 to the mast with its other electoral colours during the general election, will find it difficult to withdraw from that, but that fundamental review needs to take place.

Despite the valiant efforts of the Minister and those who are working hard in the MOD, there are still serious problems, as highlighted by the NAO. One of the most damning points highlighted in the report is the fact that recruitment targets are not underpinned by robust planning. Likewise, the IT fiasco has wasted some £70 million. I accept that some of those problems have been resolved, but it does not fill people with a great deal of confidence that the process will result in the targets outlined in today’s debate being met.

Another telling point comes from the MOD’s continuous attitude survey, which shows that among personnel who have been made redundant or left the forces, there is little appetite for joining the reserves; the figure was less than 17%. The hon. Members for Kettering and for Basildon and Billericay both made the point that the important thing is not numbers, but what we have in our reserve. If this is simply made into a numbers game, it will not necessarily translate into the capabilities that we need in the infantry, or tackle the severe shortages in Defence Medical Services that have been mentioned. I know from my time in the Ministry of Defence that those skills were vital to our deployment in Afghanistan. We need to think about not just numbers but the kinds of individual that we are recruiting.

An important point was made about the retention of reservists once they have been recruited. The hon. Members for Basildon and Billericay, and for Kettering, made the good point that if people do not feel challenged and do not feel as though they are making a contribution, they will not necessarily stay in and continue to contribute to the reserves. It is a waste of the resources put into the training and recruitment of those individuals if we retain them for only a short time, which is not cost-effective for the taxpayer.

There is an opportunity in the security and defence review to look at the 82,000 figure and ask whether the reserve recruitment targets—realistically, they are not going to be achieved—should be revisited. The Navy and RAF numbers will come under pressure, because for some unexplained reason the Conservative party in its election manifesto set the figure of 82,000 on a tablet of stone, not to be changed. That needs revisiting. Events over the weekend show that the threats we face change quickly, and that some of the skills that we need—in cyber, intelligence and other capabilities—must be procured in the regular forces, but the reserve forces can also make a contribution.