Future Capability of the Armed Forces

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Harlech]

To move that this House takes note of the future capability of the United Kingdom’s armed forces in light of the current international situation.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have signed up to this debate. I am grateful that your Lordships are able to debate the United Kingdom Armed Forces’ capability shortly after the publication of the defence investment plan. I look forward to all contributions, not least that of the Minister and the valedictory speech from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. I declare an interest as a serving officer in the Army Reserve.

Let us confront a single stark reality: the United Kingdom remains the third-largest defence spender in NATO, surpassed only by the United States and Germany. Yet NATO’s own internal assessments rank us 31st out of 32 members in delivering on capability targets, with only Iceland, which has no armed forces at all, sitting below us. This is the critical gap I intend to scrutinise—not the disparity between our forces and our adversaries, real though that is, but the profound disconnect between the funds we invest and the capabilities we can deploy. This is the gulf between the promise and the product.

Let me say plainly what this debate is not. It is not a party-political point. I belong to the party that was in government for 14 years and, for much of that time, we did not spend enough on defence. Many of us said so then, and I say it again now. I have no interest in a quarrel about who cut what a decade ago, or who is pledging what for 2035. The two great alibis of defence policy are the distant past and the distant future, and both are used to dodge the only question that matters: what are we spending now, and what will we feel tomorrow in the years in which we might have to fight?

Those years are not theoretical. Admiral Sir Keith Blount, who stepped down only this year as NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, DSACEUR, warned a fortnight ago on the “The General & The Journalist” podcast from the Times that Britain now risks losing influence within the alliance if it fails to deliver what it has promised. When our most senior recent commander at NATO says that in public, the Government should listen.

I give credit where the Motion invites it, on future capability. The strategic defence review was serious work, and I support its direction of travel. The best decision in last month’s defence investment plan is the one that looks furthest ahead—more than £5 billion for drones and autonomous systems, the largest such investment we have ever made. That is the right instinct. It is the lesson of Ukraine, where innovation cycles are measured in weeks. It is, in the Government’s own phrase, investing for

“the next war, not the last one”.

My concern is not the direction of travel; it is that £5 billion is not enough and that, when you open it up, the wider plan does not bear weight. Consider the headline of £298 billion over four years. It is a number designed to end an argument. But only around £15 billion is new money over last year’s settlement, and the Defence Secretary has acknowledged that most of that £15 billion is not for new equipment at all but for day-to-day running costs—keeping the ships and aircraft we already own available and our people trained. That is necessary, but it is not rearmament. It is paying to run the force we have and calling it the force we need. Is even that money real? Of that £15 billion, only around £10 billion is funded. The rest, some £4.7 billion, waits on a Budget that has not yet happened. That is not a funded plan; it is an IOU. The plan leaves the years from 2030 to 2035 all but blank, reaches 2.7% of GDP in 2027 and then flatlines. It funds neither the 3% promised for the next Parliament nor the 3.5% signed up to for 2035. Set against the threat that the Government’s own advisers place before 2028, this is a plan matched not to the danger but to the Treasury’s accountants.

My disagreement with the review centres on its approach to personnel. The proposal to expand our reserves by a mere 20%—even then, only when financial conditions permit—is far too cautious. Currently, we field just 30,000 trained reservists compared to 137,000 regulars, rendering our Reserve Forces only a fifth of the size of our regular military. In contrast, Finland, directly confronting the Russian threat, maintains a formidable trained reserve many times the strength of its modest regular army. My goal is far bolder: we must aim for a trained reserve that is not a fraction of our regular forces but three times their size. Achieving this will require a generational pivot, but it offers the only cost-effective way to restore the strategic depth this nation has neglected for far too long.

Numbers, though, are the easy part. I would not have the House think I am merely asking for a longer list of names. A reservist without equipment, training days and a drill hall to train in is not a capability, and here our record is dismal. The Public Accounts Committee found that the volunteer estate, the reserve centres on which all this depends, is in what the department calls “managed decline”. The reserve estate optimisation programme, REOP, has all but stopped. Tranche 1 was delivered, but the funding bid for tranche 2 failed and had to be rebid, and the department has still not secured funding for the phases beyond. Yet the department’s own evidence to that committee was that this estate is the critical enabler of the very reserve growth the review promises. We have written the ambition and declined to pay for the foundations beneath it.

This is the habit I most want the Minister to break. When budgets tighten, the reserve is always the first to be raided because it is dispersed and part-time and, sadly, too many decisions affecting it are taken by regulars. If the reserve is genuinely part of the first echelon, as the review implies, because our regular forces are so small, then it cannot also be the balancing item. You cannot ask a formation to be ready to mobilise while treating its training, equipment and accommodation as discretionary spending.

This matters most for the mission closest to home. Homeland defence and national resilience are not some additional burden for the reserve. They are its natural work. It is the reserve that is local, dispersed and embedded in every county. These are the people who would guard critical national infrastructure or reinforce the response to a flood, a cyber attack or an act of sabotage, drawing on their skills and experience from their civilian life. Every reserve centre we allow quietly to decay is a node of national resilience dismantled, and a link severed between the Armed Forces and the communities who must ultimately sustain them. If we are serious about resilience, the drill hall is not an overhead; it is infrastructure.

I add one further warning on the industrial base. Small and medium firms build the drones this plan celebrates. They are the least able to survive a Government who cannot make up their mind, and techUK warns that the delay to the publication of the defence investment plan has already forced firms in the supply chain to issue redundancy notices. You cannot switch an industrial base off and on. Once the engineers are gone, they are gone, and our allies see all this. The Public Accounts Committee has warned that the delay has damaged our credibility with the very partners the review tells us to put first. “NATO first” is good and the right doctrine, shared across this House, and I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, in his place. However, a nation ranked 31st out of 32 on NATO’s own scorecard is practising “NATO first” in the press release and “NATO last” in the plan.

I have three questions for the Minister. First, when will the £4.7 billion of unfunded commitment be confirmed and, until it is, why should the House treat this as a funded plan? Secondly, will the Government raise their ambition on the reserves well beyond 20% and will they fund the volunteer estate and the training and equipment on which such growth depends? Thirdly, given that the sharpest risk is placed before 2028, what capability will reach the front line inside that window?

I tabled this Motion not to embarrass the Government but because the distance between our words and our capability is now visible to our adversaries as well as our friends, and because the years in which that distance matters most are these ones, not some comfortable decade hence. We spend enough to stand third in the alliance. We should be able to field far more than 31st. The task is not to spend more in 2035. It is to spend well, spend diligently and spend now. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I am truly grateful to all noble Lords, all noble and gallant Lords, and the right reverend Prelate for taking part—I wish him godspeed in his future endeavours. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for answering my questions and those of others, and for his powerful, impassioned reply at the end, which we all fully support. I add my voice to those. Whatever happens in terms of a reshuffle, we hope very much that the Minister stays in post.

This has been a fascinating strength/weakness, opportunity/threat analysis, because it has been cross-party, from all sides of the House. Again, I am truly grateful to everyone who signed up. It has also been a cross-interest debate: we have had the defence voices, but we have also heard diplomatic, economic and political voices too, which has added to its richness. I truly want the media to play its part in stimulating the national conversation; I just wish that it would give more column inches to this debate and others like it, rather than the Punch and Judy stuff that happens in the other place.

It is rare to have such unanimity of opinion but, as the Minister has said, we have heard that today. The direction of travel is right, but we must go further and faster. To govern is to choose. Yes, 3.5% or 5% is more, but it is a damn sight cheaper than the alternative of fighting a war with a peer adversary.

I will finish, as I know there is additional business to come. The campaign slogan of the right honourable Member for Makerfield, the incoming Prime Minister, was “Vote Andy, Vote Hope”. Those of us who have had a military career—and there are some here who have had much longer military careers than me—know that you learn pretty early on that hope is not a planning tool. He must understand that the defence of the realm can, and must, be a Government’s top priority.

Motion agreed.

Defence Readiness Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. She is right: I was with her up until the divergence of growth and resilience. Like other noble Lords, I am truly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for tabling this Question and for the authority he brings to the debate through his work at the National Preparedness Commission. I declare an interest as a serving officer in the Army Reserve and as vice-chair of the All-Party Group for Climate, Nature and Security.

The core purpose of a defence readiness Bill is right. The power to mobilise our reserves and industrial base before a crisis becomes a conflict is precisely what the strategic defence review was correct to demand. However, the question before us is not only when the Bill will come but what it should contain. On that, the noble Lord is asking exactly the right question.

The instinct to keep the Bill narrow and treat it as a purely military instrument for a purely military emergency misunderstands the threats set out in our national risk register. The register draws no neat line between hostile state action and everything else. It lists pandemic influenza, severe flooding, prolonged power failure and the cascading loss of critical national infrastructure. When any of those materialises, the mechanisms we reach for are strikingly similar to the ones the Bill would create: we call on the reserves, we lean on logistics and private sector capacity, and we depend on the local resilience forums to hold the response together on the ground. It makes little sense to build those powers for one category of shock and leave them unavailable for the others.

There is a further dimension that this House should not overlook: the state of the infrastructure on which all our resilience ultimately rests. Much of it is ageing and some of it is, frankly, crumbling. We cannot be resilient against a pandemic, flood or hostile act if the pipes, grid and water storage that the country depends on are already failing under ordinary conditions.

I think it was on the Sporting Events Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, talked about the London 2012 Olympics and how the traffic lights could be controlled positively to let sportspeople and officials through without delay. Conversely, that could be cyber attacked or gridlocked. Anyone trying to drive through London not in the middle of the night may think that we are already under some sort of traffic light attack.

Renewing infrastructure is itself an act of national preparedness. Here lies the opportunity: when we rebuild, we can design in security and resilience from the very start, hardening assets against both the storm and the saboteur, rather than bolting protection on afterwards at far greater cost. Upgrade and protection are not competing claims on the budget; done together, they are one investment.

To take one example, we desperately need new water storage, yet no major reservoir has been completed in England since 1992. The nearest new scheme, the Fens reservoir, is not expected online until 2036 and the Lincolnshire reservoir not until 2040. That is more than a decade away for infrastructure that we need now. I do not accept that a reservoir should take the better part of 15 years to deliver. With the will and a planning regime built for urgency rather than delay, there is no reason why a scheme of this kind should not be built in more than two or three years. If we are serious about resilience, we must be serious about the pace at which we build the things that make us resilient.

This is not scope creep for its own sake; it is a matter of coherence and our treaty obligations. Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty requires each of us to maintain the resilience to withstand and recover from major shocks, and that resilience is not distinguished by the origin of the shock. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, proposed that the Bill should follow the model of the Climate Change Act 2008, with a statutory duty to assess our baseline preparedness, set targets for improvement and report annually on progress. I find that a persuasive architecture.

We do not need to start completely from scratch. We can build a national resilience framework that is a benchmark to our preparedness, using means already at our disposal. As a starting point, we could use the military framework of fighting power. The conceptual is how we think about resilience: what are our strategy and tactics for dealing with such a shock? The moral is the national conversation that other noble Lords have spoken about, understanding why we need to be resilient and the motivation. Then there is the physical: the flood defences, the back-up generators, the stores of bottled water. The concepts are already there; we just need to implement them and do so at pace.

I put two questions to the Minister. First, will the mobilisation powers in the forthcoming defence readiness Bill be capable of activation for the civil emergencies listed in the national risk register and not solely for escalation toward armed conflict? Secondly, will the Government commit to a breakdown of the £4.2 billion allocated to the reserves between now and 2030—on page 61 of the DIP, for anyone who is checking—given the importance to the reserves of in-year funding?

Strategic Defence Review: Funding

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

We speak to the Treasury all the time, so I hope the Treasury will understand the points we are making about defence and its importance. I know the Treasury and the Prime Minister understand that. The debate continues about the totality of the spending that needs to be allocated to defence. Those discussions with the Treasury, the Prime Minister and others across government will continue.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a serving Army Reserve officer. I thank the Minister for giving up his valuable time yesterday to meet senior Army leaders from the directorate of personnel. Reservists are the first echelon. The Regular Forces are now so small that reservists are no longer second echelon, but being, essentially, on a zero-hours contract our budgets are usually the first to be cut. What assurances can the Minister give the House that reserve budgets will be protected in the forthcoming DIP?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and to the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, that the reserves are an essential part of the defence of our nation; they will be an increasing part of the defence of our nation. As such, they deserve a budget which matches the responsibility they are going to be given.

Ministry of Defence: Budget Shortfall

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Many decisions will be subject to the defence investment plan. The noble Viscount has been an advocate of the GCAP programme for a number of years and was berating me a few months ago regarding whether the Government support the programme. He knows that the Government support it, and he has seen the importance of the relationship between Japan, Italy and the UK. The specifics of that contract will have to wait, but the overall support for GCAP is there and has been well stated in this Chamber and beyond.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a serving Army Reserve officer—I will be on the live firing ranges with my battalion this weekend. I bring that up because we are hearing worrying signals across the Army Reserve that reserve service days and special taskings are being turned off to meet budgetary requirements. Will the Minister assure the House that in the forthcoming defence investment plan, all reserve force budgets will be protected and boosted to meet our operational effectiveness requirements?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

First, it would be wrong not to acknowledge the service that the noble Lord undertakes on behalf of our nation; perhaps he can pass that on to the other reservists he will be training with at the weekend.

What the noble Lord asks will, again, be subject to the defence investment plan. Reserves are important to this Government. They will be an important part of how we ensure that we have war-fighting readiness in the future, and alongside that they will need the necessary training.

Ukraine

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Friday 31st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Barrow, to this House and congratulate him on his outstanding maiden speech. He is a fine addition to this House. I also declare my interest as a serving Army Reserve officer with the 1st Battalion London Guards.

I wish to start my contribution to this debate with two verified first-hand accounts from Ukraine published in the last week, first from a civilian resident of Kyiv:

“I was sitting in the corridor, waiting out the attack, when I heard a powerful explosion. For a moment, I thought our building was collapsing but it turned out it was the one next door. It was terrifying … We just have to endure it”.


The second is from a soldier describing front-line conditions:

“They hit all cars. They just see someone driving by, and they’ll hit absolutely every car”.


These two testimonies encapsulate the human reality of the conflict in Ukraine: ordinary people enduring unimaginable danger and soldiers facing relentless threats. They remind us that behind strategy and policy are lives, homes and hopes under fire. We must take note of three interlinked dimensions: the ongoing war and its human toll; the effectiveness and limits of our sanctions and support response; and the broader strategic implications for the UK, Europe and the rules-based order.

First, the war continues with full intensity. Civilians live under missile, drone and artillery fire; Ukrainian forces struggle with shortages of manpower and matériel. The front line described by that soldier reveals the brutal randomness of front-line danger. The war is not stabilising; rather, it is grindingly persistent.

Secondly, our sanctions and support regimes are vital but not a panacea. The UK and its allies have introduced strong measures: freezes on assets, bans on Russia’s major oil companies, targeting the shadow fleet, and cutting off key revenue sources. Yet, as the Royal United Services Institute has warned in recent commentary, Russia’s war economy remains capable of sustaining brutal operations because of its high sacrifice ratio and strategic diversion of resources.

Moreover, as explained in a recent report from the Henry Jackson Society, sanctions are undermined by persistent global demand for Russian energy and goods, largely from countries not aligned with the sanctions regime or through a complex web of global financial markets and derivative products, far beyond the comprehension of a simple infanteer such as myself. This universe of loopholes means that Moscow retains avenues to continue revenue flows. I add my voice to the calls to the Government from other noble Lords: even if there is persistent obstruction to the utilisation of frozen Russian assets, could not the interest from those assets be diverted to the Ukrainian cause?

Sanctions are crucial; they must be co-ordinated, multilateral and ruthlessly enforced to have the best chance of success. As we have heard from other noble Lords, the implications for the UK and Europe are profound. If Russia can afford to consider a second front against NATO or Europe via grey-zone tactics, our strategic planning must go beyond Ukraine. Russia must not be allowed to open a second front like Ukraine, but it could wage lower-intensity but highly destabilising actions while Europe falters.

To counter this threat and bring about a just peace that favours Ukraine, we must ensure sanctions remain tight and enforceable, crack down on evasion and co-ordinate with non-Western partners to ensure that frozen assets are leveraged effectively to support Ukraine and hold Russia to account. We must prepare for hybrid threats and have a strong deterrence posture —grey-zone warfare is real. The UK must invest in cyber defences, disinformation resilience, strategic communications and strengthening NATO’s readiness.

We must plan for post-war Ukraine and provide security guarantees. Ukraine’s sovereignty must be underpinned by credible guarantees, and the UK must be part of the coalition of the willing that takes long-term responsibility. We must not falter. We must back the resilience of the rules-based order, with strength and resolve. Let us take note, not only in words but in action.

Strategic Defence Review 2025

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a serving Army Reserve officer with the 1st Battalion London Guards and as a member of the APPG for Climate, Nature and Security. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McCabe, on an outstanding maiden speech.

We are right to recognise the scale of the threat we now face. As the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, outlined in his introduction, the world is becoming more dangerous, not less. Russia’s ambitions have not dimmed. Our adversaries’ reach is growing. As we have heard from other noble Lords, grey zone warfare is no longer a theory; it is being waged against us daily—from cyberattacks to disinformation, sabotage and political subversion.

The review sets out a bold vision: rebuilding the Armed Forces, lifting defence spending, investing in new capabilities and reasserting our role within NATO. All this is not only welcome but necessary. But, if we are serious about national defence, we cannot afford to let ambition outpace delivery. Nowhere is that more at risk than in our treatment of the Reserve Forces. For too long, we have treated reserves as an afterthought and a just-in-case solution, too often called on at short notice, handed outdated kit, sidelined from training opportunities and then expected to deliver at the same standard as regulars. That is not a strategy.

As my noble friend Lord De Mauley outlined, if we are to rely more heavily on the reserves, as the review suggests, we must be honest about what that actually requires. It means giving them the same standard of equipment—no more trickle-down hand-me-downs. It means equal access to courses and training opportunities. Too often, reserves find themselves bumped off areas by cadets or even airsoft groups. That is not how a serious military trains. It means securing the reserve estate itself. I have visited centres where the infrastructure is visibly crumbling, with leaking roofs, obsolete classrooms, and armouries and ranges that have not been safe or functional in years. That is not resilience; that is neglect.

This is not the fault of the RFCAs, which do what they can with what they have. We need a properly costed, funded and long-term plan to restore the reserve estate—not “patch and mend” or “fix it when it breaks”. From what I have seen, RDEL is too low and CDEL is non-existent in the reserve infrastructure context. What has happened to the reserve estate optimisation plan?

My first question to the Minister is: will the MoD commit to a strategic funded upgrade plan of reserve infrastructure that matches the SDR’s ambitions, with the facilities required to deliver training and operational capability? When the next war comes—and it will come—it will be too late to discover that the people we were relying on have been left behind by the very system that claims to need them.

So, yes, let us support the aims of this review; let us invest in a credible nuclear deterrent; and let us embrace the potential of AI, drones and precision long-range fires. But let us also remember that the Armed Forces are built not on capability statements but on people. When we want our reserves to be ready to fight alongside the regulars, they must be trained, equipped and respected as equals, not as a budget-saving measure.

I know that our Minister and the Minister for Veterans and People value reservists, but too often words are not matched by action. So I ask the Minister: if, in the words of the Prime Minister, we are to move to war-fighting readiness, will reservists be given legal job protection not only for mobilisation but for training, as in the US, Canada, and Australia? Will the MoD introduce a reservist skills passport in line with the army talent management system being rolled out to regulars, to tangibly demonstrate the value that reservists bring to civilian employers by giving equivalence to military courses and qualifications, as is also the case in our Five Eyes counterparts?

The fine work of the SDR cannot be another glossy document followed by excuses. This must be the moment we stop hollowing out our defences and start rebuilding properly, with purpose and for the long term.

Defence Industrial Base

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Conservative Benches. We have four Conservatives up. Can they quickly decide which one of them wants to ask the question?

Strategic Defence Review

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I think my noble friend has just demonstrated why the report has been such a success. There may be things that divide people in this Chamber. There may be debates to be had, and quite genuine disagreements. I have always said, and I have always tried to reflect as a Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, that that is a real privilege. It is predicated on the basis that I do not believe that anyone in this House wishes to undermine the defence and security of our nation. We all have that at the front of our minds. My noble friend is right to point out that the public should understand that. We believe that we have the interests of our country and of our alliances—of our friends and allies—at the forefront of our minds.

My noble friend’s remark about the fact that the right honourable Sir Jeremy Quin has been involved in the review is a good example of that cross-party support. I also know that, in my time in this office, the noble Earl, Lord Minto, the noble Baronesses, Lady Goldie and Lady Smith, and many others, including the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, through his responsibility as chair of the International Relations and Defence Committee, have contributed, along with many of my noble friends who have experience. That brings together a wealth of experience and talent that can only make any report better.

On the noble Lord’s last point, an important point needs to be made. It is not only about the amount of money that we spend; we have to be clearer about what we spend it on in order to meet the threats of the future. That is an important point that the report makes as well.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a serving Army Reserve officer. Page 70 recommends only a modest increase in the active reserve of 20%, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, pointed out. Finland’s reserve—albeit it uses a different intake model—consists of over 800,000 trained soldiers, and that is warfighting readiness. Will a defence readiness Bill be forthcoming and much more ambitious and robust in respect of the active reserve?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I will make one suggestion to the noble Lord: perhaps he and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and others in this Chamber who have professional experience and expertise with respect to reserves, will set up a meeting with me about how we might more effectively reach the target of an increase of 20% by the 2030s. I would appreciate the experience and ideas that the noble Lord might have on that.

The defence readiness Bill will come after the Armed Forces Bill in the autumn. The concept of defence readiness is, again, that we face a new type of threat, not only potentially of missiles or state actors but of cyberattack and the disablement of critical national infrastructure. I do not know whether the noble Lord realises, but the Defence Secretary pointed out yesterday that the MoD has had 90,000 state actor threats in the last two years—that is an astonishing figure—and we have seen big business bodies affected by cyberattack. The defence readiness Bill will be about asking how we protect critical national infrastructure and what we need to do to prepare for something happening. Are we ready to defend ourselves, protect our population and ensure that things continue? The defence readiness Bill will help us understand that and develop the sorts of structures we need to do that. Of course, people will be at the heart of it. That Bill will come some time at the beginning of 2026.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 24th March 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Harlech]

21A: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to consider the lived experience of Reserve Service PersonnelIn carrying out their functions under this Act, the Armed Forces Commissioner must give equal consideration to the lived experience of Reserve Service Personnel and Regular Service Personnel.”

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 21A, I shall also speak to Amendment 21B in my name. In so doing, I declare my interest as a serving Coldstream Guards Army Reserve officer with the 1st Battalion London Guards.

I mention this not only because it is my duty to do so in declaring one’s interests but because the London Guards are one of the few good-news stories in the Army Reserve. We are one of the only infantry battalions that is growing. Our partnership with our regular counterparts in the Household Division uniquely positions us for recruitment and retention by offering a dual role: ceremonial duties and contribution to the field Army’s war-fighting capabilities. I should also say that I have the honour to serve alongside the present doorkeeper, Mr Davey—he is not in his place—who, after a distinguished career in the regular Army, now fulfils an essential combat service support role for the battalion on top of his duties to this House.

But I know from attending courses and battle camps with reservists from other infantry formations that the picture is not so positive outside London. This is not to say that we do not face challenges, and there is a feeling that the battalion works well because of the tireless work of individuals up and down the chain of command, bolstered by permanent staff who go above and beyond the call of duty—that is to say, the battalion works in spite of the system, not because of it.

Reserve forces are a vital component of the Armed Forces, providing essential mass, unique capabilities and a diversity of skills that are critical to meeting the Ministry of Defence’s commitments. At the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations conference in November 2024, the Minister for Veterans and People, Alistair Carns MP, delivered the keynote address, focusing on the critical importance of reconnecting defence with society. He praised the contributions of reservists and cadets, noting their significant role in bolstering the UK’s operational capabilities and enhancing social mobility. He said:

“Reserves and cadets are the beating heart of our defence capabilities, offering unparalleled skills and serving as a bridge between the military and the communities they protect. Their commitment ensures that defence is not only ready for today’s challenges but also resilient for the future”.


At the same conference, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen—a former Defence Secretary and former NATO Secretary-General—reinforced the significance of strong community ties in defence efforts, particularly in the face of escalating global threats. He underscored the unique value of the RFCA network in enhancing public understanding and support for the Armed Forces, commenting:

“The role of reserves and cadets has never been more crucial. They exemplify the spirit of service and commitment that underpins our national security. Their efforts strengthen the bond between defence and society, ensuring we are prepared for any challenge”.


I know that the Minister has a personal connection to the Army Reserve, with his son-in-law serving with the Mercians.

In the past, including at the Second Reading of this Bill, the Minister has offered his wholehearted support for our nation’s Reserve Forces. Yet, despite strong words of support from both Ministers and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the reserves are absent from this Bill. It is unclear how the Armed Forces commissioner will effect positive change for the vital work that reservists do and may be called on to do in the future.

This is the situation when considering the reserve estate of buildings and infrastructure: it is at best tired and often not fit for purpose, with too many assets—kitchens, ablutions and boilers—condemned. On training, courses are hard to get on, too long and not available enough. Access to the training estate remains a challenge and funding for some courses is inconsistent. Equipment platforms are of very limited availability, with no viable equipment support to manage training demand. JAMES, the Joint Asset Management and Engineering Solutions platform—it consists of a range of tools for the capability management of military equipment parts—does not work well for the Army Reserve.

On pay and welfare, there are frustrations with the normal retirement age of 55 and perceptions around the over age extension. Pay remains an issue and is not reflective of reservist civilian employment, meaning that they often have to take pay cuts in order to miss work for training. There is also a feeling that remuneration does not compensate for time away from family.

That list is not exhaustive, but these are some factors that severely hamper the reserves’ ability to recruit and retain and which impede their operational effectiveness. Therefore, my Amendment 21A would give a duty to consider the

“lived experience of Reserve Service Personnel”

so that, in carrying out their functions under this legislation, the Armed Forces commissioner would have to give equal consideration to the lived experience of reserve and regular service personnel. The amendment aims to empower the Armed Forces commissioner to ensure equal treatment of Reserve Forces in terms of resources and respect, thus enabling them to fulfil UK plc’s defence requirements and commitments.

Under my Amendment 21B, on the duty to consult the heads of reserves in carrying out their functions under this legislation, the Armed Forces commissioner would have to consult the heads of the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force reserves before implementing any changes that would affect reserve service personnel. Policymakers too often impose policy on reserves instead of collaborating with them, resulting in unintended consequences and unsatisfactory outcomes. This amendment would ensure that policymakers create and implement policy affecting reserves collaboratively, maximising the chance of success.

I look forward to the contributions from other noble Lords and the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. As the noble Lord has outlined, the Reserve Forces are an important part of our defence effort. There was possibly an image, going back to the 1970s and 1980s, that they were about weekend soldiers and drinking clubs. They are far from that today. If you look at the deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, you can see that the number of reservists deployed either as formed units or individuals made a tremendous effort. Certainly, the medical services saved the lives of countless members of our Armed Forces in both theatres; that could not have been done without reserve medical services.

Those forces are unique because, when they are on such deployments, they do not deploy back to a formed unit. As the noble Lord said, they have their unit, but it can be a very lonely existence for some of those individuals when they deploy back. I certainly know that, when I was in the Ministry of Defence and talking to reservists, the issue of mental health was one that particularly concerned me. In a regular unit, there is a welfare structure around them, but the individual who goes back to their individual work or home can feel very isolated. I came across some terrible examples where individuals who were severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were forgotten by the welfare system. I think that things changed—we put things in place—but it is important to remember that these individuals are fighting on behalf of and alongside regular individuals.

However, they do not fit neatly into the category that this Bill outlines. As the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said, reserves may well come across employment issues, discrimination in employment and other issues that affect regular forces, but they do not necessarily fit in there. If we somehow forget about them as the Bill goes through, that will be remiss of us. We will have to wait and see what the outcome of the defence review is, but there will possibly be a larger role for reserve services—particularly because, these days, the Armed Forces across the piece, whether the Navy, the RAF or the Army, have become much more specialised. Some of the skills used in civilian life are very sought after in our military today. If we are going to attract those people, we should make sure not only that the offer is attractive in terms of both remuneration and the experience that they will get but that, if things go wrong, they have support as well.

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I hope that, with those comments—both the formal comments that I have made and the reassurances that I have given to the Committee in response to noble Lords’ individual questions and points—the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, will feel able to withdraw or not press his amendments. However, I thank him again for highlighting the reserves and giving us all the opportunity to say how important we feel their contribution is; we respect their duty.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister and to all noble Lords who took part in this short but important debate, which encompassed both the importance of the Reserve Forces and just some of the challenges that they face.

When I was a Government Whip and I sat there, it used to snap me when people—usually the person speaking to an amendment—would go round the houses and repeat everything we had just heard. Everyone in this Committee has been here for this group of amendments, so we know what was said and I will do not that. However, let me say that I am grateful for everybody’s contributions; this has been an important group.

The Minister gave us an assurance that reserve service personnel will be covered by the Armed Forces commissioner. I just want to pick up on that point. I agree that there must be active communication, as my noble friend Lord Colgrain said, but the Ministry of Defence needs to be very careful in terms of what it thinks is active communication. It might think that sending an email to everyone’s MoDNet email address is communication. I have been in the reserves for six years and I got my MoDNet laptop only two weeks ago, so please do not assume that one pathway and one stream of communication will capture everybody. There needs to be a multifaceted approach to how the roles, responsibilities and rights of reserve forces personnel—as well as how those intertwine with the Armed Forces commissioner—are communicated.

With that, I thank noble Lords and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 21A withdrawn.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I intervene at this point to say that I am very grateful to follow the two noble Lords who have just spoken because I learned a great deal. On Amendment 2, I hope that, when the Minister comes to reply, he will be as precise as possible in indicating exactly when the Bill will take effect on people joining. The noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, referred to attestation: is that in fact the moment at which you go from being an applicant to being, as it were, a serving member of the Armed Forces—and hence the Bill applies?

Secondly, with respect to Amendment 10 and its reference to the regulations, which I got a copy of as I walked through the door, my noble friend the Minister made his declaration of interest again today, and I made one during the Second Reading debate—I will not bore the Committee with it again, except to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, for his enthusiastic reply. Looking at the list of relevant family members, and bearing in mind my declared interest, am I right that someone who is engaged to a serving member of the Armed Forces does not come within the current definition of family members?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a serving Army Reserve officer. I was not going to speak on this group, but the discussion so far has prompted me because, without wishing to prejudge the Committee too much, I am probably the one who went through the recruit process most recently—albeit six years ago. Things have probably changed for the better since then.

I agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, that recruit training needs to be vigorous and arduous, because you are turning civilians into soldiers, sailors and airmen. I also agree with my noble friend Lord Lancaster that applying service law, and benefits thereof, at the point at which someone becomes an applicant would be too early. But, to pick up on the point of the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, yes, attestation is exactly that point.

I can speak only for the Army recruitment process. It is very good at training you and telling you where you need to be, at what time, and with what kit and equipment, and it is good at telling you what you are going to do. What this amendment perhaps points towards is that it could communicate better to recruits not only their obligations but their rights. The National Recruiting Centre holds everyone’s personal information. It could be as simple as an email from the Armed Forces, subbed by the Armed Forces commissioner, saying, “You have now attested. These are your obligations, rights and benefits”. That would take care of all of these issues.