Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025

Debate between Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton and Lord Craig of Radley

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I support this continuation order. As has been explained, it keeps His Majesty’s Armed Forces legal until after the Armed Forces Bill in 2026 is enacted. The Minister has given a good trailer for the debate that we will have on Friday on the strategic defence review, so I will not respond on that.

I would like to make just one point. When the 2021 Act was being debated, I, Lord Mackay of Clashfern and other noble Lords pressed for the obligation to have “due regard” to the Armed Forces covenant to be extended from local authorities to include central government departments. We quoted, as examples in need of central government consideration, Gulf War syndrome and the right of abode in the UK for Hong Kong Military Service Corps veterans who had served full time in the Armed Forces. A compromise was reached, and the issue was set aside for further examination.

The present Government have made it clear from the outset that they would extend the responsibility for supporting the covenant to central government. This is most welcome—it will, I assume, be legally formalised when the 2026 Bill is being considered—but the importance and reach of the Armed Forces covenant has had a very long incubation. I was one of the first to raise an amendment to the covenant legislation, which I tabled to the 2011 Bill nearly 15 years ago.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, I support this continuation order. I start by declaring my interests as a director of the Army Reserve and the chairman of the Reserve Forces review in 2030. I will ask a couple of questions but, in looking forward to next year’s Armed Forces Act, I also want to make a couple of suggestions.

Historically, we have always focused on our obligations under Article 5 of the NATO treaty. This is why we have a relatively small regular Army but one that is at high readiness and is expeditionary in nature: we always plan to fight a relatively short war in continental Europe. Equally, it is why we have a relatively small reserve. However, our planning assumptions have been called into question as a result of the war in Ukraine, which has been an extended campaign, meaning that we have to look carefully at both regeneration and reconstitution. It is also, in effect, a war between two reserve armies.

I absolutely welcome the SDR because it has, for the first time, forced us to look seriously at Article 3 and homeland defence—something where, in the past, we have perhaps not paid attention to the detail in the way we should have done. It is clear that, with the focus now on both Article 5 and Article 3, the demand on the workforce is going to increase significantly. That is recognised in the SDR. I was pleased to see that one of the recommendations was that the size of the reserves should increase by 20%—albeit with the caveat of “when we can afford it”—but, looking forward, I have some concerns.

First, we have the most wonderful department in the Ministry of Defence, as well as wonderful civil servants, but it is not a department that is set up for legislation. I wish to share my own experiences, having been the Minister responsible for two of the previous Armed Forces Acts. When the time came, we sometimes struggled to make some of the provisions we wanted to make, because we simply ran out of time. So my first plea to the Minister is this: can we get ahead of this and make sure that the work is done? The last principal muscle move was in 2006, when the single services used to have three different sets of service law. We combined those into a single Armed Forces Act in 2006 and I am sensing, from where we are today, that the next Armed Forces Act will also have to be a significant piece of work. As your Lordships are probably aware, the regular Army and the Army Reserve are dealt with through two separate pieces of legislation, and delivering a whole-force solution adds complication. I fear that what we will have to do in the next Armed Forces Act is combine those two pieces of legislation into a single Act, which will be a lot of work.

If the department does not necessarily like legislation, one thing it absolutely loves is policy. Every time we face a challenge, we seem to wrap around yet another piece of policy. We now have something of a Gordian knot of policy and I rather hope that, come the next Act, the Minister will adopt the role of Alexander and slice through much of it, because it prevents us having the flexibility to access society through the reserve and the regular force to deliver all the skill sets that we need. We have great aspirations to deliver zig-zag careers, enticing people to come into the Armed Forces, leave, go into civilian life and potentially come back. We have great aspirations from a regular reserve perspective for people to dial up or dial down their military service, but our policy makes that quite complicated, particularly our terms and conditions of service.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Debate between Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton and Lord Craig of Radley

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

It just came to my mind now, and my memory may be wrong, but I thought that was the case. If it was, it would be interesting to know why that provision has been taken out as the Bill has evolved, because it is probably quite a good thing. On the one hand, I can see the advantages of having a former member of the Armed Forces but, on the other, I would not want them to be in the Armed Forces on Friday and doing this role on Monday, which is why that time gap would be useful.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

I will say very briefly that I support Amendment 3, but I have some reservations about Amendment 4, mainly because of its length and its attempt to dot a lot of “i”s and cross a lot of “t”s. At the back of my mind all the time when we are discussing this Bill is that the Armed Forces Act is more than 500 pages long, and this will add to that. It becomes a nonsense to have an Act of Parliament of such complexity and such an attempt to deal with every conceivable possibility affecting the Armed Forces. It arises, of course, because the three single-service Acts were pulled together in 2006. It has produced a monstrosity, so where we can avoid adding detail to the Armed Forces Act by this Bill, we should jolly well try to do so.