Armed Forces: Reserves

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for securing this timely debate on such an important aspect of our military capability—a capability that continues to be of the greatest importance to our nation, not least in this time of global unrest and uncertainty, although one might be forgiven for thinking that not everyone in the Government understand this as well as they should, given today’s press reports.

More years ago than I now care to remember, I commanded an RAF squadron in what was then the Federal Republic of Germany during the final decade of the Cold War. As part of my duties, I had to be prepared to deal with the media in the event of some newsworthy event or other attracting their attention. To prepare for this unhappy eventuality, I had to undergo the appropriate training. The officer who conducted the training was, as it happens, a reservist; he commanded a small Royal Auxiliary Air Force unit that specialised in public relations and communication. In his day job, he was a highly experienced journalist, and the guidance and advice he offered were therefore grounded in an understanding of the perils and pitfalls of media engagement that no regular officer I have come across could ever have matched. His contribution to what we sought to do in Germany in those days was unique, and it was likewise invaluable.

A few years later, when I was commanding an RAF station in Norfolk, I had the privilege and pleasure of having both a Royal Auxiliary Air Force regiment squadron and a Royal Engineers Territorial Army squadron under me. If ever I felt I needed an injection of enthusiasm, I had only to go to see the men and women of those units training over the weekends. The determination and élan that they displayed as they worked hard in what should have been their time off were quite remarkable. The members of the Royal Engineers squadron, in particular, never ceased to amaze me. Their role was airfield damage repair and, as a consequence, many were experts in the handling of industrial machinery. They thus came to us from far and wide, since Norfolk is not exactly the heart of the construction industry in the UK. Despite the distances that they had to travel, there they were at the weekends, carrying out their role with enormous skill and huge enthusiasm. Some time later, I had the great privilege of being an honorary colonel of a Royal Engineers TA regiment, and the years I spent in that role brought home to me in the most convincing fashion that my experience at Marham was not in the least unusual, but rather the norm.

In the latter stages of my career, when I was Chief of the Defence Staff, I saw at first hand the outstanding performance of reservists from all three services in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was particularly struck by the fact that the regulars to whom I spoke told me that the contribution of the reservists was indistinguishable from that of their full-time counterparts. Beyond this, the reservists were at times able to use the expertise and skills of their civilian professions in all sorts of unexpected but enormously valuable ways. They were an integral and important part of the deployed force.

These and other experiences over the course of many years have led me to a number of conclusions regarding the place of reservists in our military structure. The first is that reservists are not just some kind of locum tenens for regular personnel; they make a unique contribution in their own right and are a crucial part of the force structure, not merely an optional add-on. What is that contribution? It is, in part, the expert knowledge that many reservists bring from fields of endeavour that are underrepresented, or not represented at all, within the regular part of the force. Sometimes this is delivered through their membership of specialist units, but it can also be available as a useful additional skill that is not a normal part of their military duties. But reservists bring something more than this: they bring a wish to serve, just not as regulars. They bring a wish to serve in a more limited but nevertheless important way. In a democratic society, such a wish should not be scorned; it should be encouraged, nurtured and turned to the nation’s advantage.

Outside general war, we in this country do not have an extensive tradition of citizen soldiers, but it is nevertheless an important concept. It connects the military and the society it serves and from which it springs more closely. It both embeds more deeply and widens the sense of duty, which is such an important element of responsible citizenship. For all these reasons, reservists should be seen as an important part of the force mix within our military.

My second conclusion, though, is that reservists have to feel useful. My two reserve squadrons at Marham were training to fight the Warsaw Pact, just as their regular counterparts were; they were an integral part of the team. The reservists deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan made a crucial contribution to the conduct of those campaigns. All of them knew that what they did was important, and that it was appreciated. Reserve units must not be seen as some kind of weekend social club. Reservists do not want to be treated in such a way. That kind of approach demeans them and the responsibility they show in electing to serve in the first place. So, however we organise our military, the place of reservists within the structure must be both clear and useful, and to feel useful, reservists need to be used—not just as additional bodies but in the roles and for the purposes that led them to sign on in the first place.

My final point is that the size of the reserve component should be considered in its own right, not as a way of providing a cheap and cheerful alternative to regulars. All too often the debates over force structure, usually driven by financial constraints, centre on the cost of regulars compared to reservists, versus the inadequacy of reservists as opposed to regulars. Well, reservists are not regulars, and cannot be used for roles that require regular service. As I have argued, however, reservists are important in their own right. The debate should therefore be about what reservists bring to the force mix, not about how we save money. Indeed, reservists cost money. They need to be properly trained and equipped for their operational roles. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, has highlighted some of the current shortfalls in this regard. If reservists are not properly trained and equipped, and if the Government use them merely as a fig leaf for force structure reductions to cut costs, they will not stay. The regular/reserve mix should be determined by overall capability, not by financial expediency.

Reservists are therefore important to this country in all sorts of ways. They have a remarkable history, which we should celebrate, and an important future, which we should protect. That future—indeed, the future of our Armed Forces as a whole—is at this moment in the balance. The Ministry of Defence is carrying out a review under the rather disingenuous title of “modernising defence”. It is no secret that to deliver the force structure set out at the conclusion of the 2015 defence review, the Ministry of Defence will require additional funds. But it is by no means clear that these will be forthcoming, particularly given recent statements by the Chancellor and today’s press reports. I therefore take this opportunity to remind the Minister that many of us are watching carefully to see whether the Government intend to discharge properly what is acknowledged to be their first duty to our citizens: their defence and security. If they should fail to do so, they should not expect us to sit idly by.

In this debate we are celebrating the contribution that reservists make to national security. They, and their regular comrades, can continue to make that contribution only if they are adequately funded. The Government frequently and rightly acknowledge the quality and courage of our Armed Forces. Those are fine words, but it is time to back them up with decisive action.