Armed Forces Bill

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 48, 50, 51 and 52 in my name.

Amendment 48 is about payment to the new non-executive board members. The members of the RFCAs and all their forebear organisations, commencing with the county territorial associations in 1908, whether acting locally or nationally, have never been paid. The volunteer ethos is of very considerable significance, especially in the world of reserves and cadets. Imagine how it will look to the reservists, who volunteer and put their lives on the line, and to the cadet forces, if the non-executives are to be paid. It is a really bad look and unlikely to attract the best of society who are absolutely committed to the reserves and cadets.

Furthermore, we are living in a time of scarce resources, especially in the field of defence. Yet here is the MoD deliberately adding cost, when it knows there is a ready supply of volunteers who will do, and indeed are doing, this work for no financial reward. One can guess the reaction of those who have shown, over many years, their dedicated and unpaid commitment to the reserves and cadets, to the appointment of paid non-executives with no apparent commitment to the reserves or cadets. It is a mistake to offer money to entice people to apply for these roles.

I turn now to Amendment 50, which seeks to reinstate lords-lieutenant. Lords-lieutenant are the sovereign’s representatives in their respective lieutenancies or counties. It is their foremost duty to uphold the dignity of the Crown. Historically, each lord-lieutenant was responsible for organising the county’s militia. The Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 established county territorial associations, with the lord-lieutenant as the president of the county association. The relationship of lords-lieutenant with the military today is maintained via their presidency of their county RFCAs. All lords-lieutenant are affiliated to one of the 13 regional RFCAs; one of them is president and they rotate the presidency among them.

This is constituted in primary legislation, most recently in Schedule 4 to the Reserve Forces Act 1996. Removing that would remove the final vestiges of a military role and an important part of the symbolic relationship of the lords-lieutenant to the Crown. Service personnel hold the sovereign in the highest regard. To cut off this link between reservists and the Crown seems, to say the least, inappropriate. Lords-lieutenant have evidenced considerable concern over the review’s proposals and the consequences of breaking this important link. Under the Armed Forces Bill, the involvement of the lords-lieutenant, which was established under paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 of Schedule 4 to the Reserve Forces Act 1996, is to be abolished. Paragraph 4(2)(b) of Schedule 6 to this Bill will omit

“section 111 and Schedule 4 (provisions of schemes for the constitution of associations)”.

It has been suggested, as an afterthought, that the continued involvement of the lords-lieutenant might be achieved through secondary legislation or regulation. The involvement of the lords-lieutenant is currently in primary legislation and to relegate it to regulations is nothing short of insulting. It also makes it much easier to amend, change and delete it. If it is proposed to amend the law in a way that affects a class of persons, it is customary to consult them. Even if there is no statutory duty to do so, there have been cases where the courts have held that failure to consult is a reason for upholding judicial review of the Government. I understand that the Association of Lord-Lieutenants has not been consulted. I urge the Minister to consider the amendment carefully.

Amendment 51 addresses the establishment of a national council. The strength of the RFCAs lies in their embeddedness across the regions. This was not accidental; it reflects the original Haldane model from 1908—a decentralised, citizen-based structure designed to mirror national diversity and ensure societal ownership of the territorial Reserve Forces. It has endured and worked for over a century. What is today described as “connecting defence with the nation” is rooted in this model, so it is right that Schedule 6 of the Bill establishes regional councils through paragraph 14 of proposed new Schedule 4A. What is extremely odd, though, is that the drafters have not understood that the regional councils are irrelevant if their views are not brought together and debated centrally, so that a single considered professional message can be delivered to Ministers.

Abolition of the membership, discussed in the debate on the last group, also presents a conundrum as to where the regional council members will be elected from. When we questioned this, we were told, “Don’t worry, it’ll be dealt with in secondary legislation”. This is a quite extraordinary response. Without a national council, the regional councils are completely irrelevant, and without a membership they will be ineffective. This seems to be an attempt to pay lip service to devolution, while in fact cutting it off at the roots. A national council is fundamental to the functioning of the new structure, and the amendment would establish one.

Amendment 52 addresses the external scrutiny team. The Council of Reserve Forces and Cadets Associations external scrutiny team provides an independent annual assessment to Parliament of the state, capabilities and health of the United Kingdom’s Reserve Forces, identified as fundamental to advising Ministers and the single services on the effectiveness of training, fighting efficiency and leadership of the reserve, thus meeting the FR 2020 proposition to reservists. It was established following the Future Reserves 2020 review and operates with statutory duties mandated by the Reserve Forces Act 1996.

The Armed Forces Bill, in paragraph 5(b) of Schedule 6, introduces the concept that the Defence Council can remove responsibility for producing the annual assessment or report and award it to someone else at stroke of a pen. This is not the case in the current legislation. Will the Minister therefore explain what lies behind this change? To whom might the responsibility for producing the independent assessment be transferred? What would be considered appropriate grounds for transferring it? When might this happen? How will Ministers ensure the assessment continues in future to be conducted properly and truly independently of the MoD? I beg to move.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to these amendments, and I agree with the points that have been so well made by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. I will start my brief remarks by making just a couple of general points. First, while there have been some criticisms of the arrangements of reserves and cadet forces, particularly in fairly recent reviews, most of these have been attended to subsequently. The general opinion was that, in the round, the Reserve Forces and cadets operated extremely well and were extremely valuable, and the arrangements that had been set in place had served this country extremely well for a very long time. There is, therefore, a burden of proof on anyone seeking to change the current arrangements to show why any proposed alterations will be better than the arrangements that are already in place. I fear that the Government fail on this count in many instances in this particular part of the Armed Forces Bill.

Secondly, the Minister has previously indicated to the Committee that some of the shortcomings might be attended to in secondary legislation, and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, just referred to this. That is all very well, but as everybody in this Chamber knows, we cannot amend secondary legislation; we take it or leave it, and usually, we have to take it. Of course, there must be secondary legislation for the detailed implementation of an Act and the measures in it; but issues of principle should be settled in primary legislation, not in secondary legislation, for some of the reasons that the Lord, Lord De Mauley, just pointed out. Quite a number of the issues covered by the amendments this evening are issues of principle and, therefore, belong in primary legislation, not in secondary legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That might be a matter for us to consider in the conversation that we have. I do not want to go on for too long, but I understand many of the comments that different people have made this evening; I agree with some of them to a larger or lesser extent. I have never thought, generally speaking, that, in certain circumstances, unpaid work is the way forward. This is one of those situations, in respect of the board: I do not think it undermines the voluntary ethos as a whole because, here, it is related to board membership. In that circumstance, it is perfectly reasonable, given the new board that we wish to set up, that the position should be remunerated, although I accept the point that, in the broader establishment of lords-lieutenant and others across the wider—

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

The Minister has said that he does not believe that having paid non-executive directors will lessen their commitment. That is not the question, though. Surely the question is: does having unpaid representatives lessen their commitment? It does not. So why do we want to change it?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That is the difference. I understand the whole point about the voluntary ethos generally across the reserves and cadet associations; I absolutely accept that. I am saying, with respect to the board members, that, where you are creating a national board that wants to take on certain statutory functions, that position should be remunerated. That is the difference between us. In the end, personally, I think that that is not inconsistent with the belief that you can have a voluntary ethos.

Look—we have voluntary organisations all over the country that display a voluntary ethos of which we are all proud. At the top of those organisations are people, including board members, who are remunerated. We would not expect them to be able to do that job of work without that remuneration. That is the principle and the point that I am making.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and to breaking down barriers that prevent people contributing to public life, so we want public appointments to be open to all those who have the skills, experience and commitment, not only to those with the financial means to do so without compensation. The Government’s objective is to attract the best candidates from the widest possible range of backgrounds, and retaining the option to remunerate supports that aim. I hope that explains the Government’s position while accepting, again, that many noble Lords will disagree with it. That is my point about payments for the strategic oversight board while respecting the voluntary ethos more widely within the reserves and cadets associations.