Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, like others, I start by welcoming this Armed Forces Bill. There are many measures within it that have been identified today that are in urgent need of our attention, such as the provisions to ensure that service personnel and their families have access to quality housing and the intention to modernise and strengthen our Reserve Forces; particularly the inclusion of support for employers, for example. I declare an interest: I have a daughter who is a serving reserve officer in the very unit that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, mentioned, the London Scottish. I also welcome the desire to place the Armed Forces covenant fully into law. The Bill rightly recognises that our duty to those who serve must not end with warm words but must be reflected in legislation and public policy. However, in some areas, I wish that the Government would go further.

As others have identified, the measures in this Bill extending the recall liability and easing the transfer from regulars to reserves focus on the Strategic Reserve. If we are really going to adopt a whole-defence approach and increase the Active Reserve by 20%, we need to be much smarter about who we have, what skills they bring and how we attract, train and retain people within all the Volunteer Reserve Forces. The MoD does not manage or track total spending on Reserve Forces. Answers to Written Questions in the other place show that the MoD has no idea as to the make-up and skill set of the Reserve Forces. My noble friend Lord Lanacaster of Kimbolton suggested that we focus on digital data solutions; would they not be basic low-hanging fruit that the Government should ensure they resolve as a first step?

Along with others, I, too, look forward to the Minister explaining how else the Government plan to deliver on expanding the pool of reserves. Should this Bill be confined to changing the length of time and age limits for recalling personnel? What about tackling the less favourable treatment of reservists regarding pension access and daily rates of pay, and addressing the conclusions of the 2024 employment tribunal ruling? Will he commit to supporting my noble friend Lord Lancaster in implementing the recommendations of RF30, or perhaps the suggestions for tax incentives for reservists made earlier by my noble friend Lord Minto?

There is another area where this Bill suffers from a glaring omission. There is a group of people who wear a uniform with pride. They are described by the Minister himself as essential and a unique asset to government. They participate in military operations in contested environments in direct support of the UK’s national security. These personnel spend months away from their families. They can be exposed to missile threats, hostile actors and escalating regional tensions. They accept restrictions on their freedoms. They may suffer the same psychological impacts of operational deployment as others in our Armed Forces, yet when they return home, they do not enjoy the same recognition under the Armed Forces covenant because they are classified as civilian employees. I am referring to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, the RFA. Because its members are employed as civil servants, the Armed Forces covenant and the provisions in this Bill do not extent to them.

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is not a commercial shipping company; it is a uniformed fleet owned by the Ministry of Defence, operating under naval command, crewed by people who volunteer to deploy wherever the Royal Navy is sent. Without them, carrier strike groups do not remain at sea, amphibious operations cannot be sustained, and NATO task groups cannot remain on station. They are not merely supporting defence; they are part of defence. RFA “Tideforce” has recently been participating in maritime security operations in European waters, working with NATO forces and Royal Navy warships, including on tracking, intercepting and seizing Russian shadow fleet oil tankers. Right now, the crew of RFA “Lyme Bay” is deployed in the Middle East. Repurposed as a specialist mothership for autonomous mine-hunting, the vessel carries advanced underwater drones, uncrewed surface vessels, and specialist mine warfare and diving personnel. The 60 or so members of the ship’s company who run RFA “Lyme Bay” were trained and tested thoroughly before deployment alongside the embarked forces who provide the mine warfare expertise. With the destroyer HMS “Dragon”, RFA “Lyme Bay” will play a central role in any future multinational effort to safeguard the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

RFA personnel have trained, and are deployed and operating right now, in one of the most volatile places on the planet, yet when they return home, they and their families will not be covered by the Armed Forces covenant. The Minister confirmed this in an Answer to my Written Question on 3 June:

“In the spirit of the Covenant, organisations who have signed the Armed Forces Covenant pledge are encouraged to consider the needs of other groups within the wider Armed Forces community if individual circumstances merit it. This includes members of the RFA that have seen duty on defined military operations”.


We have an opportunity in this Bill to put this right. I know first-hand that the Minister is a supporter of the RFA. Surely, tracking the shadow fleet, deployment in the Middle East, and supporting NATO task groups are defined military operations, and surely every member of the RFA who has been part of them deserves to be protected by the provisions of the Armed Forces covenant. I hope this Bill can be amended to ensure that from now on, this is unambiguously the case.

The Armed Forces covenant exists because those who serve our nation accept unique risks, restrictions and sacrifices. It is not founded on military status but on military service. It is profoundly unfair, then, that there remain men and women, routinely deployed alongside our Armed Forces in areas of conflict and crisis, who enable military operations every day but who remain outside the covenant’s protections. That cannot be the intention of this Bill. I therefore urge the Government to consider an amendment that extends covenant eligibility to Royal Fleet Auxiliary personnel who have undertaken defined operational service. It would be a modest change to this Bill, but a significant statement of fairness.

Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie]

1: Clause 2, page 2, line 13, at end insert “and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and three others in the name of Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie seek to include Royal Fleet Auxiliary personnel within the statutory provisions of the Armed Forces Covenant.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, this first group of amendments addresses the scope of the Armed Forces covenant. I will speak to Amendments 1, 2, 3 and 4 in my name, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, for her support. They all relate to page 2 of the Bill and all, after the word “forces” on lines 13, 16, 19 and 21, seek to insert the words “and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary”. The modest amendments in this group correct an anomaly in the Bill as a whole and give clarity and certainty to the RFA, which is widely acknowledged by us all as a vital part of the Royal Navy and the UK’s national security and defence.

In winding up at Second Reading, the Minister addressed the position of the RFA in acknowledging that the Government have given the Armed Forces Commissioner responsibility for RFA personnel in Clause 31. Given this, it seems nonsensical that the RFA is covered in this way in one part of the Bill but not in another. Are the Government really saying that RFA personnel are recognised as part of the broader Armed Forces community when it suits, yet fall outside of the statutory legal duties applied to that community for members of the Regular and Reserve Forces? Can the Minister explain why the RFA is included in the commissioner’s powers but is excluded from the rest of the Armed Forces covenant?

The Minister is aware that I have been focused on the status of the RFA for some time. It is my belief that it is a vital, but always overlooked, part of our defence. The main issue stems from the unique position of the RFA as a civilian-manned naval auxiliary fleet owned by the Ministry of Defence. Rather than accounting for the risks and sacrifice they take as seafarers supporting military operations, the Government seem to view RFA personnel as just another type of civil servant. This is to fundamentally misunderstand their role and function.

Let us not forget that members of the RFA work to the same standards and are trained alongside other military personnel, and, if they are deployed on military operational service, they come under the same rules and regulation as the Royal Navy. At this time of constrained resources, they are frequently tasked with roles that would formerly be given to warships. They are not civil servants.

I noted that, during the Recess, Veterans Minister Calvin Bailey visited RFA “Tidespring” and “Mounts Bay”, where improving the welfare and morale of the crew, and supporting their families, was high on his agenda. The Minister was quoted as saying that the RFA had slipped from public consciousness, despite quietly underpinning operations, as he described it, like a “big … Swiss Army knife”.

Like other branches of the Armed Forces, the RFA has experienced considerable recruitment and retention challenges. Recently, in order to fulfil its remit, the RFA was having to move personnel between vessels, stretching the workforce dangerously thin and leading to questions about whether ships could be crewed effectively and safely. Commodore Sam Shattock, head of service, has sought to address this. He has had to reduce the operating fleet for now, but he has also reviewed the training and career framework to streamline progression and ensure that personnel are developed and deployed more efficiently. I am pleased to note that recruitment is increasing and that applications have reached their highest level in five years.

I am heartened also to hear that the new Armed Forces Commissioner has already met Commodore Shattock and is fully aware of the unique position of the RFA. On assuming office, she stated:

“Ultimately, my purpose as Commissioner is simple: to ensure the lived experience of those who serve is understood, valued and continuously improved”.


This Bill includes those who serve as part of the RFA in her remit, and the Minister has previously acknowledged that members of the RFA are part of the Armed Forces community, so again I ask: why are they not included in the provisions of the Armed Forces covenant in Clause 2?

My amendments would result in a very small extension of the covenant by numbers. If you take a total Armed Forces population of around 140,000, plus veterans and families, we are talking about only an additional 1,700 serving RFA members, plus veterans and families. It is an increase of less than 1.5%.

The RFA population would welcome recognition as beneficiaries under the Armed Forces covenant: a covenant founded not on status but on military service, such as that provided in areas of conflict and crisis by members of the RFA. My amendments would give these men and women the clarity and recognition they deserve.

Defence Minister Luke Pollard recently told the Portsmouth News:

“We’ve got the opportunity to reset the relationship with the seafarers within the RFA, and it means we can start the process of valuing the RFA more. I feel they have been undervalued in the past”.


The Government can start the process of valuing the RFA more right here, by accepting my amendments. If the Minister does not wish to accept them then, given our shared appreciation for the men and women of the RFA, I look forward to his response and his explanation of why not. I beg to move.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, as I set out at Second Reading, I am supportive of the Government expanding the scope of the Armed Forces covenant, building on the work the previous Government undertook in the Armed Forces Act 2021. I say to the Minister that although, as the Minister, I was somewhat diffident about this expansion, now that this Government have seen fit to provide it, I am 100% in there and want it to work as well as possible.

My amendments in this group are intended to strengthen that legal duty. As drafted, the Bill extends the covenant legal duty to four persons. New Section 343AZA(4) specifies that those persons are

“a national authority; a local authority; an education body; a health body”.

New Section 343AZB(2) sets out the definition of “national authority” as being

“a Minister of the Crown, within the meaning of the Ministers of the Crown Act 1975; the Welsh Ministers; the Scottish Ministers; the First Minister and deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland acting jointly, a Northern Ireland Minister or a Northern Ireland department”.

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[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, which seems to me to be one about fairness and about anomalies in the Bill, and I thank the Minister for his reply. I make no apology for highlighting the unique position of the RFA, which I feel the Minister acknowledged in his reply. He acknowledged that they have a distinct position. They are not just civil servants. They may be civilians, but the Armed Forces covenant extends to reservists, who are civilians until they are deployed as reservists. It is profoundly unfair that the men and women of the RFA who wear a uniform and are deployed alongside our Armed Forces are outside the covenant’s protections, and yet they are included in Clause 31 and Schedule 4 for pay and conditions. As the Minister pointed out, it leads to ambiguity; it cannot be the Government’s intention to create this ambiguity.

I feel my amendments are a modest change, but they represent a statement of intent. It seems to me that Defence Minister after Defence Minister is lining up to want to value the RFA more and to give a statement of intent. The Minister has been offering meetings between now and Report. I hope he will consider the position of the RFA within the Bill and how, together, we might clarify this intent. I look forward to further discussions, and I reserve the right to bring this back on Report if necessary.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

If the noble Baroness is saying it would be helpful to have a further discussion, of course we can.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

I appreciate that very much. With that, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a serving officer in the Army Reserve. In moving Amendment 6, I shall also speak to Amendment 7, which stands in my name in the same group. Before I focus on the amendments in detail, I would like to briefly preface the intent behind all the amendments to the Bill in my name. The Government Whips can rest assured that I am not about to launch into a Second Reading speech—but, as Max Hastings wrote in the Times this week:

“When the Cold War ended in 1990 the TA still mustered a strength of almost 73,000”.


We can all agree that we are a long way from that now. All my amendments are with the aim of improving the lived experience of reservists in order to strengthen recruiting and retention and therefore the operational effectiveness of the Armed Forces.

The two amendments in this group have a single purpose between them. Clause 2 puts the covenant properly into law, and I welcome it, but a duty of due regard is only as good as the ability of the body under it to see the people it is supposed to be regarding; Amendment 6 makes them visible, and Amendment 7 gives the duty a specific task. Amendment 6 would require bodies subject to the Clause 2 duty to ask, and to record, whether an individual belongs to the Armed Forces community and, in particular, to distinguish current reserve service from veteran status. I anticipate that the Minister will tell me this already happens. The registration form for a general practice does carry a question about Armed Forces service, but the question is optional, is framed in the past tense—about having served—and is asked once at the point of registration. Consider what that means for a reservist. Reserve service is a status acquired in mid-life. I registered with my general practitioner long before I attested, and nobody has asked me since. The whole design is veteran-shaped, and serving reservists fall through it.

Although a clinical code for Armed Forces reservists already exists within the National Health Service, it remains entirely underutilised. The framework is in place, yet throughout my years in the reserves I have never been queried about my military status when scheduling a medical or dental appointment—an experience that I am confident is widely shared. The consequence is that the entire burden of the covenant falls on the individual to self-advocate. They must explain what the covenant is to a receptionist who has potentially never heard of it in order to claim something to which they cannot prove they are entitled. Most people do not bother, and I do not blame them.

I will address the inevitable criticism head-on. Proposed new subsection 4 would ensure that the decision to respond remains entirely voluntary, stipulating that declining would not prejudice an individual’s access to or quality of care. While the serviceperson retains their autonomy, the provider is stripped of the plea of ignorance.

If we lack this data, the ministry remains unable to evaluate the covenant’s impact and this House is denied the means of oversight. We would in effect be creating a statutory obligation while simultaneously refusing to provide the tools necessary for its fulfilment.

Amendment 7 turns to what the duty should deliver. It would require health bodies to have due regard to a reservist’s need

“to attain and maintain the standards of medical and dental fitness required”

for call-out and recall.

The Bill expands the liability to serve, extends recall to the age of 65 and introduces a lower threshold for mobilisation and an opt-out model. Every one of these provisions assumes that the individual is medically and dentally fit to deploy. Applying recall powers to people who cannot pass a medical grading is simply relabelling, not enhanced capability.

Dental fitness is the sharpest illustration of this. A reservist who cannot obtain a dental appointment fails dental fitness standards and becomes non-deployable. That is not a health inconvenience; it is a capability loss that the state has created by asking the serviceperson to be ready in the first place.

Reservists routinely pay privately to stay deployable. That is a hidden tax on service. Proposed new subsection 3 would provide that nothing in the clause

“requires a health body to provide any assessment … or treatment otherwise than in accordance with clinical need”.

The amendment bites only between patients of equivalent clinical priority. It is a tie-break, not a preference, and it cannot displace a single patient with a greater clinical need. It is the same bounded logic as the existing veterans priority, which survives precisely because it is bounded. Proposed new subsection 4 would require the Defence Council to publish those standards, because nobody can have due regard to a standard they cannot see.

I have two questions for the Minister. What is the department’s assessment of the proportion of trained reservists who are currently medically or dentally non-deployable? Will the Government publish those standards, irrespective of what happens to this amendment? Neither of these amendments costs any money. Together, they are the difference between a covenant that is declared and a covenant that is delivered. I beg to move.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

I support my noble friend and declare an interest in that my daughter is a serving member of the reserves. Amendment 7 would have helped her enormously in the autumn when she received her call-up papers to join the Welsh Guards in Kenya. She had a wisdom tooth issue and had been on the waiting list for some time. Because her reservist service was not known to her dentist or, frankly, anyone else, she was very nearly medically undeployable and people had to bend rules. That had an effect not only for her and the Welsh Guards but for her employer, who had to sign up to give her the time off to go and do three months with the Welsh Guards. That was a real-time example of why these amendments really matter.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harlech. As he said, they should not bring a financial cost but might bring material benefits for the individual reservists and for defence. There are all sorts of questions that could and should be considered. If somebody is a serving member of the Regular Armed Forces, they will be dealt with. If you are a reservist, however, and you cannot get your dental appointment, or if you are deployed, you do not have your six-monthly check-up with your NHS dentist and you get deregistered, where does that leave you next time around?

There are all sorts of questions that could be dealt with in a relatively straightforward way, as long as medical and dental practices understood that somebody was a reservist. The idea is that you would be happy to say, “This is my status”, but could there not be regular questions? There are all sorts of things that medical practices will ask, or when you go to the dentist. Do you take medication? Do you have any health issues? Has anything changed? You could also be asked whether you are a member of the Armed Forces, or a reservist? It should not be too difficult.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I do not think we are saying it is the reservist’s responsibility to ensure that people are aware, but we are encouraging bodies—and I have encouraged them—to determine the status of the individuals who come before them. As I say, rather than having a statutory requirement, we often see it as good practice and we are encouraging, through guidance and other ways, a means of trying to improve the situation.

As I say—I think this is part of what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, was getting at—this risks blurring the clear and long-established principle that NHS care is determined by clinical priority, not necessarily by employment status or potential availability for service. It opens up all sorts of other possibilities as well. That is why, to answer the noble Baroness’s point, we understand the need to have due regard and to try to understand the particular circumstances of the individuals who may come before them from a reservist perspective.

The Government have been clear about our priority of supporting our health services in reducing waiting lists and improving access to care, but we should be cautious about creating new statutory factors for health bodies to weigh in their decision-making. Through the Bill, the Government have already taken steps to deal with the issue of disadvantage for the reserves compared to the general population. We are imposing a duty on specified national authorities, local authorities, health bodies and education bodies to have due regard to the principles of the Armed Forces covenant, which is the point I was making at the beginning. That is how we seek to address some of the disadvantages that the noble Lord has raised, as I say, on page 2 of the Bill.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

I am really confused about what “with due regard” would mean given the Minister’s comment just now that health services must be based on clinical priorities. In the case of a reservist being called up and failing pre-callout checks because of something such as a wisdom tooth for which they have been on a waiting list for a long time, would “due regard” mean they would get bumped up the waiting list so that they were deployable, or not?

Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support the purpose of opposing Clause 38 standing part. The PAC’s 43rd report of 2024-25 heavily criticised the MoD for inadequacies in its financial oversight of the RFCAs. The report said:

“The Department’s arrangements for monitoring and reporting on the RFCAs’ financial performance are inadequate”


and they

“fall below the standard we expect”.

I have studied this report. It is quite a shocker. The PAC even said that there was uncertainty over who was responsible when problems arise. I could go on, but I will spare officials their blushes. I hope they are preparing the progress reports that the PAC demanded, covering these shortfalls and failings.

The PAC specifically acknowledged that the Reserve Forces and cadets are increasingly important to UK defence, as is stressed in the SDR. But to take these shortcomings as specific reasons for changes, not just to financial control but to the management, structure and leadership of the RFCAs, is simply an overreaction. The drafters of this aspect of the Bill seem to ignore history or have little feeling for the long tradition of the Armed Forces’ loyalty and direct connection with the Crown—a tradition that goes back centuries, as mentioned, to Henry VIII and beyond. Such history is binding for the Armed Forces. It should never, even inadvertently, be disparaged or discarded.

Let us recall what Dr Sullivan’s review recommended. He sought to retain the regional volunteer networks, employer engagement and community links that make RFCAs so valuable, while strengthening the strategic direction, financial resilience and oversight. His broader message was to ensure that RFCAs remain a modern, effective and trusted partner for defence, while expanding their contribution to reserves, cadets, employers, veterans and the volunteer estate. What, then, are their particular strengths? I will me pick briefly on two.

First, the RFCAs’ unique voluntary nature, apart from their nil personnel cost, is the essence of the regional and collective support that they bring to the reserves and cadets. Their local, intimate knowledge of employers and of the attractions and enthusiasms of their locality are such a foundational success of the cadet concept that inspires young of different ages, sexes and backgrounds to join up and get involved. Their national coverage is a key defence requirement. All this should be valued and sustained, not badly revamped or even discarded.

There does not appear to be strong evidence of widespread problems in recruiting RFCA volunteers—particularly cadet force adult volunteers, where some regions have reported growth. The direct relationship between lords-lieutenant, personally chosen and appointed by the sovereign, and the cadets in their counties symbolises the expectation of the reserves’ and cadets’ loyalty to their monarch, who is their commander-in-chief. Why discard this without even consulting the lords-lieutenant or His Majesty the King? I subscribe to that old-fashioned notion: “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

Are the identified MoD failures in financial supervision to be laid entirely at the feet of the RFCA structures? The National Audit Office, in commenting on the financial weaknesses, suggested that arrangements other than a full-blown NDPB would be acceptable. The MoD’s own internal record, following consideration of Dr Sullivan’s report, seemed to indicate that the NDPB approach had been overtaken by the SDR and the key efforts to enhance the reserves’ and cadets’ contribution to overall defence needs. I strongly recommend that the Minister takes this back to his department, checks that the present financial oversight has been improved following the PAC criticisms and gives credit where credit is due to the volunteer strengths of the present structures, as well as to the importance of the symbolic relationship with the lord-lieutenant and the reserves’ and cadets’ loyalty to the Crown.

The Bill is mistaken to degrade or throw away such key elements of a long-established volunteer structure. To throw it away in hasty pursuit of progress, modernisation, accountability and transparency—or any other overworked nostrum of management speak—is pure madness. Of course, the MoD should heed the PAC’s criticism of its lack of proper financial management and ensure that the MoD’s accounting officer has regained the financial oversight expected by the PAC, but the MoD’s financial failings are no reason to discard the tried-and-tested experience that makes the reserves and cadets, with their supporting volunteer associations, of increasing value to both defence and society at large.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble and gallant Lord. I rise to support my noble friends and speak in opposition to Clause 38 standing part of the Bill.

I am always keen to champion improvements in governance. In the case of the Reserve Forces and cadets’ associations, there is a perfectly reasonable case, as highlighted by the National Audit Office, for bringing greater consistency, accountability and financial assurance to these organisations. My concern is that, in achieving that objective, Clause 38 risks losing something that is particularly valuable in Scotland: the strong regional relationship between defence and the communities it serves.

Scotland currently has two RFCAs: highland and lowland. As my noble friend Lord Minto said in his opening speech, they are not simply administrative offices of the Ministry of Defence; they are embedded in the communities in which they operate. They work with reservists, cadets, employers, schools, local authorities and civic organisations. The Lowland RFCA alone maintains more than 130 reserve and cadet centres across Scotland, and supports engagement with employers and communities across a very large, diverse geographical area. This local knowledge and connection was highlighted by Dr Sullivan’s report. He identified—the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, referred to this—the

“wide breadth of expertise and community links”

as key strengths of the RFCAs.

The Government’s proposal would replace these existing 13 regional associations with a single, UK-wide statutory body. Regional councils will be created, but they will be subordinate to the national body. Many of the important questions about their membership, functions and geographical responsibilities will be left to regulations of the new board. So my concern is not simply structural; it is about accountability and voice.

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[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege and pleasure to make the case for Clause 38 in your Lordships’ Committee.

I want to clarify something for the noble Earl, Lord Minto: the service of notice for callout will be by both post and email. I meant that by my previous remark, but I realise I did not make it clear, for which I apologise to the noble Earl and the Committee—I thought I had said it, but clearly I did not; I found out through a variety of means that I had not done so.

I will start by saying something else. Lots of people have made a lot of important points. As everybody in this Committee knows, I will consider them and how we take them forward. I cannot walk on water on these things and persuade everybody that I can do everything, but I hope your Lordships know that I will try to do as much as I can to take account of the various important points that have been made. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, that it is not a legal requirement; it is the recommendation of various reports that the Government seek to implement.

As your Lordships know, I like to make some informal remarks before I make formal remarks. Before I make the formal remarks, let me say for the sake of clarity that nobody in this Committee doubts the importance of the reserves, the cadets and the organisation, and the work of the lord-lieutenants and charities involved. Many of your Lordships do far more than even I do as a Minister to support those local organisations —the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, is one of the best examples. Nobody seeks to undermine that or do anything that would somehow not ensure that it could carry on.

I was with the noble Lord, Lord Elliott—he was in his place a moment ago—in Enniskillen just on Saturday. The RAF show there that I went to support, with the reserves, the lord-lieutenants and the cadets, was phenomenal. It was absolutely phenomenal to see the work going on there. Nobody seeks to undermine or hinder that. This Saturday coming, I am going to Grantham for the reserves passout that is taking place there, because of its significance and importance. It does not matter whether it is the reserves; it does not matter whether it is the cadets. Ministerially, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, no doubt; the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Stirrup and Lord Craig, through their long and distinguished careers, the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, through his, and many others—all of us have committed ourselves to pursue that purpose which is crucial to our nation. Whether it is Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or the regions of England, it is crucial and fundamental to us that we do that. Each of the three reports which I will mention emphasise that. However, alongside that—the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, is right, and I will reference it, that the PAC did say either/or—each of those reports said the current framework needs to be revised and looked at.

My view of this is that the national body creates strategic oversight for a structure that would allow the regional councils to be stronger and more purposeful in what they are doing, with the financial oversight and clarity that a strategic body would give them. That is how devolution works. You do not just let the mayors of the country do exactly what they want. A national strategic framework policy is set which allows those local bodies and local government to function—and to function effectively. That is what this seeks to do.

Again, before I make the formal remarks, let me reference what is on the face of the Bill. Yes, it is the establishment of the new body, the new RFCA, but also—I have to put my glasses on; it slows the rhetoric—on page 136, and then on to page 137, the Bill puts into primary legislation regional councils and how those are set up. It states—I will just say this for the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser:

“The RFCA must establish a committee for each area of the United Kingdom as may be specified in regulations”.


That would include Scotland, Wales and all those things. That is laid out there. It then goes on to the various regulations that can be made. We will deal with the various amendments about membership, about whether people are paid or unpaid, and other matters, but all those things will be dealt with in regulations. I realise that the debate then becomes about whether it should be primary or secondary legislation, but it is on the face of the Bill that they will be dealt with by regulations. I will make my formal remarks. Those regulations are in draft form at the moment. I will share those draft regulations with Members of the Committee before Report. Noble Lords can look at them and decide whether they answer some of the points that they would make, so that we will not have a situation, which sometimes happens with Governments, where draft regulations are just presented and you either vote for them or not, without any ability for people to properly scrutinise them and agree them or not.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

Were the devolved nations assured of a seat on the national board?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Again, those are the sorts of things that will be sorted out in the regulations to which I referred. It is laid out in primary legislation that we will be able to ensure that the regions and nations of the country are represented and have the various functions the noble Baroness would want.

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[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I will make just a brief point. The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, mentioned the training issues. I have raised these with the Minister and will come back to them.

In dealing with the employment issues, we have discussed people being released, but, having had the responsibility for fair employment matters, what about somebody being employed if an employer happens to know that that person is a reservist? The employer could say, “I don’t want to employ that man or woman because they will be a nuisance to me and I will have to let them go on release”; that would be one step before you get to the point of being an actual employee. The question is: is a person to be discriminated against on the basis of being a reservist by a future employer who happens to know that that person is a reservist, whether their picture appears in the local paper, through word of mouth or whatever? There is an issue there to be addressed.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, to address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, we are going to come on to the issue of protections for employees in the next group.

At the moment, I wish to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Harlech on the need to have certainty for employers. I declare my interest as an employer in a small charity, Cerebral Palsy Scotland, and as the mother of a serving reservist. She is about to go on her captain’s course—tomorrow, I think—so she has been negotiating time off with her employer.

To me, this group of amendments goes to the heart of something that bothers me every time we talk about reservists and employers. The MoD always seems to look at this from its point of view. We get things such as the defence employer recognition scheme, demonstrating to us, “Look at all of these wonderful companies that have signed up”. That is fine if you are a silver or a gold large company, but there are not enough of them. The question asked by my noble friend Lord Swire about what we are doing to highlight the benefits of employing reservists to employers was well made; it is something that we do not do well enough.

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[Lord Harlech (Con)]

And the self-employed.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

Yes, and the self-employed. That is because they do not have to ask for time off or negotiate with their bosses for training days. I would argue that not only does such uncertainty put people off being in and remaining in the reserves but it leads to the number of service days that active reservists can commit to. I was just trying to look it up, but I think I am right in saying that the number of service days that active reservists have served has decreased year on year. I think that measures such as this would improve that. Anything we can do to support employers to support our reservists would get my vote.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Harlech’s Amendments 40, 41 and 45, to which I have put my name.

In an era when the Secretary-General of NATO tells us that we could be at war within three to five years, while I hesitate to make life more difficult for employers, I think we have little option but to require those things which the amendments demand of them. This goes to the point made by my noble friends Lord Swire and Lady Fraser that we need to do better by employers too. As a quid pro quo, we should arrange matters so that reservist training adds more value in the civilian workplace, so that the time employers allow reservists for military training is used more efficiently.

Defence qualifications which produce skills that are significantly useful in the civilian workplace often have limited civilian recognition because no thought has been given to matching acquired skills to recognised civilian standards. Similarly, relevant civilian qualifications frequently do not transfer into the defence system, purely because no thought has been given to it, so time is wasted teaching people material they already know.

Too often, the Army assumes a baseline level of zero knowledge rather than assessing existing competence. Qualified civilian paramedics who become reservists with the intention of becoming combat medical technicians are required to complete entry-level medical technician training, which they have already done in their civilian workplaces, rather than focusing on the military application of the skills they already possess. A more intelligent approach that is pragmatic and less risk-averse is required.

Employers also need to know that reservists’ time is used well, yet the brutal truth is that a lot of training is done in a way that wastes time. Mandatory annual training consumes a disproportionate amount of the limited time available. For example, fire safety, manual handling, data protection, and similar packages are repeated every year, regardless of experience or previous completion. Rather than asking how reservists can fit into systems designed for the Regular Army, we should ask how these systems can be redesigned to maximise the value generated within the limited time that reservists—and their employers—are able to give.

Courses across the board are often shaped to fill a fortnight, rather than designed pragmatically around the time actually required to achieve competence, wasting significant amounts of the time reservists commit and creating an impression of pointless bureaucracy. This approach values conformity over efficiency. It is not helped by the fact that the system seems reluctant to open some training facilities out of hours, and to ask regular training staff to work late and at weekends, which is time reservists really need to be used to be more efficient.

Reserve training doctrine usually mirrors that of the Regular Army, with an expectation that trade training should encompass everything required to operate a capability before an individual is considered employable. Is this the right approach for the reserves? In many professions, individuals are taught the minimum required to operate safely before building competence and experience on the job. I am convinced that if employers considered that the time reservists gave up for military training was well used, and that much of the training and military experience was valuable in the workplace, they would be more comfortable employing reservists. At the same time, it would make being a reservist vastly more satisfying.

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[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, before my brief comments on this group of amendments, I want to pay tribute to the Minister for his attendance at the most westerly constituency of the United Kingdom last weekend in County Fermanagh, when he visited the two-day RAF recruitment event just outside Enniskillen. It was very successful. We had a huge number of interested organisations and a number of interested young people who clearly want to be part of the defence forces in the years to come, particularly the RAF. I thank the Minister for that.

There are reasons to support these amendments, two of which we in Northern Ireland are very cognisant of, just as they are in Scotland and Wales: regionalism and localism. If you do not have local support and those who represent you, you do not feel part of it. That is a huge issue for the reserve forces and cadets associations, because these are people who may join or may at least have sympathy for our forces in the years and generations to come. It is about encouragement and ensuring that they have representation. It is important that that regionalisation and localisation is there for them. It is there for them, not just for us, and if they do not feel part of it, they will not participate fully in that process.

It comes down to a number of issues. The reserve forces and cadets associations are hugely important not just for the future of the services but for discipline, commitment, loyalty and colleague support. Those are excellent values to give to young people, which they can promote to their peers, friends and colleagues. This is not only about the amendments; it goes much wider. RFCAs offer huge organisational support for the community and individuals. I witness so many people who do not have that discipline or commitment to their families, or, indeed, their community, but it is instilled within the reserve forces and cadets associations.

I plead to the Minister and the Government to have a look at this. Maybe there are some tweaks and options to make this better, but please allow the people who are serving—reservists and those in the cadets associations—to feel part of things through that local support.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, I do not propose to repeat what we said in an earlier debate in Committee, but I thank my noble friend Lord De Mauley for these amendments. I want to focus on Amendment 48 and the importance of volunteering.

The Sullivan report identified that a key strength of the RFCAs was their extensive volunteer membership. In every other part of our communities, we are doing everything we can to support volunteers and volunteering, and in times of tight financial straits especially, we seek to appreciate the knowledge of volunteers. I am afraid my heart sinks when I think of replacing the volunteers who represent the voice of our local regions, nations and communities. They bring experience and institutional memory, and they do it because they want to—and we are going to replace that with board appointments made on ministerial advice.

I am sure many colleagues in this House have experience of public appointments. I currently sit on two public bodies as a board member, to which I am appointed by one Scottish Minister and one Westminster Minister. We are subject to the whims of that department. In one case, DCMS has apparently decided that public appointments should serve for only one term. I leave it to you as to how that supports institutional memory and succession planning in our public bodies. At Creative Scotland, on whose board I sit, we are currently four or five board members short, and the public appointment process is so slow that we are not able to get to the front of the queue to fill those vacancies. So the idea that the wonderful volunteers we currently have supporting our reserve forces and cadets associations are going to be replaced by some sort of NDPB board appointments fills me with horror: we will end up with the usual suspects, rather than experienced and committed volunteers who are allowed to speak impartially, freely and frankly.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I support these amendments, to which I have added my name. As the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, have pointed out, if we cannot remove Clause 38 and Schedule 6 then amending Clause 38 might at least ameliorate some of the issues. This would very much enable us to retain the local connections and, in particular, as the noble and gallant Lord pointed out, the importance of a wide footprint.

We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, about the situation in Northern Ireland, and from the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, about the situation in Scotland. Surely we should look for ways of ensuring that the voices of the nations and regions are all heard and not have a single centralised body that does not represent anybody. These amendments very much serve to ensure that the voices that we currently hear in the regional RFCAs can continue to play a role. In particular, Amendment 49 outlines key people who should be involved.

Will the Minister explain to the Committee whether he feels that Clause 38, as currently envisaged, and the idea of an NDPB really deal with the questions of representation? If not, and if he does not feel able to support the amendments as drafted, might he consider bringing back government amendments on these issues?