Armed Forces: Reserves

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I must first declare, to what I am sure will be your Lordships’ universal disappointment, that, like the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, I have absolutely no connection with the Reserve Forces, and I feel much diminished at having to admit that deficiency. However, perhaps that enables me to look at this totally objectively and to say explicitly how much I admire exactly what the Reserve Forces contribute to our national security and interest.

I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord De Mauley for giving the House the opportunity to discuss our Reserve Forces’ significant contribution to our national security. Their role is much valued; I pay tribute to all our reservists and thank them for what they do. I also pay tribute to my noble friend’s long-standing and distinguished involvement with the Reserve Forces. He is the president of the Council of the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations, and I acknowledge the vital role they play in delivering the external scrutiny team, the next report of which I expect will be laid before Parliament prior to the Summer Recess. I believe it is well advanced; your Lordships will understand that the publication is not within the Government’s control.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

May I ask the Minister a simple question? I have every confidence that the people of the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, will deliver on time, but will the Secretary of State do better than taking six months to respond?

[Baroness Goldie]

I noted the noble Lord’s reference to the letter, and I was going to deal with that later on. However, I can deal with it specifically now. There was a delay, for which the department clearly apologises. I understand that at the time the report was laid before the House, a Written Ministerial Statement and a short response were issued; only the longer response was delayed. None the less, it was an administrative error and the Ministry of Defence apologises for that oversight.

As my noble friend Lord De Mauley well knows, reservists contribute their commitment and expertise to the defence and security of this country, and it is important to acknowledge that. He observed that the reserves are fundamental to the whole force. They provide generalists and specialists in everything from cyber and communications to logistics, giving us the flexibility and capability to scale up our response in times of crisis. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, appositely captured the flavour of that contribution when he referred to his having received an “injection of enthusiasm” from the reservists with whom he has engaged. He also talked about them being a crucial part of the force structure, and I agree. Indeed, the dangers to which they are exposed were described movingly by the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, when he referred to the selfless courage of Corporal Stephens. We should feel humbled by such sacrifice and bravery, and we all pay tribute to that.

Many points have been raised, and I will try to deal with them as best I can. The revitalisation of the Reserve Forces under the future reserves programme has been critical to our ability to deliver defence on a sustainable financial basis. Over the life of the programme the Government will be investing £240 million in Reserve Force training and £207 million in equipment. This will help to ensure that the Armed Forces are structured and resourced to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, referred to the modernising defence programme. We are on track to share headline conclusions of the programme by the NATO summit in July. These will set out our overall approach and how it needs to evolve and what we regard as the highest priority areas for investment. These conclusions will not include detailed issues on the capabilities and numbers comprising the joint force, but will be an indication of where we see the future going.

A number of contributors raised the general question of budget. The UK is one of very few allies to meet both the NATO spending guideline of 2% of GDP on defence and spending 20% of our annual defence expenditure on major equipment. The budget will rise by 0.5% above inflation every year of this Parliament. I also point out that the UK calculates its defence spending in accordance with NATO’s guidelines, and NATO’s own figures show that we spend over 2% of GDP on defence. The Government are categorically committed to retaining the UK’s position as a tier 1 defence nation.

On the contributions of the reserves, there have been more than 16,000 separate mobilisations in the last 10 years, including more than 500 in the last financial year alone. The reserves have proved invaluable to support the achievement of defence objectives alongside their regular counterparts. While it is true the number of reservists deploying on operations has decreased in recent times, that is an inevitable result of our changing international commitments, and the reduction in reservist deployments is proportionate to that in regular deployments.

As many of your Lordships will be aware, reservists are currently supporting UK operations in various locations abroad, engaged in counterterrorism and counterpiracy operations and on operations to counter the threat of Daesh. They also bring key specialist skills to the whole force. They are the backbone of Defence Medical Services, both in clinical provision and in manning specific clinical employment groups. My noble friend Lord Sterling of Plaistow raised this very specific aspect. Reserve work groups also provide unique national engineering infrastructure expertise used at home and abroad by defence and government more widely. Specialist reserve squadrons provide in-house IT software and hardware expertise at a level available only from highly paid civilian practitioners. Importantly in this modern and challenging world, we are also growing the number of dedicated cyber experts to deliver cyber operations.

Our reservists have also made an enormous contribution to non-military operations. Most notably following the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower—the anniversary of which we marked just last week—the Army deployed military assessment teams to advise on structural safety, the removal of debris, and the water supply. In reply to my noble friend Lord Sterling of Plaistow, Operation Boomster, the Ministry of Defence’s response to the severe weather in March this year, saw Army reservists from the Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry deployed to enable the movement of NHS staff and other essential civilian responders. Operation Temperer saw reservist personnel deployed following the bombing at the Manchester Arena in May 2017 and reservists continue to be deployed on Operation Morlop, the operational response to the nerve agent attack in Salisbury.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, raised the important matter of how we use our reservists. We are exploring how we can better use them across a broad spectrum of defence tasks. To support this, we remain committed to giving them the physical infrastructure they need to train effectively. To that end, last year we made available an additional £4.8 million.

My noble friend Lord De Mauley raised the issue of the training estate. I believe that the Royal Navy projects to which he referred are Project Cardiff and Project Solent. Funding for Project Cardiff has not been altered at all. It is proceeding on schedule and is due to complete in the final quarter of 2019. However, Project Solent is yet to be initiated.

My noble friend averred that the Regular Forces are becoming too small and that the subsequent pressures on the reserves are unsustainable. However, 12,360 recruits joined the regular Armed Forces in the year to April. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, raised the matter of the Government’s commitment to the Armed Forces, as did the noble Lord, Lord Burnett. We are committed to maintaining the overall size of the Armed Forces. The services are meeting all their current commitments, keeping the country and its interests safe, and are active in 25 operations in 30 countries throughout the world.

Another issue to be raised by a number of contributors, not least the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, was recruitment. The number of trained volunteer reservists has grown from around 22,000 to well over 32,000 since the beginning of the future reserves programme, and it continues to grow. The number of reservists employed on a full-time basis has also increased by nearly 60% in the last four years alone, demonstrating the value that we place in the skills of our reservists and our commitment to ensuring that those who wish to make an additional contribution are able to do so.

I share the frustration of a number of your Lordships about the introduction of the new defence recruiting system. This has been a major undertaking and I think that noble Lords will understand that, although there will inevitably be problems with such a large IT system, it is replacing a 20 year-old process. I hope that there is a recognition that the new system is starting to deliver a quicker and easier recruitment process for applicants. In the 2017-18 financial year, the Army alone, despite these challenges, recruited over 9,000 service personnel. The Government recognise that there remain challenges to overcome with the new system. We have developed an improvement plan and are working with Capita to deliver it. I say to my noble friend Lord De Mauley and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that we do not feel it necessary to review the current contract.

A number of your Lordships, including my noble friend Lord De Mauley and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, raised concerns about the medicals process. It is right to note that it is the lengthiest stage of the recruitment timeline. However, earlier this month the Chief of Defence People and the Surgeon-General jointly chaired a medical symposium looking at medical entry standards and their application. In the meantime, the services are considering a range of measures of their own to provide solutions in the shorter term.

Questions were raised about other challenges. The Government’s full commitment to our Reserve Forces extends to training, which is frequently delivered at weekends and during evenings to fit around civilian employment. Reservists also continue to benefit from a range of overseas training opportunities, the number of which will rise this year. As my noble friend Lord De Mauley noted, this is one of the key drivers for people wishing to join the reserves. I think that my noble friend Lord Attlee also referred to that.

This Government recognise that the impact of defence operations on service personnel is wide ranging, and we have invested heavily in the delivery of more effective post-operational stress management for service personnel. Indeed, reservists benefit from the same level of support in this area as their regular counterparts. This effort is underpinned by the veterans and reserves mental health programme, which provides assessment and treatment for reservists who have been deployed overseas.

I shall try to deal with a number of specific contributions. My noble friends Lord De Mauley and Lord Sterling of Plaistow spoke about equipment and equipment support for Army Reserve units. The Army Reserve is considered in the fielding of all new equipment. For example, the Army Reserves development programme has funded a number of Virtus body armour sets to be issued to reserve units to enhance their training opportunities and experience. As the Army continues to modernise, the equipment support to the reserves will do so in sync.

The noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, expressed a particular interest in the matter of offshore patrol vessels. The Royal Navy is in the process of introducing five new, more capable offshore patrol vessels intended to replace the original four deployed in the UK and the Falkland Islands. As part of the review of the requirement to support maritime security and fisheries protection post Brexit, we are considering how the Batch 1 offshore patrol vessels might contribute. They are currently being placed in extended readiness while this work concludes.

The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, and my noble friend Lord Trenchard talked about trying to understand the needs of employers. We understand that they have unique needs and face real challenges in a tough economic climate, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises. We are working together to make things easier for them so that they know who the reservists are and can plan ahead for training and mobilisations. Should either my noble friend or the noble Lord want specific information about the employer awards system, I shall endeavour to write to them with that.

My noble friend Lord Attlee asked some interesting questions, to which I have to say I do not have the answers. He asked specifically about logistics and the capacity to move detachments. He also raised the issue of the training that reservists attend over the period of a year. I shall endeavour to get more specific information and pledge to write to him on that, and I will place a copy of that letter in the Library.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked how we deal with phase 2 and quantify who has been doing what. It is my understanding that only the Army includes service personnel who have not completed phase 2 training in its strength. I can write to her with the specific percentage, as she requested. Reservists are vital to the whole force and we will continue to invest in the reserves and to utilise them in operations at home and abroad.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, raised the issue of the letter, which I have dealt with. He also said, if I understood it correctly, that he suspected a duplication of numbers in the phase 1 and phase 2 computation. Let me try to make it clearer. The nature of Army services is that soldiers can be used quite readily across a multitude of different military tasks at the conclusion of phase 1 training. However, the increased specialism of most naval and Air Force reservists means that this is generally not possible. That is why reservists in those services do not count towards trained strength until they have completed phase 2 training. To reassure the noble Lord, we do not in any way double count reservists, and the noble Lord can trust the published statistics.

The noble Lord raised a number of other points, including how we measure the effectiveness of the Reserve Forces. We continuously seek to develop how we do that. That said, the noble Lord will note the variety of operations I talked about earlier and the numerous specialisms that Reserve Forces have deployed in recent times, both at home and overseas.

The noble Lord also raised the issue of retention. As your Lordships will know, today sees the publication of the fifth annual tri-service reserves continuous attitude survey, the results of which provide an important insight into the mood and attitudes of serving reservists. This helps the MoD to understand reservists’ opinions, which assists with the developing of reserve service policy, especially relating to the Future Force 2020 and the Future Reserves 2020 programmes. Interestingly, the survey shows that nine out of 10 volunteer reservists, or 93%, feel proud to be in the reserves, and that three-quarters of volunteer reservists, or 74%, are satisfied with service life in general. That is a pleasing outcome.

Some concern was raised about savings and the impact of short-term savings, and I detected that as a theme across all the contributions. The services recognise the potentially disproportionate effect that short-term savings measures could have upon the reserve experience and, for that reason, in-year savings measures have tended to be deflected away from the reserves, and our investment in the reserves continues to be strong.

I have tried to cover the points that have been raised, and if I have omitted anyone’s contribution or failed to answer any point that your Lordships have referred to me, I do apologise. I shall look at Hansard, and I shall endeavour to address these points in a letter.

This has been an opportunity to celebrate and pay tribute to what our reservists do. They make a tremendous contribution to our national security. Our support as a Government is continually evolving, but our support is solid and robust. The ever-changing threats to security and allies mean that we cannot be complacent. Perhaps it is appropriate to conclude by reminding your Lordships that next Wednesday we celebrate Reserves Day, which will provide the country with an opportunity to celebrate the very important contribution that our reservists make to the UK’s defence capability, as well as recognising the support they receive from their civilian employers in enabling them to meet their training and other military commitments. There will be many events taking place around the country, and perhaps your Lordships will find ways of supporting these activities, which I know would be greatly welcomed. I would encourage as many people as possible to get involved by making contact with your local units and attending an event.