Defence Reform Bill

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Brazier]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her kind words. My essential point is that Parliament recognised, when the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 was put through, that reservist recruitment would never work if it were simply run by the Regular Army. It does not work. There is no reserve army anywhere in the world that is effectively run by its regular counterpart. We need a strong independent body. This new clause, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has generously said he will accept, will put the body that used to do this job very effectively into a powerful position as inspectors.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

For the record, it is not just a question of the mess that it all was; it is a question of the mess that it still is. My understanding is that the new clause will help to put the mess right.

[Mr Brazier]

I am not sure that I heard the last few words of the hon. Lady’s intervention; would she mind repeating it, as I could not quite hear?

[Ms Stuart]

I was suggesting that the purpose of the new clause, which I sponsored, was to put the mess right.

[Mr Brazier]

A whole string of changes affecting the recruiting group are already taking place, and I am sure that the Secretary of State will address some of them. The key point—I am really grateful for the hon. Lady’s support in signing my new clause and in raising questions in the Select Committee and so forth—is that we would not have lost 18 months if people had listened to the RFCAs, to which all this was painfully obvious 18 months ago, instead of having some regular officers arrogantly cracking on without talking to the units or the RFCAs.