Future Reserves 2020

David Mowat Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments. Yes, we are saying the period of liability for deployment will be determined in advance and will be of broadly fixed duration. There will be a broadly fixed period of immunity before deployment again, and there will be longer periods of specific notice of any given deployment.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

In my previous career, I came across instances where being a reservist did adversely—wrongly—affect someone’s promotion opportunities. One way of balancing that would be to go down the procurement route in respect of the kitemark. I believe that other countries in the EU would do this in terms of local content, so are we not dismissing it too easily?

[Mr Hammond]

There are a number of ways in which we can address discrimination. As I said, I have not ruled out the use of legislation, but I also believe that the package we have set out today will make it less likely that employers will feel the need to discriminate against reservists, because we are making their liability for service more predictable and more well understood in advance. I do not believe that using things such as the kitemark scheme as a way of conveying a privileged position in a bidding process is compatible with our overall objective of achieving best value for money for the taxpayer in the procurement of military equipment.