Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig.

I remain to be convinced of the necessity of the Bill, as the Armed Forces are already empowered to allow flexible working. Some might argue that the Bill will allow the Armed Forces to be brought in step with modern working practices, which will be an important improvement to quality of life and hopefully will improve retention. Retention would be markedly improved if the men and women of our services were not profoundly depressed by a defence budget that is totally inadequate to meet the aspirations of SDR 2015, and when our service men and women are seeing major savings measures being contemplated that will impose major savage surgery on present and future equipment capability, and which have already dramatically curtailed training overseas—which, apart from causing us to become an embarrassment in the eyes of our allies, will have a concomitant downward effect on operational capability and morale. This is all on top of the fact that our service men and women are suffering from a number of deeply hurtful efficiency measures in train that are making their quality of life woeful.

Aside from that, I do not envisage that the Bill can be stopped. But if it is to go through, a key to its subsequent success from an Armed Forces perspective would be its attractiveness to the limited number of those—certainly very limited in the case of the Royal Navy—who would be allowed to take time away from their duties.

There is no way that labelling this “part-time” will be remotely attractive. It may be that such an expression is viewed with equanimity, if not honour, in civilian life, but I am astonished that there are those in this House who consider that being in civilian life is the same as serving in the Armed Forces. In the Armed Forces this will be viewed as an unpleasant epithet and will be used as such by the media and others ill-disposed towards us who desire to be insulting. When our allies, especially the United States, which is already deeply concerned about our potential capability cuts, hear that we are to have a part-time Army, Navy and Air Force—which is how it will be characterised—they will think we have lost the plot.

Apart from that, part-time in civilian life does not require a person to be instantly recallable at any time of the day or night, weekday or weekend. Some may think that this provision in the Bill is unlikely to be realised—but what happens if a strategic submarine cannot sail because of a lack of a nuclear propulsion watchkeeper? That is a national emergency.

In other words, to characterise these arrangements as “part-time working” as seen through civilian eyes is to obscure the fact that this will be a temporary arrangement between a service person and their chain of command which can be ended at the wish of either party with notice or terminated without notice in the event of emerging operational imperatives—for example, my nuclear operator analogy.

Also, there are policy limits on how long and on how many occasions through a career a service person may apply to serve under reduced-commitment terms and there will be practical limitations on who may be considered eligible for such arrangements, and when. As I have already said, there will be many limitations in the case of the Navy.

Given these circumstances, resorting to language where one will be called a part-time sailor, soldier or airman will be deemed among those who matter—and I have spoken to a lot of service men and women, rank and file, in the past few weeks—derogatory and belittling of their contribution. The expression is flawed in definitional terms.

Thus, my contention is that this expression—“part-time”—will do nothing to enhance the attractiveness of this sort of flexible working, which has its advantages, as my noble and gallant friend pointed out. In fact it will do quite the opposite. It will be retention negative and will add to the challenges facing the chain of command, who are charged with overseeing a shift in the culture underpinning working patterns on which the success of this initiative rests.

I totally endorse the amendment, and particularly my noble and gallant friend’s words in it, which are a far better definition for people wanting to take breaks.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Lord Boyce Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, when the noble Earl responded to my Amendment 3 on Report, he began with a frank and gracious apology to the House and to me for saying in his letter of 29 September that it would not be possible to remove the word “part-time” from the Long Title of the Bill. As he said, this was incorrect but given in good faith. To my embarrassment and regret, I failed, when I spoke again, to thank him for his apology—which of course I fully accept. I have spoken and written to the noble Earl to apologise for this discourtesy but would like to put the record straight.

In the same letter the noble Earl sought to allay concern by saying that the use of “part-time” was not unprecedented: it had been, he said, in previous Armed Forces legislation. So far, it has been found but once in all such Acts, going back over 60 years—and that once was in a 1955 Act, long repealed, and with a totally different meaning from contemporary usage. Both of these were weak—and, indeed, inaccurate—claims. The noble Earl would have done better to note that our objection to introducing “part-time” into the Bill was not that it would be unprecedented but that it should be there at all. The noble Earl said that he did not agree with my analysis, but a dozen speakers sympathised and agreed with the noble and gallant Lords and myself. More than 50 unwhipped Peers supported us in the Lobby.

The noble Earl said that the purpose of this novel type of flexible working was to enable individuals to take breaks from their 24/7/52 commitment to their service. Both in Grand Committee and on Report, our amendments were aimed at providing for just that, with appropriate subordinate legislation. We were being direct, not devious, as the noble Earl chided us. The Government’s approach—that the individual must first commit to serving on a part-time basis before becoming eligible to apply for breaks—is far less straightforward.

The arrangements for time away are all to be set out in subordinate legislation—but, we are told, cannot be guaranteed unless individuals are formally released from full-time duty to the Crown. But are they released? They are still beholden to the Crown because they remain under the Armed Forces Act. Would the military or civil police be responsible for investigating a crime committed by an individual while on a break? As a law tutor might say to his class of students, “discuss”.

I hope that the Government noted that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, strongly suggested that phraseology other than “part-time” could be adapted for the armed services in legislation—as did the police, with detail in subordinate legislation to guarantee arrangements. However, the noble Earl said that what was intended was,

“distinctly different … and therefore the way we describe it needs to be very clear”.—[Official Report, 11/10/17; col. 249.]

I have since seen the noble Earl’s response to criticism by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. He wrote:

“There is no intention at present to enable part-time service for all enlisted regulars”.


“No intention at present” really does make it distinctly different from just providing compassionate flexibility. Is this the intended direction of travel? Do the Government want this primary legislation to spawn part-time service in further and wider applications than those proposed now?

A statutory door is being primed to spring open—a far cry from the assurance given by the noble Earl in that letter of 29 September in which he wrote:

“The amendments to primary legislation simply provide us with the power to make regulations to enable these particular forms of flexible working”.


The Bill will enable far greater powers than that. There is no place in the Armed Forces Act 2006 for such an untrammelled, undefined, catch-all “part-time basis” phrase, unless Governments want a broad statutory power to recruit and re-muster our armed services little by little into becoming a force of part-timers. Perhaps, having reviewed all that has been said during the passage of the Bill in your Lordships’ House, wiser counsel will prevail in the other place. I certainly hope so.

[Lord Boyce (CB)]

My Lords, I remain to be convinced about the need for the Bill. The services already have an ability to operate flexible working. I lament, and certainly remain dismayed by, the continued use of the expression “part-time” to characterise the nature of what the Bill entails.

I recognise the amendment on this point was defeated on Report, but it required a Government three-line Whip to defeat the many excellent arguments by protagonists in favour. It was hardly a moral victory for the Government. Since Report, the senior and junior servicepeople I have spoken to have been equally appalled. Dislike for the expression “part-time” will be felt in particular by those who have requested no geographic separation yet who continue to work full-time. They will also be called “part-time” people even though they are working full-time. How does the Minister explain that? I really believe that a mistake has been made here and I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that the Chiefs of Staff explicitly support the use of the expression “part-time”.

On a separate subject, I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on whether the ceilings for manpower numbers will take into account the provisions of the Bill. In other words, if the full scope and feasibility of flexible working for serving members of the Armed Forces is to be realised, there must presumably come a point where the current mechanism for accounting for liability—headcount—gives way to full-time equivalence.

The Bill’s implementation will have to be handled very carefully if the expectations of service men and women are not to be falsely raised. As the Minister said on Report:

“We are not talking about large numbers: we expect only a modest number of our people to either work part-time or restrict their absence from their home bases”.—[Official Report, 11/10/17; col. 250.]


In the case of the Royal Navy—which is extremely tautly manned and, constrained by the government-imposed headcount, short of people anyway—that is likely to be very modest indeed. For example, we need to bear in mind that 80% of junior ranks are in seagoing billets. It is difficult to see many applications for time away being approved. I therefore urge the Minister to ensure that the Bill is launched most carefully, and without fanfare and overpromising.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I fully support all that has been said by the two noble and gallant Lords. Indeed, I cannot add anything more to the eloquence of how they put this across. The Bill is extremely worrying. I did not believe that it was necessary and I certainly do not like the phrases used. It is extraordinary; on the 167th anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade, perhaps Tennyson’s words are rather pertinent:

“Was there a man dismay’d?

Not tho’ the soldier knew

Some one had blunder’d”.

That is absolutely appropriate when one looks at this legislation.