Armed Forces: Reserve Forces

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley]

My Lords, it is my great privilege and pleasure to congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, on his maiden speech. He has entertained us well and, I think, rather modestly left out some other judicial appointments in his magnificent career. He was of course Master of the Rolls and Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales in between the times he served here, first as a Law Lord and then as the Senior Law Lord, before moving on to the Supreme Court. He obviously learnt from his time in the Royal Navy. Whether it was all good or all bad, I think we can judge that he enjoyed it, and I am certain that we are going to enjoy his contributions to this House. We welcome him and thank him for speaking today.

I congratulate, too, the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, on his choice of topic. He is right to focus our thoughts on the future of the reserves. Much thought has been given and effort put into this as part of the major restructuring of the Armed Forces following the strategic defence and security review. I am myself a firm supporter of the value of Armed Forces reserves that have real operational worth and are not seen by those outside or within the reserves as weekend chancers playing at being soldiers or, indeed, sailors and airmen. Happily, thanks to the important changes that were introduced for the reserves over the past decade, and the large number of reservists who have been on active operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is far greater public understanding of the key value of reservists, some of whom have made the ultimate sacrifice.

To concentrate on the future, I hope that the Minister will give the House a better understanding of the Government’s expectations of reaching the numbers and mix of reserves that they are now pursuing, and the risks if they are not achieved. As it is well understood, a variety of factors will influence this outcome. First, of course, there are the individuals who have to be attracted, motivated and committed to volunteering and remaining within the reserves structure so as to become worthy and effective members of their units. If trained from scratch, it is essential that the individual is prepared to serve for a number of years in order to “amortise”, as it were, his or her training costs.

Then, as has already been mentioned, there are the employers. While the country is involved in operations overseas, the profile of the Armed Forces is much enhanced in the public mind. Employers react to this by wishing to be as accommodating as possible in releasing employees for reserve activity and retaining them on the payroll after service. But as we move, we hope, beyond the past decade or two of wars of choice—that is, choice by the Government of the day to commit forces into sustained expeditionary operations—will the reduced prominence of the Armed Forces still be a good recruiting sergeant for the reserves, and will they be as readily accepted by employers as they are today? I am not clear what proposals or suggestions the Government will pursue to encourage and, indeed, to reward employers who agree to have and release reservists when they are required for training or for operations. More will need to be done in this regard.

I am also concerned that the Government’s expectations in terms of achieving their recruitment and retention targets are overambitious. Even for the Royal Air Force, which has a good blend of reserve units and is standing up further elements in other geographic areas, such as Liverpool and Northern Ireland, to expand areas for recruitment and provide or sustain an RAF regional footprint, forecasts have not lived up to expectations. I recall mentioning in 2008 in a debate on the reserves the serious dip in recruitment that had been experienced by the RAF Auxiliaries earlier that decade and that it was estimated that full strength could not be reached before 2013-14. A quick look at the figures shows that the trained strength is now forecast not to be reached before 2016. In other words, expectations have not been fulfilled.

Why are the Government so confident that this time around, with far greater ambitions for reserve numbers, the targets can be reached? What evidence do they adduce from past figures? What will have changed so dramatically in the next five to six years that trained strength targets will be reached and sustained? I hope that the Minister can reassure the House on this critical point. Or will he be frank and say that while their aspirations are to get to 100%, 75%, say, may be more realistic?