Armed Forces Bill

Lord De Mauley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

I begin by apologising to my noble friend the Minister, for whom I have the highest regard. I fear that what I am about to say may not be the most welcome contribution to this debate. I do not know half as much about this as the many noble and gallant Lords and other Members in the Chamber, but I do want to say this.

Last week, I went to an RAF base for an event—I declare an interest because my son-in-law is the station commander—and I was very struck by the extent to which it celebrated the local connection between the base and the community. There were representatives of local organisations and schools and others there, in addition to the lord-lieutenant, with whom I had a friendly word, and I got a sense of what lies behind the debate we are having today.

All I would say to my noble friend is that it is possible that we might lose something valuable by proceeding with this clause. But I am very grateful and interested to hear what he says in reply to this debate. I have an open mind, but I think that some valid points have been made.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I am chairman of the current Council of the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations, and I am extremely grateful to my noble friends for tabling these clause stand part notices. Since the Haldane reforms of the early-20th century, most recently renewed in the Reserve Forces Act 1996, to which my noble friend Lord Minto referred, many of the functions supporting the reserves and cadets have until now been provided by autonomous regional organisations known as the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations. Thirteen in number, with a wide membership across the UK, they are made up of former reservists, regulars and cadets—employers, politicians and representatives of universities and local government—all of whom wish actively to support the reserves and cadets from the communities in the regions.

These 13 regional RFCAs are being abolished by the Bill. Each of these RFCAs is run by an executive, overseen by a board, which is elected by the members and, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, said, wholly unremunerated. Each board holds the executive to account for delivering against service level agreements covering estate management, support to cadet units, and carrying out employer and community engagement on behalf of the reserves, cadets and, indeed, defence generally, including running the employer recognition scheme. The unremunerated board is to be done away with by the Bill. The county lords-lieutenant are appointed as the RFCAs’ presidents and vice-presidents. The Bill removes the involvement of the lords-lieutenant.

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[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

Yes, and the self-employed. That is because they do not have to ask for time off or negotiate with their bosses for training days. I would argue that not only does such uncertainty put people off being in and remaining in the reserves but it leads to the number of service days that active reservists can commit to. I was just trying to look it up, but I think I am right in saying that the number of service days that active reservists have served has decreased year on year. I think that measures such as this would improve that. Anything we can do to support employers to support our reservists would get my vote.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Harlech’s Amendments 40, 41 and 45, to which I have put my name.

In an era when the Secretary-General of NATO tells us that we could be at war within three to five years, while I hesitate to make life more difficult for employers, I think we have little option but to require those things which the amendments demand of them. This goes to the point made by my noble friends Lord Swire and Lady Fraser that we need to do better by employers too. As a quid pro quo, we should arrange matters so that reservist training adds more value in the civilian workplace, so that the time employers allow reservists for military training is used more efficiently.

Defence qualifications which produce skills that are significantly useful in the civilian workplace often have limited civilian recognition because no thought has been given to matching acquired skills to recognised civilian standards. Similarly, relevant civilian qualifications frequently do not transfer into the defence system, purely because no thought has been given to it, so time is wasted teaching people material they already know.

Too often, the Army assumes a baseline level of zero knowledge rather than assessing existing competence. Qualified civilian paramedics who become reservists with the intention of becoming combat medical technicians are required to complete entry-level medical technician training, which they have already done in their civilian workplaces, rather than focusing on the military application of the skills they already possess. A more intelligent approach that is pragmatic and less risk-averse is required.

Employers also need to know that reservists’ time is used well, yet the brutal truth is that a lot of training is done in a way that wastes time. Mandatory annual training consumes a disproportionate amount of the limited time available. For example, fire safety, manual handling, data protection, and similar packages are repeated every year, regardless of experience or previous completion. Rather than asking how reservists can fit into systems designed for the Regular Army, we should ask how these systems can be redesigned to maximise the value generated within the limited time that reservists—and their employers—are able to give.

Courses across the board are often shaped to fill a fortnight, rather than designed pragmatically around the time actually required to achieve competence, wasting significant amounts of the time reservists commit and creating an impression of pointless bureaucracy. This approach values conformity over efficiency. It is not helped by the fact that the system seems reluctant to open some training facilities out of hours, and to ask regular training staff to work late and at weekends, which is time reservists really need to be used to be more efficient.

Reserve training doctrine usually mirrors that of the Regular Army, with an expectation that trade training should encompass everything required to operate a capability before an individual is considered employable. Is this the right approach for the reserves? In many professions, individuals are taught the minimum required to operate safely before building competence and experience on the job. I am convinced that if employers considered that the time reservists gave up for military training was well used, and that much of the training and military experience was valuable in the workplace, they would be more comfortable employing reservists. At the same time, it would make being a reservist vastly more satisfying.

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Moved by

[Lord De Mauley]

46: Schedule 6, page 133, line 17, at end insert—
“(aa) the chairs of the regional councils;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would allow for regional chairs to sit on the RFCA board.

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[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 46, 47 and 49 in my name. To understand the importance of these amendments, one needs to appreciate the significance of the nationwide membership of the RFCAs. The 2019 Sullivan report on the RFCAs, which recommended conversion to an NDPB, itself provides an explanation at paragraph 2.2.2, where it says:

“A key strength of the RFCAs is their extensive volunteer membership (numbering around 8000), bringing with it a wide breadth of expertise and community links—without which the RFCAs would unlikely have access to the information and knowledge needed to discharge the duties … Their position as the link between Defence and the wider public, continuity of staff and expertise, and tri-Service drive enables the RFCAs to deliver across all functions, particularly community and employer engagement (the latter proven by the success on the Armed Force Covenant and Employer Recognition Scheme work strands). This is particularly valuable in cases where local knowledge and understanding may be limited in MoD customers”.


What is proposed in the Armed Forces Bill is the removal of all the regional chairs from the central board—the new decision-making arm of the RFCA. If the Armed Forces Bill proceeds as drafted, the members who currently elect those chairs will be completely disenfranchised, with the consequence of a loss of defence’s connection with society and the advocates and supporters of the reserves and cadets across the UK. The members have made it very clear that this will be sufficiently significant that it will lead to a reduction in the membership to a negligible number. Is that really what the Government want, when they state in the strategic defence review their ambitions to increase the size of the reverses, to increase the number of cadet and to create a completely new homeland and critical national infrastructure defence force, and that a whole-of-society approach to defence is essential?

In discussions with the MoD over the last 12 months, matters had developed to a point at which the MoD had agreed in writing, confirmed by a Government Minister at the RFCAs’ annual conference, that regional chairs would indeed sit as full members on the national board in order to protect the societal links and work done by the engaged and experience membership. Stepping back from that commitment, as the Bill does, is already being taken very badly by the membership.

I do not blame the Minister; I do not believe that the implications of what is proposed have been explained to him. They cannot have been, because if they had he would not be proceeding with this. This is about something more important even than the Permanent Secretary’s perception of how he will improve his oversight of what, in the context of the MoD’s overall budget, is a relatively small amount of funding that the RFCAs receive and use on maintenance of the volunteer estate. It is about the country’s ability to defend itself in time of war, because the effect of Section 38 and Schedule 6 will do irreparable damage to the Government’s ability to defend the country through the use and expansion of the Reserve Forces, of which the RFCAs are a demonstrable key enabler.

This will also have a damaging effect on the Government’s aim of growing the cadet forces, in which, again, local RFCAs are pivotal enablers. The Denny report, entitled The Impact and Value of School-Based Cadet Forces in the UK, identified that those with cadet service were statistically unlikely to be not in education, employment or training—something rather topical these days.

Turning to Amendment 49, I mentioned earlier what the Sullivan report says about a key strength of the RFCAs being their extensive volunteer membership. I will give a couple of examples of how the membership helps defence. My first example is that in the first decade of this century, the country was mobilising reservists in large numbers to go to Iraq and Afghanistan to bolster the Regular Army. The Regular Forces live on the patch: there are welfare officers, commanding officers and RSMs’ wives—a whole machine that is wheeled in action to look after the welfare of the families left behind. For the reservists, who are scattered over the area from which their unit recruits, which can be several counties or several cities, there is no such welfare machine. That is when the RFCAs’ membership comes into action, visiting and offering help and advice.

Reservists have the added complication of a civilian employer. An RFCA member who is an employer can visit them and explain what is happening and the legal position. I commanded a reserve regiment during the mobilisation of large numbers of reservists for Operation TELIC between 2003 and 2005. Without the support and influence of the RFCA, particularly with employers, the reserves would have responded less effectively. It allowed me to command and lead while employment matters could be successfully dealt with by the RFCAs. I know that other commanding officers had similar experiences. It was the RFCA that led on the work relating to employment that was subsequently woven into the Future Reserves 2020 White Paper.

My second example is that, being apolitical, the RFCAs have been extremely helpful in defence, especially in the devolved Administrations. In Scotland, when the Government announced the expansion of the cadet forces in schools, one of the nationalist papers printed a story suggesting that this was about training child soldiers. Its apolitical position allowed the RFCA, through its members and connections, to persuade the Government in Scotland that that was not a fair representation. They agreed, and the story died.

The SDR proposed increases in the size of the reserves and the cadets; the creation of a new homeland defence force; that defence should become a whole-of-nation responsibility; and that resilience in the civilian community needs to be improved. Therefore, it seems quite extraordinary that the RFCA’s membership, which could do so much to enable these things, should be abolished for no good reason.

Further, as was said earlier, this is directly against the new Prime Minister’s drive on the devolution of power and influence outwards. Whereas the Reserve Forces Act 1996 included in its Schedule 4 detail on the grass-roots membership, this is completely and deliberately removed by Clause 4(2)(b) in Part 3 of Schedule 6 to the Armed Forces Bill. There would henceforth be no reference at all to membership in primary legislation, for the first time since 1908. Thousands of volunteers across the UK would immediately be disfranchised and lost.

It has been suggested that the membership might be reinvented through secondary legislation; the Minister referred to this earlier. However, we all know that this is a poor way of doing it. It relegates the voluntary concept to a secondary level of importance and makes it much easier to amend, change and delete it. I beg to move.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to these amendments for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, set out so clearly and cogently. I do not intend to repeat them all, as I agree with everything he said, but I want to make a couple of wider points centred on the requirement for a regional approach to our reserves and cadets.

There has been wide acknowledgment of the benefits that such an approach would bring. However, a couple of things have not been mentioned to the extent that they should be. First, there is the matter of footprint. The Reserve Forces and cadets allow us a military footprint across the United Kingdom that is no longer possible with our sadly depleted regular forces. This matters. It means that defence and defence issues can be represented locally by people who are local; the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, pointed out one example of where this has been an inestimable benefit in Scotland. That is one very important point.

My other point concerns the matter of identity. Within military organisations, identity matters—identity of the group. In the regulars, it is perhaps identification with your ship, your regiment or your squadron but, as far as regulars are concerned, it is identity with your locality. That is fundamental to it, and that identity is fundamental to the effectiveness of any military organisation. The noble Lord, Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton, said that the Bill does not seek to destroy the regional aspect of the Reserve Forces. That may be true to an extent, but he knows as well as anyone here that the regional nature of the Reserve Forces is not just about the wiring diagram. It is about the authority that those regional forces have; that is absolutely fundamental.

In response to an earlier amendment, the Minister said that devolution is achieved through overarching strategic direction and that mayors cannot do what they like. Actually, though, that is the whole point: within certain limits, they can. The point of devolution is giving them authority along with responsibility. There is overarching strategic direction, although it will not necessarily work in the case of mayors because you could have a Conservative mayor and a Labour national Government; I am not quite sure how far the Conservative mayor would follow the national Government’s overarching strategic objectives, but we are not discussing that matter here today. So I accept that there is an overarching strategic directive, but it is strategic. It is not operational or tactical. Therefore, local authorities will have a great deal of freedom to decide things, but they will need the authority to carry through on those decisions. Authority goes along with funding in many instances, but with other things besides. That is one of the reasons why Schedule 6 is potentially so damaging for the Reserve Forces.

This speaks to what we would term “mission command” in military parlance. You give overall direction on the broad objectives that you want to see achieved, but you leave a great deal of freedom open to your subordinate organisation—in this case, the regional forces—to decide how it is to be done. Yet they must have authority along with that responsibility. If mission command is to operate effectively, at a superior level, you need to listen to your subordinates’ concerns when they tell you that something simply will not work so you must come up with a different plan. At the moment, as the legislation is framed, the link between the subordinate and superior formations will be, at best, neutered and, at worst, cut off completely.

Amendments 46 and 47 seek to ensure that the RFCAs are properly represented at a senior level and that their voices can be heard. However, that plays both ways. If their voices are not heard, they will lack authority at the local level. If they lack authority at the local level, it will have an impact on recruiting and retention, with lower morale and lower effectiveness. Nobody in this Chamber wants to see that, I know.

Equally, Amendment 49 seeks to ensure that the RFCA’s wider membership is enshrined in primary legislation and that its breadth and diversity are retained so that, again, the wider community and regional links are retained and have credibility across that regional community.

As I said earlier in Committee, I have concerns about Schedule 6 overall. If we are to retain it, I plead with the Minister to take these issues away and correct those bits of it that will restore the authority and the voice of the local Reserve Forces and cadets, in particular through the RFCAs.

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[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, we do not accept any of the amendments before us as drafted. Am I going to speak to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and the rest of the Committee about what we may do to take on board some of the comments that have been made around Clause 38? Of course we will have discussions about it and of course we will see whether there are changes or improvements that could be made that are acceptable to the Government and which seek to address some of the problems that the noble Lord and others have laid out. That is the commitment that I have always made.

I cannot promise what the outcome will be. This is Committee; it is not a full-on Report stage and it is not Second Reading or Third Reading. Committee is about challenging the Government on what they are doing and the Government responding by saying that they will consider how they may take things forward. Just to set the framework, this does not alter the fact that the Government believe that there should be a national strategic body and regional councils. I will say a little bit more about that as I carry on with my remarks, but do I believe that points are being made that are important for the Government to consider? Yes, I do. I cannot satisfy everybody’s demands that Clause 38 should not stand part of the Bill—that has been referred to in respect of Amendments 46, 47 and 49—but we will address all that.

I have an important comment to make to the noble Lord, Earl Howe, for the Committee to recognise. I do not see this as a debate between people who are young, thrusting and understand today’s society and what the noble Earl said—that he should not be seen as an old-fashioned reactionary. Of course he is not seen that way. He and his wife, who I think he said was the lord-lieutenant in Buckinghamshire, are doing great service and are important contributors to the fabric of our country. This is not a debate between those who are modern and those who are old-fashioned. This is a discussion between people who have at their hearts the understanding that lords-lieutenant, reserves and cadets all make a massively important contribution to our country. The discussion between us is about the most effective way of doing that.

I go back to the point that I made before: the Government’s view is that by establishing of a body that allows a strategic framework to be set and that deals with and responds to some of the criticisms that were made by the various reviews to which I referred earlier, we can establish an overall framework within which those regional councils can operate. The regional councils will be a matter for discussion, but they will retain local knowledge, local experience, local expertise, the local connection, the reserves, the cadets—all those points made by the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, for which I thank him, as well as those made by the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Stirrup and Lord Craig. Of course they are vital to our country. Nobody is seeking to abolish them. The debate between us is how we make things more effective. The Government’s view is that you have the overall strategic framework within which localism operates.

Again, there is disagreement here. It think that is perfectly compatible with the overall, overarching way in which the Government are seeking to devolve power within an overall strategic framework that allows people to make their own decisions and take their own steps forward. That is why the Bill—the primary legislation—requires that regional councils are not abolished but maintained and protected. What those regional councils should be, how they should be set up and on what area they should be based will be a matter for discussion. It will be a matter on which we will try to reach a consensus.

It goes on, on page 137, to list all the various regulations which I referred to earlier. The view of some in the Committee is that those regulations—membership of the national body and all the other things to which I have referred—should be in primary legislation. The Government’s view is that it should be done in secondary legislation. The commitment I have made to the Committee is that those regulations, which are already drafted, can be shared so that people can seek to understand whether some of the concerns—not all of them—they have about membership, et cetera, are addressed by them. It may be that they are not, but the Government are not going to go back. The draft regulations will not say we accept that Clause 38 should be abolished, but they may say we think the area should be this, the membership should be that, and this is the way forward for us. Giving draft regulations in good time to your Lordships’ House will enable a discussion to be had on Report which can take that forward and people will make their own mind up as to whether that is appropriate.

From the Government’s perspective, therefore, Amendments 46, 47 and 49 are not necessary, because the Government are seeking to deliver some of what those amendments are asking for in a different way. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, in a very interesting, logical and emotional way, put forward the case for the regional chairs and for many of the established ways of working to continue, supported by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and many others. The debate between us will not be about how we reach consensus, because there is a disagreement, but I have been asked whether, if Clause 38 and Schedule 6 are to remain part of the Bill, there is something we can do which may satisfy some of the concerns that your Lordships have expressed in a way which means that some of the old-fashioned reactionaries among us, as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, mentioned, can at least address some of the very important points, which are not old-fashioned or reactionary but are important considerations which any Government should make when they seek to make a significant change, to ensure that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. That is the commitment I make to your Lordships’ Committee and, with that, I ask the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, not to press his amendments.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in support of these amendments. I thank the Minister for his response and for offering to meet and discuss these matters, to which of course I am open. I say to him that the way the Bill is drafted, there are to be regional councils but there are no members beneath them supporting them and they have no representation at national board level, so they are suspended in mid-air and it seems to me rather pointless. We are in Committee, so I reserve the right to return to this matter on Report, but for this evening I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 46 withdrawn.

Armed Forces Bill

Lord De Mauley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord De Mauley]

48: Schedule 6, page 134, line 22, leave out paragraph 4
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure non executive board members remain unpaid and therefore genuinely committed to the reserves and cadets.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 48, 50, 51 and 52 in my name.

Amendment 48 is about payment to the new non-executive board members. The members of the RFCAs and all their forebear organisations, commencing with the county territorial associations in 1908, whether acting locally or nationally, have never been paid. The volunteer ethos is of very considerable significance, especially in the world of reserves and cadets. Imagine how it will look to the reservists, who volunteer and put their lives on the line, and to the cadet forces, if the non-executives are to be paid. It is a really bad look and unlikely to attract the best of society who are absolutely committed to the reserves and cadets.

Furthermore, we are living in a time of scarce resources, especially in the field of defence. Yet here is the MoD deliberately adding cost, when it knows there is a ready supply of volunteers who will do, and indeed are doing, this work for no financial reward. One can guess the reaction of those who have shown, over many years, their dedicated and unpaid commitment to the reserves and cadets, to the appointment of paid non-executives with no apparent commitment to the reserves or cadets. It is a mistake to offer money to entice people to apply for these roles.

I turn now to Amendment 50, which seeks to reinstate lords-lieutenant. Lords-lieutenant are the sovereign’s representatives in their respective lieutenancies or counties. It is their foremost duty to uphold the dignity of the Crown. Historically, each lord-lieutenant was responsible for organising the county’s militia. The Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 established county territorial associations, with the lord-lieutenant as the president of the county association. The relationship of lords-lieutenant with the military today is maintained via their presidency of their county RFCAs. All lords-lieutenant are affiliated to one of the 13 regional RFCAs; one of them is president and they rotate the presidency among them.

This is constituted in primary legislation, most recently in Schedule 4 to the Reserve Forces Act 1996. Removing that would remove the final vestiges of a military role and an important part of the symbolic relationship of the lords-lieutenant to the Crown. Service personnel hold the sovereign in the highest regard. To cut off this link between reservists and the Crown seems, to say the least, inappropriate. Lords-lieutenant have evidenced considerable concern over the review’s proposals and the consequences of breaking this important link. Under the Armed Forces Bill, the involvement of the lords-lieutenant, which was established under paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 of Schedule 4 to the Reserve Forces Act 1996, is to be abolished. Paragraph 4(2)(b) of Schedule 6 to this Bill will omit

“section 111 and Schedule 4 (provisions of schemes for the constitution of associations)”.

It has been suggested, as an afterthought, that the continued involvement of the lords-lieutenant might be achieved through secondary legislation or regulation. The involvement of the lords-lieutenant is currently in primary legislation and to relegate it to regulations is nothing short of insulting. It also makes it much easier to amend, change and delete it. If it is proposed to amend the law in a way that affects a class of persons, it is customary to consult them. Even if there is no statutory duty to do so, there have been cases where the courts have held that failure to consult is a reason for upholding judicial review of the Government. I understand that the Association of Lord-Lieutenants has not been consulted. I urge the Minister to consider the amendment carefully.

Amendment 51 addresses the establishment of a national council. The strength of the RFCAs lies in their embeddedness across the regions. This was not accidental; it reflects the original Haldane model from 1908—a decentralised, citizen-based structure designed to mirror national diversity and ensure societal ownership of the territorial Reserve Forces. It has endured and worked for over a century. What is today described as “connecting defence with the nation” is rooted in this model, so it is right that Schedule 6 of the Bill establishes regional councils through paragraph 14 of proposed new Schedule 4A. What is extremely odd, though, is that the drafters have not understood that the regional councils are irrelevant if their views are not brought together and debated centrally, so that a single considered professional message can be delivered to Ministers.

Abolition of the membership, discussed in the debate on the last group, also presents a conundrum as to where the regional council members will be elected from. When we questioned this, we were told, “Don’t worry, it’ll be dealt with in secondary legislation”. This is a quite extraordinary response. Without a national council, the regional councils are completely irrelevant, and without a membership they will be ineffective. This seems to be an attempt to pay lip service to devolution, while in fact cutting it off at the roots. A national council is fundamental to the functioning of the new structure, and the amendment would establish one.

Amendment 52 addresses the external scrutiny team. The Council of Reserve Forces and Cadets Associations external scrutiny team provides an independent annual assessment to Parliament of the state, capabilities and health of the United Kingdom’s Reserve Forces, identified as fundamental to advising Ministers and the single services on the effectiveness of training, fighting efficiency and leadership of the reserve, thus meeting the FR 2020 proposition to reservists. It was established following the Future Reserves 2020 review and operates with statutory duties mandated by the Reserve Forces Act 1996.

The Armed Forces Bill, in paragraph 5(b) of Schedule 6, introduces the concept that the Defence Council can remove responsibility for producing the annual assessment or report and award it to someone else at stroke of a pen. This is not the case in the current legislation. Will the Minister therefore explain what lies behind this change? To whom might the responsibility for producing the independent assessment be transferred? What would be considered appropriate grounds for transferring it? When might this happen? How will Ministers ensure the assessment continues in future to be conducted properly and truly independently of the MoD? I beg to move.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to these amendments, and I agree with the points that have been so well made by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. I will start my brief remarks by making just a couple of general points. First, while there have been some criticisms of the arrangements of reserves and cadet forces, particularly in fairly recent reviews, most of these have been attended to subsequently. The general opinion was that, in the round, the Reserve Forces and cadets operated extremely well and were extremely valuable, and the arrangements that had been set in place had served this country extremely well for a very long time. There is, therefore, a burden of proof on anyone seeking to change the current arrangements to show why any proposed alterations will be better than the arrangements that are already in place. I fear that the Government fail on this count in many instances in this particular part of the Armed Forces Bill.

Secondly, the Minister has previously indicated to the Committee that some of the shortcomings might be attended to in secondary legislation, and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, just referred to this. That is all very well, but as everybody in this Chamber knows, we cannot amend secondary legislation; we take it or leave it, and usually, we have to take it. Of course, there must be secondary legislation for the detailed implementation of an Act and the measures in it; but issues of principle should be settled in primary legislation, not in secondary legislation, for some of the reasons that the Lord, Lord De Mauley, just pointed out. Quite a number of the issues covered by the amendments this evening are issues of principle and, therefore, belong in primary legislation, not in secondary legislation.

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[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for the amendments whose presentation to us he led on.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Empey, as I have said on a number of occasions both to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and to the Committee as a whole, that I will continue to have conversations between now and Report about what we may or may not do with some of the amendments before us. That commitment has already been made. On the points that he made about spending, I am perfectly willing to answer another Private Notice Question or whatever if he is successful at another time, but perhaps not this evening.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for their view that the non-executive members of the new RFCA board should be unpaid. That view assumes that unpaid service better demonstrates commitment. I do not accept that. Commitment is not determined by whether a member is remunerated. There is no evidence, in my view, that remuneration reduces dedication to the Reserve Forces or cadet organisations. I take the point that has been made about their voluntary ethos, but, in terms of the board’s membership—

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

I suggest, in answer to that point from the Minister, that what it does is call into question their independence from their MoD masters.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That might be a matter for us to consider in the conversation that we have. I do not want to go on for too long, but I understand many of the comments that different people have made this evening; I agree with some of them to a larger or lesser extent. I have never thought, generally speaking, that, in certain circumstances, unpaid work is the way forward. This is one of those situations, in respect of the board: I do not think it undermines the voluntary ethos as a whole because, here, it is related to board membership. In that circumstance, it is perfectly reasonable, given the new board that we wish to set up, that the position should be remunerated, although I accept the point that, in the broader establishment of lords-lieutenant and others across the wider—

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As I have just said to the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and others who asked about accountability, it is right that primary legislation should secure the requirement for annual reporting, rather than fix a particular organisational model in statute. In that way, we protect the outcome of rigorous reporting to Parliament without unnecessarily fixing the means of delivery in primary legislation. With those remarks, I hope that the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I thank those noble Lords who have spoken in support of the amendments. I also thank the Minister. He said that voluntary bodies all over the country have paid people at their heads. Of course they do. I am a trustee or president of, I think, seven charities. Outside the Government, those paid are universally the executives, not the non-executives.

My concern on the point about the amendability of regulations is different from the one that the Minister addressed. My concern is that the Government can amend them—not that we cannot—and that they can do so much more easily than with primary legislation. I am sure we will return to these issues on Report, but for this evening, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 48 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to the first three amendments in my name, which are in group 12: Amendments 61, 62 and 63. I am not going to do them justice at this time of night, because the first amendment is calling for an independent review of Armed Forces recruitment and retention and in order to do that justice, I need to rehearse the difficulties we have seen in Armed Forces recruitment. Capita was mentioned earlier in proceedings today. Issues of retention have also been raised.

Given the lateness of the hour and the hope that noble Lords, Hansard, doorkeepers and officials in the box will get home at some point in the wee small hours, I will simply express the view that it is important for His Majesty’s Government to have an independent review of recruitment and retention. Each time there is an SDR, we hear that we need to look at the size of our Armed Forces and the size of the reserves, yet there is very little clarity on the recruitment process and retention. We have heard proposals this evening from the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, about increasing paternity leave entitlement precisely as a way of enhancing retention. The country needs clarity on recruitment and retention. As Parliament, we need to be able to scrutinise the current provisions and perhaps give suggestions to His Majesty’s Government about ways in which we could be improving the system. I am raising that issue, but I am not going to go into any further detail this evening.

I hope that Amendment 62 will be seen as uncontroversial, even by someone sitting where the Minister is—even though it is an amendment. It suggests a duty to provide medical records on discharge, simply to ensure that anyone leaving the services is able to go straight away to register with their GP. In particular, if they have issues—perhaps they had a medical discharge or, even if not, they might be at risk of undiagnosed PTSD—then having those medical records will be crucial for them, and it seems only right that their record should be provided as soon as practicable.

Amendment 63 ought to be self-evident, although I realise that the Minister may feel that it is not purely an MoD matter but is perhaps more for the DWP. It would insert a clause introducing a personal independence payment assessment exemption for amputees. The logic is that it seems odd to keep requiring PIP assessments and reassessments when, if someone has had a limb amputated, that is not going to change between assessments. It may be that robotics or other medical innovations change someone’s capacity to work; but given that we are talking about someone who may have had a limb amputated as a result of their service, relieving them of PIP reassessments would appear to be a more appropriate way of acknowledging the reasons why they have lost the limb, while ensuring that we do not put them through unnecessary repeat medical assessments. I beg to move.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

I support Amendment 61 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, requiring an independent review of Armed Forces recruitment and retention. At this late hour, I will just say that, at a time when there are nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training, we cannot even recruit 10,000 a year, and our Armed Forces are well below the relatively tiny strength at which they are funded to be. This suggests that something is seriously wrong with the recruiting process, and the report needs to be done.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I shall briefly speak to Amendment 62. My noble friend raised the point about it being important for veterans to be able to have their details in their hands. The NHS guidance for veterans specifically notes that it takes several months for the full records to follow the veterans, and if veterans have complex health issues but no information, the GPs that they see are in deep trouble.

On amputees, importantly, unlike many amputees in the civilian world, most amputees in the military world also have a significant number of other injuries. There is already an issue about amputees in the civilian world having to have repeat PIP tests, but it seems sensible to look at this area.