Armed Forces Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, before we move on—because I suspect that this is not going to detain us too long—I would like to tease out from the Government Front Bench a couple of things.

As I said in my earlier remarks, we are going through something of a sea-change, rather too late in the day, in how we look at our reserves, our responsiveness and our state of alert in this country. In that respect, we understand that it is easier for larger companies to let people go for training because they have more people, but it is the smaller companies on which we should spend a little bit more time in thinking how we can better assist them. With that in mind, in both cases—those of larger and smaller companies—what are we doing to promote the idea that it is a good thing for them to release their employees to take part in some activities involving the military? Are we actively doing that?

Secondly, on people being released from other duties, it suddenly struck me that it seems rather ridiculous that people in the reserves are not exempt from jury service; I think I am right in that. This means that, particularly if you are a small employer, you might have to let somebody go for not only their reserve training but jury service. That takes a huge whack out of somebody’s time. However we monitor these things, it is almost impossible to ensure that, ultimately, people are not being penalised in their careers for taking time off. I would like to know what the Government are doing to monitor this on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that people who are actively involved in the reserves are not being penalised further down the line.

There seems to be something of a disconnect in our thinking here. On the one hand, as I said earlier, there is talk of mobilising many more veterans—something like 69,000—in an exercise next year, just at the same time as we are telling our Reserve Forces that they cannot have money for training and equipment. What is the Government’s thinking on that? If we are going to mobilise these people, is it going to be a paper exercise or are we actually going to invite them to turn up? Are they going to be given equipment? What is the current thinking here—or is it just a catchy headline?

We have debated the whole issue of preparedness in this country and will continue to do so going forward, for obvious reasons—of that I am absolutely sure. The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, mentioned a number of issues, with which I concur. I am broadly supportive of many of the amendments that he has tabled and which we are debating this afternoon, some of which are probably probing. He talked about Australia and the difference in its approach to these matters, as compared to ours. We have lessons to learn from Australia, but why do we not also take into account what they have been doing so successfully in Switzerland for decades now, whereby almost anyone of working age and beyond is required to do service in the reserves at weekends? It is a very bonding exercise. You can be somebody’s boss in the week and that person can be your radio operator at the weekend. It engenders in a country a sense of purpose, unity and preparedness, which is what this must all be about.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I will make just a brief point. The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, mentioned the training issues. I have raised these with the Minister and will come back to them.

In dealing with the employment issues, we have discussed people being released, but, having had the responsibility for fair employment matters, what about somebody being employed if an employer happens to know that that person is a reservist? The employer could say, “I don’t want to employ that man or woman because they will be a nuisance to me and I will have to let them go on release”; that would be one step before you get to the point of being an actual employee. The question is: is a person to be discriminated against on the basis of being a reservist by a future employer who happens to know that that person is a reservist, whether their picture appears in the local paper, through word of mouth or whatever? There is an issue there to be addressed.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, to address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, we are going to come on to the issue of protections for employees in the next group.

At the moment, I wish to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Harlech on the need to have certainty for employers. I declare my interest as an employer in a small charity, Cerebral Palsy Scotland, and as the mother of a serving reservist. She is about to go on her captain’s course—tomorrow, I think—so she has been negotiating time off with her employer.

To me, this group of amendments goes to the heart of something that bothers me every time we talk about reservists and employers. The MoD always seems to look at this from its point of view. We get things such as the defence employer recognition scheme, demonstrating to us, “Look at all of these wonderful companies that have signed up”. That is fine if you are a silver or a gold large company, but there are not enough of them. The question asked by my noble friend Lord Swire about what we are doing to highlight the benefits of employing reservists to employers was well made; it is something that we do not do well enough.

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

I am pleased to add my name to this suite of amendments that cover a broad area. On Amendment 48, I am sure that any of us who have served as Ministers or council leaders will have appointed loads of people to different bodies over the years. One thing I have noticed in recent times is that a cohort has emerged of people who apply for a lot of different bodies, whether or not they have qualifications for or experience in any of them.

I understand that people are not necessarily expected to do things for nothing, or to be paying out money, and I would be more than content for people to get perfectly fair and reasonable expenses, whether that is for travel or whatever is required. I have no issue with that, but once you move from that level to somebody who, perhaps, almost has a career in sitting on public bodies, that changes the entire ethos and atmosphere around the establishment of these boards.

Therefore, I have not been convinced by what is in the Bill as drafted. Unless there is a complete absence of people applying, or unless there is an obvious shortage of people who are willing to sit on these boards, I cannot understand why we would want to engage in expense to do this. Noble and gallant Lords have far more experience than I have, but if you have an organisation that is working and staffed, what incentive are you giving those who do the grunt work on the ground if board members are being paid? I just think it upsets the balance.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, mentioned national resilience and, of course, the Reserve Forces—whether it is a weather catastrophe or something else—will inevitably be part of that. We all know that the Minister could sell snow to the Eskimos if he was put to it, but we have a situation where in the press, even yesterday, there were reports of our training budgets for soldiers apparently being reduced for public expenditure reasons.

We can imagine how, if you were sitting in the Kremlin, you would be looking at that. It sounds so preposterous. The Minister’s right honourable colleague in the other place, the Environment Secretary, is urging us all to stock up on baked beans and candles and to be prepared for an emergency, and in the same breath we are apparently reducing basic training. You are preparing the country for an emergency, urging people to stock up on basics—what is the connection between these two things? I cannot make it out; it seems completely counterintuitive. The Minister knows that I tried to get a PNQ yesterday on that subject but the Falklands won out, quite properly. Still, it is a serious question.

The rhetoric coming from the Government, and from successive Prime Ministers, is that the defence of the nation is the number one priority of government. I do not necessarily want to bring this into it but I gently remind the Minister, if we are trying to save £30 million on training, that we are not trying to save any of the billions that we are spending on the asylum industry, which is just making a mockery of our country. We have to get serious here about what our priorities as a nation really are. This is sending out the wrong message.

With regard to the lords-lieutenant, I remember back home seeing our lord-lieutenant with a cadet, and the cadet was as proud as punch. This was a wonderful opportunity for a young person to take that role. You could see the enthusiasm; that young person was committed to serving as a cadet and it gave that person a wonderful opportunity of a career path moving forward. We would potentially take that away—for what? I do not know.

I ask the Minister seriously to consider that. I hope that, between now and Report, he will talk about these things with the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and colleagues. I am sure that his door will be open. It would be most helpful to the House if that were to happen. I doubt that there is a huge amount of difference between all of us. We all want to see the same thing. I accept that you cannot go for ever without looking at change and so on; it is part of life.

On the issue of the report, we all know how local government works. If you are doing an in-house report, people will say to you in the corridor, “Maybe you should be a wee bit careful about that”, or, “Go a bit easier”. We want an accurate, independent report without any strings attached and without any ability to be pressurised financially or in any other way. I would have thought that that is fairly basic. We are not asking for anything that is not sensible or reasonable. This suite of amendments goes a long way to correcting some of the flaws. The drafting may need to be changed—fair enough—but I hope that, in the discussions between now and Report, some of these anomalies can be resolved.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments to which I have attached my name. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, pointed out, this is a reasonable set of amendments. Again, they speak to issues around the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations; in many ways, they could have been part of a previous group because they are trying to deal with issues associated with Clause 38.

We have already heard articulately this evening that, at the moment, we have reserves, cadet forces and councils that are not paid. Why have His Majesty’s Government thought it necessary or appropriate to bring forward the suggestion of non-executive directors being paid and even, potentially, having pensionable incomes? Is there a reason for it that is eluding the Chamber? At the moment, why that would be necessary or desirable does not seem clear.

On the role of the lords-lieutenant, as other noble Lords have pointed out, it seems wholly inappropriate that that should be consigned to secondary legislation. If it is the case that the Palace and the Association of Lord-Lieutenants have not been consulted, what does the Minister propose to do to rectify that? Pending any consultation, would it not be appropriate to consider removing those parts of the Bill?

On Amendment 52, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, just pointed out, if we want an independent report, we need clarity that it is going to be produced by people independent of the MoD so that they cannot be subject to any sort of informal pressure to produce a report containing what the MoD or Ministers want to hear. This is a suite of reasonable amendments. Can the Minister give us some suggestion of areas in which the Government might be willing to move?