Armed Forces: Reserve Forces

Lord Glenarthur Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Glenarthur]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Freeman forecast, I will confine my remarks principally to the matters of employers and employer support. As I think some of your Lordships know, I spent seven years as chairman of the National Employer Advisory Board. Indeed, I worked a lot over that period with three of the noble and gallant Lords who are sitting opposite.

I wholly support the notion that reserves should be usable. It is far better to have 30,000 fully trained, fit and deployable members of the TA than a higher number of whom only a proportion are fit and qualified enough to be deployed. The same goes for both the naval and the Air Force reserves, albeit in their smaller numbers. From what I have read about what is proposed to appear in the Green Paper shortly, I must ask whether the Government have really thought through how these reservists are going to be used in the future. Have the Government taken serious advice so far from employers and employers’ organisations and understood what their reaction is likely to be? Have they consulted the CBI, the EEF, the chambers of commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses? I sincerely hope so.

At a time of considerable economic strain, employers face considerable difficulties. Whatever the fine words—and I have used them myself in the past—about wanting to establish a new relationship between employers and employees, individuals, families and reservists, I urge the Government not to imagine that their aspirations for greater utility of the reserves should appear to be at the expense, in some form or other, of civilian employers of reservists. I find it hard to be enthusiastic about the diminution of our Regular Forces and some of the capabilities that we are losing. If the Government want—as they should—adequately trained, experienced, properly equipped and resolute servicemen, whether regular or reservist, who can be deployed with confidence, somehow the funds have got to be found to pay for it. The employer should not be the person who faces an undue burden.

Having said that, employers have been remarkably resilient for many years with both Iraq and Afghanistan. As I discovered during my time as chairman of NEAB, intelligent mobilisation worked extraordinarily well but we should not allow this success to lull us into a false sense of security. Mobilisation for manifestly operational tasks is one thing; and mobilisation of reservists, even to release Regular Forces from a more mundane role so that those regulars can be deployed operationally, may be acceptable, as was shown when reservists played a role in Cyprus. However, if it is a gleam in the eye of the Government to use reservists for some more regular standing commitments, either by individuals, groups of individuals or formed reserve units, they should be cautious. Employers might not so readily understand or accept mobilisation of employees for extended overseas deployments and other activities that fall short of operations, however those ideas are dressed up. Whatever the nature of the understanding of the benefits to the deployed individual, and the benefits they can bring back to the employer, as my noble friend Lord Lee said, what otherwise is in it for employers? At the moment it seems that there is precious little in it for them.

What new measures are going to be brought forward to help support employers, on whom increased demand is going to be placed? What thought has gone into a package of measures to make it worth while for employers, especially SMEs, to derive some practical benefit or advantage? In my time at NEAB, I long argued that SI859, the relevant statutory instrument, has to be substantially changed so as to provide a strong tangible incentive to employers; otherwise, there is the risk that this would be perceived, rightly or wrongly, as defence on the cheap. Some will argue that the country cannot afford a fully fledged regular defence effort so it has to rely on the good will of employers who are often struggling to keep their businesses afloat.

As well as the tangible efforts that SI859 might produce, what about, for example, accreditation of skills from one element to another, from the reservist to the employer? I would have quite some difficulty and some tough questions as an employer if an employee aspired to spend large amounts of time away on military training and deployments—and I am a supporter of the whole concept. Even if I knew that he or she would bring back excellent soft skills from that experience, which could be put to good use in the workplace, I would want to know why as an employer I should have to bear all the expense and inconvenience, however loyal I felt.

The Government should be very wary indeed of contemplating anti-discrimination legislation that would make it illegal for companies to deny employment to those who rightly declare that they are reservists. We should not add to the red tape burden that employers already face. In any case, employers will find a way of getting round it and it would be seen as hugely negative by smaller companies in the private sector, as SaBRE research shows. We have an enshrined military covenant for regular reserves. What about an enshrined covenant for the employers of reservists?

I hope that my noble friend will ensure that the work of SaBRE and those other organisations that have worked so well to date is not changed in a way that confuses the employer and the employee. It has worked well. Let us develop it but let us not change it massively.