Armed Forces

Lord Glenarthur Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Glenarthur (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend for the opportunity that this debate affords. In earlier defence debates I made clear my deeply held concerns that the reductions to the capability of our Armed Forces have been too draconian. A sound foreign policy can be achieved only if it is backed up by flexible and credible armed services. I fear, very much as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, has just said, that our capabilities have now become markedly depleted, and that cannot be helpful in a strategic context. Nevertheless, the skills and fortitude of our regular and reserve service men and women are much to be admired.

Today, I will concentrate my remarks on the volunteer reserves. My past and present interests as a member and subsequently as chairman of the National Employer Advisory Board, where I worked with very many of the noble and noble and gallant Lords who are speaking today, including the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, whose maiden speech we look forward to, and as honorary colonel and honorary air commodore of reserve medical units, are all recorded in the register of interests.

As chairman of the National Employer Advisory Board, I played some part in early work on a forerunner of the review of reserves, which preceded the White Paper published a year or so ago. I am at one with the idea that the reserves should be incentivised and deployable and that the “proposition” to attract and retain them should be an appealing one. As we move towards 30,000 trained and deployable reserves—a tall order by any stretch of the imagination, despite my noble friend’s optimism—we need to be much more nimble in how we attract individuals. It is the individual reserve units that are mostly responsible for recruiting, aided by the reserve forces’ and cadets’ associations.

However, the reserve units themselves need improved resourcing in terms of personnel and budgets in order to make progress. The targets are highly ambitious for recruiting but there is little or no uplift in funded permanent headquarters staff to help deliver the planned growth. For example, 612 (County of Aberdeen) Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, of which I have been honorary air commodore for 10 years, had manning at 64 in December 2013 against a target of 70 doctors, dentists, nurses, paramedics, professions allied to medicine, technicians and others. It faces a target of 121 by 2018. The figures may seem small in themselves but this is no small ask, not least when the NHS, from which many of these individuals come, faces its own problems. I have heard it said that budgetary disaggregation, particularly for marketing, is rarely programmed activity and is often conditional—a kind of “spend now and spend quickly” attitude—and I am bound to wonder whether this is wise or ultimately productive, even if it suits MoD and Treasury accounting.

Decent accommodation and other infrastructure are essential in attracting and retaining reservists. My squadron at RAF Leuchars, where it is based, is enthusiastic about self-help for office and training accommodation, and it is very well supported by the station—but, frankly, many of the buildings that it uses are old, tired, tatty and leave a lot to be desired. I am less than convinced that the system by which relatively minor building and refurbishment works are approved, tendered and subsequently contracted for does not lead to unnecessary MoD expense. Setting a standard, approving a budget quoted by a local firm and letting the responsible commanding officer take on that responsibility and get on with it might save the MoD a fortune.

The MoD departmental costs associated with minor works have a history of being substantial and, to my mind, very largely unjustifiable. Therefore, what assurance can my noble friend give that, when the Royal Air Force moves out of Leuchars next year, the incoming Regular Army units will give equal priority to their own and implanted reserve units to ensure modern and suitable facilities equal to those of the regulars with whom they will share the same barracks? The overall attitude by the regulars to the volunteer ethos, skills and professionalism of reservists is crucial to the success of the whole force concept, to which my noble friend referred. I cannot emphasise that fact more strongly.

Having won the enthusiasm from an individual to join a reserve unit, what can be done to encourage him or her to remain within it? We have to think much more flexibly in this. The individuals who join are just that: individuals. Their circumstances vary and we should consider how best to make it easier for them to play a flexible but full and complete part without compromising standards. For example, why not introduce a commitment to achieve a reduced annual bounty for those who have considerable experience over many years and are current specialists in relevant fields in their civilian careers—for example, in the medical world—but cannot easily commit to the full training bounty requirement of 15 continuous days per year and six weekends?

When I was honorary colonel of what was then 306 Field Hospital—later 306 Hospital Support Medical Regiment—although the 15 days’ camp was a requirement, individual specialists came together for only two weekends a year. It is a nationally recruited specialist unit, and it is from its members’ crucial clinical and related skills rather more than their military skills, albeit within a military ethos, that the patients whom they have to treat benefit. Could this perhaps be replicated elsewhere among other medical reservist units?

Why does the current pay system for reserves apparently rely on them signing a pay sheet for each day that they attend? Surely the commanding officer is accountable for attendance, and hence responsible for training and pay. As far as I know, regulars do not have to sign on. This seems to be a very simple matter. I hope that my noble friend will take away this issue and review it in order to simplify it.

There is a number of mandatory lectures that reservists have to undergo that are not about their military training or specialist skills but are much more prosaic. They relate to health and safety—inevitably, I suppose—fire, manual handling and that sort of thing. Why can they not be completed online with pay apportioned appropriately, based on time for a percentage of the work completed, as if the individual had attended in person? Why is it necessary for them to take a training day in order to complete stuff that can be done much more simply?

I believe that the MoD needs to be much more progressive in how to create an attractive offer for ex-regulars to become voluntary reservists. It should surely be seamless. My noble friend touched on this point, but can he say what is being done to help reserve units to identify those who are leaving regular service, associate them geographically or professionally and so encourage added value to the recruiting effort locally? Are there difficult data protection issues here and how might they be overcome? What is being done to ensure that incentives to transfer from regular to reserve service are uniform across the services? My noble friend referred to this but my understanding is that financial transfer rates for the Army are more generous than those for the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Why should that be?

While on the subject of generosity, in an age of the whole force concept, why cannot railcards be issued to reservists in the same way that they are routinely issued to their regular counterparts? I understand that this may be under review or consideration but I hope that my noble friend may be able to impart encouraging news, either today or very shortly.

When I relinquish my appointment with 612 Squadron in a few weeks’ time, I shall certainly be sad but I shall also feel proud to have come across and been associated—both in it and in 306 Squadron—with some immensely gifted and brave individuals. Each of those units has regularly deployed individuals or groups of individuals to Iraq and Afghanistan over recent years. The clinical skills, enthusiasm and zeal with which they have conducted themselves have saved countless lives. Some of what they have had to deal with has been harrowing but their sheer professionalism has always been to the fore. With that tribute to them, I also pay a strong tribute to their civilian employers in the NHS, the private sectors of healthcare and much more widely, without whose support and understanding none of the activities of reservists would be possible today or in the future.

I shall end with a plea to my noble friend to ensure that the tri-service approach to employers is co-ordinated and not at variance, so that employers understand and do not feel confused by different service requirements or the approach that those services make to them, and so that they feel that the advantages of reserve service at least outweigh the disadvantages of reservists’ training and occasional mobilisation.

Armed Forces

Lord Glenarthur Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Glenarthur (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly share the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt. The professionalism, resilience and indeed the sacrifices, as the right reverend Prelate has just said, of service men and women are plain for all to see.

Senior, highly trained and experienced military officers in or within recent direct experience of very responsible national and international positions know what they are talking about, so I was simply astonished 10 days ago to read that the Secretary of State had described as “nonsense” the statements made by a senior officer on retirement about his concerns for the present and future capability of the Armed Forces, most especially the Royal Navy but also about manning in general and the reserves in particular. Those views may be politically inconvenient but they are very widely held and articulated. The House of Commons report Future Army 2020 hardly provides a ringing endorsement of government policy, even if the economic factors the country faces are very real. Nonsense those comments certainly are not.

Reserve service men and women must be trained to a high standard and to be fit for deployment—there is not much argument about that. One imperative is to provide the right incentive for them, often known as the proposition. Unless opportunities for training, provision of equipment and direct comparability are provided in almost every way with the regulars, that proposition will be very difficult to deliver. In any case, it will not necessarily be a cheaper option.

Of course, recent operations could not have been successfully prosecuted without extensive use of reservists. As the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, said, the target of 30,000 deployable reservists by 2018 is a tall order. The programme to recruit them has got off to a shaky start because of the errors apparently made within the Ministry of Defence and a contract with Capita. The final figure may not be achieved or ultimately sustainable. Attracting redundant or other former ex-regulars to the reserves appears to be proving difficult, and I hope that my noble friend will be able to give us figures for that.

I spent many years as chairman of the National Employer Advisory Board for the reserves and so have a long-standing interest in how, in what is proposed, their future is going to develop. I would love to know how confident the Government are in the employer aspects of reservists, especially in the need to ensure that leave for training time can be made available at no detriment to employer or employee. Reservists must be as thoroughly trained as, and interchangeable with, their regular counterparts. What are the up-to-date figures for recruiting and sustaining reservists against the targets that have been set? What are the same figures for the regular services, particularly the Army? What are the current rates of premature voluntary release of service men and women? I hope my noble friend can give answers to these questions, some of which I have been able to give him notice of.

Concerns remain about the entire Middle East and the rise in Islamic fundamentalism. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, said, we have recently seen disturbing destabilisation on the eastern fringes of Europe. Our foreign policy towards Russia, with its recent acquisitive and bellicose ambitions and substantial military muscle, understandably dwells on economic and even personal sanctions. However, no foreign policy can be fully effective if not reinforced by the capability of credible military response—the underpinning to which the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, referred—in keeping with our international obligations, should that ghastly prospect prove necessary. That seems to be very much the burden of the noble Lord’s question.

Defence capability is a form of insurance. I am afraid that we seem to have got pretty close to our policy documents becoming invalid.

Reserve Forces

Lord Glenarthur Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. Army Reserve units will be paired with regular units in peacetime for training and force generation, enabling combined training and helping to build links with the local community, including employers, to aid recruitment and resettlement of service leavers. Reserve units in all three services may be integrated with regular units for mission rehearsals and for operations. We will ensure that our use of reserves is as predictable as possible to help reservists, their families and particularly employers to plan ahead. Specific levels of attendance will become a compulsory part of the proposition and the majority of reservists can expect a maximum of 12-months mobilised service in a five-year period. Whether it is needed will obviously depend on operational requirement.

[Lord Glenarthur]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Statement. It is certainly extremely comprehensive. From what one can see from a first glance at the White Paper, it fulfils many of the aspirations which those of us who commented on the Green Paper felt were necessary. However, I should like to ask my noble friend about the national relationship management scheme. I suggest that, in any adaptation of the current relationships that exist, the process should be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Having been involved in it for several years as chairman of the National Employer Advisory Board, the mechanisms that have existed for the past 12 to 15 years have proved to be extraordinarily effective. For example, the branding of SaBRE is such that it is understood throughout the country. I hope that my noble friend will ensure that this can be built on rather than something totally new created which is more likely to confuse than to help.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his support. I also pay tribute to him for the important work that he has done for the reserves over many years. My noble friend made some very important points. I will take them on board and take them back to my department.

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.

Armed Forces: Afghanistan and Libya

Lord Glenarthur Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I can assure the noble and gallant Lord that support for Afghanistan will certainly not end in 2014. It is President Karzai’s aim that by the end of 2014 the Afghans will take lead responsibility for security costs right across the country, and we are on track to meet this aim. The Prime Minister has been clear that we will not have troops in a combat role or in numbers anywhere like current levels by 2015.

Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, bearing in mind the huge contribution of Britain’s Reserve Forces to both campaigns, particularly to that in Afghanistan, to what extent have those foreign countries my noble friend mentioned also been using their reserve forces? Can any lessons learnt from their deployments be used and developed in the international fora which exist for discussion on international reserve issues?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very important point about the reserves of our allied countries. I am afraid I do not have an answer to hand but I will certainly write to him on this and give him a detailed answer.

RAF Northolt: Commercial Flights

Lord Glenarthur Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord as a very distinguished president of BALPA. Heathrow currently operates at around 99 per cent capacity, and we cannot let it grow out of control, but the Government are committed to developing a new policy framework for the whole of UK aviation which supports economic growth and addresses aviation’s environmental impact. We want to see a successful and competitive aviation industry that supports economic growth and addresses the environmental impacts. Aviation should be able to grow, but to do so it must play its part in delivering our environmental goals and protecting the quality of life of local communities.

[Lord Glenarthur]

My Lords, what is the total number of military and civilian air traffic movements at Northolt in any one year, and are there any air traffic control constraints due to the closeness of Heathrow and the overall impact of its terminal marshalling area—TMA?

Armed Forces: Post-service Welfare

Lord Glenarthur Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Glenarthur]

My Lords, I, too, am most grateful to my noble friend Lord King for raising this important issue. I certainly join with all those who pay tribute not only to the fortitude of those who are so grievously injured on operations but to their families, friends and the professionals who have the difficult task of supporting them on their return. I have various interests to declare. I was a member of the National Employer Advisory Board for the reserves of Britain’s Armed Forces for 14 years, for seven of which I was its chairman. I have been honorary colonel of a Territorial Army hospital support medical regiment for 10 years and for six years, concurrently, I have been honorary air commodore of a Royal Auxiliary Air Force medical unit. These specialist medical units regularly provide individuals—or even many individuals—to reinforce, and to provide specialists for, both regular and reserve medical units that are deployed.

As I have had substantial contact with many doctors, nurses and others, such as from the professions allied to medicine, who have the initial and subsequent care of servicemen with profound physical and mental trauma as a result of operations, I should like to concentrate my remarks on the reserves, particularly the medical reserves. From what I know, it is clear that many people deployed on operations in the medical field are seeing the most dreadful trauma that only a couple of years ago would not have been survivable. They often witness what was described to me yesterday as the “ultimate” in terms of trauma that they will ever see. They see perhaps the most awful experiences of their professional lives. The degree of preparation that the United Kingdom armed services gives all those who are due to deploy might be a major factor in helping the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder remain at a low level. However, we cannot afford to be complacent and we cannot be sure when repeated deployments will begin to take their toll and very real long-term issues of mental illness, requiring long-term rehabilitation, will become evident.

So far as the Defence Medical Services are concerned, a large number of their strength is made up of reservists. Some of these reservists, largely from the TA, deploy as formed units—perhaps as a field hospital taking over the manning and the operation of the medical facilities at Kandahar, Camp Bastion or in forward locations. These medical staff are almost the only formed reserve units to be deployed nowadays on operations. However, they also rely heavily on the additional expertise of specialists from national units, such as my own represents.

Many of these staff, with wide experience in the NHS and the private health sector, are used to dealing with fairly horrific scenes—whether in an A&E department of a hospital or in the subsequent treatment of the sort of trauma that I described earlier—but, however professional or inured to witnessing the most distressing scenes these people are, there must be a real risk that the effect on the individual clinician might become cumulative. These clinicians are supremely professional, but they are human beings who are prone to the same emotions as any of us. One has to wonder whether there will come a time when continued regular exposure to the extreme horrors of war could lead to a substantial cumulative effect on the individuals, with worrying consequences for the future. Even the most experienced, hardened doctors who have been deployed many times often say that it takes a good three months to recover and to come to terms with what they have seen, and it takes much longer for those who are not so experienced. Can my noble friend say what steps are being taken within the MoD to be alert to this possibility? What steps might be taken to deal with that outcome should it occur?

The trauma facilities in Camp Bastion are absolutely first class—I saw them two years ago and I should like to see them again—and they have probably improved hugely since I last saw them. As the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, said, what is being achieved there in terms of the ability to treat trauma is quite astounding and, indeed, humbling. However, one cannot ignore the fact that, although the need to preserve life is a pre-eminent role of clinicians, there are huge, complex ethical issues involved, which can take their toll on even the most stoical and professional of clinicians. While our doctors and nurses are treating our own injured servicemen whom they know will have the very best clinical attention on their repatriation to the United Kingdom, they are also treating very seriously injured Afghan civilians and Afghan servicemen. In treating those people and saving their lives—however horrific their injuries and however limited might be their subsequent quality of life—one can all too readily understand that the clinicians face awful ethical and moral dilemma, because those people will not go back to the same sort of facilities that we have.

The British serviceman—man or woman—is an extraordinarily resilient being. One hears amazing stories of their sense of humour, their determination to overcome quite shocking injuries and their success in doing so. For those who can remain within the services while fulfilling other tasks, all is made easier by the sense of camaraderie that always prevails within the unit. I hope that the Government will accept that those who treat our servicemen may at some point also need special care and attention because of the effect of what they have had to deal with.

As my noble friend Lord King clearly stated, for reserve medical staff returning to their civilian places of work, however supportive and understanding senior management may be of their experience on operational tours, that is not always the case with junior civilian colleagues. The latter may not easily have the same depth of understanding of what clinicians have gone through and have witnessed in the theatre of war. Those clinicians, however robust and resilient, can talk among themselves as a sort of safety valve when they are with their military unit colleagues. I urge my noble friend the Minister to impress upon his Ministry of Defence colleagues that they should be alert to the possibility of traumatic reaction requiring a degree of mental rehabilitation over time for these individuals in the future.

The reserves of all three services make up a crucial element of the deployable Defence Medical Services. I would go so far as to say that operational deployment of any sort would be impossible without them. We must be alert to the risks of continued deployment which these very well meaning and extraordinarily professional clinicians face.

Defence: Military Covenant

Lord Glenarthur Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Glenarthur]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield has done us all a service both by initiating this short debate and in his thoughtful and interesting speech. He has done so close on the heels of the debate earlier today held by my noble friend Lord King. I will again concentrate my remarks on the reserves of all three military services, to which the right reverend Prelate referred, and the relevance of the military covenant to them.

I have read the Report of the Task Force on the Military Covenant—the Strachan report—which was published in September. On page 19, paragraph 2.5 addresses the issues of reservists. I very much endorse what it says about the lack of on-base support, which is mostly available to regular service families. In particular, there are practical difficulties for reservists who return rapidly from deployments to their civilian occupations, far removed from military units. I dwelt on this in my noble friend’s debate this morning. My interest in this lies, as my noble friend on the Front Bench knows, in my long-serving capacity as honorary colonel and honorary air commodore to medical reserve units.

I will highlight three of the report’s policy options in relation to reservists. First, on recognised identity cards for reservists, I was astonished to discover from the report that not all reservists are regularly issued with identity cards. As the rubric at the bottom of the page says, some get them but some do not. Even I get one, much to my astonishment, as the honorary air commodore of a Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadron. What is being done to address this issue, which would perhaps allow such benefits as the practical opportunity to access the joint personnel administration system remotely? What can be done to help those who do not work with the reserves all the time but spend some of their time in civilian employment?

Secondly, there is the question of providing information to reservists’ general practitioners. It seems bizarre that, evidently, there is currently no system to transfer an individual’s Defence Medical Services records back to his or her GP after deployment. Having spent many years in health administration, I would say that this is extraordinarily poor clinical governance, which should be put right at once. There should also be help for GPs in making available help for reservists. My noble friend on the Front Bench made some encouraging remarks about this earlier. In the days of digital data transmission, I simply cannot believe that it is too complex an issue to administer. I would be very grateful if the Minister could write to me about it in greater detail.

Thirdly, support from employers is part of a theme that I and my colleagues on the National Employer Advisory Board addressed over many years. There should certainly be support from employers but there should also certainly be support for employers, so that they can more readily understand the nature of military service of any kind, but particularly reserve service. We used to have a scheme known as Employers Abroad, which the Americans and Australians call Boss Lift. It allowed employers to visit reservists on exercises and operations so that they experienced some of the activities, witnessed the camaraderie and sense of purpose that existed among their employees’ service units and developed a sense of what these individuals do and how that can be brought back and made use of in the civilian workplace. I have taken part in several of these.

However, I understand that the Employers Abroad scheme was stopped, or at least put on hold, some six months ago, following a Cabinet Office directive to do with a freeze on marketing. Frankly, sometimes I despair. My colleagues and I have spent 10 years or more, during deployment on two huge operations, at the highest levels of the MoD, explaining the need to win and maintain the support of reservists’ employers at a time when some 10 per cent—more than the 20,000 referred to by the right reverend Prelate—of reservists had been deployed. I hope that my noble friend will accept that it is wholly counterproductive in the longer term to diminish that effort and put at risk all the relationships that have been worked on so hard, particularly by SaBRE—Supporting Britain’s Reservists and Employers—which has worked at the coal face on this with civilian communities up and down the country. As page 5 of the report on the military covenant says:

“Many people in Britain have little or no contact with the Armed Forces and have little understanding of military life. There is a need to build on public support to create a greater and more enduring understanding”.

The right reverend Prelate referred in his comments—perhaps elliptically, although I know that he meant to refer to it—to something called defence career partnering, which is another issue that I was deeply involved with as chairman of the National Employer Advisory Board. It stemmed from a wish to see much more flexibility in the careers of individuals, whether regulars or reservists. However, as we have heard, it has recently developed legs, so to speak, and has produced innovative concepts, some of which are very relevant indeed to the military covenant. They could be helpful across a broad range of circumstances.

It was not always easy to advance the concept of defence career partnering. I spent two years or so as co-chairman of the MoD steering group on the subject. There were those who readily grasped the possibility of positive outcomes for the benefit of defence and industry, but some were not so easily convinced. What surprised me, however, was that there was a very real enthusiasm on the part of industry in many forms to find partnering opportunities, not just in terms of careers but in a much wider sense, so I am encouraged to begin to believe—perhaps my noble friend will confirm whether I am right—that, whereas defence career partnering is not a whole answer to many issues, it is at least part of the answer. The fact that it is owned now by the MoD, not by a single service, is of huge benefit. In some elements of it, I can well understand the complexities in terms of career planning, such as sorting out terms and conditions of service. Some of the issues are closely related to what the right reverend Prelate said about returning servicemen and so on.

We are talking about mutual benefit. If we are fully to grasp the notion of the big society, so strongly advocated by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, does my noble friend not agree that we have to be rather more broad-minded in what can be achieved through flexible and willing partnering relationships? Will he perhaps take the time to review the progress to date, in particular the very genuine offer of support from industry and others, and does he not agree that such an initiative could do much to enhance the value of the military covenant?