Armed Forces: Reserves

Lord Mountevans Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mountevans (CB)]

I want also to thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for initiating this timely debate. I declare my interest in the register as an honorary captain in the Royal Naval Reserve, and perhaps also as a former Lord Mayor; the City, of course, is very close to the reserves and the cadets. London is particularly strongly represented among the reserves. Like the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, I am affiliated to HMS “President”, the largest RNR unit in the country.

I want to salute a success story—we have heard about some of the problems, but there is a considerable story of success to be told with our reserves. Right across the spectrum of the three services, reserves contribute in war fighting, defence engagement and, importantly, from time to time in homeland defence. Reserves are part of the forces by design, part of the capability. It is not all a matter of how many are mobilised, as it was at one time. Under the RSD—the reserve service day—payment structure, a daily rate for international training or otherwise across the globe is in place and seems to work well. Some capabilities and specialisations are now reserved almost exclusively for the reserves by design. The reserves used to be a last resort; they are now part of the capability when properly structured.

We are approaching the end of the period addressed under the Future Reserves 2020 report of 2011. This should end in 2021, but I think that the end is generally regarded as March 2019, as outlined by the then Minister Brazier. The thrust of the review was addressing the fall in the number of reserves. It was heavy on numbers and allocated, as we have heard, £1.8 billion over 10 years. The premise was that the reserves had been underfunded and were thus in decline. However, this verdict did not fit with the experience of other nations. Foreigners were getting more out of their reservists; we in the UK were overreliant, perhaps, on the regulars for everything.

We are now approaching the end of that period. Broadly, the aims of Future Reserves 2020, or FR20, have been or will be achieved. In the context of national security, having dealt with the decline in reserve numbers and broadly achieved the trained strength of FR20, what is the next goal? This seems to have been left to the individual services. How do we achieve more horsepower from the reservist cylinder block? Given that we have broadly achieved FR2020, how do we now maximise the output?

Today we have some of our reserve operations in what must be called a traditional role in terms of numbers, but there are elements, such as cyber reserves and intelligence analysts, who are delivering operational capability without being mobilised or deployed overseas, for example. As noble Lords speaking before me have all, I think, noted, funding is the issue going forward. A Government—any Government—who neglect our defence will receive history’s censure; we should be in no doubt about that. I support the call of the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, and other noble Lords for 3% of national income to go to defence.

I thank employers for their vital support. The employer recognition scheme, with gold and silver levels and the involvement, for example, of Prince William and Prince Harry, has been very successful. The Armed Forces covenant has been a big success: I think around 25 firms a week are now signing up to the idea that we should not disadvantage those who have served. Firms benefit because reservists gain soft skills, such as leadership, a can-do attitude, responsibility and reliability, but also hard skills of value to the economy and to their businesses: planning, logistics and industrial and other skills which can be as simple as driving.

Not only are we very fortunate in this country in the professionalism and excellence of our regulars, we also have exceptional and dedicated reservists. I am echoing the words first uttered by my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup. I have experience of them in my affiliated ship, “HMS Westminster” and, echoing the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Burnett, I have had the privilege of experiencing something of the Arctic winter training of the Royal Marines and the Royal Marine Reserves. It was indeed hard, frankly, to tell the reserves from the regulars on occasions. These are fantastic people. We are so fortunate that these exceptional volunteers want to serve and contribute. As Lord Mayor, I saw the high level of support received from employers resulting from FR2020 and the Armed Forces covenant.

I might add, in concluding, that the Lord Mayor’s show simply could not happen without the highly professional contribution of the reserves. Some 400,000 people line the streets of the City and more than 1.8 million view this on television, including a worldwide audience. It is the BBC’s longest-running outdoor broadcast. Noble Lords may say that this is not defence, but it is an excellent example of the marketing of Brand UK. This means employment and it means taxes. We see the contribution of the reserves in so many areas, contributing to employment and taxes—taxes that pay for our defence.