Armed Forces: Redundancies

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, for putting this important topical item down for debate. This is a subject that he and I have been raising for some time, and I will try not to repeat his words.

The Government’s defence review has been in place now for some three years, having been announced in October 2010. They are three years in which significant redundancies have taken place. Most have been voluntary redundancies. In fact the proportion of voluntary redundancies has been increasing over time. So as we look to the end of 2013, we will have seen more than 10,000 serving forces personnel ending their service careers. We debated back in June of this year the impact on those selected for redundancy who were close to pensionable age. Now the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, broadens and repeats questions that we raised at the time. He asks about the overall impact of the redundancies and in particular, what the Chief of Defence Staff considers the impact to be.

I will thus also return to a question that I have asked on earlier occasions in your Lordships’ House, which is whether the fact that redundancies are in many cases voluntary means a lowering of morale in our Armed Forces? I am also concerned as to whether those leaving the Army, navy and air force are the ones whom we want to leave. Are we losing the skills that are essential for any enterprise? Has the MoD assessed what trades and skills are going by voluntary and compulsory redundancies?

I welcome the words of the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Houghton, when he wrote about his vision for our Armed Forces as recently as August this year. His determination to lead our forces through these times of austerity demonstrates his clear commitment to professional, effective and more efficient forces. His realistic recognition of the challenge he faces in delivering the changes set out in the 2010 defence review should command respect across this House. He was again pressed more recently on the question of withdrawal from Afghanistan, redundancies and reservist recruitment. He seemed resolute in his mission when he said as recently as 21 October:

“In terms of morale, it’s not about individual happiness. It is about the ability to endure in times of real austerity, endure through times of hostility, in times of pressure ... And I think if anything has demonstrated the resilience of the morale of the British armed forces, it is the last couple of years—and the fact they still continue to perform, and are one of our nation’s unique selling points”.

I look forward to hearing from the Minister how he interprets the Chief of the Defence Staff’s words. Does it mean that our forces will have the resilience of their morale being severely tested?

There are additional points on which I hope the Minister might offer your Lordships’ House clarification. So far, there have been three tranches of redundancies and yet the total number of redundancies is only a little over half of that set out in the defence review. There is, I fear, uncertainty as to how the redundancy programme will proceed. What proportion will come from voluntary redundancy? What spread of skills and experience will be lost? Are those taking voluntary redundancy the people we want to lose? These are important questions, not least to enable the Government to demonstrate that our Armed Forces retain the necessary skills, experience and morale, but to clarify the question of recruitment to the Regular and Reserve Forces.

Turning to the Reserve Forces, those who have heard my thoughts on the defence review before will know that I have a real interest in ensuring that our Reserve Forces, newly expanded and updated, will be effective and able to fulfil the role the defence review set out for them. The increase from 19,000 to 30,000 reservists is a vital component of the review and essential in ensuring the overall capacity of the remaining 82,000 Army, RAF and Royal Navy Regular Forces that are planned.

There are continuing questions about this increase in the size of our reserves. How will we recruit the right people? Will there be sufficient numbers with the right skills and experience? How do we ensure that they see deployment that engages their talents and commands their loyalty? We must also give real thought to working with employers so that they both understand the importance of employees giving such service and are able to plan for sometimes lengthy absences of perhaps integral staff.

The issue on which I would press the Minister today is that of the success of recruitment to the reserves, a point touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. This key issue was put to the Chief of the Defence Staff. He seemed enthusiastic at the prospect of increased numbers of reserves when he said:

“We have produced a good offer. We’ve got to get out the message that people who join now are joining something that is exciting, will give them all sorts of rewards and has a very, very strong future”.

However, the question for me is whether this recruitment is working. We read that reserve recruitment is falling significantly below target—and that is before we begin to ask what vital skills and experiences are missing. If the overall targets are undershot, are we correct to close local TA centres? Is our new outsourced recruitment—again touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig—the best way to fulfil our duty to defend the UK?

I shall not repeat the comments made by the noble Lord about people nearly reaching pensionable age and being made redundant but I have had correspondence with the Minister on the subject. As to the 1.2%, or approximately 130 soldiers, how much would it cost to play the decent Government by that number of people? The answer I got was, “Where do you draw the line?”. That is a problem. However, we know where the line has been drawn, and it affects 100 to 130 soldiers.

In conclusion, I welcome and commend the Chief of the Defence Staff for his determined and judicious language in assessing the progress of the defence review. I have no doubt that our reduced forces will cope in times of peace, but could they cope with another Afghanistan? Could they cope if there were two such conflicts at the same time?