Armed Forces Recruitment

Lord Peach Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. At the heart of the contract is making sure there is one clear oversight to ensure of where we have missing skills. So, if a recruit says, “I want to be a chef in the Navy”, but we actually have too many vacancies for chefs in the RAF, we will actively encourage them to consider the RAF. Although this is candidate centred, we will for the first time be able to have an assessment of where our gaps are across the whole of the Armed Forces. If Serco fails, there are financial penalties.

[Lord Peach (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. As the Minister has touched on reserves a couple of times in this brief session, does she agree that, following the SDR, we need to look at a surge in reserves—not just volunteers but really paying attention to our regular reserves? Given the threats and risks we face as a nation, we need to become very serious about mobilisation and think about the narrative for our society on defence, national security and especially national resilience.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble and gallant Lord makes an excellent point regarding the strength and capacity of our reserves. They are a core part of our Armed Forces and it is vital that they are treated as such, which is why they are also included in the single recruitment contract. We are currently reviewing, through the prism of the strategic defence review, how we recruit reserves and what additional support we need to put in place, up to and including potential legislation.