Armed Forces: Reserve Forces

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for the important Question that he has tabled. I was introduced into this House in 1999. Some might think that I have allowed an inordinate length of time elapse before making my maiden speech, but there has been a reason for this. I was introduced as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and as a fervent believer in the separation of powers. Rightly or wrongly, I considered that it was not compatible with my judicial duties to take part in the legislative business of the House. Parliament agreed with that view when, by the Constitutional Reform Act, it disqualified the justices of the new Supreme Court from sitting or voting in the House.

On 1 October I was released from this purdah. I sought a topic on which to break my lengthy abstinence and on which I might be qualified to contribute. The noble Lord has provided this. I am one of the diminishing number in this place, and certainly of those making a maiden speech, who were required to do national service. This I did in the Royal Navy. To do so I had to join the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as an ordinary seaman, and it was as an ordinary seaman that I began my national service in 1956. After my basic training I applied, with some confidence, to train as an upper yardman, which would have led to a commission. The selection board rejected me and I was sent off as an ordinary seaman to join HMS “Maidstone”, a submarine depot ship. Conditions on the lower deck, I found, had not changed much since Nelson’s day. You still slept in a hammock, so close to the next man that when he turned over he woke you up and began a chain reaction right the way down the line.

National servicemen were a rarity in the Navy and I would endorse the emphasis that the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, placed on training reservists with regulars. Most of my shipmates were regular sailors who had nautical skills, and other skills, that I could not match. They tolerated my incompetence with a gentle benevolence. My experience during the year I spent on the lower deck was, I think, more valuable to my development than my subsequent year as a midshipman and the most junior officer in a minesweeper. The officers in these little ships shared a number of duties. I was correspondence officer, assistant minesweeping officer and atomic warfare officer. The latter two posts were of somewhat academic significance as we spent our time patrolling Cyprus, boarding and searching vessels in an attempt to prevent gun-running to the EOKA terrorists. So far as I am aware, no arms were ever intercepted.

I doubt whether my service was of great value to the nation, but it was certainly of great value to me. I went in as a callow youth and came out with a maturity and a knowledge of navigation and seamanship that provided a firm foundation for a career that started at the Admiralty Bar and led eventually to this place. That perhaps is not a reason for commending Her Majesty’s Reserve Forces. This place can be quite crowded enough, although not on this occasion.

The point I wish to make is that service in the reserves is not merely of direct benefit to this country. It is of benefit to those who serve in them and thus also of considerable indirect benefit to the country. The Ministry of Defence website accurately states that being a reservist is as rewarding as it is challenging. It is gratifying that the review promises an increase in that challenge and that reward.

This contribution has been somewhat shorter than it might have been had I not been informed yesterday by the Whips’ Office that I would have to restrict my remarks to three minutes, but brevity is, I suspect, on this occasion a virtue.