Armed Forces

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to the Minister for the wonderful series of briefings that he arranges for Members of this House, which I know are widely appreciated.

I realise that at this stage of such an important debate, in which there have been so many remarkable and well informed speeches, there is little new that I can add. In disclosing an interest as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, I have to admit that, although that committee has a far wider-ranging remit, I will be speaking mainly about the Army and, in particular, Army 2020. I will not repeat all that has been said about the role and purpose of our Armed Forces in general, particularly as regards their future should the Prime Minister’s promised budget increase not be realised, and about the gypsy’s warnings on that given by my noble and gallant friends Lord Stirrup and Lord Richards, including in the latter’s outstanding maiden speech.

In its first review of the National Security Strategy 2010, published on 8 March 2012, the Joint Committee commented that it had been produced to a very tight timetable, and hoped that the production of the next one in 2015 would include a much wider public debate and an attempt at political consensus. The security strategy had been used to guide capability decisions in the 2020 strategic defence and security review, but the committee was unable to find any evidence that it had influenced decisions made since then. It called on the Government to develop an overarching strategy, a common understanding about the United Kingdom’s interests and objectives, that could guide choices on investment across government departments as well as operational priorities and crises responses, based on a realistic vision of the United Kingdom’s future role in the world.

In its report on its work in 2013-14, published on 30 April this year, the committee repeated concerns about the way in which the National Security Council operated, including: focusing on short-term imperatives and operational matters, and showing little sign of considering long-term and blue skies topics; not making the contribution it should to enable the Government to work as a co-ordinated whole; and individual departments, notably the Ministry of Defence, making major policy decisions without discussion at the National Security Council. The committee urged the Prime Minister to reconsider his approach to the next national security strategy in 2015, and to give a clear steer to his officials that they were expected to produce a radically different one that tackled the big and politically difficult questions which would guide future decision-making.

I mention this as background to the ninth report of the House of Commons Defence Committee produced this year, entitled Future Army 2020, in which it expressed its surprise that such a radical change to the Army’s structure, reflecting a reduction of 12,000 personnel from that announced in the 2010 security and defence review, was not discussed at the National Security Council, and that it was the Ministry of Defence’s Permanent Secretary who told the Chief of the General Staff the future size of the Army under the Army 2020 plan, which I hope is not a portent of things to come when there is only one uniformed member of the Defence Council. It noted that the Secretary of State for Defence had subsequently accepted that Army 2020 was designed to fit a financial envelope and it called on the Ministry of Defence to explain the apparent lack of consultation with the Chief of the General Staff in the decision-making process that has affected his service so fundamentally.

However, what seems even more peculiar to me about this whole story is that the Government continue to claim that, despite the history of what has actually happened since 2010, their overall strategic vision, expressed in both the security strategy and the defence review, has not changed. The Defence Committee hopes that a concept of critical mass for the Armed Forces will be developed. Had this been in existence, and even in its absence, it would seem only common sense for the NSC to assess and confirm Army 2020 before issuing it to the Army, in relation not just to critical mass but to the MoD’s “fighting power” doctrine, both of which could arm it with a much better informed understanding of how well the Army will be able to fulfil its obligations and contribute to Future Force 2020. As many noble Lords have pointed out, there is in addition a danger that Army 2020 could unravel if there are any further Ministry of Defence budget reductions, in which case both the UK’s vision of its place in the world and the defence planning assumptions would have to be revised.

Army 2020 represents a radical vision for the future role and structure of the British Army, departing significantly from that which was published in SDSR 2010. I must admit that I share the Defence Committee’s doubts as to whether SDSR 2010 can meet the needs of the United Kingdom’s national security, not least in combating asymmetrical threats. Deterrence of asymmetrical threats is much more complex than deterrence of another state. Whether it is nuclear or conventional, there is great difficulty in identifying precisely what action can be threatened or taken against whom. If I have a particular concern, it is that Army 2020 appears insufficiently resourced to enable the Army to operate in the fourth environment in which services now have to operate in addition to land, sea and air—namely, the electromagnetic or cyberspace. If both attack and defence are to be conducted, Signals is currently at about half the strength required.

My other concern is the reserves, and here I admit that I speak as an Inspector General of the Territorial Army of 25 years ago. While conscious of the enormous contribution that the reserves have made to the hectic operational years, you cannot expect employers to go on releasing people without proper reward. You must also pay the volunteers sufficiently well to encourage them to turn out. There is another dimension to the reserves, which I am afraid receives less than due recognition, which is the representation of the Armed Forces throughout the United Kingdom now that they have been withdrawn from so many places. The whole reserves issue should be re-looked at in the context of SDSR 2015 and Future Force 2020, to confirm that plans exist to expand important requirements such as medical and cyber, identified in what I hope will be a better analysis of national security needs than was carried out in 2010.

Apart from Army 2020, I have one other plea on behalf of the Army. I well remember pleading with my military masters for a period of stability for my battalion, which I took to Gibraltar after two years on operations in Londonderry, a six-month unaccompanied tour in Belize, and a hectic six months during which we had to provide a national shooting team and train for a subsequent four unaccompanied months in Belfast. Having been able to catch our breath, get some basic skills training and allow children under four to have their fathers at home for Christmas for the first time in their lives, a rejuvenated battalion was able to deploy straight to South Armagh. The Army has had far worse than that, having been involved in continuous operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere for more than 10 years, with the result that national defence skills, including essentials such as all-arms training, are almost non-existent. The Army badly needs a period of stability, during which it can become accustomed to its Army 2020 posture, including the linkage between certain formations and certain parts of the world, which is resulting in 4 Brigade, with its Middle East responsibilities, training troops from Libya and Egypt.

The Ministry of Defence failed to communicate the rationale and strategy behind Army 2020 to the Army, the wider Armed Forces, Parliament and the public—the Government are saying that it has to work and there is no plan B. The Government owe it to both the nation and the Army to ensure that Army 2020 works. If the situation changes, they must be prepared to respond decisively by providing additional resources in order to guarantee the nation’s security. I therefore ask the Minister whether the Ministry of Defence accepts the Defence Committee’s request that the Government provide regular updates to Parliament on progress of all aspects of the Army 2020 plan, the first of which would be laid before Parliament in January 2015 to allow consideration and debate before the 2015 general election and the SDSR, and regular debates thereafter.

Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

I, too, welcome the Minister’s opening remarks about the paramountcy and importance of the chain of command. I also associate myself entirely with the remarks of my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig, including those on the importance of analysing why the Army and the Royal Air Force appear to be lagging behind the Navy in implementing the 2006 measures.

What I would like to contribute to the debate at this stage is stirred by the mention by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, of the problems of the ombudsman having statutory powers on occasion. If ever there is a clash between the chain of command and anything statutory, we have to remember that there are two conditions in which the Armed Forces find themselves—their normal day-to-day existence, when different circumstances can prevail, and active service, when there is no room for anything other than an operational chain of command if operations are to proceed correctly.

I add two cautionary tales to explain why I am opposed to the commissioner being advanced to an ombudsman. In 1992, I was Adjutant-General, personnel director of the Army, and was sitting in the Principal Personnel Officers’ Committee with my opposite numbers from the Navy and the Air Force, when the Second Permanent Under-Secretary said to us, “You have got to decide where industrial tribunals figure in the service disciplinary chains”. Naively, I asked whether they came before or after Her Majesty the Queen, who is, of course, at the summit of it all. I was told that that was completely irrelevant because the Bill instructing that this should happen had already been given its First Reading in the House. “What Bill?”, we asked.

It eventually appeared that there was a Bill about industrial tribunals that had its origins in Brussels. When a copy came, I gave it to the director of Army Legal Services and said, “Run your eye over this, please, and come and tell me if there is anything difficult in it”. Within half an hour, he was back and he said, “This is absolutely disastrous. There is a clause in here which says that if an employee is ordered into a place of danger, he can take his employer to an industrial tribunal”. If carried to its logical conclusion, that would mean that a company could take its commanding officer to an industrial tribunal if ordered to, for example, capture a hill. I then asked the Second PUS what the offices of the German, French and Italian armies had done about the Bill. He said, “They claimed exemption for their armed forces”. I said, “Why on earth can we not do so, because all armed forces do the same thing?”. I say that merely because I suspect, having read the clauses in the Bill—many of which have been outlined, particularly by my noble and gallant friend—that the implications of the proposed powers of the ombudsman in relation to the chain of command may not have been properly thought through.

My second cautionary tale concerns coroners. We all welcome the fact that inquests will now happen more quickly, because there is nothing worse than a family having to wait for years and years before the full knowledge of the circumstances of the son’s, or whoever’s, death is known. Recently—in the past five years or more—there have been examples of coroners who, rather than just doing their job, have started to interfere with command decisions and question them in court. I submit that orders given by people on the battlefield should not be a matter for public questioning by coroners in a coroner’s court. There is a danger that the business of them doing that has undermined confidence in the whole coronial system in the Armed Forces, which is thoroughly unfortunate. I sincerely hope that the chief coroner will correct this.

I mention those examples because, while I am not opposed to there being a commissioner for complaints who is absolutely committed, first and foremost, to the rule of law in the Armed Forces—and those of us who operated on the streets of Northern Ireland, armed with our yellow cards, know how intrusive that can be—we must have a proper complaints system in which everyone has trust and which functions quickly and effectively. If that is not the case, then we must see why. I am most unhappy, however, at the thought of someone being introduced into the system with more powers than currently exist, because of the possible implications for the paramountcy of the chain of command, on which the Minister opened his address.

Defence Reform Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I have one very small comment. It would seem to be quite wrong to restrict such an annual report to the Army. It would be necessary, if such an approach were to be adopted, for the report to cover all three services in full.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

I absolutely agree with my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig on that point. On reading the Defence Committee report, Future Army 2020, I was concerned to note two statements:

“We are surprised that such a radical change to the Army’s structure … was not discussed at the National Security Council”,

and,

“We note that the Secretary of State for Defence accepts that Army 2020 was designed to fit a financial envelope”.

The financial envelope includes not just the Army but the other two services. If we look at history, an annual debate was held in both Houses on the estimates for the Navy and the Army. We are therefore putting back history, as it were, if we have an annual estimate. Particularly in this case, I note the suggestion that the first discussion should be in January 2015 because, of course, when the strategic defence review 2010 was introduced it was clear that its achievement was dependent on the money that would be available in 2015. Looking around, it seems pretty obvious that that amount of money may not be available—in which case, all three services will have to face a review of the current plans.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I very much echo the sentiments of my noble friend Lord King. I think there is a general feeling that in the latest cutbacks in the forces the Army seems to have taken a rather greater cut than the other two services. Considering that the Army has been deployed almost continuously since the Troubles began in Northern Ireland in 1969, one has slightly to question the wisdom of the Army seemingly taking rather more punishment than the other two services.

However, I do think that the Opposition have a bit of nerve in tabling this amendment, which somewhat echoes the amendment withdrawn by the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, because, at the end of the day, we are paying now for the legacy that this Government inherited when they took power at the beginning of this Parliament. If you have £40 billion of procurement that has not been funded, you obviously at that stage have a serious problem. Something went badly wrong. When the aircraft carriers were ordered by the previous Government the roof had fallen in on the economy and there was clearly no money to pay for them. It does not matter whether they were a good idea, the money was not there and the Defence Council went ahead and ordered them. For some extraordinary reason, there was no ministerial override from the Permanent Secretary saying that the money was not there. That strikes me as a very serious shortcoming in the way in which our affairs are being run. Let us face it, there is always a temptation for politicians to order things that they cannot afford. On the other hand, we look to our civil servants to preserve the integrity of the finances of the department, and that did not seem to happen. I consider that the Army is suffering from some very bad decisions that were taken in the previous Parliament and the legacy of an overhang of unfunded procurement. Savings had to be found somewhere; and it is the Army. It is extremely regrettable that the Army has to take the punishment in this way.

Ministry of Defence: IT Systems

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

No, my Lords, it was not. The whole idea of this was to try to relieve manpower to enable soldiers to go back to the front line as well as reducing cost. However, I point out to the noble Lord that this is not the first IT project to go on. In 1998, Labour announced a programme to reform the way that the NHS used IT. It was originally intended to cost £6.2 billion, but costs later doubled to almost £13 billion. In 2011, the Government axed that project and replaced it with a cheaper, locally led system. The National Audit Office slammed the original scheme, saying that it did not represent value for money, so this is not the first time that there have been problems with IT.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, that is exactly the point that the Minister has made. This is not the first time that an IT system has gone wrong. As the noble Lord, Lord West, has said, this trial was going completely against the traditional methods of recruiting. Will the noble Lord tell the House whether it was adequately tried out before it was forced on what I understand was a very reluctant Army?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

The noble Lord is probably better informed on that than I am. We want to get the best of both worlds. The Army is not losing control of recruiting—it was always going to be in control of recruiting—but we want to use the very best software to help it do the job properly and get recruits into the reserves and into the regulars.

Armed Forces: Legal Challenge

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, for obtaining this important debate, and in doing so say that I suspect that I speak for many members of all three Armed Forces. I also thank Nicola Newson for her quite excellent Library note, which sets out the arguments for and against legal challenge so clearly and fairly.

During my own Army service, I watched the advance of what the Policy Exchange calls “legal mission creep”. I will begin my contribution by venturing that not enough note has been taken of one very good explanation for this—namely, that the nature of the active operations in which our Armed Forces have been involved has changed since the end of World War 2.

General Sir Rupert Smith, in his important book, The Utility of Force, refers to them as “wars amongst the people”, because no longer are they between uniformed armed bodies of people fighting within geographically defined areas, but between a uniformed armed body of people and a number of un-uniformed, sometimes armed, people, who mingle with other un-uniformed, usually unarmed, people in the places where they live. Therefore the law of armed conflict and the Geneva conventions are not always applicable. During confrontation with Indonesia, my riflemen had to understand both what was allowed in combat with the Indonesian army when we were in Indonesia, and how to behave towards the inhabitants of that part of Sarawak in which we were based when looking for possible infiltrators.

Northern Ireland was different again. Traditionally, in what were called internal security operations, the police handed a situation over to the Army, who took the necessary military action, possibly including opening fire, after which they handed it back to the police as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, when the Army was introduced into the Province in August 1969 it was as policemen, the Royal Ulster Constabulary being exhausted. I have always regretted this, because of the problem it posed for our soldiers. They were expected to be firm, fair and friendly—like armed policemen—most of the time, but when military action was required they had to act within the law, and were told that if they did so in good faith, they had nothing to worry about. To guide us we all had to carry a yellow card on which the appropriate circumstances were printed. We also used what were known as “flying lawyers”, who interviewed those involved in any incident, at the scene, before memories clouded over. But all that was before the European Convention on Human Rights.

However, it is my experience of European legislation that seems to me most relevant to this debate. When I was Adjutant General, or personnel director, I and my Navy and Air Force opposite numbers were told that we had to introduce industrial tribunals into our service judicial systems. When I asked whether they came before or after the Queen, I was told that that was irrelevant, because the Bill bringing this European legislation into United Kingdom law had already had its First Reading. Having asked to see it, I passed the Bill to the Director General of the Army Legal Services, who within five minutes told me that it was totally unacceptable, because it allowed an employee to take his employer to an industrial tribunal if ordered into a place of danger. In Army terms this meant that OC B Company could take his commanding officer to an industrial tribunal if ordered to attack an enemy position.

I asked what the French, German and Italian armed forces had done about this, to be told that their Governments had sought, and been granted, dispensation for them. I asked why ours had not done so, and was pleased that, later, dispensation was sought and agreed. I mention this because I have the distinct impression that, while full of gratitude for the work of Ministry of Defence legal staff and civil servants, who understand the difficulties of the transposition of human rights legislation to the battlefield, ancient or modern, members of the Armed Forces do not feel the same about those in other parts of the Government, who are in a position to seek dispensation for them. Currently they agree with my noble and learned friend Lord Hope that they should await a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights before they know whether the Supreme Court judgment in the Smith case will affect operations and their commanders.

I suspect that, had the need for dispensation been considered years ago, my noble and learned friend Lord Hope might not have been required to deliver his leading judgment, from which I will quote the following words. He stated that,

“it is of paramount importance that the work that the armed forces do in the national interest should not be impeded by having to prepare for or conduct active operations against the enemy under the threat of litigation if things should go wrong”.

I do so because my noble and learned friend clearly understands the demands of both command and active operations, and appreciates the importance of the former not being saddled with inappropriate limitations when planning or conducting the latter.

I note that Policy Exchange recommends consideration of derogation from the European Court of Human Rights during deployed operations. I prefer to seek appropriate dispensation for our Armed Forces as a matter of course as early as possible in a legislative process. However, whichever route is chosen, I hope that those responsible for the consideration of how our Armed Forces may be protected from vulnerability to legal challenge will have the words of my noble and learned friend ringing in their ears.

Armed Forces: Redundancies

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, for obtaining this important debate. I am sure that those thanks will be reflected by members of the Armed Forces because, like him, I deplore the stories I am hearing about people being discharged and made redundant before they achieve their pensionable age, sometimes by ridiculously small amounts of time.

I was the Adjutant-General, the director of personnel in the Army, at the time of the Options for Change exercise after the Cold War, when we were required to reduce the size and shape of the Army by a third over three years. Therefore, what I am about to say is inevitably coloured by that experience because that kind of reduction could not have been achieved without the redundancies that accompanied the number of people who left voluntarily.

At the time I was extremely fortunate that in the Treasury I was faced with a deputy secretary who was extremely tough but very fair—Mrs Jack Straw. I was always grateful to her, not only for her toughness and thoroughness, which meant that we had to do our sums in presenting cases, but for the humanity she showed when we suggested to her that among the casualties of this reduction were the children of people being declared redundant who were at school on boarding school allowance. She allowed boarding school allowance to be continued through until the next stage of a child’s schooling so that they could complete the examination on which they were currently embarked. The reason I mention that is because that good sense and humanity is in stark contrast to the way in which this current exercise is being conducted.

Inevitably, when you are looking at reductions in size—particularly of personnel—in the services, one word always dominates your thinking, and that is “sustainability”. Whatever you are going to do, you are bound to have to do it over a period of time and therefore the size and shape of the Armed Force—it does not matter whether it is Army, Navy or Air Force—must allow you to maintain whatever you have been required to do operationally for a period of time.

At the time we were conducting Options for Change, the aim was to make certain that people did not go on unaccompanied operational tours at an interval of less than once every two years so that they would have a chance to remain with their families and be trained to develop their service careers. At the time, because of the pressures, we were faced with the problem that some specialists had only 11 months between tours, which was ravaging their family lives, quite apart from their other development.

What worries me about what has been going on in the strategic defence review, followed by other reviews, followed by Army 2020, is that overall it is said that the proposals in the strategic defence review would be realisable only if the money was available in 2015. We know from looking at the books that the extra money to provide that will not be available in 2015, so there is more to come. The fact that there is more to come is obviously worrying to those who have done their sums to produce what they think is the sustainable Armed Force the country requires, but particularly worrying for the people in it.

It is here that I come to the word “trust”. The mutual trust between the top and the bottom of an organisation is absolutely crucial. The regiment that I joined, the Rifle Brigade, had the motto given to it by my ancestor, Sir John Moore, which was based on a mutual bond of trust and affection which the officers had to earn. I thought that they were wise words because there is no doubt that the trust of the Armed Forces in their political and military masters has to be earned; it is not automatic. What worries me about the impact was clearly put by the Chief of the General Staff last December and repeated by General Sir Nick Houghton: the trust has been damaged by the way this has been handled.

It is not only about the damage that has been done to the internal workings of the Armed Forces and their members, but to the families and on down to potential recruits. Armed Forces are living organisations, so that even while you are reducing in size you have to recruit to be certain that you will have that sustainability tomorrow. In 1990, I remember having great difficulty persuading civil servants that it was not like shutting a garage door. You could not just chop something off because you had to think about the future. Looking back on those years, I was hugely impressed by the care that was taken over every single redundancy. Each one was planned with care and pension issues were taken into account. That is why some people were put into tranches 2 and 3 as opposed to tranche 1. If it was possible then with the much larger numbers involved, I fail to see why it is not possible today.

If I was a member of the Government, I would be seriously worried about the damage that is being done to trust in the system which is responsible for committing our Armed Forces to war. I know that this may go beyond the immediate issue of redundancy, but redundancy is the cause of the distrust. The way in which a redundancy round is conducted is hugely important and I hope that more attention will be paid to the effects of not getting it right, as well as to the experience of doing it differently in the past.

Afghanistan

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I can assure the noble Baroness on that point. While we remain part of the ISAF combat mission in Afghanistan, UK forces will continue to maintain the military means and legal authority to defend themselves in the event of an attack. We will retain sufficient force numbers to ensure that we can properly protect our adviser footprint up until 2014 and afterwards. We will also ensure that we have sufficient access to enable this, such as medical facilities and support helicopters. I assure the noble Baroness that the answer is yes.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, anyone who has had the privilege of visiting our troops in Helmand will have realised the great appreciation shown by the Afghan army for the British troops and the way that they are being trained. Currently, a Select Committee in this House is examining soft power, and soft power includes the military influence in training and spreading the British influence into other countries. I know that we are talking about the officers’ training academy, but are there intentions to carry on lower-level training, which does so much to increase our influence in Afghanistan after we have left?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right about how much the ANSF appreciate the work we are doing to mentor them. I saw that for myself when I was last in Afghanistan and talked to a number of Afghans who are hugely appreciative of what we are doing. As the Prime Minister has said, the UK has played a very big part in the ISAF military campaign but we have also paid a very high price. It is therefore right to focus on the officer academy, which is the one thing we have been asked to do by the Afghans, rather than looking for ways to go beyond that.

Armed Forces: Pay

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, during the passage of the Armed Forces Bill last year, we discussed the question of the Armed Forces covenant. We were given to understand that the Statement made by the Secretary of State for Defence each year on the covenant would be taken in this House, giving us an opportunity to ask questions about it. That did not happen. I suspect that if it had, my noble and gallant friend’s Question could have been put earlier. Will the Minister undertake that in future years the Statement on the Armed Forces covenant will be taken in this House?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am always ready to come to this House for any Statement. It is not always our call; in many cases it is the Opposition’s decision whether to accept the Statement.

Future Reserves 2020

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

The noble Earl makes a very good point. One point we make loud and clear in the Green Paper is that we want to be very much more open with employers and bring them into a confidence from a much earlier stage. As for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, we aim to tailor our approach, adjusting our working practices to reflect the different opportunities and impacts of reserve service for different employers, public and private, large, medium and small as well as by sector.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the intention behind these announcements and, like other noble Lords, I am very glad that the Minister will be taking this through the House, in view of his connection with the Territorial Army and, therefore, the reserves. As a former Inspector-General of the Territorial Army at a time when it numbered more than 100,000, I must take issue with one point that he made. At that time we initiated the National Employers Liaison Committee and the motto that was adopted about what the employers got from the TA, as opposed to what the TA got from them, was, “a profitable partnership”. That initiative has remained. Therefore, the issue that I take with the Minister is the suggestion that this sort of relationship had not existed before and that the Government were going to change it. I hope that that is not so because it seems to me, and from all of the points that have been made around the House, that the National Employers Liaison Committee is even more important now as a framework with which to conduct these discussions.

At that time, and picking up a point that was made earlier about the connection with the Americans, I was told that the most important and useful weapon used by the National Guard with employers was that employers were relieved of having to pay the employers’ national insurance contribution. I put that to the Treasury then and was told that it was a very good idea. I was told that it could happen provided that I paid it out of my budget. I could not do that, but I believe that it ought to be seriously looked at because it would have an enormous impact on employers.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, national insurance is one of the issues mentioned in the Green Paper. We are looking at it. I understand that there are a number of complications, but it is an issue that we are looking at.

I hope the noble Lord did not misunderstand me when I said that we were changing. I did not mean in any way that things were not going well. We very much value the input of the National Employer Advisory Board.

Armed Forces: Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the chiefs of staff have authorised commanding officers to grant additional leave for eligible members of the Armed Forces in recognition of the traditional burdens placed on all personnel during the summer. As my noble friend said, it was very well deserved.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, as it was only 24 July when the order was given for the additional military to be deployed in support of the Olympic Games, that suggests that something had gone badly wrong with the planning for the deployment of security arrangements. Can the Minister say whether lessons have been learnt about this and whether improvements will be made to make certain that, if this happens again, the Armed Forces will get longer warning of such requirements?