Armed Forces: Reserve Forces

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the noble Viscount makes a very important point and we realise that this is a key area that we must get right. We are grateful to those employers who play a very important role. We recognise that the needs of employers must be understood and respected. That is why we are moving to relationships with employers based on partnering, giving greater predictability and certainty to when reserves will be required for training or, indeed, deployment.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, in the House of Commons on Monday, the Minister for the Armed Forces said:

“I am relatively confident that enough people will come forward to join the reserves and that we can look forward to having a vibrant reserve Army”.—[Official Report, 17/06/13; col. 609.]

Does the Minister share the doubts of his ministerial colleague, betrayed in that answer, that the target figure of 30,000 for our Reserve Forces may not be achieved? Can the Minister give an undertaking that the size of our Regular Army will not be reduced to the intended figure of 82,000 unless and until our Reserve Forces have been increased to 30,000 and have been appropriately trained?