Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, thank you for allowing me to join in the debate at this time; I realise that I have only four minutes. I asked the noble Earl yesterday why we are having a Bill at all. I understand that there was a time when it was considered unnecessary. As several noble Lords said, if, in effect, the Bill had just been to give help to women joining the armed services, nobody would have been at all surprised, and it would have made a great deal of sense.

We want still to be considered the finest fighting force in the world. In this country, total public support for the armed services covenant is hugely important—and the X factor. They are special. Why? Because the armed services are totally different from any other organisation in this country. The people who join have a special ethos. In this day and age, we increasingly have to look at how we are regarded in other parts of the world. Russia, China or any of the other major countries have a highly trained, professional, full-time military, and that is what we are up against.

The term, “part-time”, has been commented on by many noble and gallant Lords. It is interesting that they are concerned about how the armed services will be considered in years to come. Regardless of Brexit, our friends in Europe—I use the word “friends”—are without doubt very interested that we should continue to be by far the most powerful hard power. Eastern European countries would unquestionably like that. The feeling is exactly the same in Washington. One of our problems in years to come will be that gradually and publicly, somehow or other, the background of the armed services will be considered to have changed.

People keep using the term “being modernised”. In a large number of major companies, including my own in the past, huge numbers of colleagues serve abroad. They are away for weeks at a time, on ships, or whatever. I question the idea that their home life is being interfered with, but it is very important that we have the finest professional armed services in the world. That is what young people want to be part of.

I cannot resist the chance of saying that one of our problems is that we do not have enough money. The armed services are being continually hollowed out. There is plenty of evidence of that. We are told that a number of our best people are leaving the armed services. I would like some detail on exactly the sort of people who are leaving and why. I am not saying that I disagree or do not trust that it is happening, but I want to know who is moving, and into which areas. I have contacts with quite a number of such people and it seems to be lack of morale in the longer term. We need more money, and to pay highly skilled people to do the job.

My final point is that we cannot compare this with the reserves. There are certain elements of the reserves which are tremendous because they have specialised skills, but the idea of saying one can slip into one or the other is not on. If we are to retain the ethos and the standing of our armed services in the world, we have to think so carefully about what we are doing. We may live to regret it for a long time.