Armed Forces: Reserves

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, I very much appreciate my noble friend allowing us to have this debate, because it is particularly important. As the noble and gallant Lord just said, this is about the nation at large, and not just about reservists.

I shall give a little history. During the war, 48,000 Royal Navy officers—nearly 80% of all its serving officers—were volunteer reservists. This is often forgotten. In earlier days reservists did not even get paid.

I have the honour of having been made an honorary vice-admiral. I am attached to HMS “President”. I go there regularly. Indeed, next week we have a gathering with a whole number of employers coming along. Most employers have a bit of a moan and groan along the lines of, “How do I handle this, what is it going to cost me and how do I replace people?” I had the honour of running P&O during and after the Falklands War. We had 100,000 people worldwide and I encouraged them to be part of the reserve. We had a very large number of reservists, not just in the Navy but in the Air Force and Army as well.

The point that has just been made is particularly interesting: there is nothing more splendid than a volunteer. Recently I was at a gathering at HMS “President” and some of the new cadet officers were there; some had been there for only a few weeks. I went over and said hello to one girl who was about 27 or 28, tall and well turned out. I asked, “How long have you been with us now?” and she said, “Six weeks”. I said, “What’s your day job?” She said, “I am a junior partner in one of the major city law firms”. It was one of the top firms, as a matter of interest. I asked her why she joined us and, looking me straight in the eye, she said, “I felt it was time, sir, to put something back”. That is the best reply. What more could you ever want from anybody?

Following on from the noble Lord’s point, if you go down to the reserve units, they have been cut back in every conceivable way. They are even short of knives and forks. I asked, if they were that short, why they could not get some money. They replied that they could not get any money and were being cut further. I said to let me know and I would help out; I would whip down and buy a couple of dozen. It is becoming ludicrous how they feel they are cut back.

When you are of that age in the Army, Air Force or the Navy—which I know slightly better, I suppose—the excitement comes from being involved. One of the excitements, particularly if you are in the Army, if you are not going into battle for real, comes from an exercise. You tell your family what it will be about and then, all of a sudden, three days beforehand, it is cancelled. I do not think anybody has any feeling for what that is like, although we have all been 18 or 19 years of age.

From my own experiences, I know that many people among the reservists have very specialist jobs. For example, in the first Gulf War there were thousands of vehicles in the desert. There were a huge number of fires before the war even started and the first people called up to serve were three half-commander reservists at HMS “President” who were all burns specialists in Harley Street. They flew out because some very serious burns needed to be attended to. There were many specialists.

Interestingly enough, I was speaking to some of our young one-stripers the other day and I said, “What do you do in your day job?” Because of the jobs they all have, I suppose HMS “President” has almost the highest IQ in the armed services. But many of them do not want to do the job they do in civvy street. They want the excitement of doing something different. I can understand that. You want a change and not to do the same thing in the evening. Although comments have been made about the work being done at weekends, a large number of units also serve on weekdays.

Sadly, I believe that the big decision by the armed services or whoever to increase the number of reservists was made on the basis of bringing down the numbers at the sharp end, particularly in the Army, and expecting reservists to do the job. I say that having been somewhat intimately involved in this area. I happen to have spent a lot of time in America and can look at this through the eyes of the National Guard. Anybody in the Marine Corps would say that, however good reservists are, you cannot expect them to do the job of a trained front-line soldier. It is impossible. However, carrying out specific roles is a different matter.

There was a very good example of that during the early part of the war in Afghanistan, when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister. Noble Lords might remember that we had discussions about having no helicopters out there in any quantity. It was then announced that there would be a 60% increase in the number of helicopters. In fact, there were only about 10 extra helicopters but it always good to give the figures as percentages. In real terms, the shortage was to be found among combat pilots and combat crews. Back then, I suggested that the reserves had many highly trained helicopter pilots—indeed, we had three or four in my own company—who were carrying out flight training for hours every day across the North Sea and so on. If you have 50 combat crews trained and ready to be called up within a fortnight, that is when you can bring in people from a civilian background to do the various jobs. Nobody here would disagree about the advantage of having that type of training and brain power in cyber and other areas. In due course, a good number of scientists will become involved as well, combining their role in civvy street with a role in the armed services. One sees how it can be done.

We had a debate here the other day about floods and what would happen in flood areas, although I was too late to ask a question. I remember having a discussion about this with my noble friend Lord Attlee. We agreed that if there is a local problem, there is nobody better to ask to help than a reserve group who live locally, know the people and know where the kit can come from to deal with it. There is also an element of excitement in it for them and it is another way of them being recognised for what they do.

During a debate the other day I said that some of us would like to see inshore patrol boats stationed in various small ports to protect our shores. In that way, the populace at large would see reservists with, if necessary, reserve marines on board. They would be in uniform and people would realise that the armed services play an important role in protecting them. One difficulty that we have today is that there is very little opportunity for the populace at large to understand the role of reservists and what is behind it. That said, people are very proud of them. The marines have the highest rating in the country and all the other services have a rating in the high 90s in percentage terms, but it is quite rare to see them in action.

I shall finish by saying that it all comes back to money. I have been involved in this argument for several years. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said, we need more money. Today, we have talked about whether we should even continue to be a tier 1 power, which I find extraordinary. Several of us have strongly advocated a 3% increase in spending, not 2%, but even that is not 2% in reality. In practice, as we start to re-emerge and take on a more global role, we will unquestionably need more capability. Sadly, I am afraid that our friends in Washington do not believe that we have this capability. They have very strong views and they do not trust that we will deliver in the longer term.

We need more money. This will come to a head, and I believe, like many of us here, that the appropriate time for us to demonstrate that we are going to do more and have more sustainability is at the NATO meeting on 11 and 12 July, at which it should be announced: “The Brits are back”.