Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Lord Walker of Aldringham Excerpts

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

[Lord Walker of Aldringham (CB)]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Earl the Minister for giving us a comprehensive briefing yesterday. However, as we are going to hear from the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Craig of Radley and Lord Stirrup, who know their former services better than me, I will focus my comments on the Army perspective, and I hope to be brief.

I am very uncomfortable about this Bill. On the one hand, as we have heard, it is proposing to introduce a form of flexibility which is modern, is in keeping with more enlightened businesses and institutions and will be welcomed by those who can take advantage of it. It has the potential to keep within the service high-quality people who need a break or geographical restrictions to their deployment for the very human reasons, which we have already heard about, that family life often throws at us. It is only natural that folk should seek stability in their lives when they have young families or if they have seen a great deal of separation from their wives and partners. It gives them a chance to recharge their batteries, which can be good for them and for the Army.

On the other hand, as is becoming clear, the devil is going to be in the detail of the regulations drawn up to operate the system. There are many unanswered questions to be resolved. Part of the contract between the individual and the Army is that he or she must be prepared to deploy to some far-flung place at a moment’s notice, for it is always the unexpected that we must deal with. He or she must be physically fit, mentally prepared and properly trained for the particular type of operation that they are going to take part in. They have to fight along the roughest edges of humanity. Being half ready, half trained and undermanned will not do. Reshuffling unit strengths at the last minute damages cohesion, and is unsafe and unfair to our soldiers.

At the end of the last century, the Army used to have what was called a manning margin. This allowed individuals to go away on long-term educational courses and be replaced in the unit so that it would not be under strength. As efficiency savings have bitten over the years, that manning margin has dwindled to nothing. Units are therefore routinely under strength because people are away taking various courses. If the units now lose a percentage of that strength through the introduction of this Bill, as well as a further 4% reduction as of May this year in strength, which is the undermanning of the Army as a whole, we are beginning to talk about serious undermanning, with all the consequences that that means for preparedness and levels of training.

So the questions are mounting in my mind. Will there be a cap on the percentage of strength that may take advantage of this new proposal? Do we have any idea of the impact that geographical restrictions will have on unit cohesion and deployability? We have heard that the pay arrangements will mean a pro rata reduction against full-time pay. What will prevent the individual taking up other employment while away from his unit, and is that viewed as acceptable? Will it become a soft landing into other employment? Is this just another means, although the noble Earl declares that it is not, of reducing manpower costs, because it is buried in the wider new joiner effort which claims to have to reduce the sums spent on manpower so that we can be sustainable into the future?

Who is going to recommend an individual to the approving or denying authority? I assume that it will be the commanding officer of the individual, but instinctively he is going to want to keep his unit as well manned as possible. Will those who are covering for the absence become disaffected and choose to go? Notwithstanding an appeals process, are we opening a door to legal claims for discrimination from those who are told that they cannot have a break or that they must deploy outside their geographical area more than a certain number of times?

In recent operations, we have seen severe pinch points in the manning of certain specialist roles, such as petroleum operators and human intelligence resources. Will those roles be exempt? It seems to me that role dependency should be a critical element of the proposals. If so, are we going to include it? To lighten things, it is not just the front line we are talking about. I was talking to the director of the Corps of Army Music last week. He told me that if he loses his bass drummer his band is hors de concert. Folk in the Army are often tasked to do things they would prefer not to. Is it just possible that this new-found flexibility might be used to escape some unpalatable task?

I risk being accused of failing to enthusiastically espouse a modern practice that is shown to work well in other professions. My defence is that the Army is not like other professions. It is about people having to put their lives on the line in the most extraordinary circumstances. It is the Government’s responsibility that they are as best equipped, well trained and well manned as possible, and psychologically prepared for the horror of death on the battlefield. Initiatives such as this have often had unintended consequences, and I fear this may be one, particularly if we do not have an assurance that it has been analysed from every possible angle.

I understand the Australian and New Zealand armies have embarked on this policy but that it has not been long for either of them. Even so, I was told anecdotally last week that those of our own officers working with the Australian army see that it is already beginning to lose its operational credibility. If this is so, would it not be sensible for us to have more time to examine the Australian experience? It would be a crying shame if we were to find our Army losing its world-class operational credibility and its self-esteem because we had failed to carry out a sufficiently rigorous analysis of the likely impact of this Bill. We owe our men and women better than that.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Lord Walker of Aldringham Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Walker of Aldringham (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support this amendment as well. Life in the military world is divided into two distinct types. The first is when folk are deployed on operations, normally in some far-flung place. Working days are often 18 to 20 hours long, sometimes longer. There are no weekends, no bank holidays, no serious recreational time and very little time for individuals to have to themselves. Focus is on the job in hand, you have to be ready to react at a moment’s notice, and the pressure is on you 24 hours a day. There is no way that could be described as part-time and no way that people could be part-timers in that sort of scene.

The second type is what one might call the routine, more normal life in barracks. This is all about training, career development, ceremonial, military aid to the civil power and similar activities, as well as getting a better work-life balance for service folk with their families. This is much more the sort of life that other professions might recognise. In this style of life, breaks from service are entirely possible, entirely sensible and entirely warranted, and, as we have already heard, it happens on the ground as we speak. But, again, “part-time” is not the right way to describe such breaks.

The very word “part-time” implies a long-term arrangement and, for the Regular Forces, carries a stigma that damages the self-esteem of the individual, makes others question an individual’s commitment and, indeed, damages the self-esteem of the institutions that are the services themselves. Moreover, the word “part-time” could be lighted upon and magnified by the media to further exacerbate a notion that we were indeed a part-time set of forces—to the very dismay of our services and particularly our personnel. If they were so to do, we would have only ourselves to blame by enshrining these words in law. Therefore, I very much support the amendment and hope that it will be accepted.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to the case presented by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, for changing the words of the provision. I agreed with everything that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, said, apart from his remarks about the merits of the amendment. I particularly agreed with his comments about morale and funding the Armed Forces.

My first thought is that, if we were in a situation where the Armed Forces were fully funded and recruited, we would probably not be going down this route. However, our current situation gives us the opportunity to give defence HR a good wire-brushing. I strongly agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, that service life is not employment or a job; for me, it is, or was, Her Majesty’s service, which is very different.

If I were the Minister faced with this problem—or, rather, opportunity—my first thought would be to encourage service people who would like some flexibility or stability to go on to the reserve and then make an additional duties commitment. There would have to be some pension considerations and some certainty that the service personnel could get back into regular service, but I do not think that would require primary legislation. During the briefing sessions that the Minister organised, we asked about that, but apparently the Bill route is the optimal solution. Given the well-known difficulties with primary legislation, which we are experiencing now, we can be reasonably confident that this is the best course of action.

The noble and gallant Lord made a very good point about the possible public and service perceptions of part-time Regular Forces. Unfortunately, nothing we can do will stop the media running a story from a negative position. The noble and gallant Lord will also know that it is very hard to get the media to run any good defence news story. If they want to run this particular development negatively, nothing in the drafting of the Bill will prevent that.

I was in a similar position to the Minister when the Opposition Front Bench favoured slightly different drafting for a particular clause in a Bill that I was handling. However, I was in the fortunate position that my officials were able to advise me that I could accept the revised drafting if I wanted to, and of course I did. My noble friend is a much more experienced and, most importantly, much more senior Minister than I was. However, my suspicion is that he is simply unable to change the drafting for legal reasons.

When the noble and gallant Lord comes to decide what to do with his amendment, I think he will be wise to exercise caution. First, I do not expect that he will be carrying that magic slip of paper from the clerk to the Lord Speaker. Secondly, if we make too much of a meal of this Bill, we run the twin risks of, to some extent, deterring the MoD from running a similar small, discrete and desirable Bill and of making the government business managers equally cautious of such a Bill in the future, even if it were one that found favour with noble and gallant Lords.