Reserve Forces

Debate between Madeleine Moon and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

I was delighted to be able to entertain my long-standing friend for lunch at the Honourable Artillery Company—the oldest serving regiment in the British Army.

In my brief military career, I had three cap badges. Whatever colour beret I wore, I was always proud to serve. However, there are those present who are far more qualified than me to talk about military matters, because of their Regular Army experience or their experience in the Government, and I look forward to hearing their contributions.

It is important to remember that the Territorial Army, as it was called—the reserve, as it is now—is not a Dad’s Army. Now, there is nothing wrong with a Dad’s Army, and we have all enjoyed the television series. Of course, many reservists are in their 50s, and they provide valuable service to the Crown. However, there are also lots of very young men and women in our reserves, and we should remember that the make-up of our reserve forces is very different from that portrayed in the television programme.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Is not one of the areas where reservists can particularly excel, no matter what their age, the specialist services dealing with cyber-defence? Given that the Chancellor announced yesterday that £2 billion will be going to extend our cyber-capability, should we not be looking to recruit into the reserves from our IT and technology companies?

[Mr Hollobone]

I welcome that helpful contribution. The hon. Lady is known throughout the House for her experience in military affairs. She is in charge of the all-party group on reserve forces and cadets, and she is a distinguished serving member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. In other words, she is a lady who knows what she is talking about, and she gives the Chamber very wise counsel. There are many very good things about Her Majesty’s armed forces, but one of the bad things is that they can be too rigid in applying themselves to future challenges. The threat of cyber-warfare is a big unknown, and we have to be flexible and adaptable, and to think outside the box in meeting that challenge. The hon. Lady is absolutely right: we need to get people on board who understand cyber and IT. If we have to change our recruitment and retention processes to make sure that such people are contributing to Britain’s defence, we should do that, and we should do it quickly. The announcement of the extra expenditure suggests that the door of Her Majesty’s Government is open to such thinking. I very much hope the Minister will pass the hon. Lady’s wise words on to the Treasury, No. 10 and all the others who make these big, important decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

It would not be a proper debate on Her Majesty’s reserve forces without a contribution from my hon. Friend, and I am glad that he has highlighted his concern, which I know many other hon. Members share, about the gap between the growth in size of the reserve forces and the decline in the number of regular personnel. I started my speech by quoting the fact that the Government wanted the Army to be 82,000-strong by 2020. My understanding is that it has fewer personnel than that now, so there appears to be a gap. That is why we must get the reservist part of the plan right. I am not sure that we are there yet, as the external scrutiny report said.

On the matter of retention, the report explains:

“The Reserves’ age profile is currently too heavily skewed towards older reservists who are closer to the end, rather than the start, of their service and therefore outflow will be relatively high for the next few years as they leave due to natural factors. Consequently equal attention needs to be paid to retention during earlier stages of the Reserve service spectrum. In the main retention should be significantly enhanced by the provision of challenging individual and collective training, at every phase of service. Such provision cannot rely solely on opportunities structured around the Regular ecosystem; bespoke, Reservist-friendly development and training needs also to be available.”

As an example, many reservists who want to improve their reservist career are sent on regulars’ courses during the week, but many cannot do that sort of training during the week. We need more flexibility about providing it at the weekend. Also, there is a lot of interest in weekend sport among regulars, but reservists who give up their weekends do not want to play sport; they want to fire weapons. However, a lot of the weapons training is not available at weekends. We need to think more flexibly and adaptably about what reservists want to do. A reservist who feels bored and fed up, and that they are not being challenged enough, will leave. Then all the effort that has been put into recruitment is wasted.

[Mrs Moon]

A further £2 billion for the special forces was announced yesterday by the Prime Minister. We have had tragic incidents in Brecon, where reservists were seeking to join the special forces. I would not want people to be put off joining the special forces because of those incidents. Does the hon. Gentleman agree we need to be very clear that reservists are welcome in our special forces, though we have to accept that the training is arduous and the commitment heavy?

[Mr Hollobone]

Having completed that course myself, I know that it is a very challenging experience. The deaths of the applicants were tragic. The publicity around the horrendous circumstances of that incident will, funnily enough, encourage others to come forward, in a perverse way, because they will have seen how difficult it is to get into the special forces. My understanding is that the exercise in question was not actually run by the special forces, and I would imagine there is quite a lot of concern among the special forces that the tragedy has been branded as their responsibility. My clear understanding is that it was not run by the special forces. Part of the challenge and the attractiveness of the special forces to potential recruits is the very difficult nature of the task presented to them, and we must not dilute that in any way.

One thing I am sure we can all agree on is that pro rata, we have the best armed forces in the world and the best special forces in the world. We have centuries of experience in developing our military capability; we know what makes people tick and we know how hard we can push people. Sometimes, tragically, it goes wrong, but those are a minority of occasions. The bulk of the training that both regular forces and special forces receive is some of the very best in the world, and we should be very proud of that.

Like the hon. Lady, I welcome the announcement of extra spending on special forces, as well as extra spending on cyber-warfare. In providing the capability for both, the reserve has a golden opportunity to contribute. We will not tackle these issues just through regular personnel; we have to attract reservists with specialist skills.