Armed Forces Bill (Sixth sitting)

Mark Francois Excerpts

Select Committee stage
Thursday 16th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Mike Martin]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford, and I thank you for the invitation to remove our jackets. Amendment 7 was tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon. I will just briefly introduce it to the Committee.

The idea of a zig-zag career is incredibly important. Unlike previously, when the qualification needed to join the armed forces was the ability to run around a muddy field with a heavy backpack, we now live in an age in which we recognise that we need a much greater range of skills in the armed forces, and the ability to move from reserve to regular and back to reserve is incredibly important, so we welcome that the Government are introducing that. When I served, a number of people regularly moved between the regulars and the reserves—in fact, I did it myself.

However, there is a question mark as to what effect such movement has on retention. In an ideal world, we would expect it to improve, as more flexibility should mean that people are more likely to stay in the regular forces or the reserve forces. But we do not know that; this is an untried experiment, so the amendment would mandate the Ministry of Defence to provide a report to Parliament on the effect of the implementation of this clause—of this zig-zag career pathway—on retention.

Specifically, clause 31 as it stands amends the Reserve Forces Act 1996 to make it easier for personnel to move in both directions. It also amends the Armed Forces Act 2006 to enable that to happen. Amendment 7 would simply add an annual reporting and accountability mechanism on top of those transfer provisions. It would not change the function of the clause, but just require the Government to enable Parliament to monitor the situation accurately. As we know, recruitment and retention is a big problem for the armed forces.

Without such a reporting requirement, the provisions could be enacted—again, we are in favour of that—but never meaningfully evaluated. As we heard in evidence, there are so many different categories of reserve forces and many different types of engagement. They have grown piecemeal over time, and one reason for that is that there is no effective oversight mechanism, looking at things in the round. Under this amendment, the reporting requirement would establish one element of an oversight mechanism.

I conclude by saying that our amendment does not seek to amend the function of the clause, which we are in favour of, but it seeks to mandate the MOD to provide a report to Parliament, so that Parliament can exercise proper oversight and scrutiny.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Good morning to you, Mr Efford, and to all members of the Committee. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again today. I will lead for my party in this section on reserve forces. I will begin by offering some comments on Liberal Democrat amendment 7, which relates to retention and transfers between regular and reserve forces, and will follow with a few remarks on clause 31.

In one of our evidence sessions, I raised the potential complexity when people wish to leave the regular armed forces and transfer into the reserves. That point is often a good time to catch them, as many people who have enjoyed their regular service but wish to earn their living in a different way are still often tempted to transfer to the reserves to keep their hand in and to continue to serve the nation and maintain the bonds of comradeship and friendship they have developed as regulars.

However, in recent years, that transfer has often proved to be administratively difficult. I have heard anecdotal horror stories of former regular personnel who have attempted to re-enlist in the reserves when their regular service has come to an end but have had to overcome an assault course of bureaucracy to do so. In fact, I spoke relatively recently to a reserve officer who had had to fight his way through what he described as “the Capita circus”.

The Minister sought to reassure the Committee in evidence by saying that this will be dealt with as a relatively straightforward administrative matter. That flies in the face of much of the anecdotal evidence to the contrary. If someone tries to initiate the transfer while they are still serving, it seems that the process works better, but if they leave it until after they have left the regulars, or if they perhaps have a change of heart after having left the regulars and decide that they want to re-enlist as a reservist after a few years, it is really difficult. In fact, I have been told that in some cases it is worse than if they just tried to join the reserves straight off, ab initio, as a civilian.

I pressed the Minister specifically on whether the new tri-service armed forces recruitment programme—the AFRP—contract was written in such a way as to allow the contractor to facilitate the process in an effective and efficient manner. Again, the Minister sought to offer the explanation that it could all be done via administrative procedures. I want to press the Minister on how exactly these administrative procedures are intended to apply in practice. Under the new contract, what, in practical terms, will be different from the rather cumbersome arrangements that we still have in place? In short, how will the creases in this system, which everyone agrees exist, be ironed out to make the transition sufficiently smooth that those leaving the regulars are not put off by mind-numbing bureaucracy if they wish to convert to reserve service?

Those are my comments on the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells, which he introduced very well. I now turn to clause 31.

Reserves are a fundamental part of our armed forces, as both the Minister and I can attest, having served in the reserve forces at different times in our careers—although I handed back my kit shortly after the Berlin wall came down in 1989, whereas the Minister is still undertaking reserve service. Indeed, we understand he has been on manoeuvres only recently.

However, it is a fact that compared with many other nations, we still have very small numbers of reserves, with some 26,000 in the active Army Reserve and many fewer in the Royal Naval Reserve and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and related reserves. If we put those numbers in context and compare them with the United States, which has both an army reserve and large numbers of national guard—they are organised on a state-by-state basis and report to governors in peacetime, but they can be federalised in wartime—or the reserve elements of the Chinese and Russian armies, they pale by comparison, even though, as the Minister often likes to remind us, we had very large citizen armies in both the first and second world wars.

The Army Reserve can be augmented by what is now generally referred to as the Strategic Reserve. For the avoidance of confusion, that is former regular soldiers and officers who would be liable for recall to service with the colours in a national emergency up to and including full-scale war. Indeed, the Bill extends the provision for recalling the Strategic Reserve to up to 18 years, I believe, from leaving the colours of the regular armed forces. For the record, we very much support that measure.

When asked in evidence for his estimate of the size of the Strategic Reserve, the Minister gave a definitive figure of approximately 95,000. However, to put it in context, the 2021 census—after much campaigning over quite a few years by the Royal British Legion and some MPs who backed the proposal—specifically asked respondents whether they had ever served in His Majesty’s armed forces, and just over 2 million people positively answered the question. Since then, sadly, a number of those veterans will have passed away, but given that the question was not included in the census forms dispatched to Northern Ireland, which has historically proved a very healthy recruiting ground for our armed forces, it seems not unreasonable to assume that the current number is still probably somewhere around 2 million living veterans, or relatively close to it. Moreover, the Minister also revealed to the Committee, assisted by witnesses from the Ministry of Defence, that about 1 million of those people are still of what he called employment age. I take it that he means males aged up to about 67.

I cite those figures to try to estimate the maximum theoretical strength of the Strategic Reserve—or, in military parlance, the absolute right of arc—if all those living veterans were included. Of course, in practice they would not be if they were in their 80s or 90s. For the avoidance of doubt, I do not think we are proposing to put Chelsea pensioners in the Strategic Reserve.

We can discern from that calculation that the absolute maximum is theoretically about 2 million—assuming for a moment that we also include veterans who have also served in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, because they will have ticked the same box. If we cut it differently and include only those of employable age, the Strategic Reserve would come out at about 1 million. If we believe that 95,000 is too small a Strategic Reserve to act as a credible deterrent, particularly given the darkening international situation that we face at present, could we, as it were, draw a line or establish a set of criteria that would achieve a Strategic Reserve of somewhere between 95,000 and, for the sake of debate, a quarter of a million? That would be a much more credible figure in deterrent terms.

I ask the question deliberately to provoke debate about how we could, if we chose, expand the Strategic Reserve from the Minister’s 95,000 figure. If he cannot answer that question off the top of his head, perhaps he could write to me, to you, Mr Efford, and to other members of the Committee prior to Report about where, at least theoretically, a line could be drawn—perhaps defined by age or some other criterion—to create a Strategic Reserve of about a quarter of a million troops, rather than just under 100,000.

Moreover, if we were to consider something as ambitious as that in order to provide a greater deterrent effect, how would we track and communicate with those people, above and beyond access to the His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs database that Ministers have prayed in aid before? For instance, if we assume that quite a number of those veterans are in receipt of a military pension of one type or another, presumably they would be known to Veterans UK and at least their basic details would be recorded on the MOD’s joint personnel administration system. Could we not use that as a means of tracking down those people?

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[Al Carns]

My hon. Friend highlights a good point. That issue is replicated across the entire service—not in all cases, but in many. People are having to go back through medical within six months of leaving, having to go back through basic training, or having to redo the commando course—you name it. There is a litany of issues. The Minister for Veterans and People is looking at that to see how we speed up the process. Sometimes there is no room for those individuals in the reserve liability, given the rank and position they want to come in at, which can create a difficult discussion about whether they have to de-rank—joining at a lower rank than they left. I absolutely agree that we have to smooth out those issues, and the Minister for Veterans and People is on it.

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Member for South Ribble has raised a good point. When people leave the regulars now—I am probably rusty on this—is there a standard operating procedure where they are invited to consider joining the reserves and given a pathway for doing that before they leave? All the anecdotal evidence says that if they try to transfer at that point, it is still bureaucratic, but it is a lot less bureaucratic than doing it after they have left. Do we ask that question as a matter of course and offer people a pathway if they say yes when they are still in the regulars?

[Al Carns]

Because of the decentralised nature of the military, some units, depending on reserve liability, will absolutely try to recruit those individuals into the reserve immediately. There is not carte blanche across the entire military, because in some areas we do not necessarily need those individuals in the reserves—if that makes sense.

Going back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble, there is a lot more work to do to make the transition much smoother. Clause 31 will reduce the huge bureaucratic hurdle of individuals having to leave the regular military to join the reserves. Over time, it should become seamless, so someone can also go from the reserves back to the regulars. We want to replicate a civilian job where, for example, if someone has welfare issues, they can leave and do a couple of years in the reserves, and then come back into the regulars far more seamlessly. That will also allow someone to pursue a career in the defence industry, for example, if they are a technical expert.

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[Mr Francois]

I take the Minister’s point that via this method we could have a Strategic Reserve of 150,000 within a decade, but what if we do not have a decade? I suspect we will return to the point this afternoon, but for now, to use the Minister’s analogy of trying to cut through the spaghetti soup—I think we are all with him on that—how do we increase the size of the soup bowl? How do we have a bigger pool of manpower and womanpower that we can draw on, if necessary, in a full-scale war? These people will have had at least some military training and will be able to train others who have had none. That is why we are suggesting that we at least look at the practicalities of 250,000. Could the Minister say something about that?

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[Al Carns]

Clause 32 amends the Reserve Forces Act 1996 to enable the Secretary of State to disapply aggregate service for members of the reserve forces when making a call-out order under sections 52 or 54 of the 1996 Act. Currently, the maximum duration of service under a call-out order under section 52—for national danger, great emergency or an attack on the United Kingdom— cannot usually exceed three years, and is usually 12 months for “warlike operations”. This maximum duration is calculated by combining the current service of a call-out order under sections 52 or 54 with any relevant service in aggregate. “Relevant service” means any permanent service within the six years or three years immediately preceding a reservist’s current service under a call-out order.

These clauses allow the Secretary of State to disapply those limits in extremis, allowing us to call out our reservists—this will apply mainly to the Volunteer Reserve—more often. They will thereby ensure that we have access to a full range of key skills, from cyber to logistics, in the event of a transition to conflict and war.

Clause 33 makes five important changes in relation to recall to service, and it goes further to try to simplify the process I talked about previously. First, this provision introduces recall liability for former volunteer reservists of other ranks. Currently, only former volunteer reservist officers and former regulars of any rank have recall liability.

Secondly, this provision will increase the age limit for recall for other ranks from 55 to 65. This will allow us to continue to access key trade groups, such as cyber and medical, where former members of the regulars are still using these skills in their civilian lives well beyond the age of 55.

Thirdly, the recall liability for Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel of other ranks will move from six years following discharge to 18 years; again, I am talking about the difference between terms. This will ensure consistency with the Army and the RAF, and put everyone on an equal footing.

The fourth change, via proposed new section 69A of the Reserve Forces Act 1996, will provide an ability to recall certain individuals when warlike preparations are in progress. It will create a new power to make a recall order for this purpose. “Warlike preparations” means that we will be able to recall someone sooner than is the case presently, because the current threshold for being able to recall people—when there is a great danger, a national emergency or an attack on the United Kingdom—may be too late in a modern transition-to-war scenario. The relevant roles could include roles such as logistics preparations, planning and specialist capabilities. This measure brings those subject to recall in line with the call-out provisions of the Volunteer Reserve and ex-regular reserve.

The fifth change in clause 33 enables the disapplication of aggregate service under a recall order made under the existing section 68 and proposed new section 69A of the Reserve Forces Act, mirroring the approach taken by clause 32. Clause 34 makes consequential amendments following the changes made by clauses 32 and 33.

Clause 35 and schedule 5 introduce two new transitional classes to manage how the new liabilities apply to existing and former personnel. It is important to note that to ensure defence is able to access the right skills in its reserve, while also maintaining its commitments to those who have left, the MOD will introduce these measures via the following method. Unless individuals opt out, they will affect every member of the Regular Reserve and Volunteer Reserve who is in service when these provisions of the Bill come into force.

Around 17,000 people leave the regular and reserve forces every year—I said, 15,000 earlier, but this number includes the reserves—of which the vast majority will now have some form of liability. Current ex-regular members of the reserve forces and those still subject to recall under part VII of the Reserve Forces Act—or those who will otherwise have recall liability solely as a result of these changes—will be able to opt in to the new system should they wish to do so. We are currently analysing how many people this might affect. That is an opt-in process if someone has left.

It should be noted that the fitness or medical criteria applied to these individuals will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. A large proportion of individuals in the Strategic Reserve are in their 30s or early 40s and therefore may well still be medically fit for a large number of roles. In addition, the changing nature of modern defence also means that there are valuable roles, such as cyber and operating uncrewed aerial systems, that do not require the same medical and fitness standards as roles such as infantry or aircrew. In reality, the provisions will enable defence to access more of the right people with the skills and experience it needs at times of need.

[Mr Francois]

Does the Department have at least a working estimate of how many people it thinks will opt in to that liability, bearing in mind that they cannot be recalled otherwise? What is the planning assumption within the MOD?

[Al Carns]

We do not have an estimate of how many people will opt in, and I think that would be very difficult to gauge. First, a lot of those individuals already have a liability, because they may be on 18 years already—some will be on six or four years, and some will be officers. To gauge how many people are already in and how many people are going to opt in is very difficult. I would like to think that a lot will opt in, but if they do not, we already have the existing Strategic Reserve, which is at circa 95,000, and the number starts flowing as soon as the Bill comes into force, when everyone who leaves will have 18 years. The number of people who are serving who opt out will also be an interesting reflection, and something to analyse after the event.

Clause 36 corrects an anomaly in the existing legislation. Under section 96 of the Reserve Forces Act, failure to attend for service on call-out or recall is an offence of desertion or absence without leave. That is applicable to members of a reserve force as well as persons liable to recall. However, under section 98, there is no punishment for this offence for those with recall liability as there is for members of a reserve force. That produces an unintended anomaly: an offence is created without a penalty. The clause therefore removes that anomaly and ensures that legislation clearly sets out the possible consequences for an offence of failure to respond to a recall order.

To sum up, the measures will help to maximise the number of personnel available to defence and will modernise the Reserve Forces Act. The measures align with the direction provided by the strategic defence review by allowing for a whole of defence approach, re-energising the relationship with the Strategic Reserve, and increasing our readiness for war. I will speak to the amendments in this group in my closing remarks.

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[Mr Francois]

I will speak to amendments 20 to 24. As they have been grouped together in the largest individual group to be debated today, I will take them in turn, with a few brief remarks on each amendment.

I begin by addressing amendment 20 and consequential amendment 21. The essence of the amendments is to further increase the maximum age of service in the reserve forces from 55 to 65, as currently proposed in the Bill, to a higher level of 67. That would mean having a maximum age limit in line with the normal male retirement age in civilian life. The Opposition appreciate the sense of increasing the maximum age for service in the armed forces from 55 to 65—for the record, that would include me, and I will opt in now.

In his evidence, the Minister provided some practical examples of highly skilled personnel, such as highly experienced medics or air traffic controllers, who do not necessarily need to be as physically fit as, say, a 21-year-old infantryman to make an important contribution to defence. The point of the amendments is to ask a simple question: if that argument holds good at 65, does it not still hold good at 67, the age at which most people can draw a state pension in civilian life if they are male? If someone is a skilled surgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps at age 65, would they not be equally skilled just two years later? Would those two additional years in their mid-60s represent significant skill fade in their ability to give medical aid?

I hope the Minister can see why the Opposition have tabled these straightforward amendments to provoke a debate on the proposed age limit and the rationale for it. I look forward to hearing what he has to say on them.

The essence of Opposition amendment 22 is to expand from 12 to 18 months the maximum allowable period for a recall order under the Bill. The rationale is that history shows that in a national emergency, including a peer-on-peer conflict, the war is not always over by Christmas. It is therefore not inconceivable that people who are mobilised for reserve service for up to a year might find themselves required to fight on the frontline for longer.

In making this argument, I pray in aid the practical experience from Ukraine, where service personnel have been fighting on the frontline for years, some with relatively limited leave over the whole period. I visited Ukraine with UK Friends of Ukraine only a few weeks ago, and the Minister told the Committee on Tuesday that he had only recently returned from a trip to that country—again, time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted. It hardly needs saying, but I am sure that all Members and parties represented on the Committee will want to join me in expressing our determination to support the Ukrainians, for as long as it takes, in facing down Russia’s illegal and barbaric invasion of their country.

A point made very powerfully to our delegation during our visit to Odesa, Chornobyl and Kyiv was that many in the west believe or perceive that Ukraine’s war with Russia has been going on for four years, from the date of the so-called full-scale invasion in February 2022, but in fact the Ukrainians are keen to point out that the war really began in 2014, or arguably even earlier, with the Russian occupation of Crimea in the south of the country and the occupation of significant portions of the Donbas in the east. In other words, Ukraine has been at war with Russia not for four years, but for 12. To put that into context, it is longer than the first and second world wars combined.

It is immensely to the Ukrainians’ credit that they have continued to actively resist their larger and stronger neighbour to the east. The Ukrainians are fighting for western values of freedom and democracy, and they deserve our enduring support. Moreover, the Speaker of the Rada, who is a larger-than-life man in a whole range of respects, gave us a stark warning while we were there: “If we fall, you and your friends will be next.”

Given all that, and bearing in mind the duration of the first and second world wars and of other conflicts such as those in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan, it might make sense to allow a recall order to last longer than a year should circumstances demand it at the time. We have tabled amendment 22 accordingly.

The essence of Opposition amendment 23 is to allow persons undertaking civilian work that the Secretary of State deems vital for defence purposes to be exempt from a recall order under proposed new section 69A of the Reserve Forces Act.

This is by no means a new idea. There is an old saying in politics that there is nothing new under the sun, and this is not new either. For instance, during the second world war, many people who were eligible for military service by virtue of their age were nevertheless exempted from call-up because they were working in so-called reserved occupations—in other words, a field of civilian endeavour that was considered vital to the war effort.

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[Mr Francois]

The Minister just said that some categories of personnel could in certain circumstances continue to serve beyond 65 to 67, which is in line with the spirit of what the Opposition are proposing. Can he explain to the Committee who those people are?

[Al Carns]

Through continuation policies, and in some cases using over-age extension mechanisms, people can continue to serve, but changing 55 to 65 is about the liability, not necessarily the service, and capturing the most people in the liability process.

Turning to amendment 22, while I recognise the right hon. Member’s proposal to extend the duration of a recall order from 12 to 18 months, I believe that this would not achieve the effect he desires. The changes in the Bill as drafted will allow us to extend the duration of a call-out order—we already have that power. The Bill’s provisions ensure that defence has the necessary powers to extend both call-out and recall periods up to two years when required, rendering any additional amendment to extend the period to 18 months in respect of recall unnecessary.

On amendment 23, section 73 of the Reserve Forces Act already provides powers of exemption to recall. The existing provision allows the Defence Council, by regulations, to exempt individuals from, or relax, recall liability. Working across Government, defence requires the flexibility to determine critical roles in a warlike scenario. As a result, additional codification in primary legislation would restrict defence’s ability to maintain the necessary flexibility to safeguard critical roles.

The Government are doing that in other ways. Last month, we launched the pan-defence skills framework, a whole-force initiative designed to strengthen defence capability through a unified, transparent focus on skills, which will allow us to identify and manage skills throughout the whole of defence. We recognise that our strength is not just in our equipment, but in the expertise of our people. We also maintain dialogue with our colleagues in other Government Departments, as well as the wider industry, to ensure that we understand the effect of any large-scale mobilisation on critical industries such as the NHS or the defence sector.

Amendment 24 aims to increase the readiness requirement for reservists in Army Reserve group A from 180 days to 90 days. I take the point about getting the ground truth; I will take that away and see where we are from an internal perspective by speaking to the Department. I reassure the Committee that all Army readiness levels are subject to annual review and are set through the Army operating order, which aligns with defence-directed commitments within the framework of the armed forces plan. To fulfil its obligations effectively, the Army must review and adjust readiness levels across all elements of its force, responding to the evolving demands of the nation.

It is essential that defence maintains the necessary flexibility to respond swiftly and appropriately to changing threat levels. Embedding such provisions in primary legislation would impose too rigid constraints, creating an obstacle rather than a suitable mechanism for setting and reviewing readiness levels. I am committed to taking the point away and having a look. I hope I have provided the necessary reassurance, and on those grounds, I hope that the amendments will not be pressed to a vote.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 32 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

[Mr Francois]

On a point of order, Mr Efford. We will not press amendments 20 to 23. I am grateful that the Minister agreed to take amendment 24 away—we note that—but because the suggestion came from within the ranks, as it were, we will press it to a vote.

Clause 33

Recall for service

Amendment proposed: 24, in clause 33, page 54, line 43, at end insert—

“69C Notice periods for recall

(1) Those reservists in Army Reserve Group A, or its equivalents, shall, following the coming into force of the Armed Forces Act 2026, have their standard notice reduced from readiness category R9 (180 days) to R8 (90 days)

(2) For the purposes of this section, ‘Army Reserve Group A’ has the meaning defined in the Reserve Land Forces Regulations 2026.”—(Mr Francois.)

This amendment would increase the readiness requirement for reservists in Army Reserve Group A from 180 days to 90 days.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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Reserve Forces and Cadets Association

[Mr Francois]

I beg to move amendment 25, in clause 37, page 56, line 35, at end insert—

“(4) The Secretary of State must create a plan for ensuring and monitoring the efficiency of the RFCA in carrying out its duties and its relationship with local Reserve and Cadet units.

(5) The plan in subsection (4) must be laid before each House of Parliament within six months of the passage of this Act.”

This amendment requires the Secretary of State to create a plan ensuring and monitoring the efficiency of the RFCA in carrying out its duties and its relationship with local Reserve and Cadet units.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clause stand part.

Schedule 6.

[Mr Francois]

The essence of the amendment, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friends, is to place a requirement on the Secretary of State to create a plan to ensure and monitor the efficiency of the reserve forces and cadets associations in carrying out their duties and the relationship with local reserve and cadet units in their charge. I place formally on the record my thanks to the RFCAs as part of our overall national defence effort, and the appreciation of my party for the highly important role they carry out. Many people who serve on the RFCAs at national and regional level have tremendous experience of military life, often across each of the three services in the case of a regional RFCA. The fact that they wish to continue to make a contribution to defence, in many cases after their regular career is over, is to be welcomed and commended.

Nevertheless, just occasionally, I come across examples of a perhaps overly bureaucratic approach by some RFCA staff, who are no doubt well meaning, but whose actions tend—perhaps inadvertently—to stifle innovation and creative thinking. I will illustrate that point to the Minister with two specific personal examples, one from some years ago and the other more contemporary. The first example relates to attempts to create new cadet units in my constituency.

While I served as a Minister in the MOD more than a decade ago, I think it is fair to say that we had a successful programme to expand the number of cadet units in state secondary schools. We set a target of creating some 500 new cadet units at secondary level, specifically including some educational settings and some geographical areas that had perhaps not benefited from cadet units hitherto. We deliberately tried to set up some of those school cadet units in what might be termed quite tough inner-city areas.

That went pretty well; we hit the target. That meant that thousands of young people at school had the opportunity to benefit from everything the cadet movement offers in terms of teaching teamwork, discipline, determination in adversity and all the other military virtues that they were therefore exposed to at a relatively young age. As the Minister knows, we do not have a cadet movement specifically to recruit people into the adult armed forces. Nevertheless, if many of those people, having experienced a taste of the military ethos, wish to continue their military involvement afterwards, that is all well and good, both for them and for their country.

Therefore, on a personal level, I have always been a great believer in the cadet movement, and I am proud to say that I have four cadet units in my constituency: 1476 (Rayleigh) Squadron Air Training Corps and its sister squadron, 1474 (Wickford), and detachments of the Essex Army Cadet Force in both Rayleigh and Wickford. I have also, over the past year at least, made a point of attending both the Army cadets’ and the Air cadets’ annual awards ceremonies in Essex.

After I left the MOD, and after we had hit the target of 500 new cadet units in schools, I was involved in conversations with the headteachers of two secondary schools in my constituency, who were also very interested in the programme but had not been part of the original cohort of 500. In essence, they were both keen to set up cadet units of their own. There was an original barrier to entry of a down payment of something like £17,000 by any school that wished to participate. Given the pressure on school budgets, even a decade or so ago, that was a prohibitive barrier to entry for many schools. Nevertheless, I am pleased to say that that requirement was eventually dropped, and, at that point, I had two headteachers who were very keen to go ahead.

I attempted on numerous occasions to communicate that to the East Anglia RFCA, but I regret to inform the Committee that I got absolutely nowhere. Multiple attempts to raise this were met with a very lukewarm response; I was constantly referred to different people within the organisation, and then ultimately to one non-commissioned officer who appeared to have been given responsibility for new cadet units but, for various reasons, seemed very hard to reach.

In the end, I am sad to report that the two headteachers in question lost interest. As one of them put it to me at the time, “Well, if they’re not interested in my school, I don’t see why I should still be interested in one of their cadet units.” That was a shame. I believe it was a missed opportunity—in fact, two. I raise that in the hope that if, in future, any hon. Member wants to help foster the creation of a cadet unit at a school in their constituency, they might have a more positive experience than I did.

Perhaps, in responding to this amendment, the Minister could tell us where we are in terms of school cadet units. I think it would be handy if he could place it on the record that the Government would still like to see new cadet units in schools, and, very briefly, how hon. Members can go about encouraging that. Maybe I was just unlucky, but it would be a shame if we could not facilitate setting up new units in schools.

Secondly—this is a more contemporary example—I have the honour and privilege of serving as the honorary president of 1476 (Rayleigh) Squadron. The Minister might recall that I alluded to an issue about the potential expansion of the squadron during one of the earlier evidence sessions. I was then invited to write to the head of the RFCA about that. I am grateful for that hint, and I still intend to do so following this debate.

For the record, 1476 (Rayleigh) Squadron has won the Lees trophy as the champion squadron in the Essex wing two years running. A military type might well say, “Well, they must be doing something right then.” Suffice it to say, having declared my interest as the squadron president, I am slightly dismayed that attempts to refurbish and expand the facilities of 1476’s admittedly ageing base in Rayleigh have often fallen foul of what one might call bureaucracy at the RFCA level, even though a national house builder was offering to build a brand-new extension to the squadron base at Connaught Road as a gesture of good will and at absolutely no cost to the taxpayer.

I am sure that we have all seen these things in our constituencies: a company offers to get together a group of volunteers at a weekend and do something up. The company was going to do that, and it also offered to build what was basically, in pub English, a large shed at the back of the unit, as the squadron has a particularly strong interest in engineering studies and needed a shed in which to store its equipment and conduct lessons. That was all to the good.

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[David Reed]

To back up the shadow Minister’s point, I was an air cadet for a number of years—[Interruption.] I know he is laughing at that, but in my experience, it was not about recruitment or a pathway into the armed forces. It was really powerful to have, as a youngster, the opportunity to do adventure training, shooting and flying, and to have a link with the military. As we ask citizens across the UK for more taxes to increase armed forces spend, our young people having that link to the military will be important, so I completely agree with my right hon. Friend.

[Mr Francois]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s comments. He proves that the issue is not all about recruitment, as he was in the Air Training Corps but joined the Royal Marines. I thank him for his tri-service.

[Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)]

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that there is bipartisan support for extending cadet forces into the state sector, which was his first point. He mentioned cadet forces in state schools in his constituency, and the combined cadet force at Park View comprehensive school in Chester-le-Street also does excellent work. I hope he accepts that there is a community of interest in achieving that aim. I am not aware of the obstacles he spoke about around the RFCA, but I am interested by his points.

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[Mr Francois]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. On the point about CCFs, part of the Department’s thinking at the time was that a lot of young people, particularly in the independent sector, benefited from the cadet experience by joining combined cadet force units in independent schools, which, as the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, exist in some state schools too. We were trying to give more people in the state sector the opportunity to benefit from a similar experience, so we set the ambitious target of 500 units in state schools, which I am pleased to say we hit.

Returning briefly to 1476, in the end, I think it has all been a misunderstanding, and it could be easily resolved with a measure of good will on both sides. I hope the Minister understands the spirit in which I, as the president of the squadron, have raised the issue. If he can personally do anything to help, it would be greatly appreciated. With that, I rest my case.

[Al Carns]

I thank the right hon. Member for his views on the Bill, and I acknowledge his concerns about reserve forces and cadets associations. The Government fully recognise the vital contribution that they currently play in supporting reservist cadets and in defence engagement across the entire United Kingdom, particularly through their close relationships with local communities and employers. I had never heard of the RFCA before I left the military, but after visiting it I can see that it is a fantastic, dedicated and focused group of people who engage across society and have an amazing network that is useful not just in peacetime, but on the road to crisis and indeed during conflict as well.

However, I believe this amendment is not necessary. The Reserve Forces and Cadets Association will operate within a robust governance and assurance framework. Its performance, effectiveness and value for money will be subject to regulatory oversight through existing accountability arrangements, including formal assurance processes, reporting against key performance indicators, and ongoing engagement with the Ministry of Defence.

Mandating a statutory plan to be laid before Parliament would risk duplicating existing mechanisms. That would add bureaucracy without delivering meaningful additional oversight or improvement. The Department remains committed to continuous improvement in how the Reserve Forces and Cadets Association will operate and work with reserve and cadet units, and we will continue to strengthen those arrangements through existing flexible governance structures rather than through new statutory requirements.

[Mr Francois]

That being the case, could the Minister place on the record—I hope he will say yes—that it remains the policy of this Government to create new cadet units within educational settings where that is appropriate, and where the headteacher is onside?

[Al Carns]

I place on record our SDR commitment to grow the cadet forces by 30%, which should equate to around 40,000 cadets and 8,000 adult volunteers, although those numbers will ebb and flow. The benefits of the cadet forces are not lost on me; the University of Northampton report is a prime example, and I recommend it to anyone who has a cadet force in their constituency. It demonstrates the benefits of being in the cadet forces, ranging from education and skills to mental and physical resilience. Indeed, people’s life chances go through the roof when they join the cadet forces.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the specific issue of infrastructure, and I would be happy to take that offline and raise it with the Minister for Veterans and People. If people are willing to help, and if there is a way to get better facilities for cadet forces, we will double down to deliver them.

Clause 37 creates a new public body to deliver vital support to the reserve forces and cadet communities. For more than a century, the regional reserve forces and cadets associations have supported defence through the management of the volunteer estate, the administration of reserve activity, and engagement with employers and communities. I reiterate my absolute support for the reserve forces and cadets associations, and for all the volunteers who come forward to help those organisations—they do a sterling job. Their contribution is significant and valued across the defence sector, industry and broader society.

The structure of the reserve forces and cadets associations, however, still reflects that of the county associations set up in 1908, which does not meet today’s public sector expectations for governance, assurance or financial management. Multiple independent reviews, including the 2019 Sullivan review and 2025 reports by the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, have highlighted structural weaknesses in the current regional associations and recommended reform.

The clause implements those recommendations by creating a single national RFCA as a non-departmental public body, which ensures compliance with central Government governance standards. The clause provides for Defence Council appointments of an independent chair and non-executive board members; a clear reporting and audit framework consistent with the principles of “Managing Public Money”; and the transfer of assets, property and personnel via statutory schemes to ensure continuity of delivery.

That reform ensures that the NDPB will maintain the local expertise and volunteer contribution that the existing RFCAs provide by moving them to the new regional councils, which will be committees of the new NDPB. For those reasons, I hope this provides the necessary reassurance and ask the right hon. Member to withdraw his amendment. I commend clause 37 to the Committee.

[Mr Francois]

That is a very reasonable reply from the Minister. I thank him for his offer to look into this. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 37 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 38

Parliamentary control of air forces numbers

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause 39 stand part.

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[Al Carns]

The clause amends section 2(4) of the Visiting Forces Act 1952 to make it explicit that a visiting force’s service court cannot impose a sentence of capital punishment while conducting proceedings in the United Kingdom. Under existing legislation, a scenario could potentially arise where a NATO sending state requests the transfer of one of its personnel into its custody in the UK and then conducts service court proceedings that may result in the death penalty. That could risk conflicting with the UK’s obligations under the European convention on human rights. The clause removes that possibility where capital punishment could be a potential outcome. By doing so, it ensures that UK practice remains fully aligned with long standing domestic and international commitments against the death penalty.

Clause 41 updates the provisions of the Visiting Forces Act on how the UK determines whether a visiting force member was on or off duty when an alleged offence occurred. At present, the Act does not provide for direct state-to-state negotiation, as envisaged under the NATO status of forces agreement 1951, if there is disagreement about whether a service member was on duty. The clause empowers the Secretary of State to make a conclusive factual determination on the narrow issue of whether the individual was acting in the course of their duty at the time of the alleged offence. In reaching that determination, the Secretary of State must consider representations from the visiting force and the relevant UK prosecuting authority. The clause fulfils the NATO status of forces agreement obligation to engage directly with a sending state in cases of dispute, ensuring consistent and NATO-aligned handling of duty status questions. I therefore commend clauses 40 and 41 to the Committee.

[Mr Francois]

Briefly, I want to make just one point about visiting forces. As the Minister knows, in recent years certain high-profile cases have included people from visiting forces based in the United Kingdom. In one case in particular, a young boy was tragically killed in a road accident by someone who was alleged to have been driving irresponsibly—a citizen of the United States. For legal reasons, I will say no more on that particular case, but I can see members of the Committee nodding in recognition of what I am talking about.

All I ask is that the Minister places on the record that we welcome the presence of those who come here as our allies to help protect us, but none the less make it plain to them that while they are in the United Kingdom, they should abide by our laws in all respects, in the same way that we ask our own citizens to. For reasons that I hope the Minister appreciates, I would like it if he could make that reassurance plain this afternoon.

[Al Carns]

I place on the record again everything that I have just said, which of course was about the NATO status of forces agreement and the changes that we want to make to ensure that UK law is reinforced here in this country, while also establishing a clear and precise relationship with individuals who come here under the status of forces agreement.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 40 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 41 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Christian Wakeford.)