Armed Forces Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-23
Topic: Defense
Simon Russell (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and all noble Lords who took part in this brief debate. I must confess that, as I listened to the Minister and I reflected on her response to the previous amendment, I was reminded of the saying that is often used about ourselves and the United States of America, which is that we are two countries divided by a common language. On many occasions I felt that the discourse coming from all sides of the House seemed to be of a different nature or dialect from the response we received from the Front Bench To be clear, Committee saw an end to the argument—certainly for this Bill—about the rights and wrongs of recruiting junior entrants at 16. That is not what we are talking about The point I was trying to make was to probe the Ministry of Defence on whether it has actually thought and reflected on whether what it is currently doing with its junior entry programme is fit for purpose. I could imagine that, if you are dyed deep blue right the way through and support the Conservative Party, you might regard the Army Foundation College as a particularly wonderful example of what is known as "levelling up". It is taking a cohort of young people, primarily young men, from difficult neighbourhoods and complicated backgrounds, who are completely unenthused by conventional education and find attraction and allure in going into the military But, as we have seen from the evidence, the process the Army goes through to select these individuals appears to be seriously flawed on two counts. First, as we heard from the independent appraisal, the number of young people who are leaving within days of arriving in Harrogate does not speak very highly of the efficacy of the recruitment process. So at the very least I think the Army should look carefully at that The second point I come back to is more fundamental. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, echoed my appeal to try and think of a junior entry programme that is fit for the 21st century rather than the 19th century. I have every sympathy with the cohort in question, which takes up 70% of the intake. But the size of our Army is reducing and the technical challenges we are faced with are increasing. Your Lordships may have read about this slightly alarming supersonic missile that has apparently gone around the world at five times the speed of sound and apparently has the Americans very rattled. That is the state of the world we are moving into and, with the best will in the world, even the most outstanding students among the cohort the Army is currently recruiting from are unlikely to be of great help in trying to deal with the sort of warfare that the remainder of the 21st century may expose us to I do think there are some fundamental questions that the briefing notes—which the Minister has followed assiduously—do not seem to have prepared her for. So what I would ask her to do is, at a minimum, reflect on some of the comments that have been made, particularly some of the more profound questions about looking at the current junior entry strategy, and try to see whether it is fit for purpose At the very least, I would have hoped there was an acknowledgement in the briefing of the junior entry review that was conducted at the request of the Defence Committee in the other place, which had inside it a suggestion of new terms of service that would solve what this amendment asks for. The fact that it was not even referred to, either in her briefing notes or in her response to me, is disappointing, and I would ask that she and her officials look carefully at the content of what has been discussed, isolate those questions that have been asked and undertake to write back to us with answers. I would be most grateful. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.