Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-10-11
Topic: Defense
Hugh Trenchard (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I, too, have some sympathy with the amendment tabled by the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Craig, Lord Boyce and Lord Walker. I hesitate to intervene in a debate in which such illustrious military leaders have spoken, but I have some experience—10 years as a Territorial Army soldier and 10 years as an Honorary Air Commodore in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. Therefore, all of my military service, limited as it is, has been part-time. In spite of being part-time, in both my Army unit and now my Air Force unit, we have a great esprit de corps. It used to be that regulars were, without question, full-time— 24/7, on call day and night—and TA soldiers and reserve sailors and airmen were of course part-time. Now, in my No. 600 (City of London) Squadron, I have lots of reservists who want to work full-time. The dividing line between regulars and reservists is blurring and it is a pity that the Government did not choose the option of bringing the Regular Forces and the Reserve Forces closer together. In that case, the issue would not have arisen Of course, notions of flexible working have to be introduced in certain areas. They reflect modern patterns of life and could be helpful in reducing the divide between the Regular Forces and the community. Unfortunately, because not enough money is spent on defence, the Regular Forces are now absent from large areas of the country, with no presence at all. Indeed, when I was chairman of the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, our PR advisers told us that we had to give up all our logos that said "RAF Benevolent Fund" because young people did not know what the RAF was. We had to put "Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund" in all the logos. That shows how remote from the community today the Armed Forces have become In certain fields, such as IT and perhaps some intelligence roles, there are people the regular Armed Forces want to retain who want to work on a flexible basis. I also do not like using the term "part-time", but I suspect that is what it means. I hesitate to disappoint the noble and gallant Lord, but I fear that I do not think the intention of the Bill is to provide only for personnel to take short-term breaks from regular service. The conversations that I have had with serving officers imply that they see in certain areas that this will be on a fairly long-term basis. Therefore, I am not sure that the noble and gallant Lord’s amendment has the perfect wording. I hope the Minister will say that the Government will try to find better wording to describe the flexible type of working that is necessary in the Armed Forces and which should be introduced The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce, is absolutely right to warn us about how the media may treat this. The Daily Mail or some other organ might describe this as "a part-time army" and noble Lords can imagine what they might make of that There is a wish to introduce flexible working arrangements. It is a pity that this has not been combined with a rethink of the divide between the reserves and Regular Forces. I do not think "part-time" is the right wording, but I regret to say that I do not think that the noble and gallant Lords’ amendment has the wording absolutely right either.