Armed Forces: Reserves — House of Lords, 2018-06-21
Topic: Defense
John Attlee (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I too am grateful to my noble friend Lord De Mauley for introducing this debate and I agree with everything that noble Lords have said so far. My noble friend performed his task in a far more skilful way than I did many years ago. I want to start my contribution by stating that I do not really know what I am talking about. This may surprise noble Lords, but to an extent it is true When I came to your Lordships’ House in about 1992 I was in the middle of my TA career. I had already spent 18 years in the ranks and by 1998 I was a major commanding a REME recovery company which has since been disbanded. For most of the 1980s I was involved with first line support in the REME, supporting a Royal Logistic Transport Squadron, and I understand exactly what my noble friend Lord De Mauley was talking about in terms of first line support. I also knew a lot about army life at unit level, both in the regulars and in the volunteer reserves, and I believe that I added value to your Lordships’ debates. I have not visited an Army unit, regular or reserve, in the field for at least 12 years, so to that extent I am out of touch. In fact, apart from my own regiment I do not think I have visited a land-based military unit for many years—10 years plus. The good news is that I understand quite a lot about defence at the strategic level so I think I can still add value. However, I think we should look closely at how our Lords system of allowances works because there is no incentive to visit a reserve unit on a weekend exercise but every incentive to pop in for Question Time on a Thursday morning. Similarly, I really ought to visit BAE Systems in Barrow and on the Clyde but, again, the current system of travel and other allowances strongly discourages this In introducing this debate, my noble friend Lord De Mauley painted a somewhat encouraging picture. As an honorary colonel, he will be very well informed. But I detect some worrying trends. The first concerns the willingness to take a calculated risk and for Ministers to accept that in a very large organisation, mistakes will be made when the risk calculation proves to be wrong. As I have already indicated, I served a long time in the reserves but bad accidents of any sort were very rare, even though we took numerous calculated risks. For instance, in 1980 I was allowed to operate a heavy recovery vehicle even though I had received no formal training as a recovery mechanic. At the time I was a qualified Army driving instructor and the senior NCOs had correctly assessed that I was able to operate the equipment safely. In short, it was a reasonable risk to take. Nowadays that would absolutely never happen and no doubt my noble friend the Minister will express pride that that is the case. But the calculated risk taken by my superiors meant that I was highly motivated and attached great importance to going on TA exercises because it was seriously good fun and rewarding. In 2003, 23 years later, defence was still reaping the benefits of taking that reasonable risk in 1980. In those days, it was all about what you could do rather than what you could not. I am sorry to say that I regularly detect commanding officers being extremely risk-averse with regard to bureaucracy and regulation in order to protect their careers, and who can blame them My second worry is as follows. SDSR 2015 indicates that we need to be able to deploy at large scale—that is, a division—against a peer opponent. The notice to move at that scale of effort is 180 days, which I believe is far too long given the risk of unexpected events. Our opponents and allies have to believe that we have the capability to deploy at this scale so that we can maintain strategic clout. I agree with noble Lords that it is extremely disappointing that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has indicated that she thinks we do not need to be a tier 1 power; we will need to look at this very closely in the future. At home, politicians and Ministers need to be confident that we have the capability that we set out in 2015. In my view, the best way of achieving the desired state is to actually deploy at this scale of effort on exercise, at divisional strength and out of area. It may be more economical to demonstrate that the capability we have actually works, rather than to fund an increase in theoretical capability but never know if it actually has any benefit The main challenge of deploying at large or even medium scale is the logistics—what is called combat service support or CSS. To move a division from the seaport of disembarkation to the area of operations, which could be 500 kilometres away, is a huge logistical challenge and very few nations can do it. In fact, you need a logistics brigade of around 3,000 personnel to do it. Much of this capacity should come from the reserves, since the skills and capabilities required suit reservists and the capacity is not required much in peacetime. The regiments most involved are the Royal Engineers, the Royal Military Police, the Royal Army Medical Corps, the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers—my own regiment—and, of course, the Royal Logistic Corps. Will the Minister write to me stating, including caveats and time constraints, whether we have the CSS capacity to move a division that includes at least one armoured regiment and at least one armoured infantry regiment with appropriate combat support 500 kilometres from the SPOD to the AO? If I am not confident that we have the capability to do so, why should a peer opponent or, just as importantly, an ally, be confident? We must demonstrate and test our capability My noble friend Lord De Mauley mentioned overseas training exercises. In the 1980s, in my experience, very few TA soldiers would leave once we had been warned of a BAOR exercise. The Minister may pray in aid Exercise Saif Sareea, but she will know that that was not even a brigade-strength, medium-scale deployment. It was a small deployment involving nothing like the effort required for a divisional deployment The final worry concerns the reserve manpower statistics, which were touched on by the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery. As I understand it, a reservist is classified as trained if he or she has passed their recruits course but not necessarily their initial trade course. I have to tell the House that this is very dangerous indeed and will tempt Ministers into a fool’s paradise. A regular service person will spend around 16 weeks on their phase 1 training alone, but there are only two weeks available for reservists’ phase 1 training because of the availability of the reservist and the cost. In terms of breadth and depth of training, there is simply no comparison between regular and reservist phase 1 training. Yes, of course, a phase 1 trained reservist could do something useful during a civil emergency, provided that it did not involve maintaining order or exercising force, but I have to be blunt and state to the House that phase 1 reservists on a medium or large-scale deployment are a danger to themselves as well as their comrades. Too much would be expected of them, especially when dealing with difficult situations that can arise at any time In my opinion, for an Army reservist to be safe, efficient and effective on an overseas deployment exercise or operation, as an absolute minimum they will need to have attended a phase 1 recruits course, a two-week trade course, a two-week annual camp with their unit and numerous weekend exercises. Even then, they will still be limited compared to a phase 1 trained regular soldier. The problem is that there is a constraint on the amount of training that can be offered to a recruit, so there is little chance of a reservist being genuinely deployable in less than three years. Therefore, my next helpful question to the Minister is: how many Army reservists have attended at least three two-week periods of continuous in-camp training as well as a commensurate number of out-of-camp training days? How much training do I believe is necessary for an Army reservist to be really effective and as useful as a regular? In my opinion, they need to be double camping—the annual camp and a trade course—and doing numerous out-of-camp training days, adding up to around 50 a year. If you want reservists to be immediately deployable, you need to be training them 50 days a year. That is my experience over many years in the TA Many noble Lords have said that we need more resource for defence. In my opinion, if we do not go to at least 2.5%, we will get our posterior kicked hard, and we will deserve it. I am even more depressed that the Prime Minister has indicated that we do not need to be a tier 1 military power.