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Address in Reply to Her Majesty’s Most   Gracious Speech

My Lords, on behalf of the Conservative Back Benches, I welcome the arrival of the noble Lord, Lord Drayson. His is a difficult job, as he is responsible for some £10 billion in expenditure. I know that I speak on behalf of my colleagues when I say that the assured and clear way in which he opened the debate bodes well for the Ministry of Defence. We warmly welcome him. I notice that two of his predecessors in that post, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, are attending this debate. I declare an interest as chairman of one of the larger defence contractors. The defence industry pays tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, who bore his responsibilities with good humour and common sense. He always bore the blandishments and lobbying of the industry with good humour. We wish him well in his new job. I will concentrate on military personnel. I feel somewhat nervous as I normally follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, who has far greater experience than me in this field. I have a feeling that we will both be singing from the same hymn sheets. I declare an interest as president of the Council of the Reserve Forces and Cadets Association in the United Kingdom. I will speak briefly and make three points. First, the regular forces are undergoing great change and challenge at present. As the Minister described it when he opened the debate, we need to modernise our Armed Forces. All of us would agree with that. We have had substantial and significant reorganisation of our infantry; the concentration of the Army, Navy and Air Force into super-garrisons and super-Air Force bases; and greater concentration on our naval ports. All that inevitably creates upheaval and, incidentally, a smaller footprint of the regular Armed Forces in the country. I look around your Lordships’ House and I wonder how many noble Lords served National Service. It is a fact that anyone now under the age of 65 will not have done National Service. If we look forward to such longevity as that of my noble friend Lord Renton, perhaps there will be some who will serve in this place for many years to come who have that experience, but I suspect that in the other place there are very few with direct knowledge of the armed services. The connection between our regular servicemen and our civilian population is becoming thinner all the time. Of course, we have continuing assignment responsibilities of our regular forces. We have heard about Iraq, and I pay compliment to our servicemen in Sierra Leone, where I recently visited. I hope that the training team will remain and that UNAMSIL, the United Nations force that has had a significant input   from British forces, will continue, albeit on a reduced basis, for some time to come. The noble Lord, Lord Garden, referred to the fact that perhaps next year our servicemen will be asked in increasing numbers to go to Afghanistan. Those all are elements of unsettlement in our regular forces, and the Ministers of the Crown must balance political commitments that are made against capabilities. In the past we have not got that balance quite right. It is attractive for governments to make commitments and then try to sort out the supply of capability later. I well remember the occasion, now over 15 years ago, when the Secretary-General of the United Nations came to the Ministry of Defence and said plainly, ““Whenever there is a peacekeeping requirement in the world or a need for intervention by UN forces, we would look to the United Kingdom first””. That was a great compliment, and I suspect that those pressures are still present. Yes, United Kingdom forces will always respond but, for heaven’s sake, within reason. Secondly, I praise the contribution of the voluntary reserves in Iraq. The voluntary reservists who have already served in Iraq are equivalent to 16 battalions. At some stages of the conflict they reached almost 20   per cent of the total forces present—that is additional to naval and Air Force volunteers. There are some storm clouds on the horizon. The manning of voluntary forces, certainly for the Territorial Army, is now at 80 per cent of establishment, and falling. Recruitment is reasonable but retention is poor, and one must ask oneself why. It is partly because the officers and senior NCOs of the reserve forces have been sent to Iraq, in many cases leaving other ranks with no leadership and no indication of their precise future role, which has not been good for morale. We have the continued closure of Territorial Army centres. If we are going to rebalance the infantry it is important that the Territorial Army, and indeed all reservists, maintain as wide a geographic base in this country as possible to preserve contact with the civilian population. I am afraid that there are signs that some employers of our reservists are beginning to be concerned about the frequency of call-up. I strongly recommend that the Government should enshrine in legislation the limitation that no one should or could be called up twice in a five-year period. Finally, there is an exciting gleam of hope in connection with the treatment of young offenders who are threatened with exclusion from school. The Armed Forces are playing an important role in an initiative called Skill Force Development. In particular some warrant officers, who leave the forces in the order of 20,000 to 25,000 a year, are now being enlisted into Skill Force. It is financed by the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Education and Skills, and charities. They are now active in 130 schools up and down the country. They take those pupils who teachers believe might be candidates for permanent exclusion and offer them training for one day a week in life skills and adventure training if they go back to school for the other four days a week and qualify for their exams. That is an excellent initiative, and I congratulate the Government on it. I say so in a bipartisan way. The initiative was tried some 25 years ago but it did not make progress; now it has done, and it needs to be encouraged. It is one way in which former servicemen and women can make a real contribution to the standards of behaviour of young people, and I commend it to the House.