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Future of the Territorial Army

I beg to move,"That this House expresses its continued support for the role of the Territorial Army (TA); notes that the reserve forces have contributed some 20,000 personnel to operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans since 2002, most of them from the Territorial Army, and that 14 Territorials have died on those operations; deplores the decision made to freeze TA training, contrary to the recommendations of the Cottam Report, of which all seven strategic recommendations were accepted by the Government in April 2009; further notes the adverse impact the decision would have had on the TA's war fighting capability and its ability to respond to natural disasters and other contingencies in the United Kingdom; considers that there will be an enduring threat to TA morale, recruitment and retention as a result of the Government's lack of support; notes the leadership displayed by the Leader of the Opposition in opposing the cuts to the TA; and calls on the Government urgently to take steps to mend the damaged morale of the TA." Let me begin by paying tribute to Corporal Thomas "Tam" Mason of The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, who died from wounds at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in Selly Oak on Sunday, and also to Corporal James Oakland of the Royal Military Police, who was killed in central Helmand province on Thursday 22 October. While we think about the families of those who have been killed, we also think about the families of those who have been injured, whose lives will never be the same either. Through good times and bad, the Territorial Army has given a proud 101 years of service to this country. Since 2002, reserve forces have contributed some 20,000 personnel to operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans, most of them from the Territorial Army. Fourteen Territorials have died on those operations. Today we are debating the future of the TA because of the cuts that the Government proposed to TA training, which in the past 24 hours have been rightly and swiftly reversed. All Governments make mistakes. All people make mistakes. Smart people recognise them and rectify them, and exhausted Governments dig in. What is worse, they tend to try to delude themselves that the bad decisions are actually difficult decisions with hidden virtue. Let us face it: we have seen it all before. Some of us have lived through it before. Here is the recipe. Typically, you take a relatively small sum of money to be saved and find the most politically costly way of doing it. Then, when you run into trouble, you backtrack and make concessions. When threatened with a Back-Bench revolt, you perform a spectacular U-turn, so that you actually save no money at all but spend the maximum amount of political capital. That is exactly what we have seen in recent days on the TA issue. Although they were forced into it, the Government made the right decision by performing a U-turn on the shameful cuts in TA training, because the cuts would have had a long-term impact on recruitment and on the overall future readiness of the TA. Whether or not an individual is deployed on operations, regular and routine training is required to ensure medium and long-term readiness levels for any future deployments, whether to Afghanistan or to another unforeseen destination. Pre-deployment training is meant to augment, not supplant, routine TA training. The weekly and monthly training gives the TA the skills that are required to allow them to perform alongside their regular Army counterparts. It also gives our Territorials the esprit de corps and confidence to work together as a unit in challenging circumstances, whether at home or in Helmand. How can a Territorial who has not been to the range for six months, driven an armoured vehicle for six months or trained with his comrades for six months be expected all of a sudden to conduct several weeks of pre-deployment training and be ready for deployment on the front line? The answer is that no Territorial can be expected to do that, which is why the cuts were wrong in the first place.