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Defence Reform Bill

I thoroughly agree with my hon. and gallant Friend.

I want to bring my remarks to an end as many other Members wish to speak. A number of noteworthy people have come through the Territorials and the other Reserves—I have said nothing yet about the RAF and Naval Reserves. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), was recently commissioned into the Royal Naval Reserve and the Air Force Reserves heritage goes back to two of the three highest scoring fighter squadrons in the battle of Britain. The Reserves have produced a number of distinguished individuals, including the grandfather of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex, Sir Winston Churchill, and our greatest general in the last war, Bill Slim. People fondly imagine he was a Regular officer who went to Sandhurst. He was not; he was a Territorial who sneaked in through the back door of the Birmingham officer training corps because his brother was a student there and nobody realised he was not a student too. There is also David Stirling, who founded the SAS. Again, people think of him as a Scots Guards officer. Yes, he was; he was a Scots Guards Reservist. He had done his officer training at Ampleforth combined cadet force and then, through mountaineering, he had developed the qualities of character and team leadership that were so vital for setting up the SAS.

There are three reasons why we need Reservists. First, because we can keep far more capability if we keep some of it at much lower cost—about a fifth of the cost—at lower readiness. Secondly, because they bring the energies, extra skills and imaginations of the wider civilian community into the armed forces. Thirdly, because that keeps the link with the local communities, which just after Remembrance Sunday we should all remember.

New clause 1 will give a strong independent voice back to the Reserves. I am very grateful to the Government for accepting it and I must ask the House once more not to be persuaded by my hon. Friend the Member for

Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on new clause 3, because that will send a devastating message to the Reserve forces.