SIXTH REPORT
The Defence Committee has agreed to the following
Report:—
THE STRATEGIC DEFENCE REVIEW: THE RESERVE
FORCES
INTRODUCTION
1. The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) in 1998
proposed a radical change in the size, structure and work of the
Reserve Forces, and in particular the Territorial Army (TA). At
the time of its publication we were unconvinced that the Ministry
of Defence (MoD) had made the right decisions, and we set out
our concerns in our Report on the SDR.[8]
Since then we have produced two further Reports on the Reserve
Forces.[9]
In our last Report we commented on the first stage in the restructuring
of the Territorial Army and concluded that it was "too early
to judge the overall health of the Territorial Army and other
Reserve Forces,"[10]
and undertook to continue to monitor the Territorial Army. Since
the publication of that Report, the MoD has completed phase 2
of its TA restructuring programme: it has also completed the restructuring
of the Territorial Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve Associations
(TAVRAs), their transformation into the Reserve Forces and Cadets
Associations and the redrawing of the boundaries of the Associations
within England. The MoD in its 1999/2000 Performance Report stated
that "the TA restructuring process was completed on time
and within budget".[11]
We therefore felt that an update on the health of the Reserves
was now timely.
2. In the conclusion of our recent report on the
SDR's Policy for People, the Committee commented on the
MoD's Overarching Personnel Strategy that—
... it may be that they [the
MoD] are guilty of a lack of imagination: particularly in a 'one
size fits all' approach to the three Services, in a balance between
full and part-time personnel and above all in a lack of imagination
in harnessing existing civilian assets.[12]
It is against this background that the Committee
offers this fresh look at the Reserve Forces.
3. We took oral evidence on 8 November 2000 from
Brigadier Richard Holmes CBE TD**, Director, Reserve Forces and
Cadets, Brigadier Andrew Durcan, Deputy Inspector General, TA,
Land Command, Ms Diana Seammen, Command Secretary, Land Command,
and Air Vice-Marshal Nigel Sudborough, Deputy Chief of Staff Operations,
HQ Strike Command, Ministry of Defence. Following this the Committee
heard from Colonel Mike Taylor, CBE TD DL, Chairman of the new
Council of the Reserve Forces and Cadets Associations, and his
colleagues, Colonel Patrick Robinson, TD DL, West Midland RFCA,
and Commodore Ian Pemberton, RD** DL, Chairman, Wessex RFCA.
8 Eighth Report, Session 1997-98, The Strategic Defence
Review, HC 138 Back
9 Fifth
Report, Session 1997-98, The Reserves Call-out Order 1998,
Etc., HC 868, and the First Report, Session 1998-99, The
Strategic Defence Review: Territorial Army, HC 70 Back
10 Sixth
Report, Session 1998-99, The Reserves Call-out Order 1999 and
Progress of Territorial Army Restructuring, HC 860, para
25 Back
11 Cm
5000, para 55 Back
12 Second
Report, Session 2000-01, The Strategic Defence Review: Policy
for People, HC 29-i, para 174 Back
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