Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 259)
WEDNESDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2002
COLONEL MICHAEL
J E TAYLOR CBE TD DL, COLONEL
SIR DAVID
A TRIPPIER RD JP DL AND
COLONEL J RICHARD
G PUTNAM CBE TD DL
240. But the public needs to understand we are
not talking about 40,000 reservists being available, but a substantially
smaller number than that?
(Colonel Taylor) It is important to make the point
that SDR was positive on the basis of having people at 55% readiness.
All of the assumptions are that in terms of call-out and requirement
to serve and so forth we will have a training period which will
bring people up to that full stage of readiness. The people are
there and they are trained; they will just need that extra edge
of training to be delivered in that period when they are being
called up.
241. Roughly how long is that?
(Colonel Taylor) It will vary according to the requirement.
For some the requirement is very low. Medics are recruited because
they are medics and they do not need that preliminary training—
242. They just go straight in?
(Colonel Taylor) Exactly, but there are some working
on complicated equipment who need extra training. Others will
need training in the nuclear biological territory. There are a
whole range of answers to that question depending on the nature
of the role.
Mr Hancock
243. Is not part of the problem that the vision
of what reserve forces are going to be used for is not clear in
SDR, and that if you are a young person who has skills to offer,
you would be rather confused by the messages the government are
sending out, and the real argument against recruiting these people
that you want potentially as officer members is that there is
not a clear role for them? I looked at some of the material being
put out and I thought if I was a 25 year old with skills I could
offer, what is it they are expecting me to do?
(Colonel Taylor) One of the benefits of the New Chapter
approach is that some of that is now being clarified and we are
expecting to see much clearer roles within the CRRF approach than
previously. But your general point is a valid one about recruiting.
(Colonel Putnam) Absolutely. I think, too, the outcome
of SDR talked about a more pertinent employable Territorial Army.
If you look at the numbers of Territorial Army soldiers who have
served full time in the last four or five year period that is
significantly higher than ever before, but it is back-at-the-ranch
style, so the opportunities given to these people are enormous.
I sometimes wish I was only thirty again and would take up some
of the opportunities that have been available, but it is back
at the ranch and keeping them after they have done that exciting
period of service which is also a big problem.
Chairman: I am sure Patrick Mercer is
available to be a sergeant somewhere!
Patrick Mercer: I did offer, Chairman.
Chairman: We have now completed the first
tranche of questions, and we have to speed up.
Jim Knight
244. I was at the consultation meeting you had
in March with parliamentarians which was very helpful for us certainly,
but I am interested in how the consultation from the MoD to you
was for you.
(Colonel Taylor) I think we can say we were very pleased
with the way we were involved at all stages and all levels. We
were given every opportunity to understand the policy as it is
developing and contributed to it, and to make our contribution,
both at national level and local wherever that was appropriate.
I have no other comment to make other than it was highly positive
and we were grateful for the opportunity to make our comments
on it in every possible way.
(Colonel Sir David Trippier) I think the best thing
to say is that the points we made were listened to and they responded
very positively.
245. And your views were actively canvassed
by the MoD?
(Colonel Taylor) Absolutely, to the extent that, for
example, I was invited to a rather special seminar in Birmingham
held by the Secretary of State and CDS with a whole range of others
there as well, and that was very useful where views were being
sounded out. We were given every opportunity to feed in our comments
and views and, as far as we can judge, we were being listened
to.
246. And that has been followed up by subsequent
feedback and dialogue?
(Colonel Taylor) Absolutely. We have had very good
correspondence back from the Secretary of State himself which
confirms the various points we were making and the way they were
being picked up.
Chairman: If your meeting in Birmingham
led to an enormous impact on the MoD, then I am going to find
out whether we can have our next meeting in Birmingham, because
clearly there is something about that second city that has an
impact on the MoD!
Patrick Mercer
247. On the CCRFs, what are your visceral reactions
to this whole idea?
(Colonel Sir David Trippier) We welcome it. Firstly,
the response to the consultation period that we have just been
talking about led us to believe that there was no other alternative
except that the regional brigade commanders should be in charge.
The point we wish to emphasise, which I think is a point that
has been taken on board, is that they do not necessarily have
to organise within the CCRF just a khaki presence; we are a purple
organisation and there is no doubt in my mind, and this is in
the papers the Secretary of State published, that there will be
the use of arms other than the Territorial Army. Obviously I am
bound to welcome that—I am not khaki; I am Royal Marines—and
the Navy also will be used as and when appropriate, as will the
Royal Auxiliary Air Force. Thus far on the ground—and this
is what matters, not the words, whatever the Secretary of State
might say—the brigade commanders have responded very positively:
they have their minds round the problem—they have already
been talking to the infantry battalion commanding officers; they
have also been talking to other arms and other services and they
will be using those two to great effect. What we have to be wary
of is what is going to be the impact as you form such a group
of 500 people, men and women, within a region, within a brigade
structure, and the impact on the other units—not only the
infantry battalions—from whence they come. Now, that is
something that I am quite confident the brigade commanders will
be able to handle. I accept, and you know very well with your
experience, it is a chain of command issue. We stand ready to
help in any way we possibly can with the organisation of these
bodies and we would be involved from the very beginning. I emphasise
again that the employers' support, which I know you are going
to be talking about in another session after ours, is delivered
on the ground by the RFCAs and they need us very badly. In the
horrible event of some incident occurring which would require
a rapid reaction from this force we are talking about, the RFCAs
would be involved in support from day one, and that would include
a number of disciplines which we believe we have—not least
of all our contact with the community and getting that kind of
support marshalled behind the brigade commanders.
248. It is a misconception in the House, and
I will not be more precise than that, that there are a number
of people who ought to know better who still think that the CCRFs
are a purely territorial army organisation. They are clearly wrong.
This begs the question that if you have a military Tower of Babel
parading when the balloon goes up, men in light blue, dark blue,
green berets, khaki berets—whatever—turning up, hosted
by a Territorial Army infantry battalion, how many of your precious
five man training days will be not wasted but taken up by producing
commonality of training? For instance, a Royal Marine reservist
is likely to have a much better feel for the SA80 than a Royal
Navy reservist. Clearly I would assume there will need to be a
certain amount of time given to that before moving on to the more
specialist forms of training which exists.
(Colonel Sir David Trippier) That is a good question.
Actually, I would have thought it would vary from unit to unit
and service to service. I would have thought that the specialist
brought in, for example, from the Royal Naval Reserve would be
more closely connected with incidents which would occur, for example,
in dockyards. In the case of the Royal Marines Reserve, it is
fairly obvious that the same thing would apply in dockyards and
other roles that the Royal Marines, both regular and reserve,
perform on a weekly basis, so I think it would vary. I think you
are right: the degree of input into the amount of training required
given the additional man training days will vary. Whether the
net increase in man training days is sufficient is too early to
say. My guess is it is probably not enough.
(Colonel Taylor) I think we have to be careful. We
are very much into chain of command territory here and we can
only help and advise to a degree, but as I understand it the likelihood
of all 500 being required at the same time is pretty slim because
that will imply some pretty major catastrophe of the kind that
one hopes is not going to happen.
249. The kind we are being warned about every
day?
(Colonel Taylor) Yes, but bear with me: the whole
point about CCRFs is that they will respond to whatever the need
is and those that are required will be those that we have brought
in. It will not be all 500 that are required at the same time—as
a general rule.
250. Within the specialty of their skills?
(Colonel Taylor) Exactly, yes.
251. It strikes me that five man training days
is wholly inadequate. I appreciate what you are saying—that
you have to let the thing spin out before it actually comes—but
would it not have made more sense to base the CCRFs upon formed
units?
(Colonel Taylor) It is, in the sense that it is the
regional brigadier who has the task of making it happen with his
brigade reinforcement team. It is simply the Territorial Army
infantry battalions that provide the core, and they are formed
units.
252. Absolutely, but if you had a CCRF formed
in Bristol, for instance, would it not have been easier to use
the Royal Marine reserves to form that CCRF?
(Colonel Taylor) That is a possible argument but the
decision has been taken to use the infantry battalions which makes
perfectly good sense to us.
(Colonel Putnam) The CCRFs are still performing and
developing but we are talking about 14 of them, each 500 strong,
and there is no way that the Territorial Army or other territorial
reserves in some areas will get to 500 because there are not 500
people fully trained on the ground to form the unit, so the brigade
command will have to deploy full time service troops depending
on circumstances. What we do not know and nobody will know until
it actually happens is what they are going to be asked to do.
It might just be a simple cordon around a small area; it might
be picking up bits of stone and boulders—we simply do not
know, but we do not want to kid ourselves, there will not be 14
times 500 or 7,000 troops on 6 or 12 hours standby at any one
time of the day or night.
(Colonel Taylor) The other problem which is very clearly
being established is that, first of all, these issues have police
primacy rather than defence primacy and, secondly, regulars will
be used first wherever they can be. So this is very much a reserve
back-up approach rather than anything else.
253. A reservist of whatever colour, ilk or
creed has only a certain amount of time to give to the reserve
formation. If that reservist is, say, a Royal Auxiliary Airforce
officer, how much time is going to be taken away from his or her
unit training? What is the impact upon unit training?
(Colonel Taylor) Nobody is absolutely sure because
we are still at the very early stages. That is why the extra five
days have come in—to enable that to happen. There was a
conference going on last weekend of very senior echelons of the
Territorial Army looking at these very issues, and they are still
being worked through because it is recognised that there are some
challenges here which the chain of command has to get to grips
with, and they are getting to grips with them at the moment.
254. Are we robbing Peter to pay Paul?
(Colonel Taylor) There is a risk but I think they
are aware of those problems, and they are certainly hearing from
us that we have to be careful on those points. We have always
made the point in our submissions to SDR and New Chapter that
we did not believe it was wise to make this a prime role for the
Territorial Army. It should be subsidiary and secondary to what
is the principal role of the people who join up.
255. Could you expand a little bit on who is
going to do the training for the CCRF?
(Colonel Taylor) That is the responsibility of the
regional brigadier and the staff.
256. And is he being empowered with extra training
and resources?
(Colonel Taylor) Yes.
Mr Hancock
257. Is that going to be common across the country?
(Colonel Taylor) Yes.
258. Is that training programme being formulated?
(Colonel Taylor) No, not the programme, but the resources
are now in place to do that. That is what the 700 extra posts
are largely about; that is what the 130,000 extra man training
days are about.
259. When do you expect to see the training
programme which will be common across the country—
(Colonel Putnam) It is starting now, getting under
way, so although the CCRF next year will get 500 extra man training
days, this year they got two and a half extra man training days
for the second half of the current year.
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