Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con): In support of what my hon. Friend has just said, which is the single most important observation anyone can ever make about defence planning, namely the unpredictability of future

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crises, may I remind him—that is not to say that he needs reminding—that only a few years ago the constant predictions were that it would be all about boots on the ground for the next 30 or 40 years? Let us therefore not make the mistake of doing something too rigid when we need maximum flexibility.

Sir Gerald Howarth: Naturally, I agree with my hon. Friend.

Mr Brazier: My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has just made almost exactly the same point I was going to make. If we can keep a broader spectrum and a larger total mass, some of it at lower cost, by keeping reserve forces going, which brings in a wider range of skills and enables a multiplier effect, surely that is a better buttress against the unexpected.

Sir Gerald Howarth: I absolutely agree.

Mr Ellwood: My hon. Friend was absolutely right to mention my concern. I think that we have similar views on the desirable size of the armed forces, but I remind him that we had a vote on military intervention in Syria not long ago and this House decided fundamentally not to participate in that. I wonder how the House would vote on all the scenarios my hon. Friends have just mentioned. That will have a huge impact, and I worry about how this House is involved in that, but that is a concern on the size of the armed forces that we actually need.

Sir Gerald Howarth: If my hon. Friend thinks that Syria is a reliable or predictable template for the future, I urge him to be very cautious indeed, because it has special circumstances. I see no resiling by the Conservative part of this Administration from the Foreign Secretary’s statement to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 2009 that a Conservative Government would seek to help shape the world in which we found ourselves and not simply to be shaped by it, and I entirely support that. I think that we need to have the means to back it up.

I will conclude by making this point: we are where we are. I have sought to set out why I believe we are where we are and what I believe we need to do for the future. I must say to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay that the Chair of the Defence Committee, our right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire, made a good point when he observed that the new clause would require the Government to put on hold the process of enacting the provisions for enhancing the reserves, and I know that he feels strongly about maintaining the number of regulars. The numbers of regulars are reducing, in accordance with the timetable set out two or three years ago. Therefore, the imperative is not to put the reserve generation on hold, but to ramp it up as fast as we can.

Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con): On the basis of “we are where we are”, did my hon. Friend hear the head of the Army, General Sir Peter Wall, say:

“We are well on our way to implementing this plan. To reverse course at this stage would be destabilising and damaging.”

Is not it the case that we have to do what we have to do, so let us get on with it?

Sir Gerald Howarth: I think that General Sir Peter Wall is right. I thought that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, when interviewed this morning on

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the “Today” programme, put the case eloquently. I do not dispute the fundamental position of my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay, but I think that to put the reserve generation on hold would present a serious risk to the whole process and the destabilisation that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) mentioned.

Several hon. Members rose—

Sir Gerald Howarth: I give way to the former Defence Secretary.

Mr Ainsworth: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has obviously read new clause 3. With good will and effort, how long a pause does he think it would result in?

Sir Gerald Howarth: I do not think it is for me to say that. I am not advocating a pause. It is my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay who is doing so and he has told us that he thinks it all could be done in a matter of months. We have to understand what the Chief of the General Staff has said. There is a process under way.

I have talked to my commanders in Aldershot, about whom I am very proprietorial: the Secretary of State may think they are his commanders, but actually they are mine. The Army has taken this on the chin and said, “Right, this is the political remit we’ve been given. We salute, turn right, march off and do the bidding of the politicians.” Whether they think it is right or not, they do it and they are doing it now. Putting this spanner in the works will not hold back the run-down of the regular Army; it will create a run-down in the whole Army structure. As everyone knows, I am a light blue, but we are talking essentially about the Army.

Mr Baron rose—

Sir Gerald Howarth: I give way to my hon. Friend, because I have made some observations about his position.

Mr Baron: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Those who say that we are trying to reverse the Army Reserve plans are completely wide of the mark. I recommend that one or two Members actually look at the wording of the new clause. It is very simple. It basically proposes a pause while we examine whether rising costs will lead to false economies and whether we are opening up unacceptable capability gaps. The pause could be very short if the Government allow prompt scrutiny of the report. It need only take a few weeks: the report could be produced immediately after the Bill gains Royal Assent and we could have a debate and vote in this House within weeks.

Sir Gerald Howarth: I appreciate my hon. Friend’s position, but I am afraid to say that we will just have to disagree. I think it would have a destabilising, adverse effect. My hon. Friend has not made the situation clear. What would happen if we initiated his proposed process, scrutinised the plan and the House then rejected it? Where would we be then? Would the House go back to square one and trade alternative views—perhaps even within our own parties—while in the meantime the whole thing implodes and melts down?

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Mr Baron: In direct answer to that question, if the plans do not bear scrutiny in this place, that tells us that we should not be doing it in the first place and suggests a much bigger story that the plans are not working. The argument that this place cannot scrutinise something because we are afraid it will not pass the test of scrutiny is a particularly weak one, and I would suggest that we do not promote it for those who genuinely want to defeat the new clause.

Sir Gerald Howarth: My hon. Friend is a gallant and, indeed, very honourable friend, but party politics do come into this from time to time. I cast no aspersions on the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), but it is a fact that, sometimes, if the Opposition see an opportunity to defeat the Government, they will use it. That is the way in which our system works, notwithstanding what the shadow Secretary of State has said about the general cross-party agreement on defence. Such agreement never existed when I first came to the House in 1983, so it is refreshing to debate matters in a much more intelligent way than in the mid-1980s.

I will conclude, because others wish to speak. We are not where I particularly would like to be, but the Army is to be commended for its professional approach. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury is also to be commended for the lead he has given. Our duty now is to crack on and make this work and, in the meantime, to address some of the longer-term structural issues as we approach the 2015 strategic defence review. I put my right hon. Friends on notice that I want the Conservative party to commit to giving more money to defence and it has to come out of the aid budget or any other budget—frankly, I do not care which. I think that the world is a dangerous place and we need our armed forces. The world has seen how professional they are. They are the finest armed forces in the world and they really can deliver what the Prime Minister wants, which is for this country to help shape the world in which we find ourselves.

Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab): It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), even if I do not agree with everything he says. I wish to speak in favour of new clause 6—in my name and those of the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), and others—and about our broader debate this afternoon.

It is worth reminding the Secretary of State and other right hon. and hon. Members that the British Army is of course Parliament’s Army; it is not the Crown’s Army. That dates back to the so-called Glorious Revolution, which is why we have to have an Armed Forces Act in every Parliament.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): I am sorry to be a little outraged, but surely the hon. Gentleman would be the first to admit that it is not Parliament’s Army, but Her Majesty’s forces. It has nothing whatever to do with Parliament, although Parliament may deploy the forces on behalf of Her Majesty.

Thomas Docherty: I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. Parliament must give permission for a standing Army in peacetime and, despite our actions in Afghanistan, we are in a time of peace. It is therefore specifically Parliament’s Army, not the Crown’s.

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Mr Ellwood: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Thomas Docherty: No, I will not. We hear quite enough from the hon. Gentleman at other times.

It is not the Royal Army: we have a Royal Navy and a Royal Air Force, but a British Army. I make that point not to take up valuable time, but because the Secretary of State seems to think that it is the job of Ministers of the Crown, not of Parliament, to make decisions about the Army.

In an earlier exchange about the Back-Bench debate, the Secretary of State said from a sedentary position that it was a Back-Bench vote. The problem with his approach, and the one advocated by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), is that if there is an annual report that Members of Parliament want not only to debate but to vote on, it is clear that the Secretary of State’s intention would be to ignore any such decision.

This is our last chance to tell the Government that although the House supports the broad thrust of the Army reforms, they are clearly not going according to plan. The Secretary of State has already demonstrated that he has the courage to change tack, as he did on the aircraft carriers, when something is clearly going wrong. I am genuinely surprised that he is not prepared to say, “This is not going as well as we want. We need to slow the rate of progress, so that we do not end up in a disastrous position.”

Mr Philip Hammond: For a moment, I thought that the hon. Gentleman was suggesting that we ought to slow the rate of progress on the reserves agenda, but if anything we need to speed it up. I would just tell the hon. Gentleman—seeing the Chairman of the Defence Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) in his place—that if he believes Ministers will not be regularly scrutinised from morning till night by the Select Committee and at Defence questions in this House throughout the implementation of the programme, I do not know what planet he is living on. Of course we expect to be scrutinised.

Thomas Docherty: If the Secretary of State had been paying a bit more attention, he would have heard me say that it is quite clear that he does not intend to respect any such vote in Parliament. I am sorry, but this Parliament, not Ministers of the Crown, should be sovereign. If he is not confident of carrying his plans for the Army in Parliament, something is fundamentally wrong.

Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con): In the time that it will take the Bill to travel through the other place, could we have a report similar to the annual report, so that when the Bill comes back to this House for final approval we would have an idea of the real situation? We could thereby avoid this problem completely and, frankly, it might get the approval of my good friend the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron).

4.15 pm

Thomas Docherty: I am grateful for that intervention. I hope that it would not be a career-damaging move if I called the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) my hon. Friend, because I have had the pleasure of serving with him on the Defence Committee for the past

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three years. That is a perfectly reasonable suggestion and I am sorry that the Secretary of State has not offered that option.

There is genuine good will on both sides of the House. The armed forces and the defence of the realm are not issues that should be party political. This has been a good debate so far because we have managed, on the whole, to keep party politics out of it.

I agree with the Chairman of the Defence Committee about the growing value of cyber-warfare. When the Defence Committee visited the United States earlier this year, we went to cyber command and saw at first hand the key role that is being played by reservists. I think that Members on both sides of the House would agree that we need more such reservists coming through.

The problem is that the bald facts show that we are not recruiting sufficient reservists. When the generals appeared before the Defence Committee earlier this year, they said that we needed to recruit 6,000 reservists annually. I am sure that the Secretary of State has the most up-to-date figures, but I doubt whether a huge number of reservists have been recruited in the past few days. We are clearly falling short and we have been falling short for years. This is not just a teething problem; it is an ongoing problem.

As the Chief of the General Staff has said, there is no plan B on this project. It is therefore crucial that we get it right. At the moment—I say this in a genuinely bipartisan manner—the Government are not on track to meet these important targets. It is entirely sensible for the House to ask for a pause so that the Government can get back on track. The excellent observation was made earlier that that would help to focus minds. Having robust targets and the threat of a pause hanging over the Ministry of Defence might get it to pull the finger out.

The point on which I disagree gently with the hon. Member for Canterbury is that the problem until now has been that the regular generals have been siphoning off the money. They have not made enough progress.

Mr Philip Hammond indicated dissent.

Thomas Docherty: The Secretary of State shakes his head, but the £180 million that was allocated to the reserves in the first year was spent on upgrading the regulars. The generals told the Defence Committee that that was what they did. The threat of a pause if they do not get things sorted might compel the generals to make greater progress.

Mr Havard: Does my hon. Friend agree that a pause, rather than creating confusion or demoralising reservists, businesses and others, might have the opposite effect of showing people that there is a proper re-examination of a plan that they do not yet have the confidence fully to join? It might give them that confidence, rather than destroy it.

Thomas Docherty: I agree with my hon. Friend, whom the House will recognise is one of the experts on the Defence Committee on the issue of morale.

Mr Brazier: The hon. Members for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) are both good friends and colleagues on the Defence Committee. However, may I

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suggest to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife that what he is saying just is not right? What the reserves want is a strong voice of their own in a regular-dominated process. That is exactly what new clause 1 would give them and the Government have agreed to that. What they do not want is what is in new clause 3. Proposed subsection (2) states:

“Further implementation of the plans shall be halted 40 days after the laying of the report”

unless there is a resolution of both Houses. That would put yet another level of uncertainty into their thinking.

Thomas Docherty: I have huge respect for the hon. Gentleman, but I gently disagree with him. The reserves already have many strong voices in the British Army. He would agree that Major-General Munro is one of those strong voices. I think that the hon. Gentleman means that the reserves need stronger voices in the British Army.

I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Gentleman but, like many colleagues on both sides of the House, I think it is clear from present morale—I am not sure how it could be much lower—that our reserves are not being given adequate support. New clause 3, which is supported by respected figures on both sides of the House, would send a clear signal that we will not simply go along with the plans, come hell or high water, but that we want to see genuine progress.

Mrs Moon: We talk as if the members of our armed forces are delicate little flowers, whose sensitivities are such that debates in this House have them crying into their cocoa at bedtime. The reserves and the regulars, for whom we all have huge respect, want to ensure that the service in which they proudly serve is organised and run efficiently and effectively. They, and this House, do not have that trust at the moment, and that is what we are looking for.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle): May I just ask for short interventions? Many Members still wish to speak. Let us make sure that everybody’s voice is heard.

Thomas Docherty: On new clause 6, we have all heard, in the Defence Committee and elsewhere, that the biggest disincentive to joining the reserves, of whichever service, is getting time off work. These are the words of the Secretary of State’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt):

“a lot of reservists find it difficult to get time off for deployment or training courses”.—[Official Report, 23 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 273WH.]

I am sorry that she is not in her place today. Perhaps she is training. [Interruption.] She is away on a course and we wish her all the best. Even the Secretary of State’s PPS has acknowledged that this is a huge challenge.

The White Paper sets out an ambitious goal of increasing the annual training requirement to 40 days, and I think Members on all sides of the House recognise the importance of that. I hope the Secretary of State will support new clause 6—his Liberal Democrat colleagues will, for reasons I will explain in a moment—because it seeks to provide a simple way to address that goal: reservists

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would receive an additional two weeks unpaid leave from their employer, provided that their firms had more than 50 employees. The hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley) made the point that we have to careful about the impact on small and medium-sized enterprises, and it is right that we provide protection to smaller companies. The proposal is sensible and measured, because reservists will receive their military pay at no cost to their employer. In the rare cases of resistance from an employer, we propose that complaints are referred to an employment tribunal for arbitration.

I must confess that I am confident that the Liberal Democrats will vote for new clause 6 because the idea was originally developed by them and was passed at their party conference only seven weeks ago. I suspect that the former Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), has had a large hand in writing their defence policy, and that, in the regrettable and unforeseen event of there being a Division, he will vote for the new clause.

Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD): I admire the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for the proceedings of the Liberal Democrat conference—I only wish I shared it. I confirm my party’s support for the idea of two weeks’ military training and, although I do not purport to speak for them, I am sure many Conservative Members take the same view. The difficulty with legislating for that now in the manner the hon. Gentleman is suggesting is that there is a serious cost implication: he is proposing that military pay will be provided for that period of time. I dearly hope that this Government or a future Government will at some point be able to find the resources, but a gargantuan effort has been made to balance the Ministry of Defence’s books and the resources are not there. I know the Labour party has a bit of form on making unfunded commitments, but it would be irresponsible to legislate on this when we do not have the funds to pay for it.

Thomas Docherty: I am genuinely baffled. I do not know where the hon. Gentleman was before he came into the Chamber, but reservists already receive pay when they are on training. This proposal is not about additional training time; it is about meeting requirements for the training they have to undertake. If his only concern is about the funding element, I can reassure him that there is no additional spending cost. It actually—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman stops chuntering for one second, I will finish. There will be no cost to the business and no additional cost to the Ministry of Defence, because it is already providing pay for that training period. Having given him that reassurance, I look forward to his confirming that Liberal Democrats will support us in the Lobby, in the unfortunate event that we cannot just adopt the proposal as a whole and someone calls a vote.

I am conscious that many others wish to speak; I will therefore finish with this thought. This Parliament is sovereign. It is up to us to send a clear signal that we want to support our armed forces, whether they be regular or reserves, on land, on sea or in the air. It is crucial that we provide a robust target for the MOD to do what it should be doing and ensuring that we have an adequate number of regulars and reserves to meet the aspirations that we all have for them.

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Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Ind): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). Many of his remarks I agree with; some I disagree with. However, I particularly admire my close and hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier)—who sadly has gone for a cup of tea—and my other close and hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). They have opposing views, but they both have the good of the nation and the armed forces at their heart. I have no doubt about that.

I think I am right in saying that of all the ex-regulars and ex-Territorials in the House, I am the only one who has been a professional recruiter. My last job in the Army was as a colonel in the Army training and recruiting agency. I use the word “agency” with a curl of the lip: it was not a command or a military formation of any sort, which was one of the reasons I resigned from the Army—because of its disgraceful conduct, particularly over recruiting. I will return to that in a moment. I also had the privilege to belong to and to command a battalion that, at the height of the Territorial Army, had to find permanent staff instructors, adjutants and the like for up to four Territorial battalions—our third and fourth battalions, and what were then called the 1st and 2nd Battalions the Mercian Regiment.

That is where I first heard about STABs, which stands for stupid TA—and then a word that means “illegitimate people”—and about arrogant Regular Army “illegitimate people”. That is an example of the desperate confusion and rivalry between regulars and Territorials, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury made such clear reference, from the first and second world wars, and so on. I am a little out of date now, but in my experience that was a deeply divisive and extremely unhelpful view. In the Regular Army, we had to provide a lot of those individuals, which absolutely was a nuisance. None the less, anybody who looked at the colours of my regiment—or, indeed, of the fusiliers or any of the infantry or cavalry regiments in the British Army—would have seen that the majority of the battle honours on those colours were won by battalions and regiments from the Territorial Force or the Territorial Army. It is a fact; we cannot get away from it. Any Regular Army individual who ignores the importance, the potential or the sheer enthusiasm of the reserves—the TF, the TA or whatever we want to call them—is simply daft.

However, there are reservations I would like to express about the future of warfare and the type of forces we need to fight those wars. Turning to new clause 1, my experience as a commanding officer is that I was told in the late ’90s that my battalion was about 40 men under strength and that we could not recruit more than that, which, in a recruiting famine, would be quite impossible. I talked closely to what was then called the recruiting group of the Army training and recruiting agency, listened to its advice and did precisely the opposite.

Mr Kevan Jones: The hon. Gentleman has first-hand experience of recruitment. Does he agree with the earlier comment of the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) about recruiters being staffed from the sick, lame or lazy?

Patrick Mercer: I was deeply offended by that remark. If I may, I would gently suggest that it sounds like a comment from someone who left the Army as a junior

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officer, without having to provide the sort of individuals that we provided for our recruiting offices, who were the very finest, Brecon-trained senior and junior non-commissioned officers inside the battalion.

4.30 pm

Rory Stewart: May I respectfully suggest to my hon. Friend that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) was not saying that as his own view; he was talking about the reputation that was attached at the time?

Patrick Mercer: I entirely agree, in which case, in my 25-year experience, that is completely wrong.

Moving swiftly on. The Army and training recruiting agency, as it was at the time, could not and would not recruit. We were 40 men under strength when I took command; inside a year, we were 120 men over strength—in a recruiting famine when the economy was apparently buoyant and there were difficulties in finding manpower. What was going wrong with recruiting in the late ’90s is going wrong with recruiting today. I dread to hear people talking about recruiting offices not being open at the weekends; I dread to hear that people are not being recruited especially for the Territorial and the Reserve forces.

In my experience the only way to produce a battalion with an extra company was by fully understanding where to recruit and how to recruit, and by using our own resources. When we realised that recruitment was not particularly for the TA, we took TA recruiters with us, ensured that the particular conditions of the Reserve forces and the Territorial Army were understood and sent those recruits straight to the TA rather than try to confuse them with the Regular Army. I make no pretence of fully understanding the impact of social media, on which Capita and other firms base the core of their recruiting effort—that was different in my day—but I do know that unless we get out with capable and experienced people, seek recruits in the places where they are most plentiful, and physically present the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the reserve forces, we will not recruit people. We simply will not, and I would be happy to debate that with anyone who thinks it is incorrect.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay tells me that TA numbers are falling, while the Secretary of State for Defence seems to disagree. I am not quite sure, but there seems to be a serious divergence between the two. I would respectfully say that the Secretary of State has mentioned in the past that applications for the reserve forces were going up. On the basis of my experience, however, I would say that applications are very different from enlistments and that the problem is even worse in the reserve forces than it is inside the Regular Army.

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP): I would like to put it on the record in Hansard that recruitment to the TA in Northern Ireland is at a high level, and it has been so over a number of years. From his experience, the hon. Gentleman will know that recruitment to all the services—the Royal Navy, the Air Force and the infantry—has met levels higher than in the rest of the United Kingdom. There are parts of the United Kingdom, then, for which levels of recruitment are high, and Northern Ireland is one of those areas.

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Patrick Mercer: I am grateful for that intervention. Recruitment in the Province was always good—despite the troubles—and I hope that it is even better now.

Mr Baron: On the point of TA numbers, let me confirm that the figures released last week showed a fall in TA recruitment. That was clear to see, and it was reported by the media and mentioned in various circles. That is what the report showed.

Patrick Mercer: I thank my hon. Friend.

Mr Philip Hammond: As a supplementary to the intervention made by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), what he says is absolutely true. The fall was 130 over the course of 12 months—0.6% of the trained strength. That is unwelcome, but statistically not a relevant number.

Patrick Mercer: There we are: we see the opposing views of the two sides. All I ask is for the Secretary of State for Defence to be clear about it, and to continue to be clear about it. I find new clause 1 to be sensible; it has my complete support. New clause 3 posits some extremely interesting questions, and we have had a good debate about it this evening. However, I think that the point about the changing face of warfare is terribly important.

We have heard a lot of talk about cyber-warfare and other specialist forms of warfare. If we open our history books, we see that in the late 1920s there was a school of thought which held that the fighting of savage tribes could be done entirely from the air. That was tried by an emergent Royal Air Force in Wazirista, and it completely failed, because there were not the boots on the ground to support the Royal Air Force in the excellent work that it did.

Of course there are specialisations within the reserve forces and the Territorial Army which are desperately important, but what our regular forces depend on is a very high level of fitness, a very high level of training, and an ability to deploy instantly. One of my hon. Friends, who is no longer in the Chamber, observed that there was always a period of time before any reservist—any Territorial—was up to snuff. That is no criticism, but, as Members who have served in infantry battalions know, preparing an individual for combat is akin to training a professional athlete. The level of fitness is extraordinarily important. I challenge any civilian holding down a full-time civilian job—and I do not say this with any form of disrespect—to be at such a level of fitness for instant deployment.

What we want for the future is the ability to nip problems in the bud—to avoid confrontation and conflict—and we therefore require deployment that is instantaneous, or as near to that as we can make it. I must say, with the greatest respect, that no reservist can achieve that. It is not in the nature of reserve forces. The clue is in the phrase “reserve, not regular”. I say that with profound respect for all Territorials and all reservists, and for their naval and air force equivalents.

Mr Gray: I broadly accept what my hon. Friend has said about fitness, but does he not accept that a significant number of Territorial Army regiments are absolutely ready for deployment in the way that he has described? I am thinking particularly of my own regiment, the

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Honourable Artillery Company, but I am also thinking of the TA special forces regiments, which are as good as their regular counterparts.

Patrick Mercer: I accept that a very small number of Territorials are ready for instant deployment, but I have to say that the Territorial Army units that I have seen—none of which have been so-called special forces, and which I shall not name—have been a very, very long way from being ready for instant deployment. That is just my experience, but I fear that the Territorials who came to support me on operations were never up to snuff until we had given them concerted and extensive periods of training, including fitness training.

I think that if we wish to avoid trouble, it is quite wrong for us to reduce the size of our regular forces until our Territorial or reserve forces are fully in place, fully equipped, and fully trained to deploy. I understand that the standards are different, and I respect the fact that reservists need a period of training before they can deploy, but I think it irresponsible to allow our regular forces, with their instant deployment capability, to be run down before we have an adequate replacement.

Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con): It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), and, indeed, rather daunting to follow so many right hon. and hon. Friends—some of them gallant—who have so much personal and very relevant experience and knowledge of this subject. My special interest is the relationship between the armed forces and employers, and I believe that the Bill presents an opportunity in that context.

With a more integrated role for reserves will come a more open and supportive relationship between armed forces and employers. A number of the new clauses refer to business, implicitly or explicitly, and would have an impact on it. That is why I was so keen to speak at this point. As a small business owner and as someone who has been in business for more than 20 years and has employed reservists, I understand that, for many of them, successful service in the military depends hugely on the support of their employers. That will become even more important given the increased role of reservists in the future armed forces, and it is right for us to recognise the valuable contributions that employers make to our national security by hiring them.

Equally, however, it is important that trained-up reservists are provided with accredited qualifications that the armed forces can provide, and these will give a real service to employers. We must recognise the skills employees will gain from reserve service and how that will benefit employers and society as a whole. Ultimately business needs one thing more than anything else: certainty. It just wants to know what is expected of it with sufficient notice and what it can expect in return. I am delighted that this Bill commits to providing employers with full information about what hiring a reservist entails.

Too many businesses currently have no experience of hiring a reservist and the establishment of a national relationship management scheme will strengthen the partnership between the armed forces and employer organisations, leading to a much more open and predictable relationship in which all parties are fully aware of what is required of them.

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One of my concerns with new clause 3 is that it will provoke confusion. It will delay or prevent payments being made to small enterprises when their employees are mobilised. This extra finance for small and medium-sized enterprises, who find it most difficult to plug the gap when their employees are away, is vital. These firms do us a great service by employing reservists and it is only right that they should be fully compensated.

My other concern with new clause 3 is about the delay in the delivery of the transferable skills. This Bill does not just compensate firms; it provides them with real benefits for deciding to hire a member of the new Army Reserve. Time with the reserves can greatly enhance an employee’s effectiveness through high-quality training, leading opportunities and the chance to gain specific civilian-recognised qualifications while on duty. By accrediting reservists with recognised qualifications, we not only help them progress their careers, but provide real incentives for employers to take them on in the first place. Businesses will know that while their employees are away on duty they will not be engaged in unnecessary training exercises, but will be gaining tangible and valuable skills. This will also encourage more people to consider serving with the reserves. The fact that they will be able to make a genuine contribution to our national security while increasing their employability in their chosen career path will be a real pull, attracting high-quality individuals into the Army Reserve.

This will help more than just those who are currently employed, however. Reserve service can help provide people who are currently out of work with boosts to both their skills and their self-confidence, helping them on to the job ladder. Joint industry-led apprenticeships will provide unemployed young people with a trade and accredited qualifications, but, more than that, reservists will learn how to work as part of a team, how to solve problems and how to present themselves with maturity. These skills are harder to define than others, but are no less valuable

Time with the Army reserves is a great preparation for life in the workplace, enhancing employability skills and boosting self-confidence. It is excellent news that this Government will be placing clear emphasis on the development of reservists, and on building and maintaining an open and productive relationship between employers and the armed forces. We owe a great debt both to the individuals who protect our national security and to the businesses that employ our reserve troops. I am delighted that this Bill will make sure that we are repaying both those employers and the reservists themselves by providing them with the training and skills to flourish both in the field and in the workplace.

Mr Gray: It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) both because I very much agree with her point about small and medium-sized enterprises and the Territorial Army and because it gives me an opportunity to thank her publicly for the superb work she has done as chairman of the royal naval section of the all-party group on the armed forces for the last three years. She has graced the position—both physically and intellectually, if I may say so—over that time and I am most grateful to her for it.

I did not intend to contribute to the debate, but I rise to speak briefly because I find myself in a difficult position. That difficulty has been highlighted by much of what has been said in the debate and in the media

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over the last 36 hours or so, and it is that, contrary as this may sound to our experience personally, most people observing, and taking part in, the debate are of the same, or at least a very similar, view. We all deeply regret the reduction in the Army from 102,000 to 82,000 soldiers. It is appalling; personally, I think it is disgraceful. I am extraordinarily concerned about the future of the globe if we have an Army of 82,000 soldiers and about the reductions in the RAF and Royal Navy. One or two of my colleagues have expressed that concern very well. This is a very uncertain world, and facing it with this reduced defence spending is extremely worrying. As a Back Bencher, I have no personal responsibility for these matters, but I accept that the financial position in which the Government found themselves when they came to power three years ago necessitated these cuts in defence spending, in the same way as they necessitated all kinds of unpleasant cuts in other Departments. None the less, I deeply regret them and am extraordinarily worried about them.

4.45 pm

I also have great reservations about the Army 2020 plan for the Territorial Army. I am a passionate supporter of the TA and reserve forces. I served in the TA for seven years, and I think the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) in forcing forward this agenda has been superb. Contrary to what my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) said, I think that in the future the reserve forces will make a magnificent contribution to whatever we ask our armed services to do, as they have done in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Baron: I commend my hon. Friend for all his good work on behalf of the regular armed forces in this place, but with the greatest of respect his point that the MOD budget has to be cut because of the financial constraints does not quite ring true because other Departments have escaped the cuts. It is a question of national priorities. Does he agree?

Mr Gray: I always feel instinctively uneasy when anyone says, “With the greatest of respect,” because it almost certainly means, “With no respect at all.” Of course, I agree with my hon. Friend: of course, we would all love the budgets to be as they were; of course, many of us would like the aid or other budgets cut, possibly in favour of defence; of course, those of us who believe passionately in defence would like to see the defence of the realm maintained as it has been for the past many years; of course, we would like us to achieve the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP—or even the NATO target of spending 2.5%—of GDP on defence, but this is realpolitik and those things are not going to happen.

I will leave that to one side for a moment. We all start from the position of regretting the cuts but realising the reasons for them. On the reserve forces, we all hope the plans in place work. We are all committed to making them work and believe that the reserve forces have done a superb job. In recent years, and as long ago as the first world war, they have made a gigantic contribution to the defence of the realm, and we strongly support that. Everyone in the Chamber is deeply concerned about whether the 20,000 regular soldiers will be replaced by the increase in the TA that is posited. Of course, we are

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concerned about that, about the recruitment figures and about whether the Secretary of State’s plans will work out. Those are common positions. I suspect that not one person in the Chamber would disagree.

The disagreement arises when we consider what to do about it. The Regular Army is already at about 86,000 or 87,000. By early February, it will be at about 82,760. The redundancy notices have gone out. People are already on their leaving training and getting ready to leave the regular forces. We cannot reverse that. No matter what we do in the Chamber today, there is no magic wand that will reverse it. By the middle of January, the Army will be at 82,760 soldiers. Regret it as we may, we cannot reverse that. The second thing for certain is that, whether or not we have confidence it will work, we will have to set about increasing the size of the reserve forces, their training and their equipment so that they can replace the lost regulars. Those two things are certainties, and regret them as we may, they are going to occur.

The question, therefore, is: what do we do about it? That is the nature of this debate, and it seems to me that there are two possibilities. The first thing we could do, as my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) seeks to do—I have to admit that I signed his new clause 3—is to write our aims and concerns into legislation. In recent years we have done that in this House on a number of occasions—for example, with regard to the green carbon targets and reducing child poverty. In such cases, there is a law that says, “The Government will do this or do that,” and if it does not achieve those aims there will be some penalty to pay. It is therefore perfectly possible that we could do what my hon. Friend seeks to do by writing into legislation—the law of the land—something that says that the Government will improve our reserve forces in the way described. The alternative approach would be to do what we do with regard to every single thing in this place—to scrutinise what the Government are doing in questions and debates in this Chamber, in Westminster Hall and in Select Committees. We can do that in a variety of ways.

I am very encouraged by the fact that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State tells me that because of my hon. Friend’s new clause and this debate, he, the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Defence as a whole have been entirely focused on this matter for a number of days. That means we have achieved one of the things we wanted to achieve. We have said to the nation as a whole—it has been wall to wall in the media—that we are deeply concerned about these cuts in defence spending, about the fact that we have an Army of 82,000 that may not be able to do its job, and about whether the re-growing of the Territorial Army will actually occur. However, should we take the further step of writing those concerns into legislation?

Bob Stewart: Having talked briefly to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), I suggest that one way of helping to get everyone onside would be to have a report on the state of the Reserves produced quickly, before the Bill comes back to this House. My hon. Friend thinks, unless he shakes his head to indicate the contrary, that the people to do it would be members of the reserve forces and cadets associations. That could take the sting out of the tail very quickly.

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Mr Gray: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. There is an absolute requirement on the Government to come before this House and report on what they are doing about this, and I have every confidence that they will, whether through the all-party group on the reserve forces and cadets, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, the Defence Committee, Opposition days that the Opposition will no doubt call, Back-Bench business days or regular oral questions. I am confident that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be at the Dispatch Box day in, day out for the next two or three years answering difficult questions about recruiting in the Territorial Army. I pledge to him now that I will be his most difficult inquisitor. If he thinks that he is somehow going to get off the hook and that I am going to become a nice fellow and be gentle with him, he is completely wrong. I spent an hour in his study yesterday afternoon explaining these matters to him.

The question is whether it is right that our concerns about cuts in the Regular Army and our aspirations about improvements in the Territorial Army should be written into legislation. Having listened to the debate, I am sorry to have to advise my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay—if he were listening he would no doubt shake his head in disappointment—that I am increasingly convinced that it is not right to seek to write these things into legislation because they are political rather than legislative matters.

Two things greatly concern me about new clause 3, despite the fact that my name appears on it. First, it would have no effect whatsoever on the reductions in the regular forces that we are mainly concerned about. Secondly, if we had a pause to examine the matter and produce a report, one of two things would happen at the end of that pause. The report would be satisfactory to the House of Commons and the House of Lords, we would vote for it, and the plans would plough ahead as they were before, or the report would not be satisfactory to us and we would turn it down. If the latter were to occur, who knows what would happen? Presumably we would have to start again. The one thing that would not happen, even then, would be that somehow we magically grew the regular forces to fill the gap that had by then appeared. If I am right in thinking that the House would approve the report, what on earth is the point of a huge gap between now and then in producing it? We would end up with precisely the same plans that we have for the growth and retraining of the Territorial Army. I am not convinced that the pause that the new clause would write into legislation would necessarily help the situation.

We are all deeply concerned about what is happening, and I very much hope that we will not be back in the Chamber in five or 10 years expressing our regret about it, although I have a horrible feeling that we might be. However, I am by no means convinced that the new clause is the solution to our concerns. I pledge to give my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench as hard a time as I possibly can—probably even a harder time than I gave the Government when we were in opposition—in the Select Committee and in this Chamber, but I am not convinced that writing these concerns into legislation is the right thing to do. I therefore have to disappoint my hon. Friend and tell him that, despite having put my name to his new clause, I shall be unable to support him in the Lobby.

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Dr Julian Lewis: It is a pleasure to be able to say that, unlike the traveller who fell among thieves, I feel like one who has fallen among friends. On these issues, I have friends on both sides of the House, including, first and foremost, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who has been a wonderful advocate for the reserve forces for many years. I say to him and to those on the Front Bench that if this matter had simply been put forward in isolation, I would not have contemplated voting for the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). I am thinking of doing that for two reasons but, before I go into detail, I shall mention a couple more of my friends.

It is a pleasure to welcome to the Opposition Front Bench another friend, the new shadow Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). My experience of his activities and positions on security issues has been wholly positive, and he has lived up to that by making his first trip as shadow Secretary of State a visit to the Barrow shipyards. I am sure that we can rely on him to maintain the firm position in support of the successor generation of submarines for the nuclear deterrent that both Front Benches adhere to, and which only one small party has sought to obstruct.

Another friend to whom I would like to refer—he has just slipped out of the Chamber for a moment—is the Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond). Most people would agree that he was a very fine Treasury Minister indeed. I cannot think of anyone who was better at tackling complex financial problems and explaining them in terms so crystal clear that, from time to time, I even thought that I understood them myself. In reality, I could not think of any person, when presented with a limited budget—whether for defence or any other portfolio—who would make a better fist than my right hon. Friend of adjusting the workings of the Department concerned to fit a budget that he had perhaps rather arbitrarily been allocated.

That has a direct bearing on the two reasons for my putting my name down in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay’s new clause and amendments. The first relates to the size of the defence budget; the second is the question of whether the scheme for the reserves is or was linked to the proposed reduction in the size of the Army. Those are the two things that worry me. Even if my hon. Friend’s new clause and amendments are not ideally drafted—I am not saying that they are not—they present me, and other hon. Members whose main purpose of being in Parliament, apart from representing our constituents, is to maximise the defence of this country against threats, with one of the few opportunities that we have to register our concerns when we think that defence has fallen too far down the list of priorities.

I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) saying that the defence budget was a given. I am afraid that I do not accept that. I do not accept that more money could not have been found from within the defence budget and outside it. There could have been more money. We did not need to spend £1.4 billion extending the life of four Vanguard-class submarines just to satisfy the Liberal Democrats, so they could put off the decision to sign the main-gate

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contracts for the successor submarines until the next Parliament. We did not need to spend a whole shedload of money reversing the plan for two aircraft carriers and to adopt a preposterous plan for one functional and one non-functional aircraft carrier, and then spend another shedload of money reverting to the original position. Nor do we need to spend £40 billion or £50 billion on a high-speed train service to the north of England—

[

Interruption.

]

It has a great deal to do with it.

5 pm

Martin Horwood: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Having missed some of the recent debate, I am unclear as to which clause we are precisely discussing—and I really cannot tell from the hon. Gentleman’s speech.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle): Dr Julian Lewis.

Dr Lewis: If the hon. Gentleman had not been absent, he would have heard the great deal of discussion that took place about the priority of defence in the nation’s schedule of priorities. If he had made that bogus, so-called point of order having been here, I would have had some time for him, but given that he did not even have the courtesy to listen to the debate before making it, it was unworthy.

The reality is that a nation gets the defence forces it is prepared to pay for and it can decide what level of services it will fund—whether that involves cuts in the Army, the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force that could be avoided.

The next question is whether this scheme for the reserves was linked to the proposed cut in the size of the Army. As I said, if this scheme had been put forward on its own, I could have wholeheartedly supported it, but it was not. It was specifically put forward as a compensating factor for the Army’s regular strength being reduced by 20,000. We were told that that reduction would be compensated for by the 30,000 increase in reserves. Now we are told that that linkage no longer exists. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire asked what we will do if we find that in fact the reserve scheme is not working. If I understood him correctly—I think I did—he said that, by the time we discovered that we were not going to get the 30,000 reservists, it would be too late to regenerate any of the loss in the 20,000 regulars. [Interruption.] He seems to be indicating that I have understood him correctly. If that is the case, I take great exception to the fact that this linkage was ever made in the first place.

If we are to be told that we have to accept cuts in this country’s defence capability, we should be told that honestly. We should not constantly be confronted with shifting goalposts. If the recruitment of 30,000 reservists may or may not be achieved, and if the 20,000 cut in regulars will happen nevertheless and is irreversible, we should have been told that at the outset. [Interruption.] Somebody says, “We were.” Who said that?

Mr Gray: Allow me to be the person who says that we were indeed told that. I very much regret that that has occurred. None the less, my point is not that I endorse this, but that it has happened: by 10 January, the British Army will be 82,767. That is the case and cannot be reversed.

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Dr Lewis: Yes, but if so, that was always going to be the case, and we should not have been sold the package of a cut in regular numbers of 20,000 on the basis that at least we could look forward to 30,000 reservists being added. That is no way to treat a mature Parliament or to show respect for the judgment of parliamentarians who are doing their best to supply the best level of defence that we can within the budget available.

A very simple principle is at stake here. Let us suppose that someone comes to a sovereign Parliament and says, “We are going to make a significant cut in the size of the Army, but don’t worry about it because we are going to compensate for it by building up the reserves to the tune of 30,000 people.” If there are any significant or reasonable doubts at all about whether the 30,000 target will be achieved, it is reasonable to say, “Hang on a minute, what happens if the 30,000 is not achieved?” If the answer is that the 20,000 cuts will take place in any case, it is absolutely unacceptable to have promised the 30,000 in the first place, especially as it was explicitly stated to the House that the cuts in the regulars would not be fully or irreversibly implemented until we knew that the reserves were going to be forthcoming. I do not want us to have this debate again in a few months’ time or in a few years’ time over the fact that we have neither the number of regulars we need nor the number of extra reserves that were promised. That is why, whatever the intricacies of the wording of new clause 3, I intend to support it.

Rory Stewart: I wish to speak briefly, because I am aware that many others wish to contribute, in strong defence of new clause 1 and against new clause 3. Both relate to the central issue, which has been raised by almost everyone in this debate: recruitment into the Territorial Army. New clause 1 will encourage recruitment, because it will show that we are taking the reserves seriously, whereas new clause 3 will discourage recruitment by introducing an unnecessary delay. The most important thing, which lies behind this entire debate, is defining what the reserves are for—what the function of the military is about. The best way to guarantee that we have a well-supported, well-recruited reserve is if we in this House can agree what the future shape of the Army is supposed to be and what we are supposed to be doing with it.

The central issue, which perhaps has not been touched on enough today and which I would like to touch on briefly, is whether we have or have not learned the lessons of the past 10 years. Do we have the shape of reserves or of the Regular Army required to meet the threats of the future? In essence, events of the past 10 years have completely exploded, or should have done in this Chamber, the entire consensus on nation building and counter-insurgency. For 10 years, the entire shape of our military has been arranged around those two principles, both of which I suggest, modestly, have been discredited. The experience of Iraq and Afghanistan should have taught us by now that we have designed the wrong kind of Army for the wrong kind of campaign. Those two central slogans, “nation building” and “counter-insurgency”, have not worked. We do not have time to talk through why they have not worked—if we had a long debate, we could do so—but we have to design reserve forces that meet that problem and that challenge.

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Why has nation building not worked? In essence, it was because it was an over-ambitious fantasy. The jargon of “the rule of law”, “governance” and “civil society” turned out to be impossible to deliver. We never had the tour lengths, the linguistic knowledge or the deep area expertise to deliver things that require an understanding of culture and history. Counter-insurgency did not work for even deeper reasons, which the military predicted—in the United States and the United Kingdom—before we deployed. We never had the requisite number of troops, nor were we ever likely to. We never had the tour lengths we required. We never had a credible, effective, legitimate Government in Baghdad or Kabul to back us. We never had full control of the borders. In the absence of such structures, those missions turned out to be impossible.

Unless the reserves and the Regular Army take on those lessons, we will have the wrong kind of forces in the future. That does not mean that our military does not have a deep function in intervention, but that deep function needs to look at the model of Bosnia, and not that of Iraq or Afghanistan. We need to remember that in Bosnia our military proved exactly what an intervention can do. It went into a country with 110,000 people under arms. It went into a country when a million refugees had been displaced and when there were internal borders dividing it up in 25 different ways. By the time we had finished that intervention, the internal borders had gone, the militia had been reduced to 5,000 and the crime rate in Bosnia had dropped; it is now lower than that of Sweden. That is the kind of success for which we should be preparing our military.

The final thing—this really goes to the heart of what my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) has raised—is the question of how the knowledge, the imagination and the skills and the local links of the reserves should be adjusted to a new world. There are small ingredients that we should insert, and I plead with the Secretary of State to look very hard at reintroducing the short-service limited commission, or the gap-year commission. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, I and a number of other Members of Parliament are proud to claim that we have been in the military. Our standing there was very brief, but it was an incredibly deep and important experience for us and for many other people. It is a relatively cheap programme, and it is one that can develop the links between the military and the local population.

On imagination and skills, the biggest prize for which we should be aiming is to fill in the gap that the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and the current military are unable to fill in. I am talking about deep area expertise and deep linguistic expertise, which the right kind of reserve forces should be able to produce. We need to recruit, promote and incentivise the right kind of people. We want people with other lives, other jobs and other experiences, who should be able to develop what we have been sadly lacking for 20 years, which is a sensitivity to other cultures and an understanding of other environments, other local business and other political structures. If we can get those things right, we have exactly what we need for new clause 1, which is a template, a model or a bar to which to hold the Government accountable on how the reserve forces should function. We will also have a reason not to proceed with new clause 3, which delays the most important part of rebuilding the reserves.

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Mr Baron: I agree with what my hon. Friend said about nation building. He had his opportunity to adjudicate on the Government’s nation building when we had the Afghanistan vote in 2010. Does he not accept that what we are arguing for here is a very brief pause—it does not have to be a long pause—and the longevity of that pause is in the Government’s gift?

Rory Stewart: I do not wish to quote my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), but my peroration was somewhat interrupted by that intervention.

Above all, it seems important that our relationship with the reserves is characterised by one word, which is “seriousness”. We need a plan, a direction and a confidence of Government, and that will turn around recruitment. People do not join the reserves for exactly how many days they serve, for how much money they receive or for the pension terms they get. They join because they feel that it matters: Government are serious about them, Parliament is serious about them and we know where we are going. The reason I will not vote for new clause 3 is that it passes exactly the wrong model at exactly the time when we should be moving forward with the wonderful work of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury and producing the excitement and the vision that we require. Another muddle and another conversation would be catastrophic.

5.15 pm

Andrew Selous: A lot of sorrow and anger has been expressed on both sides of the House this afternoon about the fact that it has been sadly necessary to make reductions in the Regular Army. We all understand that, but we all also understand that it was a necessary reaction to the £160 billion deficit with which this Government were confronted on taking office and the £38 billion black hole in the defence budget that there was at the same time.

We have heard a lot of praise for the reserves and for the Territorial Army throughout the debate, and that is right and proper.

Mr Kevan Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Andrew Selous: Not at the moment.

As a former Territorial soldier, I extend that praise to the regular forces alongside whom I have had the pride to serve. There are wonderful people in both the regular and reserve forces of whom this Parliament can be justifiably proud. It is absolutely right, however, that the Government have agreed to new clause 1. Like many others, I pay huge tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) for tabling it. Indeed, I went to see the Secretary of State yesterday to lobby for new clause 1 and I am delighted to see that it has been accepted by the Government.

New clause 1 is important because, in spite of the praise we have heard for the reserve forces and specifically for the TA from Members on both sides of the House, all Territorials will say that a certain amount of antipathy exists between regular and reserve forces as they serve our country together. It is absolutely right that the new clause should put into law independent scrutiny and independent control over what is happening to our reserve forces and the reserve forces estate, as well as the progress in recruitment and so on.

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The Government had to take very difficult decisions, and they decided to move towards a Regular Army of 82,000 and an Army Reserve, as we will soon call it, of 30,000, making a total Army strength of 112,000. Incidentally, we would still have the fourth largest defence budget in the world and a considerable list of new equipment to go with those armed forces.

The point that has been made, first and most clearly by the Chair of the Select Committee on Defence, is that the reductions in the regular forces have already been made and are in place and on track to happen. There is no proposal to increase the number of regular soldiers from any quarter of this House. A prescient intervention by the Secretary of State on the shadow Secretary of State led the shadow Secretary of State to say that the Labour party had no plans to increase the number of regular soldiers. The question before the House is therefore how to press on and ensure that the reserve recruiting plan works and is successful. That is at the heart of what we need to do this afternoon, and the question is what will best help and bring about that recruitment effort. I listened to the wise words of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, who said that any legislative impact that would put a halt to the plans to increase the reserve forces would be a hammer blow to the morale of the TA. We need certainty, and for everyone in this House to get behind the plans and ensure that we can successfully increase the strength of the Army Reserve from 19,000 to the 30,000 that we want.

We must remember that as recently as 1990 we had 72,000 Territorial soldiers, so it is entirely possible for us to move up to 30,000. It is an increase of only 20 extra Army Reserve recruits by parliamentary constituency and is an entirely achievable objective. I believe that we can bring that about. We need employers’ help, and I am encouraged by the fact that companies such as Carillion, Barclays and BT are very much getting behind the measures to make sure that we get the reserves that we need.

We will have full parliamentary scrutiny of the process; of that there is no doubt. We do not need new clause 3 to have proper parliamentary scrutiny of it. That is what the House is providing this afternoon, and that is what happens every month at Defence questions. It is also the role of the Select Committee on Defence to make sure that we have proper scrutiny.

Mr Bone: My hon. Friend makes a point about scrutiny, but the only way to get a substantive vote on the issue by this House is to support new clause 3; that is the difference. Members can criticise the Government’s policy, but they cannot change it without a vote.

Andrew Selous: The point that I make to my hon. Friend is that Government Members have come to the conclusion that we want an Army of 112,000 people, made up of 82,000 regulars and 30,000 Reserves. There has been no proposal from any part of the House, including from Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, to change those figures. That is a decision that the House has taken. I have heard no serious challenge to that this afternoon, given the financial situation that the country finds itself in. The issue before the House is: how do we all get behind the plan and make sure that it works, giving it proper scrutiny, but fully backing and supporting it?

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We have had proper scrutiny this afternoon from pretty much every Member who has spoken. Even the most enthusiastic advocate of the reserve forces in the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, was excoriating about the recruitment process run in recent months by the Regular Army to try to increase the Army Reserve. He is a shining example of someone giving proper parliamentary scrutiny to the process that we are considering because he wants it to work. He is doing that in a way that shows that he is committed to making the proposal a success, and that is the difference. That is why I am pleased that new clause 1 is being accepted by the Government, and why I think that it would be damaging, divisive and unnecessary to support new clause 3.

Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con): It is a pleasure to take part in the debate; I have listened very carefully to it all afternoon. I find myself in a very difficult place, particularly being a Conservative MP, for two reasons. First, in my view, the cuts to our armed forces have gone far too far. Secondly, I believe that the ratio of regulars to reserves is wrong. Rather than going for 70:30, we should be looking at 90:10.

Andrew Selous: Is my hon. Friend aware that the United Kingdom’s reserve proportion would, under the proposals, rise to 25%, while in Australia it is 36%, in Canada it is 51%, and in the USA it is 55%? We would have less than half the reserve proportion of some of our major NATO allies.

Richard Drax: I hear my hon. Friend, and I respect him hugely for his opinion, but it is slightly dangerous to look at other countries and think that we can meet their expectations. I remember when an American general came to speak to a few of us upstairs about reserves. He had served under President Clinton and then President Obama. He was an interesting and very decorated man who had fought in Vietnam. We asked him about the reserves that America has. He made a rather salutary comment: “In America, having a high proportion of reserves works, because we have the money to fund them. We have airstrips with Hercules aircraft lined up on them, just waiting for commercial pilots to step out of their 747s into them, and to go off to trouble spots or wars around the world.” We cannot begin to meet that level of expenditure; that is what really worries me. We are pushed to fund the regulars.

We have two aircraft carriers, but I bet my bottom dollar that we will not have enough men and resources to man and protect one, with frigates and destroyers around, submarines underneath, and aircraft above. It is a hugely expensive commitment that I do not think has really been considered.

Mr Brazier: I am so pleased that my hon. Friend enjoyed the presentation by Dave McGinnis, one of my oldest friends, but his point was that because in America reserve manpower is less than a quarter of the cost, America is able to afford, whatever size its budget—it is obviously larger than ours—a much larger range of capabilities, and more boots on the ground, albeit that some of them are at lower readiness, by having such a high proportion of reservists.

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Richard Drax: Again, I have huge respect for my hon. and gallant Friend, but it is dangerous to compare one country with another. I stand my ground on that.

I shall not speak for more than another minute as I know that others want to follow and I have not got much more to add. I have huge respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). I will support him, although I do not like the element of delay. Why does not my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State conduct the assessment now, while the Bill is going through Parliament, as has already been suggested? That is perfectly possible. An assessment could be made without delay, and I would be grateful if that could be dealt with in the winding-up speeches.

Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con): I noticed the Secretary of State commenting under his breath as my hon. Friend was making that point. It might be opportune, especially in the light of the votes that some of us will cast this afternoon, if the Secretary of State could reply to my hon. Friend’s point. If he did so now, we would not have to wait for another Minister to respond to the debate.

Richard Drax: I agree. I look forward to hearing whether that point is dealt with in the winding-up speeches.

Many hon. Members have said that wars have changed and perhaps there is no need for battalions of infantry. My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) said that there was no longer a need for the number of battalions that we used to have. May I give three examples where boots on the ground would be needed, quite apart from any conventional war that we might have to fight? First, God forbid that the Northern Ireland troubles ever rose from the ashes again. We had 32,500 men and women in Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles. With a professional Army of 82,000 men—a large majority of whom are not bayonets, to use the Army lingo; many are back-up forces—we would be pushed to man that one commitment.

Secondly, the Falklands has been mentioned so many times. Baroness Thatcher was looking at cutting our armed forces just before the war broke out—I think my historical facts are right—and, as I understand it, afterwards she said, “Never again am I going to take our armed forces for granted.” Thirdly, for a big evacuation, potentially from a friendly country—let us say Kenya—we would need, without aircraft carriers, boots on the ground to secure an area around which our citizens could be extracted. This takes huge resources, immediate resources, professional resources.

I say to all those who work in the reserves, alongside whom I have worked, that I have enormous respect for them. This is not a question of denigrating the reservists. I have a huge amount of respect for them all and thank them from the bottom of my heart, as does the nation, for what they do. All I am saying is that the ratio of 70:30 should be reviewed and it should be 90:10 instead. Finally, my military sources tell me that senior officers say one thing in public, but that a very different message is given in private.

Mr Ellwood: It is a pleasure to participate in this important debate. I wish we had more such debates in the House of Commons and more regularly. It is a pleasure to follow my neighbour down in Dorset, my

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1315

hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), as it is to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), whom I congratulate on his Defence Committee appointment, and my hon. Friends the Members for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous).

This has been a powerful debate. I congratulate, as others have done, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier)—he says not to do so, but I will anyway—on the work that he has done. I congratulate also General Sir Graeme Lamb, with whom I know my hon. Friend worked closely in his work on the armed forces. New clause 1 is welcome, providing for an annual independent assessment of what the reserves are doing and, I hope, for an annual debate in the House on the reserve forces as we move forward.

New clause 3 is a little mischievous. It calls for further implementation of the plans to be halted, which means that things stop and we drop tools at this point. We do not know the time scale. That has not been clarified by the debate. I was a little concerned when my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) said that we should not be doing this in the first place if it is the wish of the House to go against the Government. That really worries me, because what is the genesis of new clause 3?

I am also concerned about Labour’s position. Labour Members were supportive on Second Reading and in the Committee, on which I served, but today they suddenly changed their tune. On their watch the MOD had to be put in special measures, because they burnt a £38 billion black hole in the budget.

5.30 pm

Mr Kevan Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr Ellwood: I am afraid that I do not have time to give way to the hon. Gentleman. Of course, Labour also cut TA training completely in 2009, so it is difficult to take lessons from Labour Members. It is opportunistic to join this argument now, as others have said.

Mr Baron: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr Ellwood: I will, but very briefly.

Mr Baron: I think that my hon. Friend has inadvertently misrepresented what I said. I was commenting on the previous Secretary of State’s plans and his commitment to the House that there would be no wind-down of regular forces until the reservists were able to take their place, which my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) confirmed only a few minutes ago.

Mr Ellwood: I hope that the Secretary of State will respond to that point, because in an earlier intervention I asked the question to get to the heart of that aspect.

I am concerned about the message that would be sent to our allies, both NATO allies and the United States, if Parliament halted or interfered with the recruitment drive that the Bill is designed to enable. The redundancy notices for the regulars have already gone out, so it is clear that there is no quid pro quo and that we cannot stop this plan and keep the regular forces at the size we

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would allow. The Bill allows a method of influencing, and indeed improving, recruitment, through the relationships with employers and so forth.

On the capability gap, an important question was asked: how will the wider world perceive that? Any pause in the recruitment of reservists would be dangerous, because the TA is at a lower state of readiness. The idea is to replace 20,000 regulars with 30,000 reservists. Are they the same? No, of course they are not, but that raises the question of what world we are now working with.

I was interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border said. He touched on some of the concerns about how the conduct of war is changing. I asked those on the Opposition Front Bench to say exactly what it is, with our withdrawing from Afghanistan and reducing in size, to have a standing commitment, and what the armed forces, however they are comprised, will actually do, because the balance between war fighting, stabilisation and peacekeeping has changed. The idea that we have to win over local support is now more central than it ever has been. Infrastructure, development, local governance and the drive for agriculture have all been mentioned. All that is secondary to the war fighting that takes place, but in Afghanistan and Iraq the war fighting was conducted and completed relatively quickly. We lost in those cases in the peacekeeping and nation-building. That is where it is very interesting to see the TA provide value, because it has the linguistic skills and can come in when skills in banking, cyber-technology, civil service and governance are required.

Mr Brazier: My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The new commander of Sandhurst in the sand, which will be our most long-lasting legacy in Afghanistan, is of course a TA brigadier.

Mr Ellwood: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a long-term aspiration in helping Afghanistan.

My concern is whether this House will ever again entertain putting boots on the ground. I would like us to have a large standing Army, as others have mentioned, and to be that leader in the world, carrying that big stick. I ask that question because of my concern about the vote this place had on Syria. It was a very simple action that we would have been participating in, yet this House voted against the Government. Others say that perhaps that is not a yardstick for potential future interventions, and I quite understand that, but it could be that, because of the ghosts of Afghanistan and Iraq, interventions in future will have a light footprint and will be very different. I simply pose a question as to what our armed forces need to look like: do they need to look like what we have had in the past, or should they adapt to the type of footprint we will need in the future?

Dr Julian Lewis: The vote on Syria was absolutely different from any other vote, because it was not just about humanitarian assistance; it was about helping al-Qaeda take over another country, and many of us who support humanitarian assistance would not support that.

Mr Ellwood: I totally agree with my hon. Friend, who I know has spent a lot of time looking at the issues. The point I am trying to address is whether that situation

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will be repeated in the future. Will this House have an appetite to commit troops with boots on the ground or will it say, “What has it got to do with us? We cannot guarantee that we will vote on it”? We have to be prepared and ask ourselves what it is that our armed forces—

[

Interruption.

]

If hon. Members want to intervene, they may do so.

Mr Gray: Does my hon. Friend not realise that people such as me, who were very cynical before this debate but who have been persuaded by the argument that it would be wrong to put the target in legislation and have, therefore, moved towards the Government’s side, are now being persuaded by his argument in favour of a smaller Army, which is actually against what he is trying to achieve?

Mr Ellwood: My hon. Friend misunderstands me. I am not saying we should have a smaller Army; I am saying we should have faith in building up reservist forces with the capability to meet the challenges of the future. As a regular, I believe that the regular forces could easily adapt and be used in various situations, but I also have faith, as a result of the models we have seen in America and, indeed, Australia, that other skills sets can be used and that we can build the Territorial Army to match our requirements, not just for the security of our country and the protection of our overseas territories, or because of our NATO commitments, but because the conduct of war itself has changed. We need to consider that.

As a consequence of withdrawing from Afghanistan, we do not have one entire brigade training to go there and another recuperating after being there. The size of our armed forces needs to concertina. The new model army and the Glorious Revolution have been mentioned, but what happened to that army after the revolution? It was disbanded completely. This House needs to be able—very quickly—to expand and contract the size of the armed forces and be willing to do so as needs change. I do not believe it is right to have a massive standing Army when we are still uncertain about what we want it to do.

That is why I do not believe that the proposal in new clause 3 would be the right thing to do, because it would put a pause on developing the TA. It would stop us recruiting and building up the capability that we would be able to use in all the scenarios mentioned today. I urge hon. and right hon. Members to think very carefully about the damage new clause 3 would do and the message it would send if they vote in favour of it. It would be dangerous for the armed forces and dangerous for the Reserves.

Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con): I defer to the military knowledge and experience of those who have spoken before me. The House has had the particular advantage of hearing the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and it will now have the advantage of not hearing me repeat them.

My constituency of Harborough has a squadron of the Leicestershire and Derbyshire Yeomanry. It is suffering from poor recruitment and I have one practical solution to offer those on the Ministry of Defence Front Bench

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and the Secretary of State in particular. In order to avoid the attrition rate—the wastage rate—of those who express an initial interest in serving in the reserves, the Territorial Army as was, we should bring them into the units and give them weapons training much more quickly, rather than wait for them to go through medical tests and so forth. Once we have grabbed them, got their interest and introduced them to the practical, military side of the reservists and their camaraderie, we can then decide whether they are fit for the role they wish to play or whether we should deploy them in a less front-end activity. That is a simple, practical proposition and I trust it would enable the Secretary of State and his Ministers to produce the 30,000 reservists and not to lose so many on the way to achieving that number.

Mr Philip Hammond: I think this is the first time that I have had the pleasure of addressing the House while you are in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I offer you my congratulations.

I congratulate all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken this afternoon. This has been a good debate, during which many passionately held views have been expressed and much deep knowledge displayed. I thank those who served on the Public Bill Committee and scrutinised the Bill very effectively.

Most of all, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who led the debate so ably on this group of new clauses and amendments. He speaks with an authority on this subject that is unquestioned throughout the House, and when he speaks on this subject, we listen. By “we”, I mean not only Members of the House, but the Government.

What my hon. Friend has said to me and the House today about the crucial importance of protecting the distinctive ethos of the reserve movement, even as we move to an integrated armed forces, is compelling. He is absolutely right that we must get right the balance between integration and protecting that distinct ethos if we are to achieve our goals.

I am happy to have made a commitment to my hon. Friend to introduce in the other place an amendment that reflects his new clause 1, which I have to say is technically imperfect, to ensure that this House has an annual opportunity to consider an independent report, produced under statute by the RFCA, not only once, as is proposed in new clause 3, but every year—not just as we roll out the programme, but thereafter—so that we can monitor not just the expansion of our reserves, but the maintenance of them in future.

Mr Havard: How will that consideration be undertaken? Will there be a proper, full debate on the report in the House in Government time, as several hon. Members have mentioned, or will there be some other mechanism?

Mr Hammond: That will be for the House to determine, and the hon. Gentleman knows the mechanisms available. However, I expect to be held to account for our delivery of this agenda. I am confident that the Chairman of the Defence Committee will give me no quarter in holding me to account for the delivery of this immensely complex agenda.

Mr Cash: Will the Secretary of State give way?

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Mr Hammond: I will make some progress, because I have very little time, and I want to respond to some of the points made during the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) made an extremely important point that I fear was nearly missed. One could be forgiven for thinking that the recruitment of reserves as part of Army 2020 is simply a question of backfilling or substituting for regulars, but he pointed out that as the nature of warfare changes and we need more specialist skills, we will find increasingly that specialists have to be recruited through the reserves from the civilian sector. With the creation of our cyber-reserve force, we are already seeing the truth of that statement, as people in highly skilled technical jobs in the private sector queue to join the cyber-reserve and offer their skills and expertise to the defence of our nation.

I am the first to acknowledge—I have done so before, and I want to do so again today—that increasing the size of our Army Reserve to 30,000 and sustaining them at that level is a challenging agenda. We are doing it in the face of ending combat operations in Afghanistan, and however strange some people may find this, the prospect of going into a combat zone is a huge recruiting sergeant for the armed forces, regular and reserve alike. We are also doing it against the backdrop, about which I have been completely frank, of challenges with the existing IT system.

We have to get the balance right between our central recruiting system and the vital role played by reserve units in mentoring new recruits. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) was absolutely right that the key to converting applicants into recruits and getting them through the training process is to get hold of them early at unit level and mentor them through that process. That is what we are doing.

5.45 pm

Across this agenda, there are dozens of work strands. The top echelon of the Army is completely engaged in this agenda. The top civil servants in the Department are completely focused on delivering this agenda. Countless pilots are under way to trial different approaches in different parts of the country to determine what is the most effective way not just to recruit Reservists, but to convert them to trained strength as rapidly as possible.

Mr Cash: Does my right hon. Friend accept that what he says will happen in the House of Lords is way off in February? Will he not take the advice of my hon. Friends the Members for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and for South Dorset (Richard Drax) and initiate the pause that is needed to get this matter right and then submit it to a binding decision of the House at this stage, rather than waiting until the Bill has been passed? Why can he not do that?

Mr Hammond: I will not do that because this is a long programme—a five-year programme—that will need continued scrutiny throughout its life. I am asking the House to give the Bill a Third Reading this afternoon so that we send a clear message to the Army, which needs the space to deliver this agenda and is confident that it can do so; to the many thousands of reservists up and down the country who commit their time and effort to

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1320

the defence of this country; and to the many thousands more waiting in the wings, whom we are seeking to attract to join the reserve forces.

Several hon. Members rose—

Mr Hammond: I must make some progress, because I have very little time and I want to leave a couple of minutes for my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury to wind up the debate.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury will not press new clause 2. It is essential that we manage the defence estate as a whole. We are on the brink of completing the appointment of a strategic business partner for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, which will mean that we have the very best private sector estate management capability to deliver the defence estates programme. That will be to the benefit of the regulars and the reserves.

Mr Baron: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr Hammond: I will say something about new clause 3 and will then take an intervention from my hon. Friend.

First, I recognise that my hon. Friend is a passionate supporter of the armed forces. It is ironic that today, that passion has manifested itself in an attempt to block or inhibit the growth and reinvigoration of the reserves. I know that that is not what he wants. Indeed, I know that he would like to see more capability across our armed forces, not less. As I have made clear, we have no problem with submitting information to the House for scrutiny. By accepting new clause 1, we will deliver the intention behind subsection (1) of new clause 3. I believe that making it an annual report for annual scrutiny will provide for better scrutiny than what he is proposing.

I cannot accept the halt that is proposed in new clause 3. That would send out a signal now to the thousands of people who are in the reserve forces or are thinking of joining them. The Government have set out their plan and are legislating to deliver it. The Army has embraced the plan wholeheartedly. For Parliament to introduce additional tripwires at this stage would create uncertainty, undermine the message about the roll-out of improved terms and conditions, and cast doubt on our intention to spend the sizeable sum of £1.8 billion that is available to support this agenda. In short, it would make the whole agenda into a political football.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) said in his contribution, the proper way to scrutinise the implementation of this programme is through the established mechanisms of the House—the annual report, Select Committee hearings and the reporting of data—and not by halting the roll-out of the programme. We do not do that elsewhere and we should not do that for our reserve forces.

What I am attempting to do is to ascribe the most transparent of motives to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), but listening to him I could not help detecting just a hint of an undertone of a hidden agenda. Maybe what he wants is not to help us to fix the challenges we face in the reserves agenda, but to find a reason to abandon the project. In his own words, he told the House:

“we could very easily reverse the cuts to the regulars”.

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1321

Mr Baron: Using language such as “tripwires” and apportioning motives that do not exist does not do my right hon. Friend any good at all. The bottom line is that it is perfectly right for Parliament to say, “Let us pause and examine in detail,” and it is in the Government’s gift to make it a very brief pause indeed. The Secretary of State has still not answered the question. Does he accept that the plan has changed since 2011? We have heard in the House that the previous Secretary of State said that the intention was not to wind down the regulars until we were sure that the reservists could take their place. When and why did that plan change?

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing): Order.

Mr Hammond: I have heard these arguments from my hon. Friend before. I have always been clear that we have no choice but to reduce the size of the Regular Army to operate within our budgets. The difference between an Army of 102,000 and an Army of 82,000 is £1 billion a year. He does not have that funding available, and neither do the Opposition. If we are to operate within our budgets, we have no choice but to draw down the Regular Army as we withdraw from Afghanistan and to build up the reserve strength that will primarily be needed if we again become embroiled in an enduring operation with six-month troop rotations.

Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP): Recruitment is critical to the success of this project. In Northern Ireland, almost all our reserve units are at 100% recruitment capacity. Why not extend and raise the ceiling for recruitment in successful areas?

Mr Hammond: I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that, although we have not publicised it, we have increased the recruiting cap on units in Northern Ireland to 115% of liability, and the Army will continue to consider increases in liability caps in other parts of the country where recruiting performance is strong. I can go further and tell him that a review is currently under way to look at trade skills available in Northern Ireland. Most of the reserves recruiting is trade skills-specific. If we find that pools of additional trade skills are recruitable, we will consider locating additional units in Northern Ireland to tap into them. We have to be agile and go where the potential recruits are and where the skills we need are.

I want to go briefly through some of the other points that have been raised. I want to nail the point my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay has made several times in debate and in the media. He says that a 40% or an 80% mobilisation rate is not achievable. We are looking at a maximum mobilisation of between 3,000 and 4,000 reservists at any given time, out of an Army Reserve of 30,000. By my maths, that is significantly below 40% or 80%. During Operation Telic in Iraq, 85% of reservists responded to call out—an 85% mobilisation rate—and Operation Herrick had a 79% mobilisation rate, so I do not quite understand his point.

Mr Baron: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr Hammond: I am sorry, but I have to press on. I also want to deal with—

Mr Baron rose—

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing): Order. The Secretary of State is not giving way and he has very little time to finish.

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1322

Mr Hammond: I also want to deal with the cost of the Reserves. The ratio is 1:5—the cost of training and maintaining a reservist is one fifth of the cost for a Regular Army soldier.

I will not dwell on the Opposition’s position; I think I have made my views known in interventions. However, I want to make a comment about new clause 4, tabled by the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), which deals with mental health. He has a long and honourable record of raising this issue. While I hope he will not press new clause 4 to a vote, I would be prepared to ask the RFCAs, as part of their obligations under new clause 1, to include reservists’ mental health in the issues that they report on. I hope he will consider that helpful.

Finally, let me turn to new clause 6, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). His intentions are absolutely honourable and good: he wants to impose an obligation on employers to grant unpaid leave for training. We have not absolutely ruled out looking at that possibility in the future, but we have made a conscious decision that we want to do this working with employers, not against them. That has meant a couple of tough decisions on unpaid leave availability and discrimination rules. For now, we have decided to try to work with the grain, with employers, but if that does not work and we find there is a problem in the future, we will have an opportunity to return to this issue in the Armed Forces Act in 2016.

We have had a good debate. I urge the House to reject new clause 3 and embrace the concession we have made on new clause 1, so that we have an annual debate on the progress of the project in the House. I hope we can send from the House tonight a clear, cross-party message that we are behind the men and women of our reserve forces, who give so much for the defence of our nation.

Mr Brazier: May I say what a pleasure it is to speak for the first time under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker? I failed to declare my interest at the beginning of this debate: I am proud to have one son in the Regular Army and one in the Territorial Army.

This has been an excellent debate. I would like to mention two speeches in particular: the forensic analysis of my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) and the piercing vision of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart). They both gave the House a great deal to think about, as did many others, in excellent speeches.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for accepting the substance of new clause 1. I look forward to it being introduced in another place. I will indeed withdraw my new clause—I made it clear that what I wanted was for it to be properly discussed. He has been very patient with me pressing him on reserve matters, of which property is just one. The decision to adopt the substance of new clause 1, reinforced by many speeches from all parts of the House, sends out a message to the reserves that the House of Commons is behind the reserve forces, just as it is behind the regular forces. We are proud of both. Finally, I must ask colleagues not to vote for new clause 3, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). Much as I respect him, it would send out a disastrous message to the reserve forces at this sensitive time. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1323

New Clause 3

Report on Future Reserves 2020

‘(1) Within one month of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State shall make and lay before Parliament a report on the viability and cost effectiveness of the plans set out in Reserves in the Future Force 2020: Valuable and Valued, Cmd 8655, together with his recommendation on its further implementation.

(2) Further implementation of the plans shall be halted 40 days after the laying of the report unless both Houses shall have resolved to approve the recommendation from the Secretary of State contained in the report.’.—(Mr Baron.)

Provides for a Government report detailing the viability and cost-effectiveness of the plans set out in the White Paper on Reserves (Cmd 8655). Both Houses must approve the report and the Secretary of State’s subsequent recommendation in order for the implementation of the reforms to reserve forces to continue.

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

The House divided:

Ayes 252, Noes 306.

Division No. 130]

[

5.59 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Abrahams, Debbie

Ainsworth, rh Mr Bob

Alexander, rh Mr Douglas

Alexander, Heidi

Ali, Rushanara

Anderson, Mr David

Ashworth, Jonathan

Austin, Ian

Bailey, Mr Adrian

Bain, Mr William

Balls, rh Ed

Banks, Gordon

Baron, Mr John

Barron, rh Mr Kevin

Beckett, rh Margaret

Begg, Dame Anne

Benn, rh Hilary

Benton, Mr Joe

Berger, Luciana

Betts, Mr Clive

Binley, Mr Brian

Blackman-Woods, Roberta

Blears, rh Hazel

Blenkinsop, Tom

Blomfield, Paul

Bradshaw, rh Mr Ben

Brennan, Kevin

Brown, rh Mr Gordon

Brown, Lyn

Brown, rh Mr Nicholas

Brown, Mr Russell

Bryant, Chris

Buck, Ms Karen

Burden, Richard

Burnham, rh Andy

Byrne, rh Mr Liam

Campbell, Mr Alan

Campbell, Mr Ronnie

Caton, Martin

Champion, Sarah

Chapman, Jenny

Clappison, Mr James

Clark, Katy

Clarke, rh Mr Tom

Clwyd, rh Ann

Coaker, Vernon

Coffey, Ann

Connarty, Michael

Cooper, Rosie

Cooper, rh Yvette

Corbyn, Jeremy

Crausby, Mr David

Creagh, Mary

Creasy, Stella

Cruddas, Jon

Cryer, John

Cunningham, Alex

Cunningham, Mr Jim

Cunningham, Sir Tony

Curran, Margaret

Dakin, Nic

Danczuk, Simon

Darling, rh Mr Alistair

David, Wayne

Davidson, Mr Ian

Davies, Geraint

Davies, Philip

De Piero, Gloria

Dobson, rh Frank

Docherty, Thomas

Donohoe, Mr Brian H.

Doran, Mr Frank

Doughty, Stephen

Dowd, Jim

Doyle, Gemma

Drax, Richard

Dromey, Jack

Dugher, Michael

Eagle, Ms Angela

Eagle, Maria

Edwards, Jonathan

Efford, Clive

Elliott, Julie

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Engel, Natascha

Esterson, Bill

Evans, Chris

Farrelly, Paul

Field, rh Mr Frank

Fitzpatrick, Jim

Flello, Robert

Flint, rh Caroline

Flynn, Paul

Fovargue, Yvonne

Francis, Dr Hywel

Gapes, Mike

Gilmore, Sheila

Glass, Pat

Glindon, Mrs Mary

Godsiff, Mr Roger

Goggins, rh Paul

Goodman, Helen

Greatrex, Tom

Green, Kate

Greenwood, Lilian

Griffith, Nia

Gwynne, Andrew

Hain, rh Mr Peter

Hamilton, Mr David

Hanson, rh Mr David

Harman, rh Ms Harriet

Harris, Mr Tom

Havard, Mr Dai

Healey, rh John

Hemming, John

Hendrick, Mark

Hepburn, Mr Stephen

Hillier, Meg

Hilling, Julie

Hodge, rh Margaret

Hodgson, Mrs Sharon

Hoey, Kate

Hopkins, Kelvin

Hosie, Stewart

Howarth, rh Mr George

Hunt, Tristram

Irranca-Davies, Huw

Jackson, Glenda

Jamieson, Cathy

Jarvis, Dan

Johnson, rh Alan

Johnson, Diana

Jones, Graham

Jones, Helen

Jones, Mr Kevan

Jones, Susan Elan

Jowell, rh Dame Tessa

Joyce, Eric

Kaufman, rh Sir Gerald

Keeley, Barbara

Kendall, Liz

Khan, rh Sadiq

Lammy, rh Mr David

Lazarowicz, Mark

Leslie, Chris

Lewell-Buck, Mrs Emma

Lewis, Mr Ivan

Lewis, Dr Julian

Llwyd, rh Mr Elfyn

Lopresti, Jack

Love, Mr Andrew

Lucas, Caroline

MacNeil, Mr Angus Brendan

Mactaggart, Fiona

Mahmood, Mr Khalid

Mahmood, Shabana

Main, Mrs Anne

Malhotra, Seema

Marsden, Mr Gordon

McCabe, Steve

McCarthy, Kerry

McClymont, Gregg

McDonagh, Siobhain

McDonnell, John

McFadden, rh Mr Pat

McGovern, Alison

McGovern, Jim

McGuire, rh Mrs Anne

McKechin, Ann

McKenzie, Mr Iain

McKinnell, Catherine

Meacher, rh Mr Michael

Meale, Sir Alan

Mearns, Ian

Miliband, rh Edward

Miller, Andrew

Mitchell, Austin

Moon, Mrs Madeleine

Morden, Jessica

Morrice, Graeme

(Livingston)

Morris, Grahame M.

(Easington)

Mudie, Mr George

Munn, Meg

Murphy, rh Mr Jim

Murphy, rh Paul

Murray, Ian

Nandy, Lisa

Nash, Pamela

Nuttall, Mr David

Onwurah, Chi

Osborne, Sandra

Pearce, Teresa

Perkins, Toby

Phillipson, Bridget

Pound, Stephen

Powell, Lucy

Raynsford, rh Mr Nick

Reed, Mr Jamie

Reed, Mr Steve

Reeves, Rachel

Reynolds, Emma

Reynolds, Jonathan

Riordan, Mrs Linda

Robertson, Angus

Robinson, Mr Geoffrey

Rotheram, Steve

Roy, Lindsay

Ruane, Chris

Ruddock, rh Dame Joan

Sarwar, Anas

Sawford, Andy

Seabeck, Alison

Sharma, Mr Virendra

Sheerman, Mr Barry

Sheridan, Jim

Shuker, Gavin

Skinner, Mr Dennis

Slaughter, Mr Andy

Smith, rh Mr Andrew

Smith, Angela

Smith, Nick

Smith, Owen

Straw, rh Mr Jack

Stringer, Graham

Stuart, Ms Gisela

Sutcliffe, Mr Gerry

Tami, Mark

Thomas, Mr Gareth

Thornberry, Emily

Timms, rh Stephen

Trickett, Jon

Turner, Karl

Twigg, Derek

Twigg, Stephen

Umunna, Mr Chuka

Vaz, rh Keith

Vaz, Valerie

Walley, Joan

Watson, Mr Tom

Watts, Mr Dave

Weir, Mr Mike

Whiteford, Dr Eilidh

Williams, Hywel

Williamson, Chris

Wilson, Phil

Winnick, Mr David

Winterton, rh Ms Rosie

Woodcock, John

Woodward, rh Mr Shaun

Wright, David

Wright, Mr Iain

Tellers for the Ayes:

Mr Peter Bone

and

Mr Philip Hollobone

NOES

Adams, Nigel

Aldous, Peter

Alexander, rh Danny

Andrew, Stuart

Arbuthnot, rh Mr James

Bacon, Mr Richard

Baker, Norman

Baker, Steve

Baldry, Sir Tony

Baldwin, Harriett

Barclay, Stephen

Barker, rh Gregory

Barwell, Gavin

Bebb, Guto

Beith, rh Sir Alan

Bellingham, Mr Henry

Benyon, Richard

Beresford, Sir Paul

Berry, Jake

Bingham, Andrew

Birtwistle, Gordon

Blackman, Bob

Blackwood, Nicola

Blunt, Mr Crispin

Boles, Nick

Bradley, Karen

Brake, rh Tom

Bray, Angie

Brazier, Mr Julian

Brine, Steve

Brokenshire, James

Brooke, Annette

Browne, Mr Jeremy

Bruce, Fiona

Buckland, Mr Robert

Burley, Mr Aidan

Burns, Conor

Burns, rh Mr Simon

Burrowes, Mr David

Burstow, rh Paul

Burt, rh Alistair

Burt, Lorely

Cairns, Alun

Cameron, rh Mr David

Campbell, rh Sir Menzies

Carmichael, rh Mr Alistair

Carmichael, Neil

Carswell, Mr Douglas

Chishti, Rehman

Clark, rh Greg

Clarke, rh Mr Kenneth

Clegg, rh Mr Nick

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Coffey, Dr Thérèse

Colvile, Oliver

Cox, Mr Geoffrey

Crabb, Stephen

Crockart, Mike

Crouch, Tracey

Davies, David T. C.

(Monmouth)

Davies, Glyn

de Bois, Nick

Dinenage, Caroline

Djanogly, Mr Jonathan

Donaldson, rh Mr Jeffrey M.

Dorrell, rh Mr Stephen

Dorries, Nadine

Doyle-Price, Jackie

Duddridge, James

Duncan, rh Mr Alan

Duncan Smith, rh Mr Iain

Dunne, Mr Philip

Ellis, Michael

Ellison, Jane

Ellwood, Mr Tobias

Eustice, George

Evans, Jonathan

Evans, Mr Nigel

Evennett, Mr David

Fabricant, Michael

Fallon, rh Michael

Farron, Tim

Field, Mark

Foster, rh Mr Don

Fox, rh Dr Liam

Francois, rh Mr Mark

Freeman, George

Freer, Mike

Fullbrook, Lorraine

Fuller, Richard

Gale, Sir Roger

Garnier, Sir Edward

Garnier, Mark

Gauke, Mr David

George, Andrew

Gibb, Mr Nick

Gilbert, Stephen

Gillan, rh Mrs Cheryl

Glen, John

Goldsmith, Zac

Gove, rh Michael

Graham, Richard

Grant, Mrs Helen

Gray, Mr James

Grayling, rh Chris

Green, rh Damian

Greening, rh Justine

Grieve, rh Mr Dominic

Griffiths, Andrew

Gummer, Ben

Halfon, Robert

Hames, Duncan

Hammond, rh Mr Philip

Hammond, Stephen

Hancock, Matthew

Hancock, Mr Mike

Hands, Greg

Harper, Mr Mark

Harrington, Richard

Harris, Rebecca

Hart, Simon

Harvey, Sir Nick

Haselhurst, rh Sir Alan

Heald, Oliver

Heath, Mr David

Heaton-Harris, Chris

Henderson, Gordon

Herbert, rh Nick

Hinds, Damian

Hoban, Mr Mark

Hollingbery, George

Hopkins, Kris

Horwood, Martin

Howarth, Sir Gerald

Howell, John

Hughes, rh Simon

Hunt, rh Mr Jeremy

Huppert, Dr Julian

Hurd, Mr Nick

Jackson, Mr Stewart

James, Margot

Johnson, Gareth

Johnson, Joseph

Jones, Andrew

Jones, rh Mr David

Jones, Mr Marcus

Kawczynski, Daniel

Kelly, Chris

Kirby, Simon

Knight, rh Sir Greg

Kwarteng, Kwasi

Lamb, Norman

Lancaster, Mark

Lansley, rh Mr Andrew

Laws, rh Mr David

Leadsom, Andrea

Lee, Jessica

Lee, Dr Phillip

Leech, Mr John

Lefroy, Jeremy

Leigh, Sir Edward

Leslie, Charlotte

Letwin, rh Mr Oliver

Lewis, Brandon

Lidington, rh Mr David

Lilley, rh Mr Peter

Lord, Jonathan

Luff, Peter

Lumley, Karen

Macleod, Mary

Maude, rh Mr Francis

May, rh Mrs Theresa

Maynard, Paul

McCartney, Jason

McCartney, Karl

McIntosh, Miss Anne

McLoughlin, rh Mr Patrick

McPartland, Stephen

McVey, Esther

Menzies, Mark

Metcalfe, Stephen

Mills, Nigel

Milton, Anne

Mitchell, rh Mr Andrew

Moore, rh Michael

Mordaunt, Penny

Morgan, Nicky

Morris, Anne Marie

Morris, David

Morris, James

Mosley, Stephen

Mowat, David

Mundell, rh David

Munt, Tessa

Murray, Sheryll

Murrison, Dr Andrew

Neill, Robert

Newmark, Mr Brooks

Newton, Sarah

Nokes, Caroline

Norman, Jesse

O'Brien, rh Mr Stephen

Offord, Dr Matthew

Ollerenshaw, Eric

Opperman, Guy

Osborne, rh Mr George

Ottaway, rh Richard

Paice, rh Sir James

Paisley, Ian

Parish, Neil

Patel, Priti

Paterson, rh Mr Owen

Pawsey, Mark

Penning, Mike

Penrose, John

Perry, Claire

Phillips, Stephen

Pickles, rh Mr Eric

Poulter, Dr Daniel

Prisk, Mr Mark

Pritchard, Mark

Pugh, John

Raab, Mr Dominic

Randall, rh Sir John

Redwood, rh Mr John

Rees-Mogg, Jacob

Reevell, Simon

Reid, Mr Alan

Rifkind, rh Sir Malcolm

Robathan, rh Mr Andrew

Robertson, rh Hugh

Robertson, Mr Laurence

Rogerson, Dan

Rudd, Amber

Russell, Sir Bob

Rutley, David

Sanders, Mr Adrian

Sandys, Laura

Scott, Mr Lee

Selous, Andrew

Shannon, Jim

Shapps, rh Grant

Sharma, Alok

Shelbrooke, Alec

Simmonds, Mark

Simpson, Mr Keith

Skidmore, Chris

Smith, Chloe

Smith, Henry

Smith, Julian

Soames, rh Nicholas

Soubry, Anna

Spelman, rh Mrs Caroline

Spencer, Mr Mark

Stanley, rh Sir John

Stephenson, Andrew

Stevenson, John

Stewart, Bob

Stewart, Iain

Stewart, Rory

Streeter, Mr Gary

Stride, Mel

Stuart, Mr Graham

Stunell, rh Sir Andrew

Sturdy, Julian

Swales, Ian

Swayne, rh Mr Desmond

Swinson, Jo

Swire, rh Mr Hugo

Syms, Mr Robert

Tapsell, rh Sir Peter

Thornton, Mike

Thurso, John

Timpson, Mr Edward

Tomlinson, Justin

Tredinnick, David

Truss, Elizabeth

Turner, Mr Andrew

Tyrie, Mr Andrew

Uppal, Paul

Vara, Mr Shailesh

Vickers, Martin

Walker, Mr Charles

Walker, Mr Robin

Wallace, Mr Ben

Walter, Mr Robert

Ward, Mr David

Watkinson, Dame Angela

Weatherley, Mike

Webb, Steve

Wharton, James

Wheeler, Heather

Whittaker, Craig

Whittingdale, Mr John

Williams, Mr Mark

Williams, Roger

Williams, Stephen

Williamson, Gavin

Willott, Jenny

Wilson, Mr Rob

Wollaston, Dr Sarah

Wright, Jeremy

Wright, Simon

Yeo, Mr Tim

Young, rh Sir George

Zahawi, Nadhim

Tellers for the Noes:

Mr Sam Gyimah

and

Mark Hunter

Question accordingly negatived.

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1324

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1325

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1326

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1327

6.14 pm

Proceedings interrupted (Programme Order, 16 July).

The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83E).

New Clause 6

Leave entitlement for reserve forces

‘(1) The Employment Rights Act 1996 is amended as follows.

(2) After section 63C insert—

“63CA Right to time off for reserve forces

(1) An employee who is a member of a reserve force (as defined in section 374 of the Armed Forces Act 2006) is entitled to be permitted by his employer to take time off during the employee’s working hours in order to undertake training activities connected to the reserve force.

(2) An employee’s entitlement to time off under subsection (1) is limited to 14 days maximum.

(3) An employee is not entitled to paid remuneration by his employer for time off under subsection (1).

(4) This section does not apply to employees of companies with fewer than 50 employees.

63CB Complaints to employment tribunals

‘(1) An employee may present a complaint to an employment tribunal that his employer has unreasonably refused to permit him to take time off as required by section 63CA.

(2) An employment tribunal shall not consider a complaint under this section unless it is presented—

(a) before the end of the period of three months beginning with the day on which the time off was taken or on which it is alleged the time off should have been permitted, or

(b) within such further period as the tribunal considers reasonable in a case where it is satisfied that it was not reasonably practicable for the complaint to be presented before the end of that period of three months.

(3) Where an employment tribunal finds a complaint under this section well-founded, the tribunal shall make a declaration to that effect.”.’.—(Thomas Docherty.)

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1328

A reservist would be entitled to two weeks statutory additional unpaid leave from their employment (where the company has more than 50 employees) for the purpose of reserve forces training, for which they shall receive their military pay.

Brought up.

Question put, That the clause be added to the Bill.

The House divided:

Ayes 235, Noes 315.

Division No. 131]

[

6.15 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Abrahams, Debbie

Ainsworth, rh Mr Bob

Alexander, Heidi

Ali, Rushanara

Anderson, Mr David

Ashworth, Jonathan

Austin, Ian

Bailey, Mr Adrian

Bain, Mr William

Balls, rh Ed

Banks, Gordon

Barron, rh Mr Kevin

Beckett, rh Margaret

Begg, Dame Anne

Benn, rh Hilary

Benton, Mr Joe

Berger, Luciana

Betts, Mr Clive

Blackman-Woods, Roberta

Blomfield, Paul

Bradshaw, rh Mr Ben

Brennan, Kevin

Brown, rh Mr Gordon

Brown, Lyn

Brown, rh Mr Nicholas

Brown, Mr Russell

Bryant, Chris

Buck, Ms Karen

Burden, Richard

Burnham, rh Andy

Byrne, rh Mr Liam

Campbell, Mr Alan

Campbell, Mr Ronnie

Caton, Martin

Champion, Sarah

Chapman, Jenny

Clark, Katy

Clarke, rh Mr Tom

Clwyd, rh Ann

Coaker, Vernon

Coffey, Ann

Connarty, Michael

Cooper, Rosie

Cooper, rh Yvette

Corbyn, Jeremy

Crausby, Mr David

Creagh, Mary

Creasy, Stella

Cruddas, Jon

Cryer, John

Cunningham, Alex

Cunningham, Mr Jim

Cunningham, Sir Tony

Curran, Margaret

Danczuk, Simon

Darling, rh Mr Alistair

David, Wayne

Davidson, Mr Ian

Davies, Geraint

De Piero, Gloria

Dobson, rh Frank

Docherty, Thomas

Donohoe, Mr Brian H.

Doran, Mr Frank

Doughty, Stephen

Dowd, Jim

Doyle, Gemma

Dromey, Jack

Dugher, Michael

Eagle, Ms Angela

Eagle, Maria

Edwards, Jonathan

Efford, Clive

Elliott, Julie

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Engel, Natascha

Esterson, Bill

Evans, Chris

Field, rh Mr Frank

Fitzpatrick, Jim

Flello, Robert

Flint, rh Caroline

Flynn, Paul

Fovargue, Yvonne

Francis, Dr Hywel

Gapes, Mike

Gilmore, Sheila

Glass, Pat

Glindon, Mrs Mary

Godsiff, Mr Roger

Goggins, rh Paul

Goodman, Helen

Greatrex, Tom

Green, Kate

Greenwood, Lilian

Griffith, Nia

Gwynne, Andrew

Hain, rh Mr Peter

Hamilton, Mr David

Hanson, rh Mr David

Harman, rh Ms Harriet

Harris, Mr Tom

Havard, Mr Dai

Healey, rh John

Hendrick, Mark

Hepburn, Mr Stephen

Hillier, Meg

Hilling, Julie

Hodge, rh Margaret

Hodgson, Mrs Sharon

Hoey, Kate

Hopkins, Kelvin

Hosie, Stewart

Howarth, rh Mr George

Hunt, Tristram

Irranca-Davies, Huw

Jackson, Glenda

Jamieson, Cathy

Jarvis, Dan

Johnson, rh Alan

Johnson, Diana

Jones, Graham

Jones, Helen

Jones, Mr Kevan

Jones, Susan Elan

Jowell, rh Dame Tessa

Kaufman, rh Sir Gerald

Keeley, Barbara

Kendall, Liz

Khan, rh Sadiq

Lammy, rh Mr David

Lazarowicz, Mark

Leslie, Chris

Lewell-Buck, Mrs Emma

Lewis, Mr Ivan

Llwyd, rh Mr Elfyn

Love, Mr Andrew

Lucas, Caroline

MacNeil, Mr Angus Brendan

Mactaggart, Fiona

Mahmood, Mr Khalid

Mahmood, Shabana

Malhotra, Seema

Marsden, Mr Gordon

McCabe, Steve

McCarthy, Kerry

McClymont, Gregg

McDonagh, Siobhain

McDonnell, John

McFadden, rh Mr Pat

McGovern, Alison

McGovern, Jim

McGuire, rh Mrs Anne

McKechin, Ann

McKenzie, Mr Iain

McKinnell, Catherine

Meacher, rh Mr Michael

Meale, Sir Alan

Mearns, Ian

Miliband, rh Edward

Miller, Andrew

Mitchell, Austin

Moon, Mrs Madeleine

Morden, Jessica

Morrice, Graeme

(Livingston)

Morris, Grahame M.

(Easington)

Mudie, Mr George

Munn, Meg

Murphy, rh Mr Jim

Murphy, rh Paul

Murray, Ian

Nandy, Lisa

Nash, Pamela

Onwurah, Chi

Osborne, Sandra

Pearce, Teresa

Perkins, Toby

Phillipson, Bridget

Pound, Stephen

Powell, Lucy

Raynsford, rh Mr Nick

Reed, Mr Jamie

Reed, Mr Steve

Reeves, Rachel

Reynolds, Emma

Reynolds, Jonathan

Riordan, Mrs Linda

Robertson, Angus

Robinson, Mr Geoffrey

Rotheram, Steve

Roy, Lindsay

Ruane, Chris

Ruddock, rh Dame Joan

Sarwar, Anas

Sawford, Andy

Seabeck, Alison

Sharma, Mr Virendra

Sheerman, Mr Barry

Sheridan, Jim

Shuker, Gavin

Skinner, Mr Dennis

Smith, rh Mr Andrew

Smith, Angela

Smith, Nick

Smith, Owen

Straw, rh Mr Jack

Stringer, Graham

Stuart, Ms Gisela

Sutcliffe, Mr Gerry

Tami, Mark

Thomas, Mr Gareth

Thornberry, Emily

Timms, rh Stephen

Trickett, Jon

Turner, Karl

Twigg, Derek

Twigg, Stephen

Umunna, Mr Chuka

Vaz, rh Keith

Vaz, Valerie

Walley, Joan

Watson, Mr Tom

Watts, Mr Dave

Weir, Mr Mike

Whiteford, Dr Eilidh

Williams, Hywel

Williamson, Chris

Wilson, Phil

Winnick, Mr David

Winterton, rh Ms Rosie

Woodcock, John

Woodward, rh Mr Shaun

Wright, David

Wright, Mr Iain

Tellers for the Ayes:

Nic Dakin

and

Tom Blenkinsop

NOES

Adams, Nigel

Afriyie, Adam

Aldous, Peter

Alexander, rh Danny

Andrew, Stuart

Arbuthnot, rh Mr James

Bacon, Mr Richard

Baker, Steve

Baldry, Sir Tony

Baldwin, Harriett

Barclay, Stephen

Barker, rh Gregory

Barwell, Gavin

Bebb, Guto

Beith, rh Sir Alan

Bellingham, Mr Henry

Benyon, Richard

Beresford, Sir Paul

Berry, Jake

Bingham, Andrew

Birtwistle, Gordon

Blackman, Bob

Blackwood, Nicola

Blunt, Mr Crispin

Boles, Nick

Bone, Mr Peter

Bradley, Karen

Brake, rh Tom

Bray, Angie

Brazier, Mr Julian

Brine, Steve

Brokenshire, James

Brooke, Annette

Browne, Mr Jeremy

Bruce, Fiona

Buckland, Mr Robert

Burley, Mr Aidan

Burns, Conor

Burns, rh Mr Simon

Burrowes, Mr David

Burstow, rh Paul

Burt, rh Alistair

Burt, Lorely

Cairns, Alun

Campbell, rh Sir Menzies

Carmichael, rh Mr Alistair

Carmichael, Neil

Carswell, Mr Douglas

Cash, Mr William

Chishti, Rehman

Clappison, Mr James

Clark, rh Greg

Clarke, rh Mr Kenneth

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Coffey, Dr Thérèse

Colvile, Oliver

Cox, Mr Geoffrey

Crabb, Stephen

Crockart, Mike

Crouch, Tracey

Davies, David T. C.

(Monmouth)

Davies, Glyn

Davies, Philip

de Bois, Nick

Dinenage, Caroline

Djanogly, Mr Jonathan

Donaldson, rh Mr Jeffrey M.

Dorrell, rh Mr Stephen

Dorries, Nadine

Doyle-Price, Jackie

Duddridge, James

Duncan, rh Mr Alan

Duncan Smith, rh Mr Iain

Dunne, Mr Philip

Ellis, Michael

Ellison, Jane

Ellwood, Mr Tobias

Eustice, George

Evans, Jonathan

Evans, Mr Nigel

Evennett, Mr David

Fabricant, Michael

Fallon, rh Michael

Farron, Tim

Field, Mark

Foster, rh Mr Don

Fox, rh Dr Liam

Francois, rh Mr Mark

Freeman, George

Freer, Mike

Fullbrook, Lorraine

Fuller, Richard

Gale, Sir Roger

Garnier, Sir Edward

Garnier, Mark

Gauke, Mr David

George, Andrew

Gibb, Mr Nick

Gilbert, Stephen

Gillan, rh Mrs Cheryl

Glen, John

Goldsmith, Zac

Gove, rh Michael

Graham, Richard

Grant, Mrs Helen

Gray, Mr James

Grayling, rh Chris

Green, rh Damian

Greening, rh Justine

Grieve, rh Mr Dominic

Griffiths, Andrew

Gummer, Ben

Gyimah, Mr Sam

Halfon, Robert

Hames, Duncan

Hammond, rh Mr Philip

Hammond, Stephen

Hancock, Matthew

Hancock, Mr Mike

Hands, Greg

Harper, Mr Mark

Harrington, Richard

Harris, Rebecca

Hart, Simon

Harvey, Sir Nick

Haselhurst, rh Sir Alan

Heald, Oliver

Heath, Mr David

Heaton-Harris, Chris

Hemming, John

Henderson, Gordon

Herbert, rh Nick

Hinds, Damian

Hoban, Mr Mark

Hollingbery, George

Hollobone, Mr Philip

Hopkins, Kris

Horwood, Martin

Howarth, Sir Gerald

Howell, John

Hughes, rh Simon

Hunt, rh Mr Jeremy

Huppert, Dr Julian

Hurd, Mr Nick

Jackson, Mr Stewart

James, Margot

Johnson, Gareth

Johnson, Joseph

Jones, Andrew

Jones, rh Mr David

Jones, Mr Marcus

Kawczynski, Daniel

Kelly, Chris

Kirby, Simon

Knight, rh Sir Greg

Kwarteng, Kwasi

Lamb, Norman

Lancaster, Mark

Lansley, rh Mr Andrew

Laws, rh Mr David

Leadsom, Andrea

Lee, Jessica

Lee, Dr Phillip

Leech, Mr John

Lefroy, Jeremy

Leigh, Sir Edward

Leslie, Charlotte

Letwin, rh Mr Oliver

Lewis, Brandon

Lidington, rh Mr David

Lilley, rh Mr Peter

Lord, Jonathan

Luff, Peter

Lumley, Karen

Macleod, Mary

Main, Mrs Anne

Maude, rh Mr Francis

May, rh Mrs Theresa

Maynard, Paul

McCartney, Jason

McCartney, Karl

McIntosh, Miss Anne

McLoughlin, rh Mr Patrick

McPartland, Stephen

McVey, Esther

Menzies, Mark

Metcalfe, Stephen

Mills, Nigel

Milton, Anne

Mitchell, rh Mr Andrew

Moore, rh Michael

Mordaunt, Penny

Morgan, Nicky

Morris, Anne Marie

Morris, David

Morris, James

Mosley, Stephen

Mowat, David

Mundell, rh David

Munt, Tessa

Murray, Sheryll

Murrison, Dr Andrew

Neill, Robert

Newmark, Mr Brooks

Newton, Sarah

Nokes, Caroline

Norman, Jesse

Nuttall, Mr David

O'Brien, rh Mr Stephen

Offord, Dr Matthew

Ollerenshaw, Eric

Opperman, Guy

Osborne, rh Mr George

Ottaway, rh Richard

Paice, rh Sir James

Paisley, Ian

Parish, Neil

Patel, Priti

Paterson, rh Mr Owen

Pawsey, Mark

Penning, Mike

Penrose, John

Percy, Andrew

Phillips, Stephen

Pickles, rh Mr Eric

Poulter, Dr Daniel

Prisk, Mr Mark

Pritchard, Mark

Pugh, John

Raab, Mr Dominic

Randall, rh Sir John

Redwood, rh Mr John

Rees-Mogg, Jacob

Reevell, Simon

Reid, Mr Alan

Rifkind, rh Sir Malcolm

Robathan, rh Mr Andrew

Robertson, rh Hugh

Robertson, Mr Laurence

Rogerson, Dan

Rudd, Amber

Ruffley, Mr David

Russell, Sir Bob

Rutley, David

Sanders, Mr Adrian

Sandys, Laura

Scott, Mr Lee

Selous, Andrew

Shannon, Jim

Shapps, rh Grant

Sharma, Alok

Shelbrooke, Alec

Simmonds, Mark

Simpson, Mr Keith

Skidmore, Chris

Smith, Chloe

Smith, Henry

Smith, Julian

Soames, rh Nicholas

Soubry, Anna

Spelman, rh Mrs Caroline

Spencer, Mr Mark

Stanley, rh Sir John

Stephenson, Andrew

Stevenson, John

Stewart, Bob

Stewart, Iain

Stewart, Rory

Streeter, Mr Gary

Stride, Mel

Stuart, Mr Graham

Stunell, rh Sir Andrew

Sturdy, Julian

Swales, Ian

Swayne, rh Mr Desmond

Swinson, Jo

Swire, rh Mr Hugo

Syms, Mr Robert

Tapsell, rh Sir Peter

Thornton, Mike

Thurso, John

Timpson, Mr Edward

Tomlinson, Justin

Tredinnick, David

Truss, Elizabeth

Turner, Mr Andrew

Tyrie, Mr Andrew

Uppal, Paul

Vara, Mr Shailesh

Vickers, Martin

Walker, Mr Charles

Walker, Mr Robin

Wallace, Mr Ben

Walter, Mr Robert

Ward, Mr David

Watkinson, Dame Angela

Weatherley, Mike

Webb, Steve

Wharton, James

Wheeler, Heather

Whittaker, Craig

Whittingdale, Mr John

Wiggin, Bill

Williams, Mr Mark

Williams, Roger

Williams, Stephen

Williamson, Gavin

Willott, Jenny

Wilson, Mr Rob

Wollaston, Dr Sarah

Wright, Jeremy

Wright, Simon

Yeo, Mr Tim

Young, rh Sir George

Zahawi, Nadhim

Tellers for the Noes:

Claire Perry

and

Mark Hunter

Question accordingly negatived.

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1329

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1330

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1331

20 Nov 2013 : Column 1332

Schedule 1

Exemptions relating to premises used by a contractor

Amendment made: 1, page 34, line 6, leave out

‘apart from sections 33 to 42’.—

(

Mr Dunne.)

Third Reading

6.29 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

This is the first time I have had the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is a great pleasure to welcome you to the Chair. I want to begin by thanking the members of the Public Bill Committee, who did an outstanding job in ensuring that the Bill was subject to detailed scrutiny. As a Committee, we benefited particularly from the expertise of those who are or have been members of the armed forces, both regulars and reserves, a number of whom have contributed to our debate today.

The Bill deals with important matters, some, I accept, of a rather technical nature. In particular, I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who has had much praise heaped on him, quite properly, from all quarters of the House. He brought his deep understanding of current, and several historic, reserve issues to our deliberations in Committee and today. In fact, it was remarkable to be taken back by him well over a hundred years, thanks to his knowledge of reserve numbers before the first world war.

I should also like to thank the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) for fulfilling her promise on Second Reading to give the Bill a fair wind. I understand that she is not with us this evening. I completely understand why, and I ask her colleagues to pass on my kind words and hope that she shortly becomes a grandmother again. Her contributions in Committee were insightful and constructive, with the enthusiastic assistance of her shadow Front-Bench colleague, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who frequently brought his experience as a Defence Minister to bear on our proceedings. They both ensured that the Bill left Committee having been thoroughly examined, after more than 40 hours of debate.

Defence of the UK and the protection of our national interests can be achieved only if we provide our armed forces with the capabilities they need to operate effectively. We have a duty to them to ensure they have the tools they need in terms of manpower, training, equipment and logistical support. The Bill will allow significant improvements to the way in which defence operates in the two crucial areas of procurement of equipment and support, and of rebuilding our reserve forces.