Recognising the Opportunity

Recognising the Opportunity Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Reserve Forces Group Part 1: The Territorial Army Recognising the Opportunity Contents Preface by Professor Richard Holmes CBE TD JP 3 Introduction 4 1. Citizens at the sharp end: Recent operational deployments 5 2. Facing three ways: The roles and shape of today’s Territorial Army 8 3. A wider vision 11 4. Preparing for responses to terror 14 5. Imagination and planning: Future manning and training 16 6. Direction and Command Structure 20 Conclusions 23 Recommendations 24 Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Reserve Forces Group Part 1: The Territorial1 Army Recognising the Opportunity Julian Brazier MP, co-chairman Rt. Hon. Bruce George MP, co-chairman Derek Conway MP Frank Cook MP Mark Lancaster MP Ian Liddell-Grainger MP Lord de Mauley Sarah McCarthy-Fry MP Laura Moffatt MP Dr. Andrew Murrison MP Rt. Hon. Andrew Smith MP Dari Taylor MP Like all all-party Parliamentary groups, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Reserve Forces is open to all Parliamentarians from both Houses, not appointed by resolution of either House like a select committee. It was formed in June 2006. This report was prepared by the sub-group listed above. The views expressed are theirs alone. The committee would like to thank their honorary clerks, Julian Radcliffe who served up to March 15th, Richard Dixon and David Bishop, who joined us in March, for their expertise and industry and Julian Radcliffe for sponsoring this report. 2 Preface Professor Richard Holmes CBE TD JP I was delighted to be asked to write this preface, having important at a time when much of the population is served for thirty-six years in the Territorial Army. unlikely to meet a member of the Regular Army, depends Although membership of the TA inevitably complicated on it being able to demonstrate that having a worthwhile my life, it also enriched it beyond measure. I suppose civilian job is no barrier to membership. The corollary that, musing on a long career, I am prouder of my to this is that sub-unit and unit command in the TA military accomplishments than of the occasional best- needs to be challenging and exciting if officers are to seller or a respectably-sized television audience. I remain prepared to do those trade-offs with their civilian relinquished my appointment as Director of Reserve identities which will enable them to serve with the Forces and Cadets five years ago, and always felt that it passion and commitment that means so much, say, in a would be wrong to involve myself in reserve force TA centre on a rainy autumn evening. Once unit size matters while my immediate successors (and my bosses, falls below a critical mass, one’s pride and satisfaction for that matter) were in office. However, now believing alike are diminished, and as training loses breadth so that there is sufficient clear water between past and individuals’ understanding of ‘the big picture’ is reduced. present, I take pleasure in writing these words. Attracting and retaining high-quality officers has become harder as the pressures on civilian employment increase. I have always believed that the Territorial Army was a I am glad to see that the report discusses innovative reserve for use and not simply for show, and am ways to attract gap-year students, and recognises the immensely proud of the contribution it has made to fundamental importance of the reserve forces’ operations in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. One relationship with employers. of the real delights on my visits to operational theatres, as Colonel of the Princess of Wales’ Royal Regiment, I have always had reservations about the apparent truism was finding so many Territorials doing so many different that an army is a mirror of the society it serves. Of jobs, and doing them very well. However, there is a course it is not, for any worthwhile military force has an close relationship between the TA’s establishment obligation to be driven by values and not by interests, strength, its recruited strength (which is almost always and to recognise that there are times when the individual lower) and the numbers of officers and soldiers that must necessarily count for less than the group. The TA can be deployed on operations. There is a real danger is more than simply an army reserve. It is a vital link that what is historically a very small TA will simply be connecting the army to society, a superb leveller and worn out by over- use, however necessary that use may mixer and a way of making men and women - so often be. For many people one year in five is indeed a practical left directionless by social pressures - both feel valued maximum for call-out save in the most clearly-defined and become valuable. I welcome this report, and warmly ‘war of necessity.’ Nobody should join the reserves endorse its recommendations. without the expectation of being mobilised: conversely, they are entitled to expect that the tempo of repeated mobilisation should not be excessively rapid. Next, there is a powerful argument that the TA should be a ‘broad church,’ comprising a good cross-section of the community, not simply those who can relinquish their ‘day jobs’ quickly and easily. Part of the TA’s relationship with broader society, so fundamentally 3 Recognising the Opportunity Introduction oday Britain’s small professional Armed Forces are together by ethos, administration and often location – Theavily stretched by their arduous and sometimes have become the only links to the armed forces. bloody commitments. In the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, the reserve forces have responded Since the end of the Cold War, the political priority magnificently. At the peak of deployments in 2004, for and share of the nation’s GDP afforded the Armed example, reservists provided one fifth of our force in Forces has progressively fallen under successive Iraq and one eighth of the force in Afghanistan1. Yet governments, despite a steady increase in their activity, the Territorial Army is itself by far the smallest citizen often in increasingly hostile environments. force Britain has had since records began, with a strength today of a little over 30,000 including recruits. The Group has a high regard for the Regular Forces The Royal Naval Reserve, Royal Marine Reserve and and the attention and support they deserve from any Royal Auxiliary Air Force are much smaller, numbering government. Nevertheless the subject of this report is less than 4,000 between them. the Reserve Forces, and the report seeks both to look at their stewardship by the Regular Army (who largely con- The All-Party Reserve Forces Group was established trol them) and to break new ground by asking some radi- in June 2006, bringing together some sixty cal questions. Why, for example, are the Reserve Forces parliamentarians from five political parties, with two so much smaller as proportion of the total in Britain declared aims. These are: to promote interest in our than in other countries, with a similar ethos and indeed reserve forces at a time of unprecedented peacetime commitments, such as the USA, Canada and Australia? overstretch; and to introduce some new thinking about (see Figure 3, page13). them - looking back to the lessons of history, outward at best practice abroad and forward to the opportunities We are grateful for the excellent level of co-operation offered by new technology and practices. throughout our investigation from ministers, the armed forces, and from reservists themselves, which we have The collapse of the Iron Curtain happened just as the enjoyed in our visits, meetings and written queries. The generation who had fought in World War II began to report will be in two volumes. This one deals with the retire from both the military and civilian world. During Territorial Army, dealing mainly with what we have. The the rundown and reorganisation of the armed forces second will look at the naval and air reserves, with much which took place after the Cold War, the Defence Select of the emphasis on what we do not have. At a time, Committee warned of the danger of the Armed Forces for example, when fast jet fighter pilots cost £4 million slipping into ‘cultural isolation’ and highlighted the each to train, why is America able to man a third of its importance of reserves in keeping military thinking in combat fighter squadrons3 with volunteer reservists, the civilian world most of them trained ex-regulars, while the RAF has almost none? Intelligence matters, with which a growing “With the end of conscription to the Armed Forces proportion of reservists are involved, will also be dealt over 30 years ago, and with the gradual contraction with in the second volume. This report has been written of the size both of the Armed Forces and of civilian by 10 members of the committee, whose names appear defence staff, fewer and fewer people have any direct below. The views expressed in it are their’s alone. The knowledge or understanding of military matters. committee would like to thank our clerks, Julian There is a risk that defence will increasingly come to Radcliffe (who served until March 15th), Richard Dixon be seen as a specialised world of its own, separate and David Bishop for their assistance, without which from, and even hostile to, the broader flow of national the report could not have been prepared. life. Volunteer Reserve forces offer a means of channelling the enthusiasm and concern of thousands The reserve forces offer an extremely cost-effective of men and women into service which is not only route to providing capacity and capability in a dangerous good for the Services, but also a priceless means of world.

Load more