Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords]

Bim Afolami Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald). At first glance, the Bill seems slightly paradoxical; we are debating flexibility in the context of Army discipline, which is traditionally extremely rigid. Judging by all the knowledge that has informed contributions in the Chamber this evening, I think that a lot of right hon. and hon. Members have an understanding of the nuance of our fine tradition of military discipline and operational effectiveness. This is not all about discipline, but about the light flexibility that has traditionally gone with it.

I will illustrate that point by quoting a very short piece of writing by a distinguished soldier who served in Aldershot. Right hon. and hon. Members will know that my constituency of Aldershot—as the home of the British Army, with some 10,000 servicemen and women and their families—has always been at the heart of our glorious military tradition. There is no better account of the soldier’s experience of Aldershot than this very fine book. It was actually written in the 1930s, but it was reflecting on the late Victorian age.

The book was referring to 1895, when a certain young cavalry officer found himself posted to Aldershot. In those days, young cavalry officers were regimented into their unit by being trained with the soldiers. In modern parlance, they were beasted, basically, with their troopers. It was a means both to improve their riding and to show the troopers that the officers were, to some degree, at their level. They were ridden round the riding school without a saddle and with their hands behind their back.

The book states:

“Many a time did I pick myself up shaken and sore from the riding-school tan”—

the sand in the riding school—

“while twenty recruits grinned furtively but delightedly to see their officer suffering the same misfortunes which it was their lot so frequently to undergo.”

That very elegantly captures the eternal truth that, in all the command relationships in the British Army, authority is not bestowed on officers, but earned by officers working with their men. At the heart of that is, of course, a certain sense of flexibility and a sense that commanders, at whatever unit level, will always look after the interests of those under their command.

I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), the Chair of the Defence Committee, and others will have recognised that the quote was written by Winston Churchill. It is from a very fine book, which I am sure most right hon. and hon. Members will have enjoyed, called “My Early Life”. It sees him go on from Aldershot to be posted first to Cuba and then to British India, and it is highly recommended as a read.

The quote illustrates the importance of flexibility in the broadest sense, and I also want to talk about the impact on families. I have talked about commanding officers and those who have the power to make judgments about the working routine of the soldiers under their command, but we must also recognise that the burden, especially of operational soldiering, has a huge impact on the lives of not only the soldiers but their families.

I am really encouraged by the provisions in the Bill to allow a greater degree of planned family time for soldiers. It is very important to be able to plan, especially for those coming back from operations. If they can sit down and plan with their spouse who will be doing the school run for the next year, it is amazing what a difference that can make to the viability of their relationship and to the ability of that person to continue to serve. To that extent, the provisions are what we call a force multiplier: they will make our soldiers—our men and women across all three services in the armed forces—more effective.

We should be very pleased about that because using and deploying our armed forces is no longer a luxury. We have to be prepared for very large-scale deployments of conventional forces in the future. If anyone thinks that that is not the case, they need to learn from history. Again, it is interesting to comment on another parallel with the late Victorian age.

Winston Churchill wrote that book in the 1930s, but it was reflecting back to the 1890s, when he and his fellow officers were absolutely certain that they would not deploy to mainland Europe. Because of the size of the Army, they were absolutely convinced that they would not go to Europe. He and his fellow officers drew the

“conclusion that the British Army would never again take part in a European conflict. How could we, when we only had about one army corps with one Cavalry Division”?

That was in 1895, and 20 years later that entire generation was of course swept up in the conflagration on the European continent. We must never fall into the trap of thinking that large-scale deployments on a conventional basis are not likely.

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the powerful and eloquent speech he is making, particularly from his own experience as a soldier in the British Army. Does he feel that the increased flexibility brought about by the Bill is one key step in maintaining the high levels of recruitment into our armed forces that I am sure Members on both sides of the House want to see?

[Leo Docherty]

Yes is the answer—absolutely. The Bill is about retention, recruitment and the attractiveness of the whole proposition. I am very encouraged—I shall mention this again in a minute—by the greater specialisation that we will have under Army 2020.

As I have said, we need to draw a parallel with the 1890s. Back then, officers regarded their force as very small by Victorian standards. We are in a similar situation in the sense that we have a very small conventional force, but we must not fall into the trap of thinking that we will not need to deploy it in the near future. If we unroll the map and do a world tour, we can see that the middle east is in flames, that there is a resurgent Russia probing NATO’s eastern flank and that there is a possible nuclear conflagration in North Korea—a whole range of very serious challenges.

Our response to those challenges will be twofold. We clearly have a hard-power response using equipment. We will have some very impressive new equipment and capabilities coming through over the next 10 years. We have the magnificent carrier strike force with carrier-enabled power projection, although that will not come on line until 2026. We have the magnificent F-35s, which are part of that force, and we have a new armoured vehicle for the Army, so there is an amazing range of new kit and equipment.

The other side of that hard power is having the people to go with it, and the human element represents a new form of soft power that will be all the more important. We have the specialised infantry battalions that will be part of the new strike brigades. I had the pleasure last week to meet the commanding officer of one of the new specialised infantry brigades, 4 Rifles, in Aldershot. This kind of specialist infantry battalion will require a greater degree of expertise, and the prospect of serving in one of them will be a very strong motivation for people to be not only retained but recruited in the first place.

For me, the measures in the Bill are not a luxury; they will be important in ensuring that we have a sufficient force. No one in the Chamber should be under any illusion that we will not need large-scale conventional deployments in the near future. For those to be successful, our people must be at the heart of this. That is the golden thread: the great genius of the British military is our people. It was true back in 1895, during the first and second world wars, in 1982 and throughout our deployments in Iraq and Helmand. I am very pleased that the Bill will help to maintain the critical relationship between the MOD and our commanders at every level and the people who serve under them.