Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Earl Howe Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th July 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Earl Howe]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity again to be speaking to a Bill for the Armed Forces. The welfare of our service personnel is one of the most important responsibilities of government and one that we take very seriously. The Government are determined to meet their obligations to our brave service men and women and their families. Part of this commitment is ensuring that their service meets the needs of modern life and helps to secure a better work/life balance.

It is evident that there now exists, in society, a desire and need for greater choice in how individuals run their lives, and this, of course, extends to the Armed Forces. Of course, total and unlimited choice is not possible in the disciplined environment of the Armed Forces where the requirement to serve the needs of the country is paramount, but there are ways in which our traditionally inflexible approach to working can be improved. The Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill is our response to this. It is not the panacea for the challenges we face in the recruitment and retention of our people, but it is a step in the right direction to offer our people more control over how they serve.

We know that one of the top reasons why people choose to leave the Armed Forces is the impact of their service on family life. Regular personnel who are unable to meet their unlimited military commitments for periods of time sometimes have no other choice than to leave the services. They lose a well-earned career; we lose their hard-won knowledge, skills and experience. Self-evidently, this is detrimental to maintaining operational capability and to the cost of defence, so why would we not make the lives of those who proudly serve our nation easier?

The Bill will help to ease their lives. It offers our people a solution when they are faced with complexity in their personal life. Flexible working will alleviate some of the strain at critical times and help the services retain more of the people they need to keep, such as women who are considering starting a family or men and women with caring responsibilities. Importantly, the services believe that flexible working opportunities will help them to compete with modern organisations and attract the best people to join our Armed Forces. To continue to deliver crucial operational capability, the Armed Forces must be seen as a modern and attractive employer if they are to recruit the quality and quantity of people they need from across the breadth of the UK society that they serve. This is getting harder to do against an increasingly competitive backdrop, with the competition for talent expected to increase in the years ahead. In short, flexible working opportunities will enhance the delivery of operational capability through improved retention, a more diverse workforce and a broader spectrum of commitment levels when and where we need them.

So what does this small Bill do? There are two main provisions. The first clause amends Section 329 of the Armed Forces Act 2006, which makes provision regarding terms and conditions of enlistment and service. The amendment extends the existing regulation-making power to enable enhanced flexible working opportunities, within which regular service personnel would be able to apply to work part-time and/or to restrict their geographic employment by limiting the time they are separated from their permanent place of residence or home base. In practice, these new options will be temporary, limited to defined periods and subject to service needs to maintain operational capability. That last point is crucial. Although we recognise that modernisation for the Armed Forces is essential, maintaining operational effectiveness is our absolute red line. The Bill therefore also provides for the services to vary, suspend or terminate the arrangements in circumstances to be prescribed in new regulations. Of course there will be instances where flexible working arrangements are simply not practicable, for example while serving at sea or in a high readiness unit. The Bill will not therefore enable every service person to work flexibly, but it will create an obligation for the services to consider and decide on applications from personnel to serve under the new flexible working arrangements. It will also create the requirement for the services to record the terms of an approved application, such that there is clarity for both parties in the arrangements.

Clause 2 will make small consequential amendments to existing legislation to provide for regular personnel temporarily serving under flexible working agreements to continue to be automatically excused jury service.

The provisions in the Bill are based firmly on evidence. Since 2015, some elements of the services have been conducting a flexible duties trial. The ongoing trial is proving the need for both a reduced liability to deploy and less than full-time working. The majority of participants describe the trial as a positive experience, particularly for those with children, and the Army reported a noticeable correlation between flexible working, improved relationships and team morale. Here I must make clear that the services are greatly involved in the development of flexible working. These proposals, which have the support of the service chiefs, have been designed, and continue to be developed, by the services for the services. We should not forget the bedrock of those who follow and support our Armed Forces: their families. I am pleased to tell the House that the Families Federations have said they welcome the MoD’s plans to improve flexible working opportunities in the Armed Forces:

“The drive for a better work/life balance amongst Service families is one of our focus areas and we eagerly await the further development of this initiative”.


The Bill would allow service personnel to provide their service in a more flexible way to better suit their lifestyles. Service personnel will be able to temporarily reduce the time they are required for duty—for example, by setting aside one or two days a week where they will not work or be liable for work—or to restrict the amount of time they spend separated from their normal place of work.

For the avoidance of any doubt, the case for flexible working for the Armed Forces is principally about recruitment and retention. It is not—I say this particularly to the Benches opposite—a money-saving exercise. As I have made clear, it is a novel way to support the Armed Forces in the changing demands of modern life. Our aim is to help service families attain a better work/life balance. Flexible working would provide breathing space for other responsibilities. In particular, we believe the Bill would improve the lived experience of female personnel and help the Armed Forces work towards their 15% recruitment target for women by 2020.

On the back of these measures for regulars, we hope in time to build further opportunities for members of the reserves to expand their experience, which will move us closer to a whole-force approach. I hope your Lordships will appreciate that, although this is a small Bill, it will have far-reaching consequences in helping to modernise our great and illustrious Armed Forces. I look forward to an interesting debate this afternoon and to the detailed scrutiny we shall give the Bill later in Committee. I commend the Bill to the House, and beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as always, and as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, rightly said, we have had a good debate, and I thank noble Lords for their insightful contributions. I was very grateful for the supportive comments of many speakers regarding the Bill’s purport.

I will try my best to respond to as many as possible of the questions and points that have been raised but I hope that noble Lords will bear with me if I do not manage to address each and every one today. I will of course write to any noble Lord where I have something to add.

I begin with the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. I was disappointed by his sceptical reaction to the Bill. In fact, uncharacteristically, his remarks came over as sceptical bordering on the cynical. I just ask him to give some credit to the services. I believe that we need to support them, in the first instance, for having identified a gap in the current offer to the Armed Forces and, secondly, for coming up with proposals to address that gap in a way that reflects best employment practice in industry and commerce.

Indeed, I stress one key point to the noble Lord and to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker. The new flexible working options have the full backing of the three services. They have been consulted and engaged throughout the design process, and they will continue to be involved as we implement the changes. As I said earlier, the chiefs of the services support these proposals, and they have regularly provided direction and guidance during their development. That development work continues, which is why I do not currently have all the answers requested by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup.

As I said, we have consulted the services throughout this project and their advice has helped to shape the design of the new flexible working arrangements. We recently engaged with the three services’ families federations, which have collectively said that they welcome the MoD’s plans. We continue to engage with a range of key stakeholders, and that process will intensify as we continue to develop and finesse our policies in the lead-up to the introduction of the new arrangements in April 2019.

Let me deal with another misconception. There is no question of the services or the MoD imposing flexible working on anybody. Flexible working will only happen following an application by an individual. Far from imposing on regular personnel, these changes provide further protections to personnel in enabling them to achieve a better work/life balance to suit their circumstances.

The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, suggested that this could all be a plot to reduce the pay bill and/or deprive people of pay. No it is not. The new arrangements have been designed with cost neutrality in mind. As I have stressed before, this change is predominantly about giving service personnel more choice over the way they serve. It will help the Armed Forces to retain our current personnel and to attract and retain future joiners. I thought that the question posed by my noble friend Lord Attlee was very apt: why should we lose personnel because of their family set-up? The answer is, we should not, and I hope the Bill will help us to address this.

Of course, those wishing to vary their commitment will see a commensurate variation in their reward. That variation will be fair and reasonable, both to those who work flexibly and to those who do not. Pay will be calculated on a proportional basis. Further work is under way to determine the precise impact on pensions and the full range of allowances, against the principle that the outcome will be fair and proportionate. We already offer the ability to undertake flexible start and cease-work times for no loss of pay. However, the Bill is designed to offer the ability to work less than others. Therefore, it is right and fair to others to reduce pay proportionately.

As I have just said, flexible working should be seen as filling a gap in the flexible working arrangements already available in the Armed Forces. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, was right to point out that flexible working is something of an umbrella term in this context. A number of formal flexible working arrangements, such as variable start and cease-work times, have been available for some years subject to local chain of command approval, but these invariably involve doing the same amount of work over a different working pattern, rather than a formal agreement to work less for less pay. We recently introduced a number of progressive flexible working changes, including new leave options and improvements for those taking career breaks, but these flexibilities are limited in their applicability and do not go far enough. As a snapshot, some 2,000 applications were approved across the services in the last six months, covering the various arrangements currently available.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, asked whether the Bill could enable other types of flexible working, such as working from home. I have largely dealt with that and, as she will appreciate, that is not necessary because we already offer opportunities to work from home, as I know she is aware of from her own experience.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, asked some detailed questions, including on entitlement to service accommodation. I reassure him that entitlement to service-provided accommodation is a key element of the conditions of service that support the mobility of personnel, and that entitlement will not change as a result of flexible working because it will not change personnel mobility.

The noble and gallant Lord also asked what this will mean for reserves. Reserves are already able to serve in a range of different commitments, so legislative change is not required for them. Under Future Reserves 2020 we have expanded reserves’ terms and conditions of service to meet developing service needs, and there will be no change in entitlement to medical and dental services. Regulars will remain subject to service law at all times, even when they are working part-time. As the noble and gallant Lord knows, the duty to serve and obey, enforced through disciplinary action, is central to the functioning of the Armed Forces. It will remain essential for commanders to be able to issue lawful commands to personnel undertaking part-time or geographically restricted service. Those commands must be followed. However, it will clearly not be lawful for a commander to order a regular to attend for duty on one of their agreed days off or to serve outwith the prescribed maximum number of days of separation.

Keeping part-time regulars subject to service law at all times has the added advantage of absolute clarity for all. There will be no difficult questions for personnel or commanders to consider about whether someone is or is not subject to service law on a given day. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, asked me a number of other questions and I hope that he will allow me to write to him on those.

However, what I can and should say to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, with great respect to him, is that this is not about flexible terms of employment. Regulars are not employed, so the legislation refers to terms and conditions of service. The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, asked about levels of uptake. The answer is that we expect a small but significant number to take up the new arrangements. We will manage expectations and explain that applications will be approved only where the MoD can accommodate the arrangements without unacceptably affecting operational capability. We expect that the majority of service personnel will remain on full-time commitment arrangements. So in answer to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, there will not be a specific cap on numbers, but the services will have full control over the number of people they can allow to work flexibly and will have the controls to vary this over time.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and others asked about implementation. We plan to allow the first applications from 2019, as I mentioned earlier, and we anticipate that applications and the services’ ability to accept them will grow slowly. This will take careful management and a change of culture in some areas. Implementation will include a communication campaign, along with training and guidance for commanding officers and potential applicants alike.

The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, asked about the decision-making process. Commanding officers will not make the final decision on applications to work flexibly. They will be considered by an approvals authority within each service at headquarters level, which will be informed by advice from the chain of command, manpower planners, career managers and other relevant parties. The process is still being finalised, but our aim is for an agile system that will be able to administer applications efficiently.

As regards the applications that are considered, of course some will be refused, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, rightly anticipated. A new flexible working application is more likely to be refused if personnel are in a role that is delivering a critical output or is highly deployable, such as on a ship or in a high-readiness unit, or have already been warned to be ready to deploy to an operational theatre. An appeals process will be put in place to reconsider applications that have been rejected. Each service will have its own separate appeals review body, which will include career managers and other subject matter experts. Personnel will retain their right to enter a service complaint if their appeal is unsuccessful, which will have the oversight of the independent Service Complaints Ombudsman.

Let me stress again that maintaining operational capability will be at the forefront of any decision on allowing a serviceperson to temporarily reduce their commitment. We will also retain the ability to recall personnel to their full commitments in cases of national crisis. We judge that in time this will enhance our national defence as it takes effect and we experience the benefits of improved retention, a more diverse workforce, and the ability to deploy a broader spectrum of our people, both regular and reserve, when and where we need them through the flexibility which this initiative will bring.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, asked whether personnel will be able to join the services and take flexible working straightaway. My noble friend Lord Attlee was quite right on that point. We envisage that personnel will be expected to complete both their initial and trade training along with a period thereafter to settle in and consolidate their training before flexible working is considered.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, asked about the legal risks of refusing applications. Decisions on applications will be subject to a robust process, taken at a senior level on advice, and, as I said, with an appeal available. A disappointed applicant will have avenues available to them to seek a remedy. Those appeals or complaints will be considered carefully, with oversight as necessary from the independent Service Complaints Ombudsman. As a result, we would not anticipate a rise in discrimination claims in this context.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, raised an interesting point about workloads, wondering, if I can put words into her mouth, whether these arrangements will mean there will be more work for those who do not avail themselves of flexible working. We will manage the levels of flexible working permitted and therefore will be able to ensure that the right levels are maintained to deliver defence outputs. It is envisaged that capacity surrendered to flexible working arrangements will either be within reducible capacity or otherwise be sourced through other means, such as employment of reserves. Like other organisations with part-time workers, the organisation will change over time to better accommodate flexible working.

The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, asked what skills have been lost so far. I simply say that all personnel who depart take hard-won skills and experience with them, as he will know. Saving any of those skills will clearly help. While figures on the number of skilled service leavers are not held centrally, the Ministry of Defence is absolutely committed to ensuring that our personnel who leave the Armed Forces make a successful transition to civilian life.

The noble Lord also indicated that he would propose that new Defence Council regulations should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. The changes will be made by amending existing Defence Council regulations, which are subject to the negative procedure. The matters to be set out in new regulations will be procedural—the right to apply, the right to appeal and so on. The negative procedure is appropriate in this context.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, asked what the prescribed circumstances would be to vary or terminate the new arrangements. These will be set out clearly in new Defence Council regulations, scrutinised as necessary by Parliament. The new arrangements will be terminated only when absolutely necessary—for example, as I indicated, in a national emergency or when there is a major manning crisis.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, suggested that we should prohibit those availing themselves of flexible employment from undertaking secondary employment. I simply say to him that this Bill is not about enabling secondary employment. Regulations already exist with stringent controls over the types and forms of employment that may be accepted, but only with authority. As in all cases, service duty takes precedence.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, asked whether flexible working would affect someone’s chance of promotion. Many factors affect promotion, as she is aware, but a period of flexible working will not of itself impact on promotion. In designing the new arrangements we have agreed a number of principles with underpinning activities aimed at ensuring that very thing. These include that we would wish to avoid intentional or unintentional career penalties for those who undertake flexible service. We will create the opportunity for individuals to maintain or regain career momentum. We will seek to maximise accessibility of transfer between the regulars and reserves in both directions by minimising negative career impact. When one thinks about it, a decision on promotion is very largely forward-looking, rather than looking back. It is very substantially about the person’s potential.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, asked whether personnel would be able to dodge deployments. In the right circumstances some will be able to avoid being deployed, but a request on those lines will be approved only where the service can continue to deliver its operational capability. It will be refused where that cannot be achieved. Protection from deployments for a limited period where possible will retain some of our skilled personnel.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked how personnel would find out about flexible working. We have a communications plan in force already to build on the reality of the flexible duties trial, but I shall be able to give her further particulars of that in due course.

My noble friend Lord Sterling raised the important issue of service ethos and was worried that our proposals might damage it. I hope that, as the Bill proceeds, I can convince him that that will not be so. In fact, we expect that the arrangements will enhance ethos over time by helping us to retain and recruit the best people for defence. The evidence that we have gathered from published research literature, consultation with our people, surveys and an ongoing trial tells us clearly that personnel have reported consistently that the impact of service life on family and personal life is the most important factor that might influence them to leave. The three most frequently cited benefits of flexible working are that it helps employees to reduce the stress and pressure they feel under, it enables better work/life balance and it encourages people to stay with their current employer.

I was grateful to my noble friend Lady Eaton for her contribution about family stability and support. I will write to her about the points that she raised. I should be glad if she could provide evidence of the gaps that she feels exist and that are not currently provided for by other statutory bodies in family support, so that I can understand what type of additional support she feels is needed by service families. We need to understand whether families want that additional support, because finding a balance between paternalism and an intrusive approach against making that support readily available is clearly very important.

I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, who argued for better mental health service availability for serving personnel. I will gladly follow up the points that he raised after this debate. I also listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, regarding his Private Member’s Bill on the abuse of military honours. The Government were well disposed in principle towards the Bill introduced in the previous Parliament; I should be happy to talk to him about the introduction of a similar Bill in your Lordships’ House and the scope for giving it appropriate debating time, which of course is a matter for the usual channels. We explored whether it might have been possible to amend this Bill in the sense that he has suggested, but the advice that I had was that it was not within the scope of the Bill’s Title. As I have said, I would be glad to talk further to the noble Lord.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

Where the Minister responds in writing to Members, I would be grateful if he could copy it electronically to all of us who have taken part in the debate.

[Earl Howe]

I should be glad to do so.

I am conscious that in the time available I have not responded to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on his concerns about families, the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, on BAME recruitment and other matters, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on families’ accommodation. I will do so, however, in writing.

I hope that, despite the reservations that have been voiced, this Bill will receive a fair wind from your Lordships. Our Committee proceedings will doubtless enable us to explore a number of areas of detail about which, quite understandably, noble Lords have raised questions. Until then, however, I commend the Bill to the House.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.