Armed Forces Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Russell of Liverpool]

28: After Clause 19, insert the following new Clause—
“The minimum term for service
In section 329 of the AFA 2006 (terms and conditions of enlistment and service), after subsection (2) insert—“(2A) Where time is prescribed under subsection (2)(c) by reference to number of years from the date of enlistment, the age of the person on that date may not be taken into account.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that soldiers aged under 18 are not required to serve for a longer period than adult personnel.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 28. I do so in place of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, who would otherwise be here, but is indisposed. I thank her for having introduced this amendment and another one so ably in Committee.

In Committee, this was grouped with another one that came before it which talked about trying to achieve a total cessation of the recruitment of under-18s by the United Kingdom, a practice that we are singular among all the members of NATO in pursuing. In the event, because the two were grouped together, the former amendment took about 98% of the airtime of the debate and there was very little discussion of this one, which is in part why we have decided to bring it back here for debate today. I emphasise that this is for debate; I do not intend to divide the House.

I will try, together perhaps with some other noble Lords who have put their name to this amendment, to put a case for the Government to look very carefully at their current practice of asking junior entry soldiers to serve two years more than entrants at age 18. This is to see whether this is the right thing to do in the first place and, more profoundly, whether the entire approach to junior entry is fit for purpose.

In Committee, the Minister made it very clear that, up until their 18th birthday, junior entrants have a statutory right to ask for discharge. However, after 18, they are in for four years and, under the current system, no allowance is made for the first two years at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate. A judicial review in 2015 concluded that this is unequal treatment in law, but is not unlawful, since the Equality Act 2010 exempts the Armed Forces from its prohibition on age discrimination.

In 2015, the Army carried out a review and estimated that, if it equalised the minimum service period for all recruits, it would have to recruit and train approximately 40 additional personnel each year to compensate for the relatively small number of junior entrants who might choose to leave after four years. To put that into context in 2015 terms, 40 personnel would be 0.5% of the Army’s enlisted intake for that year, which totalled 8,020 individuals. While the Navy and Air Force both take on a small number of junior entrants, neither service chooses to discriminate in the same way as the Army.

The 2019 junior entry review, undertaken following a recommendation from the Defence Committee in another place, suggested an amendment to the terms of service to a Type S engagement, whereby 18 year-olds can either opt to leave or convert their engagement to a short career versatile engagement, which would recognise the first two years of service and count towards the four years’ minimum length return of service.

The review recommended that this approach be considered, saying that it

“could be deemed a positive change”

and was

“unlikely to be contentious”

to either a junior entry cohort or their “gatekeepers”—I assume that means the staff at Harrogate, although I am not sure how they would feel about that term. The review continued that

“any move to implement”

the new terms of service on leaving the Army as an under-18 year-old

“would make the process … more transparent, which would bring an increase in the confidence of recruits and their gatekeepers.”

Its only caveat was whether this would enable the Army to achieve its desired manning balance along with other assessments of length of service.

In light of the announcement this year that the Army will be further downsized by 10,000 troops, does the Minister agree that this would be an opportune moment to institute the proposed new terms of service and put the matter to rest? Will she tell the House what the Government’s current thinking is? Can she inform us on any actions or, if not, tell us how she might consider progressing this? Will she undertake to come back to the House and report on any progress and timings?

There are two further issues I want to explore to test the MoD and Army’s thinking on the current junior entry structure and content. First, in 2021, is it recruiting the right people for today’s and tomorrow’s Army? This Government and our current, rather busy, Home Secretary frequently refer to an immigration policy that should be focused on attracting and admitting “the brightest and the best”. At the same time, the Army is increasingly conscious that it needs to recruit more young people who are interested and competent in STEM studies and in furthering their education, particularly the sort of technical education that the Army of tomorrow will need to manage challenges such as cyber warfare and the use of artificial intelligence.

--- Later in debate ---

I am probably not providing the answers that the noble Lord, Lord Russell, wanted to hear, but that is the Government’s position. I hope that, with that explanation, he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and all noble Lords who took part in this brief debate. I must confess that, as I listened to the Minister and I reflected on her response to the previous amendment, I was reminded of the saying that is often used about ourselves and the United States of America, which is that we are two countries divided by a common language. On many occasions I felt that the discourse coming from all sides of the House seemed to be of a different nature or dialect from the response we received from the Front Bench.

To be clear, Committee saw an end to the argument—certainly for this Bill—about the rights and wrongs of recruiting junior entrants at 16. That is not what we are talking about.

The point I was trying to make was to probe the Ministry of Defence on whether it has actually thought and reflected on whether what it is currently doing with its junior entry programme is fit for purpose. I could imagine that, if you are dyed deep blue right the way through and support the Conservative Party, you might regard the Army Foundation College as a particularly wonderful example of what is known as “levelling up”. It is taking a cohort of young people, primarily young men, from difficult neighbourhoods and complicated backgrounds, who are completely unenthused by conventional education and find attraction and allure in going into the military.

But, as we have seen from the evidence, the process the Army goes through to select these individuals appears to be seriously flawed on two counts. First, as we heard from the independent appraisal, the number of young people who are leaving within days of arriving in Harrogate does not speak very highly of the efficacy of the recruitment process. So at the very least I think the Army should look carefully at that.

The second point I come back to is more fundamental. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, echoed my appeal to try and think of a junior entry programme that is fit for the 21st century rather than the 19th century. I have every sympathy with the cohort in question, which takes up 70% of the intake. But the size of our Army is reducing and the technical challenges we are faced with are increasing. Your Lordships may have read about this slightly alarming supersonic missile that has apparently gone around the world at five times the speed of sound and apparently has the Americans very rattled. That is the state of the world we are moving into and, with the best will in the world, even the most outstanding students among the cohort the Army is currently recruiting from are unlikely to be of great help in trying to deal with the sort of warfare that the remainder of the 21st century may expose us to.

I do think there are some fundamental questions that the briefing notes—which the Minister has followed assiduously—do not seem to have prepared her for. So what I would ask her to do is, at a minimum, reflect on some of the comments that have been made, particularly some of the more profound questions about looking at the current junior entry strategy, and try to see whether it is fit for purpose.

At the very least, I would have hoped there was an acknowledgement in the briefing of the junior entry review that was conducted at the request of the Defence Committee in the other place, which had inside it a suggestion of new terms of service that would solve what this amendment asks for. The fact that it was not even referred to, either in her briefing notes or in her response to me, is disappointing, and I would ask that she and her officials look carefully at the content of what has been discussed, isolate those questions that have been asked and undertake to write back to us with answers. I would be most grateful. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 28 withdrawn.