Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [HL]

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

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

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, there is little not to like about this Bill. It extends to regular armed service men and women some of the rights which others in the services and in other walks of life currently enjoy.

It is not detailed and it is not prescriptive. It enables the Armed Forces to extend flexibility to their workforce as they see fit and in ways which they believe will work for them. I listened carefully to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker, but control of who can and cannot be allowed flexibility remains firmly with the management of the forces. This workforce has hitherto been bound to working practices which are arguably no longer always needed in the modern world of warfare and peacekeeping in which we find ourselves.

I know that some noble Lords have a feeling of disquiet about the Bill. There is a sense that to be a committed member of the Armed Forces, to be prepared to put one’s life at risk for one’s country, to achieve the camaraderie and togetherness that are needed where one puts one’s trust and one’s life in the hands of others, nothing other than 100% full-time commitment will do. Personally, I think that this approach denigrates those who make the Armed Forces or any other walk of life their life’s work. It suggests that you cannot be 100% committed and have a full family life, too; that you cannot be 100% committed and be sensitive to other things going on in your life and the lives of those around you. This approach has taken its toll on the home life of our Armed Forces personnel. Why should anyone be forced to choose between one’s family and one’s career? It has taken a toll on their families. I understand that operational necessities may mean that one’s spouse, daddy or mummy may be stationed in inaccessible places for months on end.

We should not forget that one’s comrades can be one’s family too, but the main reason for this enabling legislation is, in my view, because of the toll that it is taking on the Armed Forces themselves, in the form of stress, which leads to poor decision-making and performance, and in the form of torn loyalties. Many people expect far more from relationships than they did 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Many fathers want to play a much larger part in their children’s lives; many mothers want to continue their careers after having a child, to use the skills for which they were trained; and the forces really need their skills. They need rounded individuals capable of making good decisions. They need diversity in their workforce, because lack of diversity leads to poor decision-making, and poor decision-making leads to loss of effectiveness and ultimately to loss of lives.

Our previous Prime Minister, David Cameron, understood this well. He set the Armed Forces the target that 15% of new recruits should be female by 2020 and they are making progress towards this target. However, the percentage of women in the Armed Forces is currently only 10.2%, so there is a way to go, and however well they do on recruitment, improvement will be limited if women keep disappearing just at the time when their skills and abilities are at their peak and they are needed most. So this enabling legislation is very welcome, but it will take more than legislation and subsequent changes in the rules regarding flexible working to have the desired effect: it will take a culture change, a change away from the attitudes I described at the beginning of my remarks, a kind of “TSB bank” change—a change that likes to say yes.

As the nature of warfare and the threats we face change, the variety of skills and abilities we need will change. Women will have these abilities, often just as suitably for the job as men will. The greater diversity of talent will give us greater ability to meet these threats and these opportunities. Like the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, I would like to know what plans exist to recruit more BAME, LGBT+ and disabled people.

I wish the Bill well, but even more, I wish the modernisers in the Armed Forces well in their quest to transform our armed services into a diverse and effective fighting—and caring—force, a force equipped with all the human resources it needs to respond to all the diverse challenges that it faces in keeping us safe, and keeping vulnerable, threatened peoples safe, in the changing and challenging world in which we find ourselves today.