Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, like others, I start by welcoming this Armed Forces Bill. There are many measures within it that have been identified today that are in urgent need of our attention, such as the provisions to ensure that service personnel and their families have access to quality housing and the intention to modernise and strengthen our Reserve Forces; particularly the inclusion of support for employers, for example. I declare an interest: I have a daughter who is a serving reserve officer in the very unit that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, mentioned, the London Scottish. I also welcome the desire to place the Armed Forces covenant fully into law. The Bill rightly recognises that our duty to those who serve must not end with warm words but must be reflected in legislation and public policy. However, in some areas, I wish that the Government would go further.

As others have identified, the measures in this Bill extending the recall liability and easing the transfer from regulars to reserves focus on the Strategic Reserve. If we are really going to adopt a whole-defence approach and increase the Active Reserve by 20%, we need to be much smarter about who we have, what skills they bring and how we attract, train and retain people within all the Volunteer Reserve Forces. The MoD does not manage or track total spending on Reserve Forces. Answers to Written Questions in the other place show that the MoD has no idea as to the make-up and skill set of the Reserve Forces. My noble friend Lord Lanacaster of Kimbolton suggested that we focus on digital data solutions; would they not be basic low-hanging fruit that the Government should ensure they resolve as a first step?

Along with others, I, too, look forward to the Minister explaining how else the Government plan to deliver on expanding the pool of reserves. Should this Bill be confined to changing the length of time and age limits for recalling personnel? What about tackling the less favourable treatment of reservists regarding pension access and daily rates of pay, and addressing the conclusions of the 2024 employment tribunal ruling? Will he commit to supporting my noble friend Lord Lancaster in implementing the recommendations of RF30, or perhaps the suggestions for tax incentives for reservists made earlier by my noble friend Lord Minto?

There is another area where this Bill suffers from a glaring omission. There is a group of people who wear a uniform with pride. They are described by the Minister himself as essential and a unique asset to government. They participate in military operations in contested environments in direct support of the UK’s national security. These personnel spend months away from their families. They can be exposed to missile threats, hostile actors and escalating regional tensions. They accept restrictions on their freedoms. They may suffer the same psychological impacts of operational deployment as others in our Armed Forces, yet when they return home, they do not enjoy the same recognition under the Armed Forces covenant because they are classified as civilian employees. I am referring to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, the RFA. Because its members are employed as civil servants, the Armed Forces covenant and the provisions in this Bill do not extent to them.

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is not a commercial shipping company; it is a uniformed fleet owned by the Ministry of Defence, operating under naval command, crewed by people who volunteer to deploy wherever the Royal Navy is sent. Without them, carrier strike groups do not remain at sea, amphibious operations cannot be sustained, and NATO task groups cannot remain on station. They are not merely supporting defence; they are part of defence. RFA “Tideforce” has recently been participating in maritime security operations in European waters, working with NATO forces and Royal Navy warships, including on tracking, intercepting and seizing Russian shadow fleet oil tankers. Right now, the crew of RFA “Lyme Bay” is deployed in the Middle East. Repurposed as a specialist mothership for autonomous mine-hunting, the vessel carries advanced underwater drones, uncrewed surface vessels, and specialist mine warfare and diving personnel. The 60 or so members of the ship’s company who run RFA “Lyme Bay” were trained and tested thoroughly before deployment alongside the embarked forces who provide the mine warfare expertise. With the destroyer HMS “Dragon”, RFA “Lyme Bay” will play a central role in any future multinational effort to safeguard the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

RFA personnel have trained, and are deployed and operating right now, in one of the most volatile places on the planet, yet when they return home, they and their families will not be covered by the Armed Forces covenant. The Minister confirmed this in an Answer to my Written Question on 3 June:

“In the spirit of the Covenant, organisations who have signed the Armed Forces Covenant pledge are encouraged to consider the needs of other groups within the wider Armed Forces community if individual circumstances merit it. This includes members of the RFA that have seen duty on defined military operations”.


We have an opportunity in this Bill to put this right. I know first-hand that the Minister is a supporter of the RFA. Surely, tracking the shadow fleet, deployment in the Middle East, and supporting NATO task groups are defined military operations, and surely every member of the RFA who has been part of them deserves to be protected by the provisions of the Armed Forces covenant. I hope this Bill can be amended to ensure that from now on, this is unambiguously the case.

The Armed Forces covenant exists because those who serve our nation accept unique risks, restrictions and sacrifices. It is not founded on military status but on military service. It is profoundly unfair, then, that there remain men and women, routinely deployed alongside our Armed Forces in areas of conflict and crisis, who enable military operations every day but who remain outside the covenant’s protections. That cannot be the intention of this Bill. I therefore urge the Government to consider an amendment that extends covenant eligibility to Royal Fleet Auxiliary personnel who have undertaken defined operational service. It would be a modest change to this Bill, but a significant statement of fairness.