Army Reserve

Louise Sandher-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Veterans and People (Louise Sandher-Jones)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) for securing today’s debate on this hugely important topic, as he rightly noted. I am a member of the Strategic Reserve myself, and I am grateful to other colleagues who have joined us to talk about the important role that the reserves play in our armed forces. During my time in the British Army, when I was a regular, I served with some fantastic reservists. They were and are a seamless and indistinguishable part of teams across the armed forces.

I will turn to a couple of points raised during the debate. First, I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his wonderful advocacy for the cadets. They are a fantastic part of our armed forces community, and the support they give to our young people is truly transformational and life-changing for so many. This Government have a commitment to growing the cadets; I was at a cadet event yesterday, and they did a fantastic job. As he rightly points out, they provide wonderful structure for young people growing up across our country.

The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) rightly highlighted the fantastic benefits of joining the reserves, both in terms of the skills and experience that people gain—many of these skills are difficult to gain anywhere else—and the values that can be learned from being in the reserves. I thank him for his advocacy.

The right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire is right to talk about the importance of RSDs. I am cognisant of that for a host of reasons, not only because they maintain capability, but because for many of our reservists they are a vital part of their income; losing RSDs has an oversized impact on their ability to manage their everyday expenses. I am very cognisant of that, as well as of the overall impact on skills retention and retention in general.

I am sure the right hon. Member will understand that I cannot make a commitment here and now, and he noted that RSDs are budgeted by the services rather than centrally. However, I note that the Army has had no RSD cuts over the past two years, and I hope he understands how seriously we take that. I would hate for anybody to think that we would see RSDs as a lever to pull without recognising the impact of doing so. I join him in highlighting how important they are.

The right hon. Member rightly raises some of the other challenges that the reserves are facing, whether on their estate or the kit and equipment to which they have access. Again, this Government are committed to investing in our armed forces. He will be well aware of our commitment to raise defence spending to 2.6% of GDP next year, with further ambitions. As he says, this is in direct recognition of how important it is to invest in RSDs. He will appreciate that I cannot comment further on Milroy today, but I am sure he will note my previous remarks.

[Steve Barclay]

Could the Minister perhaps write to me?

[Louise Sandher-Jones]

I will write to the right hon. Gentleman when we have a further update.

I am not familiar with the Guardian front page that he mentioned, but I will dig it out of an archive. I am sure he will appreciate that it is from a bit before I started paying attention to these things.

We agree that our reserves are a vital source of expertise, and they are a critical link, as the right hon. Gentleman and others have noted, to industry and wider society. Reserves are central to the credibility of our deterrence, the defence of our homeland, our warfighting readiness and our ability to fight a protracted conflict.

There is a consensus in many areas that there has been too much complacency for too long, as well as a failure to appreciate the importance of our reserves, a failure to make the most of them and a failure to invest in them. That is borne out in the data, which the right hon. Member will be familiar with. When I left the Army in 2020, our volunteer reserve force was around 30,000, and it was 26,000 by the time of the last election, so when we came into Government we were determined to turn the situation around.

Our strategic defence review has highlighted the need for the reserve force to have increased scale, greater access to specialist skills and greater workforce agility, which is really important. We have accepted the recommendations and committed to the 20% increase in the medium term, as the right hon. Member notes, as well as a number of sweeping reforms to grow our strategic reserve.

I will quickly provide an update on those two lines of work.

[Steve Barclay]

I say this very gently, because there is huge agreement on this, but I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that the Public Accounts Committee, which has a majority of Labour members, says no movement is expected on that until the next decade—so not this Parliament. Does she agree on that, or does she think her colleagues are wrong?

[Louise Sandher-Jones]

Like many in the MOD, I like a challenge. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman recognises that I very much mean what I say when I talk about the importance of the reserves and how that is linked to numbers.

I want to address some of the criticisms that have come our way. At one point last year, almost 700 of our reservists were mobilised. Currently, there are 25,770 men and women in the Army Reserve. They have contributed to seven major operations across Europe, helping to resettle eligible Afghans and training Ukrainian forces—that is all incredibly vital work. A small fall in the active reserve last year does not necessarily represent a continuation of the hollowing out of the reserve force we have seen over many years.

Before Putin ordered his tanks into Ukraine in 2022, we had just under 30,000 reservists. Despite the fact we have seen how important reservists have been to the defence of Ukraine, and how much that conflict has underscored to many of us the necessity of mass in the modern battlefield—as opposed to conflicts we have engaged in elsewhere—we still saw reservist numbers dwindle. Indeed, by the second anniversary of that invasion, we had already lost another 3,000 reservists.

Since the last election, as the right hon. Gentleman can see, this Government have taken the actions needed to stem that bleeding. We are achieving progress, although I appreciate that he is urging us to go further and faster. We are introducing multiple reforms to fix the foundations. For example, we are unblocking the pipeline from regular to reserve service by removing the requirement that someone has to leave the armed forces before they can join the reserves. And our recruitment reform operation, Invector, is helping to drive up applications and enhance training throughout.

We have also increased the retirement age and brought in greater flexibility around mandatory retirement. We have introduced a pan-defence skills framework to bring renewed vigour to skills mapping, which will enable the MOD to better target the civilian expertise we need and recruit accordingly. We are also improving and building the digital infrastructure we need to manage, track and keep in touch with our reservists. Since last July, we have turned around the shrinking volunteer force and are starting to see green shoots of fresh growth, with renewed purpose and what I hope all will agree is a bright future.

That brings me to the second strand, which is our Strategic Reserve. The suite of reforms that we initiated through our Armed Forces Bill will update the Reserve Forces Act 1996 and strengthen the Government’s ability to generate and maintain a larger and more capable Strategic Reserve.

We had faced a number of legislative constraints that impeded our work to enlarge the Strategic Reserve, so we are dismantling them, block by block. Most notably, we are putting in place a new recall power to lower the threshold of warlike operations, to introduce a number of adjustments to expand the scope of recall powers, and indeed to raise the recall age from 55 to 65 for other ranks, for those who wish to be recalled. We are also harmonising recall liability across our three services. There are historical quirks that we are determined to get after, grasp the nettle and fix.

To heighten the readiness of our Strategic Reserve, we have advanced plans to kick-start annual training for the ex-regular element of the Strategic Reserve, which will include a programme of employer outreach and a range of employer incentives to help facilitate it. We also have plans to modernise the administrative digital infrastructure that underpins our Strategic Reserve by January 2027, which again is in line with the SDR commitment.

We are also addressing structural governance weaknesses. We are establishing a single Reserve Forces and Cadets Association to take over the functions of the 13 regional associations that currently exist. Again, that addresses recommendations made in multiple independent reviews, and it will strengthen governance.

Last year, the Reserves Continuous Attitude Survey identified people’s top motivations for joining and serving in the reserves: a desire to serve our country, to overcome challenges and to develop as an individual. I know from my own experience, and from the experience of many others here in Parliament, that our armed forces are unparalleled in their ability to tick those three boxes, and I encourage anybody who loves their country, is ambitious and wants to have an adventure to get involved.

For our part, the Government are getting on with the job of building a bigger and more capable reserve force, and a bigger and more capable Strategic Reserve. We were clear in the SDR that reaching these goals will take time, as the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire mentioned, but we have the plans in place. We are reforming the legislation and taking action, all backed by our commitment to deliver the biggest uplift in defence spending since the cold war.

I conclude by putting on record the Government’s appreciation, which I am sure is shared by Members from parties across this House, of the commitment and service of all those who step forward to serve in our reserves. I can only reiterate, based on my own experience, how integral they are to many military operations, both here at home and abroad. They are committed, and they bring a fantastic enthusiasm and perspective. They also bring a huge depth of knowledge and skills that we might not have within the regulars, and a patriotic desire to serve. I thank them very much for their service.

Question put and agreed to.