Armed Forces Bill

Let me begin by paying tribute to the men and women who serve our country as reservists. They show immense dedication to serving our country. As the Minister said, we only have to look at the vital role played by reservists in Iraq and Afghanistan to understand the importance of reserve forces. The Government are undertaking a review into the future of reserve forces. If we are to believe what we read in the newspapers, reservists are likely to be given greater responsibility in the coming years. Indeed, the logical conclusion to draw from the strategic defence and security review is that we must seek to make the most of the assets that we have, and that includes the reserve forces. In bringing forward these amendments, the Government are perhaps pre-empting the conclusion of that review. The amendments give the Secretary of State greater powers to call in reservists. That is something that, in principle, we are more than happy to support; indeed, the Minister gave some good examples of the circumstances in which such powers would be useful. However, the Government need to be honest with the men and women of the reserve forces. If they are to ask them to do more, they also need to provide the necessary protection and support in the workplace. We are talking about people who join up to serve their country, and we have a duty to protect their jobs when they are mobilised. It is in this area that there are some questions for the Government to answer. We know that the Secretary of State is not necessarily on the best of terms with the Prime Minister and his other Cabinet colleagues. I wonder whether there is much joined-up thinking taking place in Government about the role of reservists and the duty of care that we owe them. The Cabinet Office has a Red Tape Challenge website, which consults the public on legislation that could or should be scrapped. When launching the site, the Prime Minister wrote to all Ministers to say:"““We know we have inherited far too much costly, pointless, and illiberal government red tape.””" In the employment law section of the website, item No. 1 in the list of legislation up for being scrapped is the Reserve Forces (Safeguard of Employment) Act 1985. The Act states that reservists have a liability to be mobilised and provides two kinds of protection. The first is protection of employment, providing protection from unfair dismissal and making it a criminal offence for an employer to terminate a reservist's job without their consent solely or mainly because he or she has a liability to be mobilised. Secondly, there is a right to reinstatement. The Act provides a legal right to the reservist to be reinstated in their former job, subject to certain conditions. When pressed on this matter by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) at the most recent Defence questions, the Secretary of State refused to deny that those provisions were under consideration. The Government are therefore considering scrapping legislation that protects reserved forces employment on a day-to-day basis and when on a tour of duty.