The Defence Investment Plan must not overlook one of the best value options available – it’s time to double Britain’s reserve forces.
Geopolitical risk and uncertainty continue to grow. The biggest conflict in Europe since World War II, the War in Ukraine, has recently entered its fifth year. Countries like the UAE which would have been seen as a safe haven, have come under fire, and the British base in Cyprus has been attacked for the first time in forty years. These are just some examples showing that the peace dividend, on which higher spending on domestic public services has rested, will be under increasing strain. So as we look at how we boost defence capabilities it is going to be vital that we get the best value for every pound spent.
While major equipment programmes dominate the headlines on defence spending, we are missing an opportunity to materially boost capacity for a fraction of the cost. Credible deterrence requires the trained personnel who undertake and sustain operations, and adversaries need to know that we have the ability to quickly scale our force size if needed. The most effective way of doing this, both in terms of cost and access to specialist skills, is to boost reserve capacity.
Last October, the cross-party Public Accounts Committee found that one of the major issues with Britain’s F-35 fighter jet programme was “a severe shortage of several types of personnel including engineers, cyber specialists, pilots and qualified flying instructors, which will not be resolved for several years”. Fast jets have typically not been seen as suitable for reservists, not least because of the cost and complexity of training. However, we need to look at innovative ways of getting them into the most highly skilled roles to fill gaps, as our NATO allies already do. The USA has members of the US Air National Guard flying fast jets and just last year an agreement was reached between Dutch airline KLM and the Dutch Ministry of Defence to allow its commercial pilots to fly the F-35 in a reserve role.
This type of collaboration, where highly sought after private sector skills are made available to boost national security, is one we should be looking at very closely. The same is true in areas like cyber, engineering or drone operators, where a full time military role will struggle to be competitive with the private sector when it comes to pay, but people still want to play their part in bolstering our national security. This is in no way about reducing standards, but about ensuring we can access all available skills and talents to provide real depth and sustainability to our forces.
Yet such an ambition seems far from reality. Despite a headline commitment in the Strategic Defence Review to increase the UK’s Active Reserve by 20 per cent, the picture on reserve forces at the moment is one of stagnation at best. Indeed the latest available figures actually show a small fall in the number of reservists, and a fall in the number of reserve service days. And this concerning news appears to be met with indifference by Labour ministers. A recent report found that the Government “does not currently have funding or a detailed plan” on how it will deliver the commitments it has made on reserves, as modest as they may be. And in response to a recent parliamentary question I asked, it was admitted that the MoD does not even manage or track total spending on reserve forces.
This position will come as no surprise if you follow the money. MoD departmental spending was over £60 billion last year, yet less than one quarter of one percent went on paying reserves, with reserve pay amounting to £135.3 million, and a further £32.9 million allocated for bounty payments. Of course, the MoD budget is under pressure, not least from rising defence inflation and the costs of major projects like the nuclear programme – which I strongly support – leading to delays in the promised Defence Investment Plan. Yet when we are talking about such a small proportion, I believe that ministers could take a different path and substantially boost reserve numbers if they saw it as a priority.
That’s why I’m now arguing for a step change with a new commitment to double the size of our volunteer Active Reserve within this parliament. This is no pie in the sky idea. It would only bring us into line with the expansion plans of other NATO countries like France, and still be behind the position of many in Scandinavia and the Baltic where reserves outnumber regulars. As Ministers are hopefully putting the final touches to the much delayed Defence Investment Plan, they need to make sure they don’t overlook one of the best value options open to them – a major expansion of Britain’s reserves.
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“The DIP must not overlook….” If he thinks reopening the DIP is a good move for any reason, he’s out of his skull. The same argument can be made for the RFA and with more urgency. The entirety of Britain’s armed forces seems to be stagnating and too much is waiting on the DIP.
It has always seemed very suspicious to me that the same generals who claim we are on the cusp of war and that they desperately need more of everything seem to have no desire to increase the reserves. The British army is almost unique in having a near complete “professional” ethos. The US army which is far from more capable than ours could ever dream of being has an active reserve force equal in size to the regular full time force.
In Ukraine the professional army lasted five minutes and its reservists and conscripts that held the line.
Britain has never fought a major war since 1815 without mobilisation of civilians.
We have one single reserve infantry brigade. We should have five.
If the USA can do it there is no reason we can’t do it. We did it with the TA for over 100 years which got us through WW1,WW2 and the Cold War.
Reserve forces are five times cheaper than regular forces.
Britain will never be prepared to fight a major war because the people in charge of our army are generally picked from a single light infantry regiment that considers itself a global elite and it’s a capability which is nearly completely useless in a modern battlefield.
In many ways it’s like the issue that we had with the cavalry in the interwar period and the British armies never ending desire to be a colonial police force instead of a modern mechanised fighting force.
Jim, I so agree with your comments. Reserves Forces could be doubled and if properly funded would attract recruits. You are so right re blinkered Generals. Same applies to Admirals and Air Marshals. I am ex RAF. Here we could cover the ground defence of airfields and protection with 5 more Reserve Regiment and Police units at the expenses of a few regulars.
Same could be applied to ac engineers and also aircrew. As well as suppliers and admin staffs.
Let’s give this reserves push more traction and publicity now.
Very good point and you don’t really need lots of young fit people to act as none deployable reserves for things like defending UK based military infrastructure against drones or sabotage.
Jim, you always have such a skewed view of the Army and make such spurious claims about random stuff. For example claiming that CGS is normally “from a single light infantry regiment considers itself an elite.” The last 10 CGS’s were from the following regiments: Grenadier Guards, Rifles, Irish Guards, Rifles, Royal Engineers, Royal Artillery, Green Howards, Paras, R Anglian, Royal Ulster Rifles.
Where did you work out that Reserve Forces are 5 times cheaper than regular?
You say there is only one reserve infantry Bde, but it has 8 Battalions in it. The other 8 reserve Bns are in Bdes in 3 Div.
And your claim about the inter-war period is bonkers on two fronts. First, the regular Army WAS a colonial police force, not that it simply wanted to be. And secondly, in 1940, it was the ONLY totally mechanised Army in Europe. The Wehrmacht was still heavily reliant on horses in Europe even into 1945…
US National guard is also part funded by the states in addition to the Federal government.
Adding into this:
The British Army in WW2 was the only totally Mechanised Army in Europe…. Because a lot of the Reserves where left in the UK. There where somewhere on the order of 17 Infantry Divisions that where left in the UK in 1940 because they couldn’t be mechanised and equipped for fighting in France.
It’s much the same with the modern Army Reserve. We have 16 Reserve Infantry Battalions (slight correction to BobA, only 5 Btns are in 3 Div; 1 is in 16AA, 1 is in LSOF, 1 is in the London District) , 4 Reserve RAC Regiments, and 7 Reserve Artillery Regiments… and they mostly are set up to provide individuals to existing units. Even 19 Light Brigade is not a deployable formation, it’s a holding bag for units that others can syphon personel from. And unlike Estonia, or Ukraine, or Finland, you can’t just give a British Soldier a Rifle and a Carl Gustav and say “sit in this hole and shoot anything that drives down the road, Grandpa will come and bring you stew in five hours.” We are too far away from the front for that (although on the bright side it also means that we have time to generate follow on forces from civilian status too).
Yes it would be great if we had a reserve division that was fully deployable and could follow up the two existing divisions. I’d even like to see a Reserve Armoured Brigade equipped with 432, Warrior and Challenger 2 when the Regular army disgardes them. But it’s simply not on the cards when the actual regular force, and the existing reserve needs recapitalising and equipment that means we can use what we already have to it’s fullest capability.
Double the size of the reserve? How about we instead increase the regular army’s headcount, enable 4th Brigade to deploy without reservists and use the released troops to split 19 Brigade in half, equip both of them with IMV’s, and provide both 3 and 1 Division with a Reserve Manuever Brigade.
Looks like Steve Barclay has decided to carve out a new career in defence journalism. I wish him well; it’s a better option than joining Reform😂
On a serious note he is obviously correct and Healey would no doubt agree. The truth is we have been in denial- we are already at war with Russia and the Islamists and need to mobilise. That realisation is the real reason that the govt is still struggling with the DIP.
Is it really impossible to crew fast jets by reservists? What if they are recently ‘retired’ regular RAF pilots completing their reserve liability? How does the US train National Guard pilots to fly fast jets?
If it is so difficult why not have RAF reservists crew helicopters and transport aircraft?
There are RAF Reserve aircrew for the Transport force.
This is one of the most important and relevant pages I’ve seen posted 😯🤔
We are talking about the grass roots of the Armed Forces, and completely agree that we must modernize our Reserves
The LATE Defence Investment Plan must deliver big changes
It’s all very well expanding the Reserves.
But….how about ensuring the Regulars are equipped first???
And even the Reserves we do have, i understood that their kit allocation is minimal beyond Individual kit and weapon.
One for serving like Dern to comment, but, look at the Army.
Many units are not meant to self deploy as complete formations, but as Individual augmentees, using the assets of the regular formation they are paired with, I suspect key kit is lacking.
RAC Yeomanry. Has Jackal in all units AFAIK.
RAC RWY. Has no tanks, crews are allocated.
RA. Beyond the 3 Light Gun Regiments, which I understand do have their own guns, does the GBAD Regiment have Sabre, LMM, or Stormer Starstreak? Does 101 RA have full Batteries of MLRS? AS90, when we had a SPG in number, was never issued to the RA Reserve AFAIK.
RE. Do the Reserve Regiments have Titan, Trojan, Terrier, 432 Mastiff, and all the plant?
Ditto all other arms and services. The AAC Reserve is reduced to ground crews supporting Wildcat Force and Apache Force, it has no helicopters of its own! Are we surprised? We cannot buy more than a handful of them, look at the 34 Wildcat and the recent 23 AW149.
Once, 7 AAC had 3 Squadrons of Gazelle, proper real assets useful in a UKHD war role. Now? It’s a training Regiment with people.
RAuxAF and RAuxAF Regiment the same, they have no assets beyond bodies in uniform with weapon, same with the RN Reserve, they no longer have a MCMV or Patrol vessel complement, barely do the RN!!!
HMG spend so much of the “Defence” budget on non military assets where is the money coming from to establish reserves that are actually usable?
We’ve suggested here before a GBAD Regiment or two purely of local reserves for CAUS and missile defence of local KPs and CNI.
What we need is less greedy politician’s i.e. put them on national minimum wage.. Less Dei less illegal migrants preferably zero and spend the money where it should be on our defence i.e. more Manpower with more and better equipment..
I’m completely with you on this, Andy, it’s not the money we spend, it’s “where” we spend it. For too many years successive governments have thrown money at stupid projects, like supporting immigration, like supporting overseas development projects; how about spending some money at home on defence for a change? Then we can look at putting together an excellent regular force supported by a good and well equipped reserve.
Also ban lawyers from holding political office. Because there lies one of the major problems.
Every town used to have Drill Hall, the TA ( in which I served ) was made up of ex regulars and some top notch civvy lads. We had the HSF too. Lionheart mobilised 100,000 men and kit. We could actually rock and roll.
Politicians are responsible for cut, cut and cut. We used to field the AFS and a fleet of GG’s, we had the ROC for nuclear monitoring….all bloody binned by? Politicians and the reason? Money, and welfarism plus a thriving import business from France.
Now when we are banjaxed? Politicians start mouthing off.
End of mini rant.