The Earl of Minto (Con)

My Lords, I do not have too much to say on this group of two government amendments, so I will keep it brief. I understand entirely why the Government wish to allow call-out notices to be sent by email. The Minister has given us an excellent explanation of their rationale, and we on these Benches concur. There are, however, two points which I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify. The drafting of the amendment says: “A notice under this section may also be served”. This could be taken to mean “instead of” or “as well as”. My point is that it must mean “as well as”. I would not be comfortable with call-out notices being sent out only by email. What if the email ends up in a junk or spam folder, the recipient misses the email, or perhaps they do not even check their email—there are probably some here who do not do that? If the call-out notice is sent only by email, there exists a relatively high possibility that it might be missed. This could of course have some quite serious ramifications. I hope the Minister can confirm that call-out notices will continue to be sent by post as well as by email. If that is the case, I have no issue. The second point relates to the first. New subsection (6A) specifies which email will be used to send a call-out notice, that being “the last known email address used by that person as a means of communicating with them, or … an email address by means of which there are reasonable grounds to believe that an email sent to that address will come to the attention of the person”. What precisely does “used” mean in this context? Does it mean an address which the individual has provided to the MoD? Does it mean an address to which the MoD has previously sent communications? Does the department need evidence that the person has received or responded to communications at that address, and who makes a judgment that an email address is the last known one? Further, what are those reasonable grounds? Does this imply trying to send the email to a friend or relative, and if so, how will the third party be chosen? If this policy is to have the desired effect, information collection and recordkeeping must be paramount. I understand that the Reserve Forces (Provision of Information by Persons Liable to be Recalled) Regulations 1997 expressly state that there is a legal obligation for those who are subject to recall to keep the MoD up to date with their residential or postal address. This seems essential. Those regulations do not currently require those liable to recall to keep the MoD updated about any changes to their email address. Obviously, that is because the legislation does not yet enable email addresses to be used for callout. Can the Minister confirm that, with this change to the process, the Government will update the 1997 regulations and any other relevant policies?