Lord Swire (Con)

My Lords, before we move on—because I suspect that this is not going to detain us too long—I would like to tease out from the Government Front Bench a couple of things. As I said in my earlier remarks, we are going through something of a sea-change, rather too late in the day, in how we look at our reserves, our responsiveness and our state of alert in this country. In that respect, we understand that it is easier for larger companies to let people go for training because they have more people, but it is the smaller companies on which we should spend a little bit more time in thinking how we can better assist them. With that in mind, in both cases—those of larger and smaller companies—what are we doing to promote the idea that it is a good thing for them to release their employees to take part in some activities involving the military? Are we actively doing that? Secondly, on people being released from other duties, it suddenly struck me that it seems rather ridiculous that people in the reserves are not exempt from jury service; I think I am right in that. This means that, particularly if you are a small employer, you might have to let somebody go for not only their reserve training but jury service. That takes a huge whack out of somebody’s time. However we monitor these things, it is almost impossible to ensure that, ultimately, people are not being penalised in their careers for taking time off. I would like to know what the Government are doing to monitor this on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that people who are actively involved in the reserves are not being penalised further down the line. There seems to be something of a disconnect in our thinking here. On the one hand, as I said earlier, there is talk of mobilising many more veterans—something like 69,000—in an exercise next year, just at the same time as we are telling our Reserve Forces that they cannot have money for training and equipment. What is the Government’s thinking on that? If we are going to mobilise these people, is it going to be a paper exercise or are we actually going to invite them to turn up? Are they going to be given equipment? What is the current thinking here—or is it just a catchy headline? We have debated the whole issue of preparedness in this country and will continue to do so going forward, for obvious reasons—of that I am absolutely sure. The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, mentioned a number of issues, with which I concur. I am broadly supportive of many of the amendments that he has tabled and which we are debating this afternoon, some of which are probably probing. He talked about Australia and the difference in its approach to these matters, as compared to ours. We have lessons to learn from Australia, but why do we not also take into account what they have been doing so successfully in Switzerland for decades now, whereby almost anyone of working age and beyond is required to do service in the reserves at weekends? It is a very bonding exercise. You can be somebody’s boss in the week and that person can be your radio operator at the weekend. It engenders in a country a sense of purpose, unity and preparedness, which is what this must all be about.