RESERVE FORCES BILL. (Hansard, 23 February 1937)

§ LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL

My Lords, this is a short and simple but none the less important Bill, As your Lordships will be aware, the Army Reserve is maintained (under authority of the Reserve Forces Act, 1882) in order that trained men may be available to bring the Regular Army up to proper strength for war purposes. Generally speaking, the Reserve is created by requiring men to enlist for a specified period of Colour service followed by a specified period of service on the Reserve. For instance, the normal period of service for the infantry is twelve years—seven with the Colours and five on the Reserve. There are variations of service in respect of other arms into which I need not now enter. Under the Act of 1882, the Reserve can be called up "in case of imminent national danger or of great emergency," and that is done by Proclamation, necessitating prior information being given to Parliament, which involves of course the summoning of Parliament during any period of recess.

Circumstances may arise, however, in which additional men are needed to bring units of the Regular Army up to the required establishment for foreign service—and I emphasise that—during a minor emergency which does not involve a declaration of war. Cases in point are the Shanghai troubles of 1927, and the 277 recent disturbances in Palestine. Something less than 2,500 reservists were needed for Palestine, and it would be an unnecessarily cumbrous procedure to proclaim the calling out of the Army Reserve in order to obtain that number. The problem of making provision for small-scale reinforcement of the Regular Army was solved by the Reserve Forces and Militia Act of 1898, the Act which this Bill proposes to amend. That Act created a special branch of the Reserve, known as Section "A" of the Reserve, and it is with that only that this Bill is concerned. Section "A" is composed of men who, on or shortly after passing from the Colours to the Reserve, consent to be liable to be called back to the Colours "for service outside the United Kingdom when warlike operations are in preparation or in progress," to quote from the Statute, in circumstances when general mobilisation is not proclaimed The only executive action necessary to call up Section "A" is the sending of orders to rejoin to the men individually, the fact being reported to Parliament as soon as possible. In return for accepting that liability (which is at present limited by Statute to the first two years of his Reserve service) the man receives 6d. a day additional to his ordinary Reserve Pay. I would like to make it quite clear that the man's acceptance of this special liability is entirely voluntary, and can be revoked at any time by the man on giving three months' notice in writing. That provision remains intact under this Bill.

The maximum strength of Section "A" is prescribed by Statute and is at present fixed at 6,000. The actual strength has of late been limited to 3,000 men, the total strength at the time of the Palestine emergency being 2,920, made up of 2,265 infantrymen and 655 of other arms. Actually there were called up for the Palestine emergency 2,482 men, made up of 2,265 infantrymen and 217 other arms, but for various reasons only 2,364 men were actually sent out. Your Lordships will be quick to perceive that had any other emergency arisen at that time, Section "A" would have been exhausted; and, indeed, were further trouble to take place anywhere to-day those same men who answered the call for Palestine would again be the first to be required. Clearly, therefore, the limitation of 3,000 men must be 278 discarded and the strength of Section "A" increased as far as possible.

It is not considered necessary to disturb the present statutory maximum of 6,000, but experience shows that in order to recruit from the 3,000 up to the 6,000 it is necessary to relax the two-year liability rule. What the Bill does, therefore, is to remove the present two-year limit and substitute a limit of (a) five years, or (b) the termination of the man's original engagement, whichever occurs the earlier. This is what the Bill means when it says "the residue unexpired of the term of the original enlistment." This change will enable men in the later years of their Reserve service to volunteer for Section "A"; it will therefore widen the field of recruitment. It will also enable men who are already in Section "A" to remain there instead of passing automatically to the ordinary Reserve at the conclusion of their second year of Reserve service.

It does not, of course, follow that if this Bill goes through we shall require men enrolling in Section "A" to serve for five years. What the Bill does, however, is to enable a man to undertake a liability of this nature during the first five years of his Reserve service. It would always be open to the War Office to prescribe by regulations some lesser period during which it would accept the man's offer to be liable. If, therefore, men come forward to undertake the Section "A" liability in sufficient numbers, as we think they will, to enable the strength of the section to be maintained, it will always be possible that the liability shall, for practical purposes, be reduced to one, two or three years after the termination of Colour service, if and as necessary. I would only conclude by saying that our experience is that a number of men who now undertake two years' Section "A" service would, if they were allowed to, accept a longer period of liability, and I would again remind your Lordships that the statutory provision in the 1898 Act, that a man can cancel his liability on giving three months' notice, is left undisturbed. I beg to move.