WEDNESDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2004

GENERAL SIR MIKE JACKSON KCB CBE DSO ADC GEN

  Q320  Mr Hancock: General, I am on your side in this argument.

  General Sir Mike Jackson: I am grateful.

  Mr Cran: You have an ally. Be very careful!

  Q321  Mr Hancock: I fear that some of my colleagues may have slightly lost the plot on this one, and are not too sure about why this whole thing is being considered. However, intellectually, there is your argument or the argument of the Army Board—and I sympathise with your suggestion as to why six career soldiers, at the end of their careers, should want to go through the agonies of doing this when they could probably argue, as your predecessors had, not to do it. You want to save another Army Board, a few years down the track, doing it. I understand that but surely, intellectually, there would be more credibility if you were looking at the whole of the Army and saying, "Let's get away from this system and let's restructure and redesign the Army"—so that the single Guards battalions are no longer an issue, and we will have a Guards unit, irrespective of its name; it will be a single unit, and the same for geographical units within the British Army; and so that you did not have ever to go down this route again. It is a nonsense, is it not? I remember the fight to save the Hampshire Regiment. My own family was very considerably associated with it, and there was a big fight to keep the Hampshires. I do not believe you can go on having these fights every five to ten years to save these battalions when there is legitimate argument for not doing so and bring them together as a more cohesive unit. Surely the case needs to be made to look at the Army as a whole and to do the restructuring in one go, a big bang?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: Are you talking about non infantry?

  Q322  Mr Hancock: Yes, I am talking about the whole of the Army structure, to get it clearly defined into what you would now consider a modern army serving the United Kingdom ought to look like and how it ought to be described as opposed to the 1st battalion of the Coldstream Guards and just having a guards battalion or, for that matter, having a ceremonial battalion which did nothing else but that. As you rightly said, a well trained guards unit spends four years being trained up and then is taken out of the equation—

  General Sir Mike Jackson: We will stop doing it.

  Q323  Mr Hancock: — for a whole period of time because of ceremonial duties.

  General Sir Mike Jackson: We will stop doing it.

  Q324  Mr Hancock: Yes. There needs to be a credible intellectual case for what you are doing and I support what you are doing but, because you are doing it in a piecemeal way and do not tackle the issue of the army as a whole, I think that is why people are able to come back at you in the way they do.

  General Sir Mike Jackson: But the infantry is unique to the other parts of the Army. Arguably, if you take the Royal Engineers and the Royal Artillery, they are large regiments and there are none of these difficulties. Nobody can say, like Gunner Sanders, or, indeed, anybody else in the army, it is somehow less capable but where the infantry is concerned, yes, there is no question of a corps of infantry, absolutely none, that is not the way to go in my view. The regimental system has served the British Army extremely well down the hundreds of years.

  Q325  Mr Hancock: Why would you not go down that line? What is the argument against that?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: Because at the end of the day soldiers need to have a sense of identity and it has been proven time and time again that when the going gets rough soldiers are not looking for some high intellectual claims for why they are risking their lives, it comes down to things much more—what is the word I want—basic in a way, that you are mates and the fact that you are together and you are in the same band, that really does matter. The regimental system has had many a manifestation down the years. It is only about 130 years since Cardwell, if you recall, abolished what were then the numbered infantry battalion and a lot of people thought the world had come to an end when the new named regiments came in. The regimental system is the absolute bedrock to us, what we call part of the moral component, part of that heart side I was talking about. That does not mean to say that the regimental structure we have today is going to be the right one or the most optimal one for the future. We need to have an infantry which can expand, if need be, without any difficulty, which can support itself and reinforce other battalions without the friction and the difficulties which we have at the moment.

  Mr Hancock: I am delighted I asked that question because your answer to my question was a far better answer than the one you gave to Mr Cran, and I think it answered his question as well.

  Q326  Chairman: We will apply the same forensic logic to any cuts in the Royal Navy and the abolition of Portsmouth in favour of Plymouth that is being applied by Mr Hancock. Most of us have gone past the argument of saying a single battalion regiment should remain in perpetuity so I would not want to be seen as somebody who says I do not want to see any changes at all, it is the grouping of them. It seems to me, General, that it is a sensible way to remove a great deal of the opposition which will persist up to the time of taking the decision and after the time of taking the decision, to say to people "Okay, your regiment is no longer a single battalion regiment, it is going to be merged with two or three or four others in a perfectly logical geographical structure but we are not simply bestowing upon your regiment a cap badge and a regimental museum, I promise you we will have within this larger entity the regiment that will still be a regiment." It will still be definably a regiment going back 50, 100, 200 years and what I think would remove a great deal of the opposition would be if you could convince those who support that regiment that their regiment will not be eliminated as has been done in the past with mergers. Now, I am not sufficiently confident to say what will satisfy them but perhaps recruiting, if a regiment knows its recruiting area. There are a number of things which could be done in terms of staffing still at regimental level which would allow you to have your larger association of regiments, which would allow the arms plot to be expunged from the way that you have done over the years but people can still say "Look, I am still in the 38 Regiment of Foot, the Staffordshire Regiment, but within a larger West Mercia Regiment. I am still a Stafford, I am not simply an M4 Regiment which has had its traditions largely eliminated". Now is there any thinking going on along those lines which would remove a great deal of the opposition to your proposals? It means a little give on your side as well as a little give on our side.

  General Sir Mike Jackson: One of the principles which the board has had before it in all of this, and we have used perhaps an emotive phrase, is we have said the maintenance of the golden thread, the golden thread being the heritage, the history, the sense of belonging that is very much in our minds. We will have to see how this one works through, Chairman, I cannot tell you what the solution is now because we are not there yet. I do assure you that there is no intention of riding roughshod over people's heartfelt points here but this is a difficult circle to square, I think, we just have to get the future right. These battalions are there to fight at the end of the day.

  Q327  Chairman: And the regimental spirit is very strong.

  General Sir Mike Jackson: Precisely.

  Q328  Mr Jones: Can I turn to the Territorial Army. In Future Capabilities it states that "Both regular and reserve forces will be incorporated into the new structure, enabling the Army to improve the links between regular units and the reserves who reinforce them". Can you just explain what that incorporation of restructuring is going to do?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: It takes them straight back to future infantry. When the last reorganisation of the Territorial Army was carried out in the infantry a rather difficult structure emerged whereby we had TA battalions which were not of themselves regiments but had within them companies cap badged from other regiments so you could have three different cap badges in the same battalion. There is no real sense of identity. I am Colonel of the Rifle Volunteers down in the South West, they had Devon and Dorsets, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Light Infantry, it just reinforces the last half an hour's discussion. I think I am the only serving general who has spent two and a half years as a training major with a TA battalion of which I am inordinately proud. One of the real benefits amongst others of the new infantry structure is to completely reorganise the TA infantry so that the new large regiments have their own TA battalions cap badged within. This you find elsewhere, in the other half of the infantry which is already there. If you take the TA Light Infantry, for example, it is not a battalion, it is scattered companies in these slightly artificial battalions. We can do much more there. If I can give you an example, the ease by which reinforcements can be mobilised from a battalion of the same regiment, and I am thinking of the Royal Irish here—leave my own out of this one because it would be special pleading—last year for Iraq, 1 Royal Irish was immediately brought up to full strength by 65—off the top of my head—of their own TA soldiers, out of a volunteer rate of 120, if I remember rightly, really good. That is much of what lies behind that statement but it goes broader than that, the more we can link together the TA and the regular Army, in my view, the better it is. One army is a rather old fashioned phrase but I still believe it.

  Q329  Mr Jones: Can I ask in terms of the deployment, of TA battalions deployed recently, I think it was 10% of TA, and when we visited Iraq we saw the TA worked very well in co-operation with the regular Army. With the new robust establishment, are you seeing the deployability reducing or increasing?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: Of the Territorial Army?

  Q330  Mr Jones: Yes?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: This depends on circumstances, I think. The law, the Reserve Forces Act, says you mobilise the territorial soldier once in three years. Our judgment is that this would be asking too much—barring complete national survival—and it seems to me a sensible sort of yardstick here would be once in five years. There is a balance also to be struck as between those particular specialities and trades which are fairly esoteric, expensive to maintain in the regular Army if you are not going to use them very often but an ideal place for a reservist, where you call him up when you particularly need his skills. The answer to your question, as I say, will depend upon the circumstances but I am trying to give you a broad feel for what we think is right. As an operation matures and the regular army scales down over time so should very much the TA in terms of compulsory mobilisation. Those who wish to volunteer, that is another matter altogether and, of course, FTRS as well. There are a number of moving parts in it.

  Q331  Mr Jones: Can I just ask, in recent deployments the TA have been used to in-fill where you have gaps in terms of capabilities in different parts and overall it seemed to work quite well. Do you see that continuing or do you see what you just said, that you will have a TA who serve specialist roles which are not going to be done by the regular army? Does that affect, also, the way in which you recruit and look at TA in terms of—

  General Sir Mike Jackson: TA recruits?

  Q332  Mr Jones: Well, TA recruits in the sense of saying "Well, this is not about playing soldiers at the weekend, you are going to be deployed" and the possibility of getting deployed increases. Is that going to affect recruitment and the mindset type of people we are looking for to go into the TA?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: I think the TA has changed over the last ten years or so in a remarkable way and it is hugely to their credit. If there was a sense—and I was never happy with that phrase at all—of sort of weekend soldiering, that has gone and it is a reserve Army which is there to help out the regular Army when it needs it. I get no sense, from talking to TA soldiers, that they are now not aware that mobilisation, if it is required, is part of what they signed up to do. There is an acceptance of that. There is a pride in it.

  Q333  Mr Havard: I asked—I think it was yourself—before about this and how you go about recruiting territorials, the suggestion that in some way or another this was going to be merged in or joined up in some fashion to the normal recruiting into the regular forces. There was some concern in the recruiting communities that there would not have been clarity, if you like, of the offer that was being made to the two different groups. I wonder what consideration has been given to how you recruit people into the TA given, as you rightly say, the offer is slightly different because the asking is a bit different.

  General Sir Mike Jackson: I am not an expert on this one and I might have to do a follow up if you want details.[2] My understanding, of course, here is that the recruiting organisation for the regulars is based on the Army career offices and increasingly joint careers offices, Armed Forces careers offices, whereas TA recruiting is still pretty much a local business done by the unit itself and by the regional brigade, they have recruitment fairs and all of that. So far as I know these two things are largely done in separate ways. There has been thinking that we have this infrastructure, we made this investment in recruiting officers, can we use them all, but I think that is probably about as far as my knowledge right now is going to take me. Is that good enough?

  Q334  Mr Havard: That is fine. If that is the answer, that is the answer. If you are going to have, as you described it, structures and the territorial structures are going to look exactly the same, then clearly some thought needs to be given to them.

  General Sir Mike Jackson: Some would-be TA soldiers do go into army recruiting offices wanting to be TA soldiers but just not quite understanding that their primary purpose is regular recruiting.

  Q335  Mr Jones: If, for example, the role of the TA is changed, and clearly it is in terms of the use of operations and more, is there a serious need to look at the relationship with industry and employers in terms of what they have signed up to so we try and avoid some of the headlines we have seen recently about people being deployed and coming back to industrial tribunals? If we are changing the Army, do we need to look, for example, at the employment law side in terms of the relationship with private industry when we asking people to be deployed on a regular basis?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: My understanding is that the Reserve Forces Act 1996 is actually a pretty good bit of legislation for the contractual side. Yes, there is a debate about income limits and all of that but I think that is application. Again, I think a lot has changed over the last ten years in the relationship between the Ministry of Defence, the Armed Forces and employers. NEAB, of which I am sure you are well aware, took over from the old NELC under Lord Glenarthur, very dynamic, pushing the relationship and making sure that we are getting the best out of it as we can. My understanding is that this employer relationship is pretty good. You will not get it perfect where everybody is happy all the time, inevitably either a soldier called up or an employer may have some difference of view. There are mechanisms, as you know, in the Act to deal with that and I think that has gone pretty well. I have been much encouraged by the degree of support which employers have given and some of them note that in military terms out goes a private soldier and they get a lance corporal back because of the experience, confidence and responsibility given to him.

  Q336  Chairman: Just a quick question on the TA. If you have been in the TA in the last few years your life has been fairly busy, forgive the euphemism much loved. Is there any indication from recruitment or retention that a lot of people from the TA expect to spend a lot of time in Iraq or filling in for the Army? I know that is their purpose, is there any indication that some of them are tiring of this substitute Army role?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: What, the TA themselves, do you mean?

  Q337  Chairman: Yes?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: No, I do not get that sense actually. I would say the law protects them to be only mobilised once in three years so it cannot come around that often. I have already said we think five is probably the more sensible yardstick, but of course a lot of them volunteer and some of them volunteer for back to back tours—I am always amazed—with great enthusiasm and commitment.

  Q338  Richard Ottaway: General, can I take you back to a point you touched on earlier today. It is the impact all of this is going to have on individual careers. In the past battalions have moved from place to place but now there is great encouragement for individuals to go from battalion to battalion. To what extent are you going to encourage people to make these moves? What is imposed on them? What impact will this have upon their career prospects and how often will it happen?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: The important thing in a career soldier, whether he be officer, junior and senior NCO, is that over time we invest in him a breadth of experience. I think I have already made my point enough about the haphazard nature in which the arms plot did this. When you know there are four battalions of the Blankshires, one is armoured infantry, one is air assault, one is light infantry and, what shall we say, one is on public duties, there we are, there are four rather different roles, and you know, shall we say, you have got a major coming out of the staff college, you know what he has done before, made the armoured infantry, right well, he is going to command a light infantry company or he is going to command an air assault company so it is properly planned. The same will apply in the sergeants' mess as well, absolutely so. It is when an officer or senior NCO is at regimental duty he will be planning quite carefully where he goes to broaden his experience and this can be done on a proper structured basis which is much more difficult at the moment.

  Q339  Richard Ottaway: If he gets a really good posting which is high profile, are his promotion prospects enhanced more than, say, the chap that is doing guard duty? Do you understand the point I am making?

  General Sir Mike Jackson: That is fair enough. That is true today, one might argue. Somebody is doing guard duty. I hope our personnel system is broader than that and recognises the fact that not everybody can be in the sexiest role and, furthermore, not only that but actually deployed on operations and really showing what you are made of. Some of these things are event driven rather than being able to be planned, but I think we can do a lot better.