Royal Navy, Army and RAF veterans to be called up and mobilised on major exercise in resilience boost
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Former personnel will take part in a major upcoming exercise
Veterans will take up their service once again as part of a major upcoming exercise to improve the nation’s resilience.
Some former serving personnel will be asked to take part in the large-scale drill next year. Armed forces minister Louise Sandher-Jones, Labour, said this will challenge the Ministry of Defence (MoD) "on a scale that we haven't seen for a very long time".
The exercise will involve an unspecified number of the British military’s strategic reserve. This unit contains an estimated 95,000 retired regular and reserve officers.
Speaking to the House of Lords National Resilience Committee on September 7, Ms Sandher-Jones, Labour, said: “We’re looking to expand within the resources we have the volunteer reserves, but most crucially, we’re looking at the role of the strategic reserve.
“This is a part of the reserves which have been a lot less used in my lifetime. I am a member of the strategic reserve. When I left the Army and found out I was in it, I filed it away and never thought about it again. We’re no longer in that space.
“The strategic reserve is a real commitment for those that are in it. There will be exercises next year, where we will go through measures to callout, use, equip, and we will go through all the processes to make sure we’re using the strategic reserve properly.”
Ms Sandher-Jones, who served in the Army as an intelligence officer before becoming an MP, said legislative changes are being made to the strategic reserve as part of a “step-change” to use the force more compared to ten years ago. Concerns have been raised about how prepared the country is to deal with any upcoming security crisis.
Chief of defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, warned in January that there was not an effective system for engaging the strategic reserve. Ministers raised the age limit for the force from 55 to 65, and lowered the threshold for them being called into service. It covers personnel who served in various forces including the British Army, Royal Navy, and RAF.