Britain is preparing to test how it would recall thousands of former service personnel in a national emergency, as ministers confront growing security threats and questions over whether the military knows how to reach those who could be called back into uniform.
Louise Sandher-Jones, the Armed Forces Minister and a former Army intelligence officer, has warned that the Strategic Reserve represents a significant commitment for those who remain liable for service after leaving the regular forces.
“They will be exercised as part of our exercise programme next year,” she told the House of Lords National Resilience Committee, describing plans to test the procedures for calling up, equipping and deploying reservists.
The minister, who is herself a member of the Strategic Reserve, acknowledged that she had given little thought to the arrangement since leaving the Army. But she said the new approach would represent a step change in how the system was used, Forces News reported.
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About 95,000 former service personnel are understood to be covered by the Strategic Reserve, which comprises the Ex-Regular Reserve and the Recall Reserve. A major resilience exercise, potentially linked to NATO’s Exercise Steadfast Defender, is expected to test the arrangements.
The distinction between the two groups is significant. Ex-Regular reservists are legally obliged to undertake training and can be called up, while members of the Recall Reserve are generally liable for activation for war or military operations.
But the legal threshold for recalling former personnel has already been widened. Changes announced in January 2026 lowered the bar to include “warlike preparations”, with the Ministry of Defence citing the growing threat to the UK.
The period of liability varies by service. Army and Royal Air Force personnel can remain liable for 18 years after leaving, with six years in the Ex-Regular Reserve followed by 12 in the Recall Reserve. For the Royal Navy, the period is six years, split equally between the two categories.
Currently, liability ends at 55, although that age is due to rise to 65 when the Armed Forces Bill becomes law, expected at the end of this year.
The expansion of the recall framework has sharpened concerns about whether the Ministry of Defence has the administrative infrastructure to make it work.
In January, former defence minister Al Carns delivered a blunt assessment of the system, warning that the department had lost track of parts of the reserve structure since the Cold War.
“It is an utter mess,” he said, pointing to the different terms of service, pensions and periods of liability governing active, volunteer, strategic and regular reserves.
“In some cases, we know where some groups are. We don’t know where other groups are. We’ve taken our eye off the ball since the Cold War.”
The practical challenge is not simply establishing who can be recalled, but ensuring officials can contact them quickly, verify their details and determine whether they can be mobilised at short notice.
BFBS Forces News understands that the Ministry of Defence currently communicates with Strategic Reserve members through an Annual Reporting Letter, a process intended to keep contact details current so they can be used if personnel need to be recalled or mobilised.
Further work is understood to be under way on a broader communications campaign.
The planned exercises will offer an opportunity to test whether those arrangements can withstand the pressure of a genuine crisis. A reserve force that exists on paper but cannot be contacted, equipped or deployed quickly would offer limited reassurance as Britain prepares for a more dangerous security environment.
For ministers, the challenge is to turn a largely unseen pool of former military personnel into a credible element of national defence — and to ensure that the lessons of the Cold War are not repeated when the country may need them most.
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