Britain is preparing to call up former members of the Armed Forces for a large-scale mobilisation exercise next year, as the Government seeks to strengthen its ability to respond rapidly to a potential military crisis involving Russia.
Veterans from the UK’s 95,000-strong strategic reserve could be contacted, mobilised and equipped as part of what ministers have described as the most significant test of the system for decades.
Louise Sandher-Jones, the Armed Forces minister, said the strategic reserve would be exercised “on a scale we haven’t seen for a long time”, although she did not specify how many former personnel would participate.
The exercise will test a mobilisation system that senior defence figures have warned is poorly equipped to maintain contact with veterans once they leave military service.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who led last year’s strategic defence review, previously said officials did not “know where most” members of the strategic reserve were. He urged the Government to “round up those who are available and fit and willing”.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, has similarly warned that Britain lacks an “effective system of tracking and engaging” personnel who have recently left the Armed Forces.
Giving evidence to the House of Lords national resilience committee on Monday, Ms Sandher-Jones said next year’s exercise would test the procedures required to activate the reserve in a genuine emergency.
“The strategic reserve is a real commitment for those that are in it and they will be exercised as part of our exercise programme next year where we will go through measures to call out, use, equip and all the rest of the procedures we’d have to go through to use the strategic reserve properly,” she said.
The strategic reserve consists of former military personnel who remain liable for recall after leaving regular service. It differs from Britain’s nearly 32,000 active reservists, who voluntarily serve part-time alongside civilian employment.
Ms Sandher-Jones, herself a former Army officer, said the reserve had been underused for much of her lifetime but would play a more important role in future defence planning.
“When I left the Army and found out I was in the strategic reserve, I just filed it away and never thought about it again. We are definitely no longer in that space,” she said.
Under existing legislation, former regular and reserve officers can theoretically be recalled throughout their lives. The Ministry of Defence is also required to maintain contact with former personnel for six years after they leave full-time service.
The Government is seeking to expand its mobilisation powers through the Armed Forces Bill. The proposed legislation would raise the maximum age for call-up from 55 to 65 and lower the threshold for activating former personnel.
The circumstances allowing mobilisation would shift from “national danger, great emergency or attack in the UK” to the broader category of “war-like preparations”.
The changes are expected to take effect next spring, against a backdrop of increasingly stark warnings from British and Nato defence planners about the prospect of confrontation with Russia before the end of the decade.
Moscow has threatened strikes against British factories involved in producing drones for Ukraine, while Western intelligence agencies have warned that Russian sabotage operations across Europe could trigger a wider confrontation through miscalculation.
The mobilisation plans also underline the pressure on Britain’s conventional forces.
The regular Army has around 71,000 fully trained personnel available for frontline deployment, its smallest size for more than two centuries.
There are tentative signs that the long decline in personnel numbers may be beginning to reverse. The Ministry of Defence said last week that recruitment exceeded departures across the full-time Armed Forces over a 12-month period for the first time since 2021.
However, the increases remain limited. The Army grew by 170 personnel, while the RAF added 840 and the Royal Navy and Royal Marines increased by 440.
Questions also remain over military readiness after training for some soldiers in the Army’s 3rd Division was reportedly cancelled as part of cost-saving measures, including the suspension of live-firing exercises until April.
The plans come as Prime Minister Andy Burnham faces growing pressure to increase defence spending. Chancellor John Healey is not expected to commit to spending 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030 at next month’s Budget.
The veteran mobilisation exercise will form part of a wider programme to test Britain’s national resilience and its capacity to expand its Armed Forces rapidly in the event of a major conflict.
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