Britain to Test Recall of 95,000-Strong Veteran Reserve as War Fears Grow

The British Army is preparing to run a large-scale exercise next year to establish whether it could actually mobilise the tens of thousands of veterans who remain legally liable for recall, amid growing government concern about the possibility of conflict with Russia before the end of the decade.

The plan was disclosed by Armed Forces Minister Louise Sandher-Jones, who told peers on the House of Lords’ national resilience committee that members of the so-called “strategic reserve,” a pool of around 95,000 former service personnel, would be called upon “on a scale we haven’t seen for a long time.”

The exercise, first reported by The Telegraph, is intended to test how effectively veterans can be identified, summoned, and re-equipped in the event of a crisis, though the precise numbers involved are still being worked out.

Part of a Wider Push to Prepare for War

The drill forms part of a broader effort by the government to put the country on more of a war footing, driven by fears that Britain could be drawn into a confrontation with Russia by 2030. Moscow has already made threats against British factories producing drones for Ukraine, and Western intelligence officials have separately warned that Vladimir Putin is running a sabotage campaign against the West that risks a miscalculation serious enough to spark a wider war.

The move comes at an awkward moment for Andy Burnham’s government, which is under pressure over its approach to defence spending. It recently emerged that Chancellor John Healey will not commit, in his first Budget next month, to raising defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030. Cost pressures have already had visible effects on readiness: live-fire training for some full-time soldiers in the Army’s 3rd Division has reportedly been suspended until April as a savings measure.

A Force the Government Admits It Has Lost Track Of

Under current law, former regular and reserve officers carry a recall liability for life, and the Ministry of Defence is required to stay in contact with ex-service personnel for the first six years after they leave. In practice, however, senior figures have acknowledged that this system has broken down. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who led last year’s strategic defence review, has said officials do not know the whereabouts of most reservists on the recall list and has urged ministers to track down those who are fit and willing to serve. The Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, has likewise conceded that the military lacks an effective system for tracking and engaging people who have recently left the forces.

Ms Sandher-Jones, herself a former Army officer, told the committee that the strategic reserve had gone largely unused during her lifetime, admitting that when she left the Army and discovered she was part of it, she simply forgot about it. She said that mindset no longer holds, given the current security climate.

It’s worth noting that the strategic reserve is a distinct category from the roughly 32,000 people currently serving as part-time reservists across the Army, Royal Navy, and RAF, who volunteer for that role rather than being retained under recall liability.

Rules Being Loosened Under New Armed Forces Bill

The government is also changing the legal framework governing when veterans can be recalled. A new Armed Forces Bill will lower the threshold for calling up retired personnel from the current standard of “national danger, great emergency or attack in the UK” to the broader test of “war-like preparations,” which already applies to reservists who left the forces relatively recently. That change is due to take effect in the spring. Separately, in January, ministers announced that the upper age limit for mobilising veterans would rise from 55 to 65.

Backdrop: A Shrinking Army, With Tentative Signs of a Turnaround

These moves come as the regular Army has fallen to its smallest size in more than two centuries, with roughly 71,000 full-time, fully trained troops available for front-line deployment. There are, however, early signs that the long-running decline in personnel numbers may be levelling off. The Ministry of Defence reported last week that, for the first time since 2021, more people joined the full-time forces over the course of a year than left them. The improvement remains modest: the Army grew by 170 personnel, the RAF by 840, and the Navy and Royal Marines by 440.

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This article draws on reporting first published by The Telegraph. Read the original coverage at telegraph.co.uk.