In today's House of Lords debate on the Armed Forces Bill, defence minister Lord Coaker introduced a new draft clause to permit formal call-out and recall notices to be served by email as well as by post.

The clause is a lengthy one, and says that

... such a notice is, unless the contrary is proved, to be treated as having been received on the day following the day on which the email is sent.

Viscount Stansgate immediately wondered whether they should be thinking ahead to WhatsApp. Baroness Smith was distinctly more cautious about formal notices by social media. Earl Minto worried about spam folders and asked whether email really meant in addition to post.

Lord Coaker initially gave an answer sufficiently unclear that Minto asked again – and when the Committee returned to the subject later, Coaker announced that he had discovered “through a variety of means” that he had not made himself clear and confirmed: call-out notice will be by both post and email and not by WhatsApp, etc.

This was a small diversion during a major debate on the Armed Forces Bill covering subjects such as reserve collective training cuts, duplication of civilian and military qualifications, the legal gap concerning reservists at the employee recruitment stage, the abolition of the 13 regional RFCAs and the removal of Lord-Lieutenants from the replacement organisation.

BAFF will return to those points when the corrected Hansard is available.