Armed Forces: Redundancies

Lord Selkirk of Douglas Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that of course lessons have been learnt, particularly by the unfortunate person who sent the e-mail. As far as recruiting is concerned, the Armed Forces depend upon high-quality young men and women wanting to join for a rewarding and exciting career. The level of recruiting will be reduced, but I can assure the noble Lord that it will continue.

[Lord Selkirk of Douglas]

Can my noble friend say whether his Statement applies to senior officers and the Gurkhas?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the redundancy programme will apply to all Armed Forces personnel at one-star rank—that is Army Brigadier-equivalent—and below. Senior officers have different terms of service, being employed on a posting-by-posting basis and will therefore leave under different terms outside the redundancy programme, including termination of service without additional compensation.

Gurkhas are employed on exactly the same conditions of service as all other personnel and will be considered equally alongside their peers if there is a requirement to reduce personnel.