Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. He will be aware of recent work being carried out by the Ministry of Defence through a medical symposium to try to tackle these very issues. Sometimes, some of the medical reasons for not joining are frankly quite archaic. To give a brief example, if someone has had childhood asthma, they cannot join even if they no longer have it, even though the chances are that it will not return until that person is probably in their 50s, when, of course, 99% of service personnel will have left.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The Minister is celebrating current recruitment levels. Will he explain why the Scots Guards is currently under-recruited by 36%?

[Mark Lancaster]

I am not celebrating current recruitment levels. What I am saying is that we are all aware of the challenges facing the defence recruiting system some months ago, but given that this is a long pipeline, I am confident that the hopper at the start of that process, which can take up to a year, is now at a five-year high. I hope and I am confident that we will then see that slowly come through the system, which will result in an increase in the number of our service personnel.