Armed Forces: Redundancies

Baroness Wall of New Barnet Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think that I recognise a certain anti-TA bias in that comment, which neither I nor the Government share. The total reduction in the size of the Armed Forces over the next several years will amount to 17,000 and it is estimated that the total necessary redundancies from currently serving personnel will be 11,000. The proportion of those servicemen under the age of 25 will be much closer to 2,000 to 3,000 than the figures the noble and gallant Lord has suggested.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

My Lords, would the noble Lord assure me and the House that servicemen and women in this age group who may be redundant will be guided towards apprenticeships which we already have in place for service people leaving the services early? It is particularly important that such people are trained up and apprenticeships are very necessary to achieve this.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Of course, many of those who came in as young leaders in the armed services are already being trained in the Army in the sort of skills that are highly valuable in civilian life. There is a resettlement scheme in place which will provide transitional training. In recent times, 93 per cent of those who left the Army under the resettlement scheme have found jobs within six months and 97 per cent within 12 months. I am sure that people with good records in the Army will have much that sort of experience.