Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Coghlan Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

First, we are directing defence investment first to British firms that increase British jobs and increase apprenticeships, skills and opportunities for young people. Secondly, we are opening up direct entry recruitment to the armed forces for those with cyber-skills, and the first cohort has already been recruited. They are deployed much more quickly than via the normal route, and the early reports from every one of their units is overwhelmingly positive, so we are now moving to recruit the second tranche.

[Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)]

T7. Last year, almost 4,000 non-commissioned officers— an entire brigade—left the British Army. One of them, an infantryman who has had four tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, told me that the reason he was leaving was that, whatever the policy says, in practice late entry officers are almost always employed only in administrative not combat roles. Will the Minister meet me to explain why we are losing hundreds of our most experienced soldiers entirely unnecessarily?

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Al Carns)]

Throughout my tenure, I have worked with many late entry officers in combat roles. I will take the issue away and look into it in detail, but I am pretty sure that that is a misrepresentation of the totality of late entry officers across our armed forces in the Navy, Army and Air Force.