Armed Forces Pay

Debate between Conor McGinn and Mark Francois

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Conor McGinn]

I do not wish to contravene the rules of the House by getting into a debate with the Minister, but I am not sure that he can express particular confidence that the target of 30,000 reserve recruits will be met. The Government started to publish the figures only after pressure from the Opposition several years ago. We will continue to monitor progress on that in particular, because although, like the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty) said earlier, I am not a mathematician, I know that if we need to recruit 10,000 and we are attracting only 7,000 to the Regular Army, and we have not met the quota that we defined to meet national security needs through recruitment to the reserves, it is not going to add up. It is not going to add up for the armed forces, and it is not going to add for the British public.

[Mr Francois]

In my speech, I gave figures about recruiting targets for the reserves and explained where we currently stand, and I pointed out that we are ahead of target.