Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As my hon. Friend knows, we have allocated £1.8 billion over 10 years for additional training, infrastructure and equipment for the reserves to try to rebuild the broken trust that resulted from the previous Government’s slashing of funding for reserve training and equipment. On the economics of using reserves instead of regular forces, it is true that, when deployed on operations, reserves are more expensive than regulars, but, held as a contingency, reserves are significantly lower cost than regular forces. We are simply trying, within the budget envelope available, to create the greatest amount of military capacity it is possible to generate.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Is the Secretary of State able to give any detail as to the exact consequences of the Prime Minister’s welcome statement on the use of the DFID budget alongside the budgets of the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence for the future of defence diplomacy?