Armed Forces: Future Force 2020

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Harrison

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Baroness the precise figures. Broadly, recruitment to the reserves is on target, but I will have to get back to her on the specific numbers associated with cyber.

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

The noble and gallant Lord is absolutely right. On nuclear engineers, we have adopted what we call an enterprise approach, which essentially means working with the wider defence industry to better share experience and best practice and to develop career management, manning and access to the key skills that we need to create a more attractive career path for nuclear engineers. There are other elements as well. We need to have proper staged financial incentives, and we have retention incentives for those already working for the Royal Navy. There is no single answer, but I think that this is the way ahead—in particular, working closely with university and technical colleges to support the development of those skilled individuals.

[Lord Harrison]

My Lords, will the Minister write to the House about the recruitment of people with desperately needed modern language skills—linguistic skills—which he mentioned in his first reply? This area is neglected, but it is important that we improve our language skills in our engagement.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. It is one of the areas that has been significantly developed since the SDSR 2010, but we know that we have to do more. I would be glad to write to the noble Lord on where we are.