Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

6. What support he has received from major employers for the proposals set out in his Reserves Green Paper.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

13. What support he has received from major employers for the proposals set out in his Reserves Green Paper.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Mr Mark Francois)]

As I informed the House on 26 November a number of large companies have shown their support for our reservists and the Green Paper consultation process. Some have held their own reserves awareness events. We have received over 2,400 responses to the consultation to date—not all from my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier)—and we held a workshop on 11 January with major employers and the Secretary of State. We continue to engage with major employers, but also with medium-sized and small businesses, the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and other employer organisations to ensure that we capture the views of as broad a range of employers as possible.

[Mr Francois]

I acknowledge the strong interest that my hon. Friend has taken in the fate of his old regiment. I think that the whole House can understand his motivation for doing that. Our plan is for the Army to achieve its full strength of 30,000 trained volunteer reservists in 2018 from its current trained and in-training volunteer reservist strength of 25,000. These are early days, but I am delighted that the recent tri-service recruiting campaigns have produced a 25% increase in Territorial Army inquiries and that regular Army enlistment is up by 3% against a three-year rolling average. We regard both those statistics as good news.

[Jack Lopresti]

What steps will be taken to ensure that there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to employers and reservists, and that instead the Government will consider factors such as the size and complexity of the business?

[Mr Francois]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who, as many in the House will know, was mobilised and saw active service on behalf of his country on Operation Herrick and therefore clearly understands this issue very well. I stress to him that we considered this question carefully in the consultation, and we are mindful that, proportionally, for some smaller and medium-sized employers it is a greater challenge to let reservists go and be deployed than it is for some larger organisations. We have been talking to employers about it and intend to set out the way forward when we publish the White Paper in the spring.