Oral Answers to Questions

John Baron Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

Switching variant does not make any difference to whether or not the aircraft could land on the Charles de Gaulle. We are co-operating with the Charles de Gaulle and we do not see the two aircraft carriers as being interoperable; we see them as separate but linked assets, and we certainly support the French. Indeed, during Exercise Corsican Lion, the Secretary of State, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne) and I had lunch on the Charles de Gaulle, and very good it was too. I assure hon. Members that we discussed equipment, interoperability and other matters.

[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 Baron]

I thank the Minister for that response, but the Government will know that I think it unwise to disband regular infantry battalions, such as 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, before first being certain that the reservists can plug the gap. What objective measures exist for Parliament to gauge the progress of Government plans in this regard?

[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.