Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Julian Brazier and Madeleine Moon(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Brazier
My hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement has already given a comprehensive answer on the use of steel. There will be an opportunity to bid, as has always been the case, but we clearly cannot commit in advance. We do not even know for certain that British companies will bid. We cannot commit at this stage.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
12. What plans he has to change the number of Ministry of Defence police officers.
Reserve Recruitment
Debate between Julian Brazier and Madeleine Moon(10 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Brazier
I hear my hon. and gallant Friend with respect. However, if he visits, as I am sure he does from time to time, the Royal Wessex Yeomanry in his own constituency, he will see just how good that unit is and how much it can achieve. The size of the Regular Army came out of the very difficult decisions that we had to make in the strategic defence and security review. We have to be clear that if we want to have a framework to expand a small professional Army, and if we want to keep connections between that small professional Army and the wider civilian community, we need a substantial reserve.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
I do not think that anyone in the House would dispute the fact that this is a bold challenge. No one is unaware that there have been technical problems and glitches, but the Minister must know that there is a high degree of concern that only 32% of the regulars have confidence that reservists will be well integrated within their units, and that there has been a net increase to the reserves of only 20. What can we do to improve on those figures?
Mr Brazier
I have already answered the second question from the hon. Lady, who is another fellow member of the Select Committee, by listing the very many changes that we have made to the recruiting pipeline and noting that in the last quarter we almost doubled the numbers coming through. On her first point, there are indeed some in the Regular Army who do not agree with the changes, having seen former comrades leave, but the fact is that a Chief of the Defence Staff chaired the original commission that set out the overall plan and the Chief of the General Staff wrote the detailed blueprint.