Army Restructuring: Future Soldier

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Lady tempts me to get ahead of the report I have to give first to the Defence Committee. I would not want to eat their sandwiches for them, so all I would say is that I agree with many of her observations and we do have steps in place, but I will let the Committee criticise my attempts when it gets to them.

[Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Can he confirm that Army numbers will stay above 100,000 personnel including reserve forces, and will he outline how the greater agility and flexibility he has described as being created will improve our deployment capabilities when required?

[Mr Wallace]

One way we want to use the hubs is to have longer tours in places, rather than just a few weeks. In some of our overseas exercises we used to go there, get off the plane, do the exercise and then get back on the plane; we might as well have gone no further than around the corner. We had no influence in the region and learned nothing about it. Now we will see much more exercising in places like Oman and Kenya to enable us to be forward and present. Over the past five years we have had an armoured battle group in Estonia, permanently really—it rotates through every six months, but in fact it is a permanent location. Our presence there is deterring Russia as an adversary, and we are part of a multinational battle group; there are four or five such groups in that part of the world. I am determined that one of the premiums we get from being forward—just being in the area—is deterrence. It also makes us more ready, and if we are more ready, we are more productive when something happens.