Stephen Mosley
Main Page: Stephen Mosley (Conservative - City of Chester)Department Debates - View all Stephen Mosley's debates with the Ministry of Defence
Armed Forces Redundancies
Stephen Mosley Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Francois
I completely understand the hon. Gentleman’s question on behalf of his constituents. As I understand it, however, the figures I was given on what might be called re-employability apply across the UK, so they also apply to Wales. I believe we are doing well in getting new jobs for people in Wales. It is a UK average, but if there is a particular issue regarding Wales, I will look into it and come back to him.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
At a time when all the headlines are concerned with reductions in the strength of our armed forces, how will the Minister convey the message to potential recruits that the Army is still recruiting?
Mr Francois
It is. Some suggestions have been made that because of the redundancy programme we should end recruiting—[Interruption.] Hang on. Past experience shows that if we turn off the recruiting pipeline for a few years, we end up with a black hole in our armed forces structure some years on, which will subsequently be difficult to fill. As I have said, we have reduced the recruitment of regulars as far as we think we practically can, but there comes a point beyond which it is not safe to reduce recruiting efforts for the regulars. We have been mindful of that in going forward. We still want people to join the regular Army.