Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to increase recruitment to the armed forces in Northern Ireland.

The Armed Forces recruit nationally and do not operate a specific policy of increasing recruitment from particular geographic areas. Armed Forces Career Offices are spread across the UK, including in Northern Ireland, and continue to provide core support to the Armed Forces’ national recruiting activities. The geographic footprint of Armed Forces Career Offices across the UK is complemented by dedicated call centres and online recruiting operations, ensuring that all UK communities have the same opportunity to join the Armed Forces as anyone else. In addition, the Services conduct outreach engagement programmes across the whole of the UK, delivering events such as career fairs, tactical campaigns and roadshows, supported by web-based information services and social media campaigns. These recruitment activities are further supported through strategic partnerships such as with JobCentrePlus, who provide additional face-to-face touchpoints with potential Armed Forces applicants.

The Armed Forces regularly review their recruiting activities and associated resource in accordance with the requirement. A range of tangible short-term deliverables are being actioned to increasing the inflow into Armed Forces recruitment pipelines, all intended to increase the breadth of potential candidates and to drive efficiencies into recruitment systems. These ongoing and new initiatives are focused upon engaging the broad range of skills, experience and diversity needed to deliver that which our nation demands of our Armed Forces; and in the range of roles that are critical to enable this.