Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the average time taken was for an applicant to the Reserve Forces to be accepted in the last 12 months.

The three Services measure the recruitment process in different ways, reflecting the differing requirements of each Service. Therefore, the numbers presented here are not directly comparable.

In the Maritime Reserve, the median time taken for an applicant to be accepted onto a Phase 1 training course is currently 147 days.

In the Army Reserve, the median time taken for an applicant to be enlisted in Financial Year (FY) 2016-17 was 138 days.

In the RAF Reserves, the average length of time from application to attestation in FY 2016-17 was 62 days.

We have put in place a number of initiatives which encourage participation with the Reserves at an early stage in the recruitment process, including early attestation and involvement of individual applicants with their chosen Reserve unit.