Asked by: Lord Harrison (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that those in the reserves of the armed forces have opportunities to use and develop linguistic skills.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) recognises the valuable skill sets of our reservists, all of whom have full access to the MOD's language schemes. We work to ensure that those reservists who already have a second language are able to use and develop that language. Any reservists employed in roles with direct requirements for language capability receive the same training as regular personnel.
The MOD maintains a pool of linguists through the Education and Training Services (Reserves), which provides additional language capability to exercises, operations and Defence Engagement tasks. A new training programme, which makes use of courses and bespoke training provided by the Defence Centre for Languages and Culture, has recently been introduced to develop the skills of linguists in the reserves.
Asked by: Lord Harrison (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many staff in each of the armed services work at the level of interpreter in each language.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Armed Services recognise 48 languages for which they declare a capability. The Joint Arms Control Implementation Group is the only unit which employs personnel in the direct role of interpreter. Across the Armed Services a total of 697 personnel are recorded as holding a level of language qualification and currency that is functional or above. These are broken down as follows:
| Army | RAF | Royal Marines | Royal Navy | Total |
Functional | 160 | 56 | 17 | 31 | 264 |
Professional | 191 | 52 | 17 | 41 | 301 |
Expert | 85 | 27 | 5 | 15 | 132 |
Total | 436 | 135 | 39 | 87 | 697 |
The number of languages that Ministry of Defence (MOD) employees could conceivably need to converse in is extremely broad. The MOD employs professional interpreters for more niche languages and has robust strategies in place to ensure the quality of contractors’ interpretation skills.
Asked by: Lord Harrison (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure there are sufficient linguistic skills in languages such as Russian and Mandarin across the armed forces.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) regularly reviews its requirements for linguists to ensure that all operational demands for linguists are met in full, and trains its personnel accordingly. For languages with little or no immediate operational requirement, the MOD ensures that there is a baseline of linguists that can be called on for contingency tasks and Defence Engagement.
Long and short-term language priorities are agreed at a strategic level and provide the basis for the statement of training requirement against which defence language training is delivered.
Asked by: Lord Harrison (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to respond rapidly to new requirements for linguistic skills across the armed forces.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Defence Centre for Language and Culture (DCLC) has an extremely agile training delivery model, comprising a core of military and specialist civilian lecturers supported by a commercial training contract supplying contracted tutors. The DCLC covers a number of languages. This enables the Ministry of Defence to respond rapidly to new requirements, at scale, and at short notice. A dedicated Contingency Wing has been established specifically to respond to and manage this type of short notice demand, particularly in operationally focused languages. Plans are regularly reviewed to ensure that we have already considered broad options for the delivery of new requirements.