Oral Answers to Questions

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

May I begin by associating myself and my party with the sentiments reflected by the Secretary of State about the terrible events in Huntingdon at the weekend?

The Secretary of State’s ambition to reverse the outflows from our armed forces is absolutely right, particularly considering the damage the last Government did to our military, but it is far from clear that the Government are doing enough to achieve the necessary changes. There continue to be more service personnel leaving the Army year on year than are joining. In order to strengthen our defence, we need to give more people better incentives to join the armed forces. Will the Minister consider accelerating recruitment properly and tackling outflow rates by backing Liberal Democrat proposals for a £10,000 signing bonus to attract new recruits?

[Louise Sandher-Jones]

In addition to the measures I have outlined to speed up recruitment, we are looking at expanding novel ways of entry into the armed forces, such as direct entry in the cyber stream. We are hugely focused on retention, and this is a very personal mission for me, having left the forces in 2020 and knowing what measures might have helped retain me in service for longer. We are utterly dedicated to addressing the reasons that people give for leaving, not least with our multibillion-pound investment into fixing forces housing.