Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of posting permanent staff instructors to Army Reserves volunteer sub-units.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
Permanent Staff Instructors continue to have a vital role in planning and executing training for Army Reservists. Under Future Soldier, every Army Reserve sub-unit is expected to have two Permanent Staff Instructors.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will post permanent staff instructors to Army Reserves volunteer sub-units.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
Permanent Staff Instructors continue to have a vital role in planning and executing training for Army Reservists. Under Future Soldier, every Army Reserve sub-unit is expected to have two Permanent Staff Instructors.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to increase recruitment to the Army Reserves.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
There are several measures in place to increase recruitment into the Army Reserves including a new marketing campaign, increased focussed on specific units, financial incentives and the Recruit Bounty Scheme.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of collective training for army reservists.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
Collective Training is a central element of training progression for all elements of the Army including the Army Reserve. It provides the opportunity to exercise skills in a wider context, to ensure units are current and competent, and to assure their readiness. Collective training has always been, and remains, a part of the training experience for the Army Reserve.
The Army Reserve routinely exercises with the Regular Army. The annual two week exercise undertaken by Army Reserve units will be woven into wider Regular Army training exercises wherever this is feasible.
This year, the Army is seeking to deploy c.650 Army Reservists on the largest Reserve Collective Training exercise in a number of years, Exercise RHINO HEART.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much training army reservists receive with the regular army.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
Collective Training is a central element of training progression for all elements of the Army including the Army Reserve. It provides the opportunity to exercise skills in a wider context, to ensure units are current and competent, and to assure their readiness. Collective training has always been, and remains, a part of the training experience for the Army Reserve.
The Army Reserve routinely exercises with the Regular Army. The annual two week exercise undertaken by Army Reserve units will be woven into wider Regular Army training exercises wherever this is feasible.
This year, the Army is seeking to deploy c.650 Army Reservists on the largest Reserve Collective Training exercise in a number of years, Exercise RHINO HEART.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an assessment of the potential benefits of the re-establishment within the army reserves of in-unit recruiting.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
The Army Reserve continues to utilise in-unit recruitment and this has never ceased to happen.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will return the Army Reserves to it’s historic name “the Territorial Army”.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
There are no plans to change the name of the Army Reserve back to the Territorial Army.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the size of the Army Reserves.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
The Army is continuing to work on optimising the Army Reserve, which will have a structure of 30,100 under Future Soldier plans.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many army reservists are mobilised for service with the regular army.
Answered by Andrew Murrison
As per the official National Statistics there were 798 Mobilised Army Reserves as at 1 October 2023.
Asked by: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he has made an assessment of the potential effectiveness of the Army Reserves' assistance to Ukraine since the start of the Ukraine War.
Answered by James Heappey
The Army Reserve has provided considerable assistance as part of the UK's enduring commitment to Ukraine. Reservists from across the Army Reserve have integrated seamlessly with their Regular counterparts conducting both mobilised and non-mobilised work, reflecting their adaptability to contribute to operational outputs including a variety of specialty areas. This value is aptly demonstrated by Trident Company. Mobilised in 2023, Trident Company is the first Reservist company to help deliver OPERATION INTERFLEX, the UK-based Armed Forces' training programme to develop and prepare Ukrainian recruits.