Future Reserves 2020

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As I think the hon. Gentleman will understand, I cannot give him specific assurances about individual units, but I can say this to him. We are expanding the reserves. We are experiencing a period in which the trajectory is upward. When units do not have just a nominal strength but are well recruited, with people who turn out regularly for training, they can expect a positive future.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Mindful of the fact that the Army Reserve—soldiers, sailors and airmen—must be as up to par as regular soldiers, sailors and airmen, can my right hon. Friend assure me that the resources dedicated to training and sustaining the professionalism of the reserve Army and other reserve forces will be roughly equivalent to those that are required to sustain and retain the efficiency of regular soldiers, sailors and airmen?

[Mr Hammond]

I have set the likely training requirement for the Army Reserve at 40 days a year once basic training has been completed. The experts—the professionals in the Army on whom I must rely when it comes to these matters—tell me that that will be sufficient for the tasks that we will ask reservists to perform. Clearly there will be some tasks that we will not ask them to perform; similarly, there will be some tasks for which we will rely on them entirely. However, I am confident that the training offer, and the funding to support it, will give us a reserve that is capable of deploying effectively with the regular Army, delivering the high-quality military output that we require.