Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Ministry of Defence

Oral Answers to Questions

Gemma Doyle Excerpts
Monday 19th December 2011

(12 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord Robathan Portrait Mr Robathan
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My right hon. Friend raises an excellent point. There are schemes that we are taking forward to ensure that people can get priority in some ways. For instance, my right hon. Friend may not know that until recently—in fact, this is still the case—a BFPO address may not count as a proper address for creditworthiness; we are taking steps to change that.

Gemma Doyle Portrait Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
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The Daily Telegraph reported over the weekend that a further 150 trainee pilots may be sacked and have to go through the resettlement process. Will the Minister confirm that that is not correct?

Lord Robathan Portrait Mr Robathan
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I understand that the story to which the hon. Lady refers is, in fact, a rehash of a previous story. We very much regret making trainee RAF pilots redundant—but by reducing the number of aircraft we have reduced the number of pilots that we need. We have no plans for further redundancies from the RAF’s flying training pipeline.