Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Ministry of Defence

Oral Answers to Questions

James Heappey Excerpts
Monday 20th May 2019

(4 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton Portrait Mark Lancaster
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My hon. Friend raises a very important point. The issue is not only the application process, but the time of flight from doing that application to actually loading people onto training. I am pleased to say that there has been a recent trial in London and elsewhere looking at this very issue. We have managed to reduce the median time for that time of flight from above 200 days down to a median 109 days. That is a dramatic improvement, and it is just one of the things we are doing to speed up that process.

James Heappey Portrait James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
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Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is vital that those who are considering a career in our armed forces do not see old men in their communities being dragged into investigations for things that happened decades ago? For the sake of those who have served, who do serve and who will serve in the future, does he agree that these investigations must stop now?