Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to Answer of 7 October to Questions 98730, 98731, 98732, if he will provide the information requested by the financial year of inflow.
Answered by James Heappey
The information requested by the hon. Member can be found in the attached table.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many soldiers who enlisted in the financial year 2015-16 who were (a) under and (b) over the age of 18 at enlistment dropped out of the army before completing their Phase Two training.
Answered by James Heappey
I refer the hon. Member to the answer my predecessor, (Anne Marie-Trevelyan), gave her on 30 January 2020, to Question 8412.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many soldiers who enlisted in the financial year 2016-17 who were (a) under and (b) over the age of 18 at enlistment dropped out of the army before completing their Phase Two training.
Answered by James Heappey
I refer the hon. Member to the answer my predecessor, (Anne Marie-Trevelyan), gave her on 30 January 2020, to Question 8412.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many soldiers who enlisted in the financial year 2017-18 who were (a) under and (b) over the age of 18 at enlistment dropped out of the army before completing their Phase Two training.
Answered by James Heappey
I refer the hon. Member to the answer my predecessor, (Anne Marie-Trevelyan), gave her on 30 January 2020, to Question 8412.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the career destinations were of recruits who enlisted at the Army Foundation College but dropped out before completing Phase Two training in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by James Heappey
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr Lloyd Russell- Moyle) on 27 February 2020 to Question 19893.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many soldiers who enlisted aged (a) under 18 and (b) 18 or over in financial year (i) 2015-16, (ii) 2016-17, and (iii) 2017-18 dropped out of the army before completing their phase two training.
Answered by James Heappey
I refer the hon. Member to the answer the then Minister for the Armed Forces, (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) gave on 30 January 2020, to Question 8412.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the Answer of 9 September 2019 to Question on Armed Forces: Schools, if he will provide the figures for the number of visits by representatives from the (a) Army, (b) Royal Navy and (c) Royal Air Force made to schools and colleges in (i) Wales, (ii) Scotland, (iii) England and (iv) Northern Ireland in the financial years (A) 2017-18 and (B) 2018-19.
Answered by Johnny Mercer
The Armed Forces only visit schools and colleges when they have been invited to support activities. No visits to schools by the Armed Forces are directly linked to recruitment, other than specific careers/jobs fairs which generally involve a range of employers. While presentations may be given highlighting the careers available in the Armed Forces, no pupil is able to make a commitment to become a recruit in the Armed Forces during the course of a visit. The visits cover a range of activities such as career events, citizenship talks, science and maths challenges and other indoor or outdoor exercises. The purpose of the visit is always agreed in advance.
The requested information is provided in the following table:
Country | Year | Royal Navy | Army | Royal Air Force |
Wales | 2017-18 | 110 | 70 | 157 |
2018-19 | 147 | 217 | 64 | |
Scotland | 2017-18 | 159 | 372 | 463 |
2018-19 | 237 | 399 | 519 | |
England | 2017-18 | 2,448 | 1,988 | 1,774 |
2018-19 | 3,187 | 2,296 | 1,686 | |
Northern Ireland | 2017-18 | 114 | 292 | 18 |
2018-19 | 138 | 396 | 63 |
Notes: Army figures relate to Financial Years. Royal Navy and Royal Air Force figures relate to Academic Years.
Figures are single Service estimates.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many soldiers who enlisted aged (a) under 18 and (b) 18 or over dropped out of the army before completing their phase two training in the (i) 2015-16, (ii) 2016-17 and (iii) 2017-18 financial years.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The requested information is provided below:
Untrained Regular Soldiers Outflow from 1st April 2015 to 1st April 2018 Split by Age on Enlistment
Number of untrained Regular soldiers outflow split by age group on enlistment | ||||
Financial Year of Outflow | Total | Under 18 | 18 and above | |
Total | 5,650 | 1,650 | 3,860 | |
2015-2016 | 2,020 | 550 | 1,470 | |
2016-2017 | 1,840 | 540 | 1,300 | |
2017-2018 | 1,790 | 570 | 1,220 | |
Source: Defence Statistics (Army) | ||||
Notes/Caveats:
The figures are for the Regular Army, excluding Gurkhas, Full Time Reserve Service and Mobilised Reserves.
Untrained outflow refers to personnel who left the Regular Army before completing their trade training (phase 2).
Personnel outflow more than once in the last five financial years is counted as a separate outflow. Age on enlistment is similarly separately counted.
Age on enlistment is calculated using date of birth and entry date. There are known problems with the entry date information extracted from JPA which is supposed to reflect their 'current entry date' but if personnel have transferred to the Army from another Service, served under an alternative assignment type (e.g. reserve forces), are re-entrants or have transferred from Other Ranks to Officers, their entry date may correspond to any of these events.
The figures are for outflow of untrained Regular soldiers broken down by financial years. This table has been compiled based on the year of outflow rather than the year of inflow used as the base for previous publication.
For presentation purpose, figures have been rounded to 10; numbers ending in "5" have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias.
Totals and sub-totals have been rounded separately and so may not appear to be the sum of their parts.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many applicants for enlistment into the Army were aged (a) under 18 and (b) 18 or over in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Data is not available prior to 2013-14 as it was not collated centrally and so is unreliable.
Applications received to join the British Army from 1 April 2013 – 30 March 2019 are in the table below.
| Recruiting Year | Under18 Applications | Over18 Applications |
| 2013-14 | 14,910 | 74,666 |
| 2014-15 | 19,207 | 100,249 |
| 2015-16 | 17,876 | 96,678 |
| 2016-17 | 23,706 | 153,233 |
| 2017-18 | 21,288 | 114,381 |
| 2018-19 | 24,978 | 122,197 |
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many applicants to enlist in the army did not end up doing so; and for what reason, in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Data is not available prior to 2013-14 as it was not collated centrally and so is unreliable.
Number of Applicants that did not end up joining the British Army between 1 April 2013 and 30 March 2019 are in the table below
| Recruiting Year | Total withdrawn or rejected in pipeline | Main reason for the “withdrawal/rejection” in pipeline |
| 2013-14 | 58,419 | Candidate Voluntarily disengaging from the process |
| 2014-15 | 79,114 | Candidate Voluntarily disengaging from the process |
| 2015-16 | 77,055 | Candidate Voluntarily disengaging from the process |
| 2016-17 | 120,314 | Candidate Voluntarily disengaging from the process |
| 2017-18 | 80,357 | Candidate Voluntarily disengaging from the process |
| 2018-19 | 116,312 | Candidate Voluntarily disengaging from the process |