Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the (a) target and (b) outturn was for (i) regular Army and (ii) Army Reserve recruitment in financial years 2010-11 to 2014-15.

Defence Statistics publish information on a regular basis showing intake figures for the Armed Forces, including the Army and Army Reserve. The most recent information is contained in ‘UK Armed Forces Monthly Service Personnel Statistics September 2015’ and associated tables which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-armed-forces-monthly-service-personnel-statistics-index

Recruiting targets for the Army Reserve for 2014-15 onwards were defined in the Future Reserve 2020 paper, which was placed in the Library of the House on 19 December 2013, (reference DEP2013-2063) and are still valid. I refer the right hon. Member to the written ministerial statement made by my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Defence the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) on 19 December 2013 (Official Report column 121WS). Figures for earlier years may be found in the most recent Quarterly Performance Report which can be found at the following link

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-armed-forces-quarterly-personnel-report-2015

Official statistics for Regular recruitment targets which may be meanfully compared to the official intake statistics are not produced.

A summary of regular Army intake for the period in question is as follows, Army Reserve intake is shown from 2012-13 onwards as due to a lack of validated figures prior to 2012 it is not possible to include figures before that period, recruitment targets were not set until October 2013 following the publication of the Reserves White paper:

All totals have been rounded to the nearest 10. Those numbers ending in ‘5’ have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 in order to avoid systematic bias.