Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his Oral Answer to the hon. Member for Llanelli of 15 January 2018, how many Army applications were (a) received and (b) successful in 2017; and how many applicants (i) were affected by or (ii) had their applications lost as a result of errors on the new online application system.

The number of Regular and Reserve Army applications received between 1 January – 31 October 2017 was around [1]113,500.

Of those, as at 31 October 2017, around 3,100 had begun Phase 1 training. In addition, around 17,400 are still in the application process or have deferred their application.

The Defence Recruiting System will enable a quicker and easier recruitment process for applicants and the Armed Forces. It is too early to judge the impact on applications of the transfer to the new system.

[1] All figures are single service estimates.