Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2018 to Question 125923 on Army: Recruitment, how many people (a) applied and (b) enlisted in the regular army in October to December 2017.

During October 2017 there were around 6,440 Regular Army applications. Application data for November 2017 onwards is not currently available.

Between 1 October and 31 December 2017, there were 1,700 Regular Army enlistments.

The application and enlistment data is not directly comparable. Many of those applied since October will still be in the recruitment process.

All figures should be considered provisional and subject to review.

Notes/Caveats:

The figures include soldiers, untrained officers and officer cadets.

Enlistment data excludes trained direct entrants into Phase 2 training, those who rejoin and others who enter directly into the trained strength.

Application data is a single service estimate.

Figures have been rounded to 10; numbers ending in "5" have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias.