Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department spent on recruitment to each of the armed forces in (a) 2012-13, (b) 2013-14 and (c) 2014-15 to date.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans (Anna Soubry) on 23 June 2014, (Official Report, column 85W) to the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), for the most recent figures on recruitment spending available from the Department, given below;

Each branch of the armed forces has a distinctive brand that needs to be marketed separately in order to attract the best candidates.

Capturing the cost of recruiting across the armed forces is a complex and resource-intensive task. For financial year (FY) 2010-11, when both the recruitment budget and recruitment targets were below normal levels, these calculations were not carried out. The costs of recruiting programmes for FYs 2009-10, 2011-12 and 2012-13 are set out in the following table. The cost of recruiting in FY 2013-14 will be available in early 2015.

As reductions have been made to force levels recruitment levels have been adjusted but not stopped as the Services are required to keep recruiting to maintain the right skills.

We hope to be able to provide figures for 2013-14 in the near future. Analysis for 2014-15 will commence when the current financial year ends.