Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to recruit foreign soldiers.

To be eligible to join the British Armed Forces individuals must be a British, Irish or Commonwealth citizen. In addition, the British Army recruits Nepalese citizens into the Brigade of Gurkhas. Commonwealth citizens are required to have lived legally in the UK for a period of five years before enlistment. In May 2016, in agreement with the Home Office, we announced that for up to 200 Commonwealth citizens per annum this residency criteria would be waived to allow for recruitment into specialist roles in the Regular Armed Forces. This policy remains extant. The Army has received very high numbers of applications for these specialist roles and fills its share.