Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to (a) speed up and (b) streamline the recruitment process of military personnel.

The Armed Forces have recently introduced measures to improve recruiting performance. These include improved candidate relationship management, a review of medical procedures and policies, and prioritisation of recruitment for key areas. Our re-joiner programmes also aim to expedite the return of skilled and experienced personnel. Officer recruitment is healthy in all three Services and the Financial Year 19/20 has seen an improvement on the previous year in Other Ranks intake by 14% for the Naval Service, 77% for the Army and 25% for the RAF. At Single Service level, we are exploring initiatives to streamline and accelerate recruitment from Commonwealth countries.