Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to (a) streamline army recruitment and (b) increase (i) regular and (ii) reserve military personnel numbers.

As part of the Strategic Defence Review, the Department has committed to increasing the British Army to at least 76,000 full time soldiers in the next Parliament.

Under this Government, we have driven improvements to recruiting process, stripping out outdated medical policies, reducing the time it takes to receive candidate medical records and widening cross-Government data sharing.

These measures, along with targeted recruiting and a restructure of the Army's recruiting organisation, are delivering results. Year on year the Army's soldier intake numbers are up 13%, officer numbers are up 10%.

Regarding specific measures to increase Army reserve numbers, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 13 June 2025 to Question 57778 to the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben-Obese Jecty) which remains extant.