Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure there are sufficient linguistic skills in languages such as Russian and Mandarin across the armed forces.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) regularly reviews its requirements for linguists to ensure that all operational demands for linguists are met in full, and trains its personnel accordingly. For languages with little or no immediate operational requirement, the MOD ensures that there is a baseline of linguists that can be called on for contingency tasks and Defence Engagement.

Long and short-term language priorities are agreed at a strategic level and provide the basis for the statement of training requirement against which defence language training is delivered.