Defence Command Paper Refresh

That young man will have an excellent future in the armed forces, for as long as he wishes to stay. The Army is still recruiting; we have not all stopped everything. It is important to remember that we need to embrace our reserves. We have talked about that for a long time, but we have not done it. A single armed forces Act would help us do that. The Army will be over 100,000 people, of whom 73,000 will be regulars, but I believe the reforms in today’s refresh will make sure we are scalable should we wish to increase it. Whatever we do and whatever parties in this House come with pledges in the next election, we must ask ourselves whether it is just about funding people or will we be funding their equipment, vehicles, houses and barracks to go along with them. We cannot just have people without any of that, or we condemn them to a pretty miserable time, unprotected on the battlefield.