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Territorial Army Rebalancing

The hon. Gentleman’s reply was like the curate’s egg in that he welcomed some parts of the statement, but I appreciate his opening comments in which he echoed some of what I said. Like him, I pay tribute to the employers—small businesses and others—who perhaps take the greatest strain in all this if any of their employees are called up, and they willingly co-operate with us in the main. A bit of history would not go amiss. Let us remember that the TA was halved in the 1990s.