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Territorial Army

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. At one stage, we were talking about the footprint of the TA in Britain today, but I think that ““toehold”” might be the right expression. The TA simply does not have a footprint across the nation, and were there to be, for example, three of four separate incidents at the same time in London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester, which is one of the big worries that face us, we would not have TA soldiers ready to take up the slack. The nation would face a significant problem were that to happen, so in considering the future of the Territorial Army I think that the Government should possibly consider whether some form of organisation could be re-established to deal specifically with homeland defence and with the aftermath of any such catastrophe. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury in congratulating the Government on one or two things that they have done with regard to the TA. I was glad when, for the first time, they appointed a two-star general to run it: Major-General the Duke of Westminster. My old friend Major-General Simon Lalor, who I am glad to say is a member of the Honourable Artillery Company, is doing a first-class job more recently. The job is not a part-time one, although I have to say that I think that in theory it is. The experience of Simon Lalor and indeed of the Duke of Westminster, however, is that it is pretty much a full-time job, and I thank them for their commitment to it and welcome they efforts that they made. That appointment was a useful step in the right direction, but the Government could and ought to do more. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury on the excellent report produced by the all-party group. It is the first time that there has been such a statement of what the Territorial Army does and what we should look for from Government so as to improve what it does. The report is first-class, and I know that the Government will have read it carefully. I hope that they will be ready to act on some of its recommendations, of which I believe there are 16—and I hope that in answering the debate the Minister might be ready to address himself to at least some of them.