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Territorial Army

I should like to make a point before the Minister moves on from discussing the future Army structure. The macro-reorganisation that he described—the new intelligence battalion and the pairing with regular units—is fine. However, he has not addressed the problem at the level of the individual company and yeomanry squadron. We can call a structure that consists of a single rifle platoon and a huge support weapons set-up at each TA centre a company, but it will not have a critical mass for the worthwhile training of officers. If a group goes off with its regular-service counterparts to Afghanistan or Iraq—there will not be another deployment of that sort to Iraq—but never go as formed companies, no TA officer will get an opportunity to command in the field. If TA officers are stripped of opportunities to train properly at home and command abroad, it is difficult to see how the desperate shortages of such officers will not worsen.