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Armed Forces Personnel

May I help the hon. Gentleman by pointing out one detail? He mentioned the manning requirement and targets. As I recall, during the ’90s, when his party was still in power, it was fairly normal to have a manning requirement of, let us call it, 99 or 100 per cent. and a manning target that was a lot lower—about 90 per cent. That meant that the targets were quite readily hit, but those targets were a great deal lower. They were simply based on what it was thought could be practically achieved. Does he recognise that the manning requirement and the manning target are now something like 96 and 97 per cent.? They are very close, or, at least, they are an accurate reflection of the situation—unlike in the early ’90s.