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Armed Forces Personnel

I unequivocally assure my hon. Friend that, if not the best, we are as good as the best in the world in the medical care that we provide to our forces in operations. I believe that I have made a total of 12 visits to Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 18 months and on every occasion, if my memory serves me correctly, I have made a point of attending the hospital and medical facilities in order to pay respect to, and admire, the enormous skill displayed there. The equipment is second to none and the facilities are second to none. That is now playing through. I cannot remember precisely the evidence that the surgeon-general gave to the Select Committee, but he provided some striking evidence of survival rates. Candidly—this relatively crude way of putting it does no disrespect to the nature of these circumstances—very experienced consultants have said to me on more than one occasion that many people were returning from theatre in circumstances in which it might have been thought that they had no right to be alive within a comparatively short period of time. The success of their treatment during that period and thereafter is second to none. I believe that those people are receiving the best possible treatment, and that the centre is the match of the best polytrauma centres in civilian hospitals and the equal of any other military medical facility in the world. That is to the credit of those who—during our time in office, but before that as well—have met the difficult challenges of designing a modern medical facility and service. By common consent it was not always the best that it could have been, but I believe that it is now. Given that this is a comparatively short debate, and given the House's new rules about Front-Bench speeches, time is of the essence. I intend to concentrate for the remainder of my speech on a small number of issues that are of key concern both to the armed forces and to hon. Members. I do not deny that, at present, members of the armed forces bear a heavy load. As I have said before, along with the chiefs of staff, they are stretched. We are asking a great deal of our service personnel, and the operational tempo is high. However, we have taken decisive action to address that. In the last 12 months alone, we have reduced our commitments in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq. Between July and September this year, 17 per cent. of regular forces were deployed on operations. That is a reduction of 5 per cent. on the previous quarter. This spring, conditions permitting and subject to the advice of commanders on the ground, we aim to improve on that and reduce numbers in Iraq further. All three services are undergoing restructuring to realign personnel numbers so that they can be focused on where they are needed most. The retention incentives that we have introduced are proving successful. Of those offered the incentive package, 100 per cent. of unmanned aerial vehicle operators and 88 per cent. of infantrymen have accepted it. Contrary to what hon. Members may have been led to believe by recent media reports, recruitment to the armed forces has increased. The most recent annual statistics show an increase in the number joining the forces. In 2006-07, we gained 19,790 new recruits from civilian life—99.6 per cent. of the target. That is an increase of 9.3 per cent. Army recruiting increased by 8 per cent. during the last financial year, with infantry enlistments up by 25 per cent.