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Defence in the UK

The Minister referred to bullying. I agree that the Army, in particular, should do as much as possible about that, but bullying will be there. One of the areas about that I am worried about is recruit-on-recruit bullying, especially among training regiments. Many years ago, when I came through basic training, there were trained soldiers in the barrack rooms during the night. The Minister is aware of that, and I have also raised this issue with the Secretary of State. If one visits a training regiment these days, as I know the Minister has done, one finds that the instructors go home to their families and loved ones, and there are few experienced soldiers in the barrack rooms at night, and the bullying often takes place when recruits think that they are a little more senior. As so many of our armed forces who have received some minor injuries and some serious injuries still want to stay within the military, surely it would be sensible to bring those experienced soldiers back into phase 1 and phase 2 training to provide the sort of mentoring that we need to stop the bullying.