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Armed Forces Personnel

It can. That, in addition to the moral duty, is why we need to mitigate the effects as best we can. However, these are marvellous, impressive people who wish to serve their country and to develop the necessary skills to carry out operations. There has recently been an upturn in some of our recruiting potential, although we do not know whether this trend will continue with the economic problems. However, we must monitor the retention problem all the time because we need the skills of the type that the right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about at corporal and sergeant level. The point at which people reach maturity and are giving their most is when we need to try to hang on to them.