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Reserves (Review)

This is an important issue. The balance between enabling a career structure for reservist officers and appropriately integrating and using them alongside regular forces will be difficult to strike, but there are times when reserve units should be and are commanded by regulars—there are times when the chain of command decides that is a good thing for a particular unit—but if that is overdone, the hon. Gentleman is quite right: we turn off the talent that could be coming into the reserve wanting to be officers and to progress as officers. I give him an assurance that it is the intention to try to get that balance right.