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Reserves (Review)

May I thank the Minister for all the review's courteous exchanges with my all-party group on reserve forces? The review brings good news in the form of innovative ideas for training, especially basic training, but that is balanced with extremely bad news about numbers, especially given that the establishments of several units do not provide the critical mass for training. May I press the Minister on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne)? The right hon. Gentleman rightly said that critical to the offer is opportunities for command. I urge him not to depart from the rule that most TA and Royal Naval Reserve units are commanded by reservists, where adequate reservists are available, so that we avoid a repetition of the truly shameful exercise whereby a group of senior regular officers in the Navy were able to brush away four strong reservist candidates and impose a regular officer, on the basis that he had more time available.