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Future of the Territorial Army

My hon. Friend puts her finger on the key point that there will be long-standing damage to morale as a consequence of what has happened in recent days, and that cannot easily be rectified by a U-turn by politicians. As a result of all these points, one must ask why the Government considered such cuts to begin with, when almost all the advice they received runs against such a decision. On training, the Cottam report—whose seven strategic recommendations were accepted in full by the Government—said:""Training is pivotal to the Proposition. The delivery of training should be overhauled to make it more relevant, consistent and correctly resourced."" The Government said these cuts would not have a long-term impact on providing Territorials for Afghanistan, but that is not the view of senior Army officers. According to the "Land forces in-year savings measure communication plan" dated 12 October 2009, the""TA trained strength may fall from 20,000 to around 18,000 by 1 Apr 2010, putting at risk the TA's ability to deliver 700-800 trained soldiers for Op HERRICK from 2012 onwards."" The excuses given by the Government also need to be scrutinised. As always, there is more than meets the eye. We were told that money had to be found to fund new recruits. On Monday, the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, the hon. Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell), said that""recruitment to the Army has experienced a significant boost this year—over 1,000 more recruits are expected to complete training than did so last year—but those additional recruits need to be paid for."—[Official Report, 26 October 2009; Vol. 498, c. 23.]" Because of this recession—the longest recession since records began, and longer than the Government expected—and the media recruitment drive of the past year, there are more recruits in the regular Army than there is money to train them from the Government budget. The Government have demanded savings from other areas of the Army to fund this, but the Government knew last year that regular Army recruitment was already taking off. On recruitment, the Chief of the General Staff briefing team report of 2008 stated that""We are making progress and the figures are showing early signs of recovery. The recession will also help but we must not be complacent and must continue to be innovative with recruiting methods, reduce waste in training, and retain those currently serving."" Such a direct message from the head of the Army should at least have been a warning to the Government, so why did the Government not plan to fund their own target numbers for recruitment, especially when we are in a war? I understand that they probably believed that they would fail in this, as they have in so many other things, but why were no financial contingencies made?