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Future of the Territorial Army

The whole House will have the opportunity to thank the Territorial Army soldiers who are currently deployed in Afghanistan, when the all-party Army group next welcomes the brigade returning from that country. That is on Tuesday 18 November, at 3.30 pm, when soldiers will march once again through Carriage Gates, by kind permission of Mr. Speaker. I very much hope that hon. Members will join me there to thank those soldiers for all that they have done. However, the important point is that many soldiers in that body of 120 people, or thereabouts, will be Territorial Army soldiers. I strongly support the concept of one Army and the fact that one cannot tell the difference between a regular soldier and a TA soldier. I differ slightly from my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire), who said that the TA should be deployed only as formed units. The one-Army concept means that most of the 20,000 TA soldiers who have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been trickle-deployed, not deployed as formed units. Nowadays, it is much better that our TA soldiers should be ready to be deployed individually in regular units rather than necessarily as formed units.