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Defence Reform Bill

I defer to the military knowledge and experience of those who have spoken before me. The House has had the particular advantage of hearing the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and it will now have the advantage of not hearing me repeat them.

My constituency of Harborough has a squadron of the Leicestershire and Derbyshire Yeomanry. It is suffering from poor recruitment and I have one practical solution to offer those on the Ministry of Defence Front Bench

and the Secretary of State in particular. In order to avoid the attrition rate—the wastage rate—of those who express an initial interest in serving in the Reserves, the Territorial Army as was, we should bring them into the units and give them weapons training much more quickly, rather than wait for them to go through medical tests and so forth. Once we have grabbed them, got their interest and introduced them to the practical, military side of the Reservists and their camaraderie, we can then decide whether they are fit for the role they wish to play or whether we should deploy them in a less front-end activity. That is a simple, practical proposition and I trust it would enable the Secretary of State and his Ministers to produce the 30,000 reservists and not to lose so many on the way to achieving that number.