HC Deb 11 February 1997 vol 290 cc127-8
5. Mr. Miller

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on future recruitment to the Royal Navy. [13718]

The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Nicholas Soames)

The recruitment target for the Royal Navy in 1996–97 is some 4,500 people. We expect to achieve 90 per cent. of that target.

Mr. Miller

The Minister will acknowledge my interest in the issue of gapping in the fleet. How important is the role of the Royal Navy Sea Cadets in meeting his targets in the long term? How does he expect training ship Forward in my constituency to obtain the resources that it needs for a new building when his colleagues in the Tory-controlled county council and the relevant Departments are failing to provide them in the youth budget? If he is serious about the role of the Sea Cadets, is it not time that he had serious discussions with his colleagues to get the equation right?

Mr. Soames

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking about sea cadets in his constituency. I do not know the exact details, but I would be happy to look into the matter if he would do me the courtesy of writing to me about it. Some sea cadets inevitably go on to the Royal Navy. They are very welcome; we need all the sea cadets we can get. The Opposition fundamentally misunderstand the true nature of the problem. There is a huge demographic hole in Britain. There are one third fewer 17 and 18-year-olds than there were even only 15 years ago. The number of people aged 16 to 24 fell by a sixth in the same period. More young people than ever go into further and higher education. That has greatly reduced our recruiting pool. I am happy to confirm that the more sea cadets go into the Navy the better, but we do not regard the cadets as a major source of recruits, rather as a valuable part of the source.

Mr. Robathan

Has my hon. Friend seen the comments to a Senate committee of General Reimer, the US Army chief of staff, because they relate to the use of women in Royal Navy ships? Will he consider them and, in the light of some high-profile tribunal and court cases involving the Royal Navy, study again the policy that has led to women serving on Royal Navy ships and the disruption that it has regrettably caused?

Mr. Soames

I shall certainly study the remarks to which my hon. Friend has drawn my attention, but it is unlikely that they would deflect us from existing policy. I do not agree with the point that he is getting at. Women in the Royal Navy make an invaluable contribution. I regret it when matters go badly wrong, as they clearly did, but we would not be without them; they are marvellous people.

Mr. Murphy

Does the Minister agree that the Navy's recruitment target is down by almost 12 per cent? Having made thousands of service men and women redundant, he has had to open recruitment offices that he previously closed. Does he not understand that the country will judge the so-called manpower policy as mismanaged, mishandled and mistaken, especially when he has the cheek to accuse Labour of wanting to make defence cuts after his Government have reduced our Navy to its smallest size since Trafalgar?

Mr. Soames

The hon. Gentleman is wrong on every count. Royal Navy recruiting targets have not fallen but doubled. We hope this year to recruit at least 90 per cent. of the target. The Opposition have constantly used redundancies to attack the Government. They are wrong. The redundancies that followed "Options for Change" and the defence cost studies, however regrettable, were inevitable, because the services are a young man's and young woman's business. The redundancies were essentially among older service men and women. The Army alone needs 15,000 young recruits a year. We have a great deal to do and are working hard at it. The hon. Gentleman's thoroughly irresponsible attack on service recruiting does nothing but damage to the image of the armed forces in the eyes of the public.