§ 72. Mr. Wiggasked the Secretary of State for War the number of men entering into six and nine years' engagements from civilian life in the months of October, November, December, 1957, and January, 1958, separate figures being shown for each month.
§ Mr. SoamesThe six-year engagements for each of these months were 477, 812, 656 and 1,288 respectively. The nine-year engagements were 150, 189, 185 and 317. These are direct engagements from civil life and take no account of internal recruiting.
§ 73 and 74. Mr. Wiggasked the Secretary of State for War (1) what special action was authorised by him so that full information about the January, 1958, recruiting figures was available in the early part of February, 1958; and whether such arrangements will be continued so that monthly recruiting figures will in future always be available within the first half of the following month;
(2) why information about recruiting given in Paragraph 60 of his Army Estimates Memorandum, 1958–59, contained figures based on information from 32W Army commands of such an unreliable character that it is not normally released to the Press.
§ Mr. SoamesMonthly recruiting figures are not published until returns have been received from abroad and all the figures have been thoroughly checked. Special action was taken to hasten this process in respect of the recruiting figures for January so that the Defence White Paper and my Memorandum on the Army Estimates could be based on the latest possible information.
This entailed additional work beyond what is justified in the normal monthly publication of figures and I cannot undertake to alter the present arrangements in this respect.