§ Mr. ThurnhamTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on manpower reductions in the armed forces.
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§ Mr. SoamesAs we announced on 14 July, the "Front Line First" initiative will lead to manpower reductions of some 1,900 for the Royal Navy, 7,500 for the RAF, 2,200 for the Army and 7,100 for the civil service, and that this involves redundancies. As was promulgated on Friday 16 December, the further detailed work that has been done envisages some 1,500 Royal Navy, 7,500 RAF and some 400 Army redundancies in addition to the 80 Army' redundancies announced on 17 November; an additional 900 Royal Navy and 1,100 RAF redundancies, resulting from previously announced efficiency measures, are proceeding in the same timescale. Civilian redundancies are not in general pre-determined centrally. We would expect a significant proportion of the civilian job losses announced in "Front Line First" to result in redundancy.