§ Mr. Allan Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Defence what are the six-monthly figures of youth recruitment into the Armed Forces nationally and by 233W region for the periods from January 1975 to the latest available date.
§ Mr. PattieThe information is not recorded in the form requested and could not be provided except at disproportionate cost and effort. Some information is available for United Kingdom Service men only and is given in the tables below.
TABLE 1 RECRUITMENT OF UNITED KINGDOM SERVICE MEN BY AGE ON ENTRY percentage Age last birthday 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 16 … … … … … 39.6 41.6 40.5 38.9 38.6 17 … … … … … 25.2 25.1 27.7 29.5 25.7 18 … … … … … 12.4 12.6 12.9 13.3 13.1 19 … … … … … 6.9 7.0 7.2 6.6 7.7 20 and over … … … 15.9 13.7 11.7 11.7 14.9
TABLE 2 RECRUITMENT OF UNITED KINGDOM SERVICE MEN BY COUNTY AND STANDARD REGION 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 Total … … … … 39,804 34,383 32,231 36,664 43,659 England … … … … 31,877 27,568 26,507 29,878 35,681 Scotland … … … … 3,983 3,641 3,319 3,856 4,707 Wales … … … … 2,217 1,911 1,763 2,133 2,431 Northern Ireland … … … 764 680 741 605 759 Overseas and net adjustments … 963 583 –99 192 81 English Regions North … … … … 2,907 2,532 2,443 2,726 3,417 Yorkshire and Humberside … 4,059 3,427 3,312 3,536 4,209 East Midlands … … … 2,934 2,486 2,574 2,722 3,210 East Anglia … … … 1,283 1,162 1,097 1,243 1,548 South East (including London) … 7,984 7,388 6,917 7,663 8,760 SouthWest … … … 3,642 3,158 3,152 3,703 4,212 West Midlands … … … 3,722 2,880 2,724 3,163 4,162 NorthWest … … … 5,346 4,535 4,288 5,123 6,163 Notes to Table 2:
(a) " Overseas " represents the sons of Service men who enlist at an overseas location, where their parents are stationed. These, together with certain re-entrants are not included with regional figures.
(b) Regional statistics are collected by a separate procedure from the total recruitment figures. Differences, appearing in the Table as net adjustments, may be caused by the time elapsing between recording enlistment at a regional office and the date the Service man reports for duty and is included in the official recruiting figures.