§ Mr. John Browneasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the training of engineer officers in the armed forces.
§ Mr. WigginAs was announced in the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1982—Cmnd. 8529—we are reviewing the scope for economy in various aspects of service training. I have invited Mr. Anthony Frodsham CBE, lately director general of the Engineering Employers' Federation, to conduct a study into the means that the services use to meet their requirement for engineer officers, to assess the most cost-effective way of meeting the requirement, taking the particular needs of the services into account, and to make recommendations for the future. Mr. Frodsham has accepted my invitation and is beginning work now. We expect that the study will be concluded by the end of the year.