Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Defence – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 October 2017.
Mark Lancaster
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence
12:00,
23 October 2017
No, I do not. It is important to note that the army is currently 95% manned. I do accept that there are challenges. Having probably the highest employment rate we have had in recent years does not help when it comes to recruiting to the Army. There is also, as we discussed earlier, the changing nature of Britain, which means we have to fight harder to make sure that all parts of society will join the Army. However, this is also about the offer, and I must say that when the Leader of the Opposition says he cannot see a situation where he would deploy the Army overseas, that is hardly a good recruiting tool to get young people who want to join the Army to do exactly that.
The "Leader of the Opposition" is head of "Her Majesty's Official Opposition". This position is taken by the Leader of the party with the 2nd largest number of MPs in the Commons.