What a pleasure it is to respond to the contribution of my hon. and gallant Friend James Sunderland this evening. I hope that we will be able to reflect on a huge success in our country. It is a wonderful thing for our communities to have cadets. I have seen them in my Constituency, and they are an important part of the local fabric, supporting occasions from Remembrance Sunday to Armed Forces Day and beyond. We are lucky to have them.

I pay particular tribute to the volunteers who make that possible. So many of our institutions have, I am afraid, suffered as a result of the pandemic, and it has been extremely difficult for them to get going again, yet cadets seem to have bounced back and be flourishing, and the reason is that there are people who are prepared to give up their time and shoulder a fair amount of inconvenience to serve their communities in that way. We all owe them a great deal.

The benefits that our cadet programmes offer to young people and society as a whole are well known and well rehearsed. I agree wholeheartedly that the MOD-sponsored cadet forces provide brilliant opportunities for our young people. They have been catalogued by academics from the University of Northampton, to whom I am grateful for their rigorous appraisal, which gives scientific objectivity to what we all understand instinctively to be the case, namely that cadets are a force for good.

Participation in cadets has been shown to build character, self-discipline and self-reliance. It improves teamworking, problem solving, leadership and social skills. It provides a boost for physical and mental health—benefits that I am sure my hon. Friend will know about from his time as a cadet, which he described so well. I have to say that my time was not quite as happy as his. I remember joining the air cadets briefly. I was told I was going to fly aircraft. After about two months, it dawned on me that that was not going to happen; it would be marching up and down for as long as I could put up with it, which was not very long. I have to say that I parted company from the cadets much sooner than my hon. Friend, but there it is. I am sure it benefited me on some level.

Headteachers of schools that have established cadet units report that their cadets have improved attendance and academic attainment, as well as behaviour and self-confidence. Some headteachers use cadets as a central part of their strategy to reduce exclusions. Cadet programmes are also a gateway to new skills, new qualifications, and even employment. They are also a valuable way of making young people aware of the further opportunities available in defence and defence-related industries, although, as my hon. Friend made clear, cadet forces are not meant to be recruiting tools. As our military footprint has shrunk, however, cadets have assumed an even more important role in at least providing some sort of presence in many communities where otherwise there would be none. They benefit the whole of society by building links between different communities, boosting social mobility, and strengthening young people’s resilience to becoming involved in antisocial behaviour, criminality and even extremism. In short, joining the cadets is a springboard to success, as well as being a powerful engine for social mobility and levelling up.

The cadet expansion programme is a joint Ministry of Defence and Department for Education initiative to expand cadet participation in schools. It has been a fantastic success since its launch by the then Prime Minister 12 years ago. By March 2015, ahead of schedule, the Government reached their target of establishing 100 new combined cadet force units in state secondary schools in England. In November 2019, again ahead of schedule, we reached our further target of establishing 500 new cadet units across the United Kingdom.[This section has been corrected on 21 March 2024, column 10MC — read correction] (Correction) Funded with £50 million from LIBOR fines, the expansion programme benefits many schools in less affluent areas.

To give renewed impetus to the programme, the Government had by this time outlined a further aspiration to increase the number of cadets in school units to 60,000 by April 2024. However, cadet units require a significant amount of personal commitment from school leaders and volunteers, and in spite of successes, about 50 of the units established since 2012 have failed, often as a result of changes to a school’s leadership or priorities. That is a pity, but it in no way detracts from the leadership and drive of school teams that have advanced the cadet programme, to whom I pay tribute. As we approach April 2024, although cadet numbers in schools have increased by 15% since April 2020 to more than 54,000, it is clear that covid has had an impact on this as on so much of our national life, and that we will not reach our 60,000 aspiration within the challenging timeframe that we set.

However, it is not only the direct impact of the pandemic that has slowed progress. In addition to cadet activities being halted or limited by covid restrictions, participation has been affected by the resulting change in school priorities, with many understandably reorientating themselves from extra-curricular activities to prioritise catching up on lost learning. Given this context, the fact that we have already achieved 90% of our ambition to have 60,000 cadets in schools is a great credit to every individual and school involved in our expansion programme.

We have also made progress on a number of other fronts to provide the greatest support for school cadet units that we can. In the last year, we have developed a Combined Cadet Force engagement and communication framework. We have worked with the single-service cadet forces to improve the delivery model, and have extended funding for regional school cadet expansion officers. According to a report produced by academics at the University of Northampton, more than 91% of headteachers surveyed considered their cadet units to be a good investment for their schools, and a whopping 98.9% reported an improvement in the resilience of participants. Most recent estimates have calculated the cost of participation at £836 per cadet, and I call that a fantastic value-for-money investment in their future, our future, and the future of our country. However, Members do not have to take my word for it: the academics who conducted the study concluded that

“school based cadet units are delivering excellent value for money”— as well they should, given that the estimate of the Institute for Public Policy Research is that the cost of just one school exclusion is £392,000.