To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans his Department has to retain the knowledge possessed by retiring military personnel and officials.

Military staff in particular, but also civil service staff, change posts regularly in their career. The need to hand over to their successors, or other staff in their unit, is built into the ways of working for each unit, according to the nature of the job, and is handled at unit level. Retirement is a particular instance of that, differing only because it is not readily possible to ask further information after people have left their service.