John Baron MP releases report on reservists

MP: report casts further doubt on Government’s defence reforms

A number of MPs, including John Baron MP, are concerned by the Government’s intentions to replace 20,000 regular troops with 30,000 reservists, particularly in the combat arms role, believing this will lead to unacceptable capability gaps, and that it will not deliver the cost savings anticipated by the MoD. These concerns have been increased by the Defence Secretary’s failure to produce any figures to Parliament assessing the costs of the defence reforms, despite requests both in writing and in the House.

As a consequence, John Baron MP commissioned an independent study of the relative costs of deployment of reservists against their regular counterparts [attached]. The report highlights several areas of concern and questions the Government’s assertion that Reservists are cheaper: notably, calculations demonstrate that, like-for-like, they are more expensive to deploy – and by some margin. The estimate of cost savings then turns on how often the Reservists are expected to be used.

John said,

“The report confirms it costs more to deploy reservists than regulars. Of crucial importance to the estimated costs of the Reserves is their projected use rate – the lower the figure, the lower the anticipated cost. The MoD’s figure of 3,000 annual deployments is very low. False economies loom.”

“The figure of 3,000 deployments does not sit well with either the overall plan of replacing 20,000 Regulars with 30,000 Reservists, or the intention to use Reservists more frequently. The Government now needs to come clean with its costings.”

“And this is before we consider the widening capability gap as Reservist recruitment targets keep being badly missed, and the Regulars are axed. This was not the original plan under the previous Secretary of State.”