Territorial Army Debate
Philip Dunne highlights the importance of junior leader and officer training prior to deployment.
Mr. Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con): My hon. Friend has referred persuasively to specialists' training, but does he agree that this is also about the training of junior leaders and officers in the TA? If they do not have interaction or training over a period of months leading up to deployment, they have no capacity to do their job and lead men in the field.
Mr. Lancaster: My hon. Friend makes a very important point, on a subject that I was going to discuss, the officer training corps at universities. One of the key shortages in the TA at the moment is of junior officers-there are simply not enough of them in units. One of the key sources of junior officers used to be the officer training corps, but they are now not going to receive any training at all. We are cutting off that inflow of junior officers, so I would be fascinated to know how the Minister intends to replace it.
