Revealed: How the Government’s big austerity plan to replace regular soldiers with reservists has ‘led to crisis’

‘The Army is facing a “potentially very, very dangerous” crisis in trained soldier numbers because of a “flawed austerity drive” introduced by Chancellor Philip Hammond, according to claims prompted by figures released on the day Parliament closed for the summer.
The figures were among a raft of potentially embarrassing statistics released by the Conservative Government on Thursday, hours before Parliament broke up for the summer, in what critics interpreted as a deliberate “take out the trash day” tactic to limit the time MPs could spend discussing them.
The Armed Forces Service Personnel Statistics show that the numbers of fully trained regular Army soldiers has dropped below a previous ”trained strength” target of 82,000 to 78,010 – a shortfall of 3,990 fully trained troops.
Perhaps more importantly for the Government’s overall defence plans, the figures also show that the numbers leaving the part-time Army Reserve – formerly the Territorial Army – increased by 20 per cent between the year to 1 June 2016 and the year to 1 June 2017. At about the same time, during the last financial year, intake into the reserve fell by 18 per cent.’
Read more: Revealed: How the Government’s big austerity plan to replace regular soldiers with reservists has ‘led to crisis’