Speeches by Roome.

“Can I just come in on that, General? What are your leadership teams telling you about why people are not carrying on from application to conversion and then to being in the job? What are some of the reasons why females are not carrying on with the application? Is it the length of time?”

“What do you see as some of the barriers to recruitment at the moment?”

“I want to talk about recruitment and retention now in the armed forces, which is a particular challenge when it comes to females. For example, in 2020, the services set themselves a recruitment target of 15%, which has now been quietly dropped. It was met only by the RAF. Up until 30 September 2024, the recruitment of …”

“When I joined the Air Force, I was in within six weeks of going into the recruitment office. We had medically trained personnel, doctors, who would sign and take the risks. The recruitment agencies that we are using, without mentioning any names, are most probably just following policy. We have had an incident reported…”

“The statistics are really pretty even. We got 11% intake and about 9% outflow. We are doing something right there. That is consistent with international recruitment as well compared to other forces. However, what specific plans do we have for, say, the 10-year time period? What targets do we have? You alluded to 30% or…”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for securing the debate. My constituency covers nearly 1,100 sq km, which raises some unique challenges for rural services that will be familiar to many hon. Members. The most pressing of those challenges is equal access to local health servic…”

“To finish off on this section, Minister, I have heard you say, particularly towards veterans, “Ensure that you tell your GP that you are a veteran”. Could you explain to the Committee what advantages there would be to that veteran telling their GP that they have served in the forces?”

“On that point as well, it is not only the service personnel. A point that we picked up on our visit was the spouses and the families, who are also disadvantaged. I know that we are talking about compensating serving personnel. Let us not forget about their families, particularly the spouses, who have no choice but to a…”

“Following on from that, some of the evidence that we have received as a Committee criticises the language of “due regard”. For example, Air Vice Marshal David McLoughlin stated that the legal duty of due regard was weak and could easily be ignored, explaining that, at the most flippant end, he had been told that due re…”

“Thank you, Minister, for your attendance today and your service, and all the panel for the work that you do to support our service personnel and veterans. I want to get into the inconsistency around the covenant and how it is applied. We receive submissions from local authorities. One went top to bottom, thought out th…”

“I have been part of a local authority and leader of a local authority. For the actual meaning of what it means, it is very good to say, “We signed the armed forces covenant”, but putting it into action is a different thing. That is why I am asking whether it is inconsistent using the words “due regard” when it is sayin…”

“I will give you a live scenario here. I have been contacted by a defence company within my area that is quite concerned by some of the procurements that are coming out of MoD for an SME. It employs about 60 people. It is concerned that it is bidding for contracts, and the MoD is saying, “Eight companies have gone for t…”

“Coming back to what you just said, it would be interesting to know how many primes buy out SMEs. I do not know if there are any figures on how many SMEs get bought out to bring them into the prime industry, where they might lose those innovative ideas. The world has been moving quickly over the last couple of weeks and…”

“Right, okay. I am just wondering about innovation within procurement and industry. What do we need and what would you like to see come out of this new unit to create an effective and functioning innovation ecosystem within our defence industry in the United Kingdom?”

“Sadly, in the last week my constituency has suffered a spate of rural break-ins on the edge of Exmoor, and a quad bike and a chainsaw were also stolen from sheds in West Anstey earlier this month, in a pattern that we are very familiar with. Just this past week, South Molton and Umberleigh joined a string of other Devo…”

“You have answered that for your colleagues as well. I know that we are short for time, and that was a really good answer. I do know that they do valuable work.”

“You have answered a lot of the question on transition that I was going to ask, but what specifically would you like to see in the covenant, given that the Armed Forces Minister has said that he wants to put it fully into law? What would you want to see in the new, fully into law covenant, if you like, that would help s…”

“Within your work, how involved are you with the third sector and charities? How important are they within the transition period of leaving the forces to becoming a veteran? What would you say about the third sector and its involvement?”

“Does anyone have anything to add?”

“I am thinking of the issues with financial institutions.”