B

Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 26 June 2025

Debate

National Security Strategy

Contribution

The noble Lord is right to raise this. There has been quite a fall-off in recruitment to the Armed Forces. I remember the days when the Army had a town-centre presence, where people could go to be recruited. That has been lost, and we are bringing together that recruitment as a whole. As the noble Lord opposite said earlier, most people today do not think about what the threats are, because we feel safe and we have got used to that feeling. There needs to be a resetting so that people understand that there are threats and want to play their part in protecting and serving the nation. I like to talk about people not wanting to fight for their country but wanting to serve and protect their country. We need to provide greater opportunities for people to want to play a part in that, but also show them what can be done. A lot of the work in the Armed Forces brings a whole load of issues around the skills they need and their resilience for the country, all of which will be crucial. We are committed to improving the recruitment levels that we have seen over past years.

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