Armed forces minister Luke Pollard told The Mirror an ‘enormous’ amount of planning has gone into a Ukraine peacekeeping operation as he hailed moves to improve recruitment and retention
British forces would be able to deploy straight away if a peace agreement was reached in Ukraine, the UK’s armed forces minister has said.
Luke Pollard told The Mirror that an “enormous” amount of planning has gone ahead as world leaders desperately try to bring the brutal conflict to an end. Mr Pollard said: “There’s an enormous amount of military planning going on.
“We’re now at the stage where if peace were to happen, we would be able to deploy. But with every week that passes we improve our readiness, we improve the offer that we’re putting in place.
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“So, when peace does happen, and I hope it will, we will be ready to support Ukraine in the fullest to secure the peace.” The UK is heading a “coalition of the willing” putting together plans for a peacekeeping force, and Keir Starmer has said he is prepared to put boots on the ground.
Mr Pollard said the Government has made dramatic progress tackling the recruitment crisis facing the armed forces after years of Tory negligence. He said: “We live in more dangerous times. And because of that, we need to recruit and retain more brilliant people.”
On Wednesday legislation creating a new Armed Forces Commissioner passed into law. The new role will give servicemen and women a champion who will report to Parliament and tackle issues affecting Britain’s heroes.
Mr Pollard said: “I think people knew under the last government that things were not going right. Morale had been falling in each of our armed forces for each of the last ten years.
“For every hundred people that joined our armed forces, 130 were leaving. So they were shrinking, not because of government cuts, but because they weren’t paying enough attention to the needs of our people.
“And we want to change that. I think we’ve made progress in the first year with two above-inflation pay rises, improvements in housing and childcare and the biggest increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War.
“This sets a clear trajectory that we’re going to renew our armed forces.” This work is paying off, Mr Pollard stated.
“We’re seeing more people want to apply to join the armed forces. The inflow into our armed forces is up 17%. Outflow is down by about 9%.
“That’s really important because we want to increase the size of our army up to 76,000 people.” The Ministry of Defence (MOD) minister says he is hopeful that the new Commissioner will be in place by the start of next year.
“We want someone who can champion our forces, who has an understanding about what it’s like to serve our nation and what it means to be able to champion not just the men and women in uniform, but their families as well,” he stated.
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