Philip Hammond: Small firms to get army reserve cash 'incentives'

Philip Hammond wants to deploy 30,000 reservists

Small firms are to be offered cash incentives to encourage them to allow workers to join the military reserves, says defence secretary Philip Hammond.

Mr Hammond wants to double the size of the Territorial Army from 15,000 to 30,000 while the regular Army's strength is cut by 20,000 to 82,000.

He has promised measures aimed at boosting recruits "within months".

Tory MP Colonel Bob Stewart has attacked the plans as an attempt to "get an army on the cheap".

Under the planned shake-up - to be detailed in a White Paper before Parliament breaks for the summer - the Territorial Army will be renamed the Army Reserves to reflect its enhanced role.

When the plans were first announced in November, Mr Hammond suggested firms who released workers for reserve duty could be awarded a badge similar to the kite mark in recognition of their efforts.

'Concrete offer'

But after talks with business groups, he said he is now looking at "financial incentivisation for those employers for whom it matters" which would be in the form of direct payments.

"It means cash when their employees get called out on reserve service," he told the BBC's Sunday Politics.

He said the size of the cash incentives was still being decided but added: "By the time we publish the White Paper, later in the spring, we will have a concrete offer on the table."

Major firms liked employing reservists, suggested Mr Hammond, "because it's good for the business and because it's part of their corporate social responsibility agenda".

'Smoking dope'

But he said it was harder for small businesses to lose staff to military service.

He rejected suggestions by Colonel Stewart that someone at the Ministry of Defence was "smoking a lot of dope" to believe that it would be possible to deploy 30,000 reserve troops.

Mr Hammond said: "We'll get the reserves up to 30,000.

"The reserves had been much higher than 30,000 in the past. They've been allowed to atrophy over the last couple of decades since the end of the Cold War."

Britain has had a reserve of part-time or retired soldiers - often known as yeomanry - since the Middle Ages but the system was only regularised in 1907 with the passing of legislation creating a Territorial Force.

Members fought in WWI, and in 1920 it became the Territorial Army, with members fighting in WWII.

Some 6,900 TA soldiers were mobilised for the invasion of Iraq in 2003