ARMED FORCES: REDUNDANCY PAY
Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much his Department spent on redundancy payments to (a) Royal Navy, (b) Army and (c) Royal Air Force personnel in each financial year since 2010-11. [201969]
Anna Soubry, Minister of State for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans: Expenditure on redundancy payments is not recorded separately by individual arms of service. However, the total of expenditure incurred on Military redundancy payments has been as follows:
| Financial year | Total redundancy payments (£million) |
| 2010-11 | 0 |
| 2011-12 | 110 |
| 2012-13 | 140 |
The figure for 2013-14 will be published in the Ministry of Defence’s Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14.
While reduced recruiting and fewer extensions of service will account for some of the reductions arising from the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review decision on the future size and shape of the regular armed forces, a redundancy programme is needed to ensure the right balance of skills for the future is maintained across the rank structures. We are providing as much support as possible to those personnel being made redundant.
We estimate that, by 2021-22, we will have achieved cumulative savings of some £23 billion as a result of reductions in military and civilian personnel and greater efficiency in the conduct of non-front line activities.