Why recruits are quitting the Armed Forces in their droves

The first act of any government is, or should be, the defence of the state.

Put simply, that means having enough trained soldiers, tanks, aircraft, ships and military hardware to protect the nation in the event of a crisis.

But in each one of those categories the Armed Forces are now lacking. Crucially, troop numbers have fallen off a cliff and, worse still, all of the indicators suggest the problem will only get worse.

Very soon the Army will be equipped with 153 Challenger 3 tanks, slightly more than the 134 owned by Switzerland, a neutral country that hasn’t fought a war since 1847.

On top of this worrying detail is the fact that almost every single British Army infantry regiment is understrength, the Royal Navy has recently been forced to decommission three warships in a bid to cut costs, and the RAF recruitment numbers suggest it is still recoiling from the disclosure that it used unlawful positive discrimination practices in a bid to boost the number of non-white pilot applicants – a reflection of what would appear to be the Armed Forces’ obsession with diversity.

General Sir David Richards, a distinguished former chief of the defence staff, tells The Telegraph that the Armed Forces are now in a “parlous state”.

“What [historically] distinguishes the British Armed Forces from most, if not all, of their peers is the quality and motivation of the people in them,” he says.

“Equipment counts for little if the Navy, Army and Airforce cannot attract and retain their fair share of the best people our nation has to offer. Today, that critical mass of quality hangs by a thread. The world is in a dangerous state. The Armed Forces are in a parlous condition.”

Armed Forces retention – keeping troops in the military – has always been a challenge, especially when conflicts such as the war in Afghanistan come to an end. As reported by The Telegraph last week, military personnel are quitting the Armed Forces at an alarming rate, despite a six per cent pay rise over the summer.

For the first time on record, there are now just two servicemen or women per thousand people in Britain. Some 15,119 left the Armed Forces in the year to October. Of these, 7,778 were counted as “voluntary outflow”, those choosing to leave of their own accord.

The Forces recruited just over 12,000 personnel in the same period, resulting in a net shrinkage of the military.

Worse still, just last month the Defence Secretary John Healey gave those attending a Defence Committee session a bleak assessment of the military’s recruitment and retention problems when he said: “Recruitment targets were set and missed every year; in the last year, service morale fell to record lows.

“Over the last year, our forces were losing 300 more full-time personnel than were joining, every month.”

General Sir Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British Army, believes the shortages of troops has left many military personnel feeling as though they fall short of a true fighting force.

“Experienced officers and senior non-commissioned officers do not like being in an organisation that is clearly underinvested,” he tells The Telegraph. “Operating old or inappropriate equipment is highly demotivating. Similarly, they know that the Army cannot meet its state objective of being able to field a fully rounded-out and capable warfighting division. They sense they are now part of a poorly equipped gendarmerie.”

The late General Sir Mike Jackson, a former head of the Army and a proud Para, once told me that “soldiers don’t join the Army to lie on their beds”.

He added: “Most soldiers want to take part in operations – for them, that is the challenge. If there are no operations taking place then they can quite rightly ask ‘What’s the point?’ if the only challenge on offer is another military exercise.”

I know from personal experience as a former captain in the Parachute Regiment that army exercises, even those that begin with the adrenaline rush which comes with jumping out of a plane, are often stupefyingly boring.

There are only so many times soldiers can dig and live in a trench in winter on Salisbury Plain or the rain-sodden hills of Sennybridge in South Wales, before seriously asking themselves: “Why am I doing this?”, especially when their civilian peers are often earning far more and living more comfortable and satisfying lives.

By contrast, operational experience – mine was the streets of Belfast between 1989 and 1991 when the IRA was a lethal menace – brings real value to one’s raison d’etre.

One former decorated SAS officer who had served in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, told me not so long ago that he joined the Army because “it was one of the few careers left that offered the chance of true adventure,” before adding “that was once the case but I’m no longer sure it still does.”

It wasn’t that long ago that a career in the Armed Forces offered the chance of travel to different locations around the world. Anyone looking at spending a full career in the Forces could expect to serve in Germany, Cyprus, Belize, Borneo and, up until 1997, the most exotic of all locations: Hong Kong.

On top of this, there were numerous foreign exercises to the Middle East, Canada, the United States and in Europe, along with the opportunity of working as part of small training teams across Africa in countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. These foreign deployments might once have been a highlight in a service person’s career, where arguably the most famous Army advertising campaign – “Join the Army, See the World” – had real resonance.

But many of these opportunities have fallen by the wayside, victims of government cost cutting and a reduction in the Armed Forces global footprint.

On top of this, comes the often underestimated issue of the outrageously poor service housing in which many families are forced to live. Literally thousands of Armed Forces families are currently residing in houses and flats with broken or failing central heating, leaking roofs, vermin infestation and black mould, which has led to children being taken to hospital with breathing difficulties.

While many soldiers might be prepared to rough it, their spouses, quite understandably, are not and subsequently many troops have voted with their feet.

All three Armed Forces also have to contend with the changing demands of Generation Z recruits. A recent Ministry of Defence report said that this cohort now expects double beds, ensuite bathrooms and decent WiFi in their barrack rooms.

The ongoing unlawful killings inquiry, chaired by Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, which was launched amid claims that members of the SAS murdered unarmed Afghan civilians, along with the growing number of ex-soldiers facing murder charges for shooting dead members of the IRA during The Troubles, will have undoubtedly damaged morale within the services.

It would, however, be unfair to claim that the MoD is not wise to the challenges of solving the retention problem. Nevertheless, Gen Richards believes it is time for deeds, not words.

“I have no doubt that in their hearts ministers understand [the parlous state of the Armed Forces],” he says. “They must now act as the statesmen they aspire to be and invest properly in the Armed Forces, putting people at the forefront of their actions.

“Only by doing so [together with our friends and allies], will we successfully deter our adversaries and thus preserve our peaceful way of life.”

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