Students can play a role in boosting our reserve forces

British defence policy is in a bind. We are threatened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and China’s belligerent behaviour towards Taiwan. Against this we have a military force that isn’t capable of stopping a Russian armoured juggernaut rolling over the plains of central Europe.
But the nearly two decades-long squeeze on public finances initiated by the 2008 financial crash and exacerbated by the Covid pandemic mean that there is precious little money to expand our defences.
Resolving this will be tough, but some answers stand out. The real issue is as much about manpower as it is money. In the past few decades, our forces have been cut to their smallest size in 300 years. So massively expanding the size of our reserve forces is the only viable step forward.
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A typical reserve soldier only costs about 20 per cent of that of a regular soldier. Our reserves are currently tiny. Throughout Europe, most of our allies either have large reserves or they are rapidly increasing them.
Israel’s rapid response to the atrocities of October 7 was possible due to a reserve force of 465,000. Ukraine’s reserves are similarly measured in many hundreds of thousands. America’s citizen soldiers are also critical to the national effort. Battlefield experience shows that these are first-rate soldiers. Our reserve force currently numbers less than 35,000. In my view, this should be nearer 200,000. But we have to recruit them.
It is time we made joining our reserve forces much more attractive. One place to start is at our universities, with a simple offer to all students. Serve for three years in the reserves, plus one year after graduation, and we will pay off all your tuition fees. Along with paid training during vacations, graduates should be able to start their careers debt-free.
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Beyond this, the government should incentivise civilians to volunteer as reservists by making the training attractive, flexible and financially worthwhile. Using existing drill halls and permanent staff we could accommodate three times the current strength at very little marginal cost.
The current recruitment process is desperately bureaucratic. Today it takes almost a year longer to join up than it took 25 years ago. That should go. The need for these changes has gone from desirable to essential for our survival. We have to get on with it.
David Davis is the MP for Goole & Pocklington