Lord Harrison – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-03-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that those in the reserves of the armed forces have opportunities to use and develop linguistic skills.

Earl Howe

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) recognises the valuable skill sets of our reservists, all of whom have full access to the MOD’s language schemes. We work to ensure that those reservists who already have a second language are able to use and develop that language. Any reservists employed in roles with direct requirements for language capability receive the same training as regular personnel.

The MOD maintains a pool of linguists through the Education and Training Services (Reserves), which provides additional language capability to exercises, operations and Defence Engagement tasks. A new training programme, which makes use of courses and bespoke training provided by the Defence Centre for Languages and Culture, has recently been introduced to develop the skills of linguists in the reserves.