THE MoD announced its plans for the future of the Territorial Army last week, including its expansion to a force of some 35,000 reservists and changing the name to Army Reserves.

The White Paper announced better terms of service for reservists and financial help for small and medium sized businesses when their employees are deployed.

From 2015, reservists will become eligible for pensions and will receive paid leave, one day for every ten days of training, and the annual training bounty will remain.

Reserve units will be formally paired with regular units, which means the Royal Wessex Yeomanry (R Wx Y) will be paired with the three Tidworth-based Challenger 2 units, King’s Royal Hussars, Queen’s Royal Hussars and the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment.

Old Sarum-based B Squadron Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry (R Wx Y )will expand to include a new troop at Swindon, but this will be at the expense of A (Royal Wilts Yeomanry) Squadron which will be ‘withdrawn from the order of battle’.

A new reserve Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) Regiment will be formed across the south west, which will be paired with 4 Armoured Close Support battalion REME, based at Tidworth.

Three sections of Royal Military Police Special Investigations Branch will move from Winchester to Bulford and 221 (Wessex) Battery Royal Artillery will be formed at Larkhill.

Announcing the changes, Commander 43 (Wessex) Brigade, Brigadier Piers Hankinson, said that this would be good for the TA and that “army reserves would become an integral part of the regular force”.

He outlined improvements to terms of service to include access to military healthcare, welfare support for reservists’ families and more openness and predictability on deployments for both reservists and employers.

In the detail of the announcements I noticed that all army reserve infantry units would only be paired with light protected mobility infantry battalions, so none of the six armoured infantry battalions stationed on Salisbury Plain would have any links to the reserves.

In all it was a good package for the TA – sorry Army Reserves – but we will have to wait and see if the extra 10,000 new recruits will flock to join up.