‘Beards not a solution to Army crisis’

Recruitment will not be solved by overturning 100-year ban, says former defence secretary

THE Army is facing a backlash over plans to allow soldiers and officers to grow beards.

The King yesterday signed off on the head of the Army’s decision to overturn the 100-year ban on facial hair.

The move has led to criticism from the former defence secretary and the former head of the Army. Ben Wallace said that while he was in favour of allowing personnel to sport beards, he did not believe this would “fix” the staffing problem.

Mr Wallace said: “It’s not going to make a difference to recruiting in any way. The real issue around recruitment isn’t about beards, it’s about medical conditions that take too long to deal with.”

He added that the “biggest threat to recruitment” involved “signing up and being called forward”.

“I don’t believe this is a quick fix to recruitment challenges, they lie much more in medical conditions, timeliness and flexibility,” he said. In response to the announcement, Grant Shapps drew a direct comparison between facial hair and recruitment. He tweeted: “With army recruitment being a big priority and a recent YouGov finding most men (54 per cent) now say they currently have a beard or moustache, I asked the army to formally review the outdated beard ban. Today this sensible change in rules has been made.”

Mr Wallace’s comments were echoed by Lord Dannatt, the former head of the army, who said the subject of beards was “irrelevant” to improving recruitment.

Official government figures unveiled by Labour showed nearly three quarters of would-be soldiers dropped out of the military’s application process because it takes too long to join.

The figures found that while just over a million people applied to join either the RAF, Navy or Army since 2014, three in four gave up on the process of joining, resulting in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) signing up just over 132,000 people and rejecting almost 170,000.

Recent suggestions to improve recruitment in the Army, put to Parliament by Capita, the outsourcing giant, included allowing the employment of soldiers with a record of asthma, hayfever and visible tattoos.

Currently candidates with a history of asthma on their medical record have to prove that they have been cleared of the chronic lung disease for a minimum of two years.

Lord Dannatt said: “Beards or not are irrelevant to improving the recruitment crisis.

“The big problem with recruiting is cutting the delay for applications of people starting their training. The military needs to go back to recruiting offices on the high street manned by soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines. Applicants were processed quickly then and it was measured in weeks rather than months, and in some cases years.”