The Territorial Army is to be overhauled so that it can be deployed overseas more quickly, the Ministry of Defence has announced, a recognition of the military’s growing dependence on reservists in the war in Afghanistan. News of the overhaul came after months of speculation that the reserve force would be cut drastically to make savings in the defence budget.

Bob Ainsworth, the Armed Forces Minister, told Parliament yesterday that there would be no drop in numbers, but that reservists would be relieved of “burdensome training that they don’t really need to do”, making them ready for deployment within three years.

About 18,000 of Britain’s 33,000 active reservists have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003 and reservists make up 8 per cent of Forces deployed in theatre.

John Hutton, the Defence Secretary, told the Commons Defence Committee that operations in Iraq and Afghanistan had taken a heavy toll of the regular force and that the military needed breathing space after seven years at full stretch. More than half of all units report “serious” or “critical” weaknesses in readiness levels.

Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, criticised the “piecemeal fashion” of the review, calling for an urgent assessment of overall defence strategy instead. “Changes to the shape of our Armed Forces should be made within the context of a strategic defence review — one which is hugely overdue — not in this piecemeal fashion,” he argued. The TA plans were “short on detail” and “indicative of a Government that lacks direction”, he added.

Dr Fox also condemned the decision to relieve the TA of many of its domestic duties, including helping to tackle national emergencies. Those responsibilities will move to the emergency services and regular forces. “The regular Army is already overstretched and is increasingly being concentrated on to super-garrisons. So let me get this right: with a potential flu pandemic at our door, the Government are abandoning their own Civil Contingency Reaction Force?”

Mr Ainsworth said: “The TA doesn’t exist in the way that it did once upon a time in the old days by merely and only being a defence of last resort against national catastrophe and the Russians coming across the plains.”

Initial training will be restructured so recruits can take part in collective training with regular army units six months after joining. The MoD also plans to give reservists’ employers more notice of deployment of their staff.

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