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Revealed: 'City soldiers' on £100,000 - Telegraph
Armed Forces reservists called up for service in Afghanistan from City jobs have been paid six-figure salaries by the Ministry of Defence for their military work, figures have revealed.
The disclosure has led ministers to draw up plans to curb the costs of deploying so-called City Soldiers.
Under military rules, reservists who are called up for service are paid the same wages as regular personnel. If they find their military pay is less than their civilian salaries, they can claim for additional money, known as a Reservist Award.
Official figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that eight reservists called up for service in Afghanistan this year were paid more than £100,000 for their tour of duty.
The highest-paid, who holds the rank of a junior officer, was paid £135,000.
Others, who rank as sergeants, lance corporals and privates, were paid between £100,000 and £110,000.
Those salaries are several times the pay of regular soldiers of the same ranks.
Some of the high-paid soldiers are believed to be members of the Honourable Artillery Company, a TA unit based in the City of London.
The HAC is the oldest continuous unit in the British Army, and describes itself as the most prestigious.
Its members include leading City figures who have served with distinction is several conflicts and one HAC soldier was killed in Afghanistan.
The figures show that other reservists paid more than £100,000 included members of the Royal Marine Reserve and the RAF Reserve.
Defenders of the Reservist Award rules say the payments are necessary to prevent reservists losing out financially because of their service.
But ministers are understood to feel that that very high salary payments for reservists cannot be justified, leading to a review of reservist pay rules.
"There will have to be a tightening up of the system to limit these costs, said an MoD source.
At a time when resources are finite, we will have to use our funds more carefully and that will include mobilising the right people and at the right cost. It doesn't make sense to be mobilising junior soldiers on over £100,000 with the Government picking up the bill for their City salary."
The figures also revealed that several doctors and surgeons from the Army medical reserve were paid six-figure salaries for Afghan tours.
The best-paid of the medics received £225,000 for work in Afghanistan.
The MoD insisted that the costs of calling up medical reservists is justified, and it is understood that they will be exempt from any change in pay rules.
The MoD said: Many are highly trained consultant surgeons or consultant anaesthetists often only found in the NHS. Although highly paid, they are in small numbers and critical to providing medical support to Regular forces.
These highly paid Reservists are a small number of specialists and not indicative of wider Reservist mobilisation costs.
Reservist pay rules are being reviewed as the MoD attempts to almost double the existing number of deployable reservists to 30,000.