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28 Jun 2004 : Column 137W—continued
BAE Systems
Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions (a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) the Permanent Secretary in his Department has held with members of the United States Administration since 1 January 1999 regarding BAE Systems' commitment to sign up to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. [176051]
Mr. Hoon: In 2002, the Permanent Under-Secretary referred, in correspondence with the United States Administration, to the briefing that BAE Systems had provided to the US Department of Defense on the steps the Company had taken to ensure compliance with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I am aware of no other relevant discussions.
Ballykinler Barracks
Mr. McNamara: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the incident at Ballykinler Barracks on 16 May. [179793]
Mr. Ingram: The incident at Ballykinler on 16 May is the subject of an investigation by the Royal Military Police. Until this investigation is complete it would be inappropriate for me to comment on this matter.
Cadet Force (Chorley)
Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the strength of the cadet force based at Chorley under the responsibility of the (a) Army, (b) Royal Air Force and (c) Royal Navy; and what the budget of each is in 2003–04. [161247]
Mr. Caplin: The information is as follows:
Chorley Army Cadet Force has a present strength of 53 cadets and five staff. There are no Combined Cadet Force (ACF) sections in the Chorley area.
The consolidated and travel budget for Chorley ACF for Financial Year 2003–04 is £2,404.00
The payment for Financial Year 2003–04 for training days for adult staff was £7,019.00.
Chorley ACF is a unit member of the Lancashire ACF. This county force is administered by the North West RFCA (Reserve Forces and Cadet Association.). The associations have offices within the Regional Brigade headquarters based at Preston.
Chorley is the home of 92 (Chorley) ATC Squadron. It has 54 cadets (40 male, 14 female) and nine staff.
There are no CCF (RAF) units in the constituency.
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ATC Squadrons are not allocated a budget from public funds. Claims for authorised pay days (for volunteer uniformed staff) and travel and subsistence allowance can be claimed from the disaggregated budget held by the Regional HQ or Wing HQ. The budget for building maintenance is held and controlled by HQ air cadets on an as required/priority basis.
Chorley SCC (Sea Cadet Centre) currently has 33 cadets in the unit.
There are no CCF (RN) or RN Recognised Sea Scout units in the Chorley area.
The Chorley SCC unit does not have a direct budget provided by the RN.
Each SCC unit is an independent charitable organisation, under the management of a Unit Management Committee. Units are responsible for their own running costs, i.e. buildings and insurance, heat/light, etc. Unit funding is raised by the cadets in local initiatives, such as flag days etc. MOD does provide assistance by way of uniforms, stores, and (adult cadet) training. This is provided under an MOU between MOD and the SCA (Sea Cadet Association).
Chemical and Biological Weapons
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the answer of 14 June 2004, to question 178707, whether he permits US forces based in the UK to hold chemical and biological material pursuant to their programmes to protect against chemical and biological weapons. [180400]
Mr. Hoon [holding answer 24 June 2004]: I assume the hon. Member is referring to my answer of 18 June 2004, Official Report, columns 1140–41W. The basing of chemical and biological counter-weapon material on United Kingdom territory by the United States is a matter for joint decision by the two Governments in the light of the circumstances prevailing at the time. There are no United States chemical or biological weapons held in the United Kingdom
Deaths and Injuries in Service
Mr. Key: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many military personnel have been (a) killed in action, (b) injured in action, (c) killed in vehicle accidents, (d) injured in vehicle accidents, (e) killed in sporting accidents and (f) murdered in each of the past five years; and how many committed suicide in each of those years. [179484]
Mr. Caplin:
In the period 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2003, there were 419 deaths among United Kingdom service personnel in the categories listed. Of these, 40 were killed in action, 275 died in vehicle accidents, seven died in sporting accidents, 12 died as a result of assaults and 85 were suicide or open verdict deaths recorded by a coroner (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) or the Procurator Fiscal (Scotland). In this period, there were a further 30 deaths for which we are waiting a verdict.
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The findings of criminal trials is not routinely collected by the Ministry of Defence, so it is not possible to state how many of the 12 deaths by assault may have been due to murder.
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A breakdown of these deaths by year is provided as follows:
| Causes or circumstances of death | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Killed in Action(59) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 39 | 40 |
| Vehicles accidents (excluding killed in action) | 47 | 53 | 56 | 66 | 53 | 275 |
| Sporting accidents | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 7 |
| Assault | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 12 |
| Suicide/Open verdicts | 19 | 27 | 11 | 15 | 13 | 85 |
(59) Includes one road traffic accident death in 2003 classified as killed in action.
During the period 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2003, 4,876 service personnel have been injured while on duty involving military vehicles. A breakdown of these injuries by year is provided in table B. Information on service personnel injured while off duty involving vehicles is not collected by the MOD. Information on injuries sustained in action is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
| Vehicle accidents | |
|---|---|
| 1999 | 1,248 |
| 2000 | 964 |
| 2001 | 922 |
| 2002 | 904 |
| 2003 | 838 |
| Total | 4,876 |
Defence Contracts
Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list defence contracts (a) awaiting decision and (b) signed off in the last 12 months. [180055]
Mr. Ingram: Information on individual defence contracts awaiting decision is not recorded centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost (Exemption 9 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information).
During the financial year 2003–04 the Ministry of Defence awarded just over 24,500 contracts valued at £9.3 billion. The details of these contracts cannot be listed without incurring disproportionate cost (Exemption 9 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information).
Departmental IT Infrastructure
Mr. Gerald Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what savings he expects to make following the privatisation of the Ministry's IT infrastructure; [176376]
(2) when he expects to make a decision on the awarding of the contract following the privatisation of the Ministry's IT infrastructure; [176377]
(3) what estimate he has made of the impact that privatisation of the Ministry's IT infrastructure will have on his Ministry's personnel; [176378]
(4) if he will make a statement on the privatisation of his Ministry's IT infrastructure. [176379]
Mr. Ingram: A key component of the Defence Change Programme is the provision of a Defence Information Infrastructure (DII).
A competition is currently under way to appoint a Delivery Partner under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract who will be responsible for the supply of the required infrastructure and services across Defence. It is intended that the programme will, in time, subsume and then replace the existing disparate IT infrastructures. It is anticipated that this contract will be in place by early 2005 with the entire programme completed by early 2009.
The DII programme is not a privatisation of IT infrastructure. Under the terms of the Public Private Partnership arrangement, the Ministry of Defence will continue to own the infrastructure but the delivery of the sendee will be the responsibility of the Delivery Partner. Currently, much of the design, provision and management of our existing infrastructure is already outsourced, albeit under a number of different arrangements.
The DII programme is crucial to the delivery of the Defence Change Programme and has the potential to support delivery of significant benefits across Defence. The DII programme will enable Defence to realise a greatly increased capability at reduced cost. It will provide pan-defence corporate processes that improve the way Defence conducts its business on a day-to-day basis. In addition, it will enable our battlefield systems to be more closely integrated with our support systems, leading to improved decision making and intelligence collection and analysis.
The savings generated from the more efficient provision of computing facilities are being used to increase the capability of the infrastructure. This includes better resilience and provision for business continuity, the near doubling of the number of users supported by the infrastructure, the provision of a single point of contact for all services offered by the Defence Communications Services Agency (DCSA), unified records management, and much improved e-mail and collaborative working services.
The provision of new tools and new ways of working means that users of the system will have more powerful capability at their fingertips to enable them to be increasingly effective in delivering their objectives. DII will therefore have a significant impact on the way all
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users are able to exploit the power of the infrastructure in delivering their outputs, both in the fixed and in the deployed environment.
Those civilians employed in support roles for the current infrastructure will be transferred to the Delivery Partner (DP) under TUPE arrangements once the DP takes control of the management of the system that they support. It is expected that there will be some exceptions to this in order to provide support for systems that have operational or specialist constraints and require the retention of in house support staff. There will also be those who need to be retained to form the core of the Intelligent Customer Function (ICF). The MOD will be retaining Military Service Providers (MSPs) to support the infrastructure when it is deployed for military operations.
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