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Overseas Defence Estates

Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the defence estates the Department has overseas. [215175]

Mr. Caplin: The MOD overseas estate comprises airfields, ports, warehousing, barracks, schools, technical facilities and supporting infrastructure (power, water, wastewater, communications, etc.), Service Family Accommodation (SFA), commercial facilities and training areas. Details are as follows.
 
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Country	Facility
Bahamas	Autos Island
Belize	Price Barracks—HQ British Army Training Support Unit Belize 4other training areas adventure training facility
Brunei	(facilities owned and operated by Brunei Government)
Canada	Suffield—British Army Training Unit Suffield Goose Bay—in process of handback Wain right Camp—in process of handback
Kenya	Kifaru Camp Nairobi—British Army Training Unit Kenya Extensive leased up-country training areas
Nepal	Kathmandu—HQ Brigade of Gurkhas Nepal, Pokhara
Norway	Stavangar, Bardufoss
Singapore	Sembawang
South Atlantic	Falkland Islands, Ascension Island and St. Helena— weather station
USA	Washington DC (leased SFA)
Cyprus	Episkopi Garrison RAF Akrotiri Dhekelia Garrison Troodos/Olympus Aya Nikolaos Station
Diego Garcia	Port and Storage facilities (all other facilities owned and operated by the USAF)
Gibraltar	Gibraltar Garrison and other facilities
Falkland Islands	Mount Pleasant Airfield Various hill top Radar/Tech sites Various helicopter Re-fuelling sites

All of the estate in Germany is owned by the German government and occupied by MOD under SOFA and its supplementary agreements. The German estate is located within five main garrison areas:

Country	Facility
Hohne Garrison, including:	Fallingbostel and Celle
Osnabrück Garrison, including:	Munster and Rhiene
Gütersloh Garrison, including:	Herford, Bielefeld, Lubbecke and Bunde
Paderborn Garrison, including:	Sennelager and Hameln
Rhine Garrison, including:	JHQ Rheindahlen, Dulmen and Elmpt

Additionally there are major training areas located at Senne and Haltern and smaller training areas in Paderborn, Gütersloh, Osnabrück and Rhine Garrisons.

In addition, a small numbers of leased properties are occupied in:

Country	Facility
Belgium	Brussels, Antwerp, Mons
Germany	Ramstein
Holland	Brunssum
Italy	Rome, Milan, Naples, Verona
Norway	Stavangar
Portugal	Lisbon
Spain	Madrid, Valencia
Turkey	Izmir, Istanbul
Russia	Moscow (one residence)

Parachute Battalion (Costs)

Mr. Russell Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the cost of (a) an in role parachute battalion and (b) a parachute battalion not in role was in the last year for which figures are available. [201002]

 
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Mr. Ingram: This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Parking Spaces

John Mann: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many car parking spaces are provided for those (a) working in and (b) visiting his Department. [208929]

Mr. Caplin: Provision of car parking space on defence establishments worldwide is determined locally, taking into account availability of public transport links, space on the establishments, and operational requirements.
 
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Centrally held records of defence estate assets do not identify provision of car parking space, and would require disproportionate cost to collect this information.

Pendle Hill Munitions

Mr. Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the munitions recovered on Pendle Hill, Lancashire, in the last four years. [213914]

Mr. Caplin: Since 1 January 2001, a total of 95 live items and 5478 expended items have been cleared from Pendle Hill, Lancashire. This data is correct as at 1 Febuary 2005.

	Live items		Expended items
	Nature	Number	Nature	Number
2001	Mortar 3	12	Mortar 2 smoke	376
	Mortar 2 Smoke	2	Fin Mortar 3	861
	Mortar 2	1	Fin Projectile Infantry Anti Tank (PIAT)	1
	PIAT	1
	Mortar 2 high explosive (HE)	2
2003	Mortar 3	18	Mortar 2 Smoke	299
	Mortar 2 HE	4	Fin Mortar 3	1,445
	Mortar 2 Smoke	1	Fin Mortar 2	13
	Mortar 2 Parachute illumination (Para Ilium)	2	PIAT	1
	PIAT	1	Fuse mortar 3	107
	Mortar 3 HE	4	Mortar 3	7
			Mortar 3 HE	1
			Fuse	15
			Mortar Spigot practice	1
			mortar 2 Para Ilium	2
2004	Mortar 3	20	3 Fin Mortar	1,726
	PIAT	2	Fin PIAT	1
	Fuse mortar 3	1	3 Fuse mortar	185
	Mills grenade no 36	1	2 mortar	4
	Mortar 2 Para Ilium	2	2 mortar Para Ilium	1
	Mortar 2 smoke	14	2 mortar smoke	342
	Mortar 3 HE	3	3 mortar	26
	Mortar 2 HE	3	3 mortar HE	18
			PIAT	9
			PIAT spigot	1
			spigot	2
2005	2 Mortar smoke	1	3 Fin mortar	18
			3 fuse mortar	4
			2 mortar smoke	12

Pensions

Mr. Gerald Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many service personnel in each service have opted to move to the new pension arrangements; and what proportion of serving personnel that represents in each case. [215501]

Mr. Caplin: These details will not be available until April 2006. Individual Offers to Transfer packs will be sent to members of the current scheme between mid July 2005 and the end of October 2005, for a Transfer Date of 6 April 2006.

Pentagon (Nuclear Weapons Plans)

Llew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information he has received from his United States counterpart in respect of Pentagon plans to build earth-penetrating nuclear weapons designed to destroy hardened underground targets. [214640]

Mr. Hoon: None. Although US policy is a matter for that Government, I understand that to date it has only sought to conduct studies into the concept of such weapons and has no plans to build any.

Postage

Mr. George Osborne: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much has been spent on postage by the Department in each year since 1997. [215021]

Mr. Caplin: The cost of postage is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

Rapid Deployment

Mr. Sarwar: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps his Department is taking to procure equipment to improve the rapid deployability of the British armed forces. [213368]

 
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Mr. Ingram: The 'Future Capabilities' White Paper published in July 2003 explains how we plan to make the armed forces more flexible and deployable. At sea, deployability has already been improved through six new Roll-On-Roll-Off ships. A robust and modern amphibious capability, based around two new ships, HMS Alibon and Bulwark, supported by the Bay Class landing ships, will provide a step change in our ability to launch and support forces ashore. For the Army, there will be a shift in emphasis towards light and medium weight forces. These will be supported by a number of new equipment programmes, including the Future Rapid Effects System family of vehicles and the Light Mobile Artillery Weapon System. In the air, aswell as introducing 25 A400M aircraft from 2011, wenow intend to buy our current fleet of four leased C-17 aircraft together with one additional aircraft, significantly increasing our strategic lift capability.

Recruitment (Scotland)

Mr. Sarwar: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on recruitment levels to the armed forces in the past three months from applicants in Scotland. [213338]

Mr. Caplin: The number of personnel recruited into the armed forces other ranks from applications registered in Scotland from 1 October to 31 December 2004 was 322. Information for officers is not available on a regional basis.

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