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23 Feb 2010 : Column 410W—continued
These figures will include partial or complete limb amputees. In order to protect patient confidentiality, those who have suffered limb amputations above the wrist or ankle on more than one limb will be reported annually as "significant multiple amputees".
Injured UK service personnel who require prosthetic limbs attend the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court in Surrey, where they are supplied with tailor-made prostheses with state of the art componentry which is matched to their clinical needs.
The Defence Medical Services (DMS) keep in touch with developments in rehabilitation in other countries, including the United States, and assess new developments carefully to judge fully their potential benefits for our people. To date the DMS have not referred any amputees to the United States for their medical treatment, although a few individual amputees have attended private US facilities of their own volition and without cost to the Department. No personnel have been forced to receive treatment in the USA, and until alternative treatments and rehabilitation regimes have been fully evaluated it would be inappropriate to deviate from current, clinically proven approaches.
Disabled
Mr. Harper: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many and what proportion of staff in (a) his Department and (b) its agencies are disabled; and what the average salary of (i) full-time disabled staff, (ii) full-time non-disabled staff, (iii) part-time disabled staff and (iv) part-time non-disabled staff is in (A) his Department and (B) its agencies. [317888]
Mr. Bob Ainsworth: I refer the hon. Member to the table of statistics taken from the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey published by the Office for National Statistics on 20 January 2010 and available at the following link:
Ex-servicemen
Angus Robertson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what support is provided by his Department to military personnel upon discharge in respect of (a) trauma and psychological problems, (b) alcohol abuse and (c) drug abuse. [317793]
Mr. Kevan Jones: Since 1948, it has been successive Governments' policy that the NHS should be the main provider of health care for veterans and for the majority of veterans their mental health needs are fully met by current NHS provisions. The Department of Health and devolved Administrations with support from the Ministry of Defence and Combat Stress have launched six mental health pilots around the United Kingdom. The aim of the pilots is to deliver a service which provides expert assessment and interventions and which is acceptable to veterans.
Veterans who do not live near one of the regional schemes can access the Medical Assessment programme (MAP) which is available to veterans who were deployed on operations since 1982. The MAP offers comprehensive physical and mental health assessments for veterans who feel that their ill-health may be linked to military service.
In addition, we will be providing grant funding of £140,000, which Combat Stress are matching, to work directly with mental health trusts to ensure that the services they provide are accessible to and appropriate for military veterans.
The Department has issued guidance to commanders on substance misuse and all three services have robust drug and alcohol policies in place. Service personnel identified by the chain of command as being at risk of alcohol misuse receive counselling and welfare support. This can include attendance on preventative early intervention programmes designed to alert them to the harm that alcohol can cause to themselves and others. More serious cases are treated through specialist medical and psychological treatment and rehabilitation, including where appropriate as in-patients. Service leavers are also given literature covering a range of issues including details of national alcohol and drug helplines.
Military Aircraft: Training
Lembit Öpik: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence for what reasons the simulation of the 1994 Chinook accident by test pilot Squadron Leader Robert Burke was abandoned prior to its completion; and if he will make a statement. [309997]
Bill Rammell: The test with which Squadron Leader Burke concerned himself was being undertaken by RAF technicians at the request of the Air Accident Investigation Branch, without a requirement for his assistance. The work was not abandoned after Squadron Leader Burke was told not to take any further part.
Navy: Haiti
Mr. Ellwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of the capacity of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel Largs Bay's capacity was full at the point at which the vessel departed Southampton for Haiti in February 2010. [316979]
Bill Rammell [holding answer 22 February 2010]: Royal Fleet Auxiliary Largs Bay departed for Haiti on 3 February carrying 595 linear metres of relief supplies and equipment, including the required cargo handling and beach landing capabilities. This represents approximately 60 per cent. of the capacity available. Residual space is required to assist with the movement of supplies and equipment within the cargo hold in anticipation of changing disbursement priorities on arrival.
The operational considerations about which supplies and equipment to take included an assessment of materials that could be ordered and delivered in time to ensure that the most urgently required aid would get to Haiti. The priority was items not easily transported by air but critical to the immediate humanitarian relief effort. These include fork lift trucks, four-wheel drive vehicles and corrugated sheeting.
In addition to delivering relief supplies, RFA Largs Bay has also been deployed to provide specialised capabilities to assist with the wider United Nations-led relief effort in Haiti. Delaying departure to allow supplies to be delivered for loading needed to be balanced with the urgency of getting the ship to the vicinity of Haiti to unload and begin these wider tasks.
RAF
Dr. Julian Lewis: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what changes have been made since 1994 to the rules under which deceased Royal Air Force aircrew can be found guilty of gross negligence; whether a finding of gross negligence could have been made in respect of the Chinook crash if the current rules had applied at the time of the crash; and if he will make a statement. [310015]
Bill Rammell [holding answer 12 January 2010]: In 1997 the relevant service regulations were changed to remove the express attribution of blame and although Boards of Inquiry were still able to find that "human factors" were the reason for an accident, any questions of culpability on the part of aircrew would be dealt with separately through the disciplinary or administrative action system, if appropriate. If these rules had been in force at the time of the Chinook accident the Board of Inquiry could not have made a finding of gross negligence. With the introduction of a new system of Service Inquiries in October 2008 under the Armed Forces Act 2006 which brought in procedures common across all three services and replaced the old Board of Inquiry system, the rules continued the principle that Service Inquiries are not to explicitly attribute blame or legal liability. If any question of culpability were to arise, it would have to be dealt with through the disciplinary system, although clearly this would not arise in the case of deceased personnel.
Territorial Army
David Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the answer of 26 October 2009, Official Report, column 23, on the Territorial Army, for what reason drill nights at the 38 (Irish) Brigade Regional training Centre at Ballykinler, County Down remain suspended. [316444]
Bill Rammell [holding answer 9 February 2010]: The Regional Training Centre at Ballykinler, County Down, is not normally used as a venue for Territorial Army training nights. However, a phase 1 training course originally scheduled to run at the Centre over six weekends was recently cancelled. The cancellation of this particular course was a local decision which was contrary to the directive issued by the Government following the decision taken in October 2009 to reinstate routine Territorial Army activity for the remainder of the financial year. The reasons for this are being investigated and the training will be reinstated. This training does not affect any personnel committed to operations and the course will be reinstated.
Veterans' Challenge Fund
Dr. Murrison: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the (a) budget, (b) expenditure on administration and (c) expenditure on grants has been of the Veterans' Challenge Fund in each year since its inception. [317637]
Mr. Kevan Jones: The Veterans Challenge Fund was established on 1 April 2003. Since then it has provided funding to prime projects that support the three pillars of the Veterans Programme (Transition, Support, and Recognition) that are identified in the Veterans Strategy.
Initially a budget of £2 million was set aside to cover a three-year period (2003-06). However, on 28 October 2005, Official Report, column 19WS, we announced the extension of the Veterans Challenge Fund past its initial three-year period with an annual allocation of up to £750,000.
Administration of the Veterans Challenge Fund with the MOD is an internal departmental cost with the duties being part of wider responsibilities. These costs are not taken from the budget for the fund.
The following table provides information on expenditure relating to Veterans Challenge Fund grants for each year since 2003.
| Expenditure on grants( 1) (£) | |
| (1) Figures have been rounded to nearest thousand. | |
Dr. Murrison: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which projects have been supported by the Veterans' Challenge Fund in each year since its inception; and how much funding has been allocated to each such project in each such year. [317638]
Mr. Kevan Jones: The information is not held in the format requested.
Since its launch in July 2003 the Veterans Challenge Fund has provided funding to a total of 98 projects in a number of areas including homelessness, prison in-reach and research into suicide among veterans. Projects that have benefited from our contributions have gone to make a significant difference to the veterans community.
The following table provides information relating to the number of projects undertaken for each year.
| Number of projects | |
Costs relating to a specific project may span a financial year and may be complex through their reliance on a number of other funding factors reaching maturity at the same time. Determining the amounts for each project would require a manual search of records and incur disproportionate cost.
House of Commons Commission
Freedom of Information: Costs
Sir Nicholas Winterton: To ask the hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission what the cost to the House has been of responding to requests made under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. [317263]
Nick Harvey: No records are kept of the specific time spent by staff responding to inquiries. An estimate of the staff cost of handling Freedom of Information Act requests within the Information Rights and Information Security (IRIS) team, who co-ordinate the handling of responses, is £165,000 per annum.
Nurseries
Michael Fabricant: To ask the hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission (1) what estimate the House of Commons Commission has made of the average daily usage of the proposed nursery by children of (a) hon. Members, (b) staff of the House of Commons Service, (c) staff of hon. Members and (d) others in its first 12 months of operation; [317123]
(2) what estimate the House of Commons Commission has made of the (a) running cost and (b) income of the proposed nursery in the first 12 months of its operation. [317124]
Nick Harvey:
The nursery is being designed to provide child care for up to 40 children between the ages of birth and five years. According to child care experts, there will be a build-up of usage over a period: the average usage for the first 12 months of a new nursery is likely to be around 40 per cent. No breakdown of usage as between the children of Members and the children of others has been estimated at present: much will depend
on the make-up of the next Parliament. The intention in the longer term is to recover the operating costs through the charges made to users. Disclosure of expected operating costs at this stage could undermine the House's position in the commercial competition for a nursery operator.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
British Nationals Abroad
Mr. Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimate he has made of UK citizens living abroad in (a) each other EU member state and (b) all non-EU countries in (i) 1980, (ii) 1990, (iii) 2000 and (iv) the most recent year for which figures are available. [317719]
David Miliband: Our network of overseas posts has in the past been asked to provide an estimate of the number of British nationals resident in their consular area. The latest figures available are for 2006-07. Figures are also available for 1990 and 2000, but not 1980. The results of each of these surveys are shown in the following table.
| Estimated size of the British national community | |||
| Country | 2006-07 | 2000 | 1990 |
| Note: Based on overseas posts' estimates of the number of British nationals within their consular area. | |||
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