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Young People: Positive Activities
Lord Northbourne asked Her Majesty's Government:
- What steps they are taking to provide activities such as sport and outdoor adventure pursuits so as to provide outlets for the aggression and energy which are normal characteristics of adolescent males.[HL1200]
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: PE and school sport, including outdoor and adventurous activities, play an important role in school life. They help to raise standards, improve attendance, behaviour and health and help to develop social skills.
The Government are committing over £1 billion to implement a national PE, School Sport and Club Links strategy. We want all children to spend at least two hours each week on high quality PE and school sport and have set an ambitious joint DfES/DCMS to increase the percentage of 5–16 year olds who receive this entitlement to 75 per cent by 2006.
Outdoor and adventurous activities are one of six areas of activity for which programmes of study have been drawn up within the national curriculum for physical education.
In addition, the Positive Activities for Young People programme is designed to divert and develop those young people aged eight to 19 most at risk of social exclusion and committing crime. It is being delivered across England from May 2003 to March 2006; £25 million is available for the first year of the programme. This will deliver a minimum 22,000 places from midday to 9.00 pm each day of the school holidays.
Provision will take place in all of the school holiday periods. In addition to the activities themselves, one to one support is available for the young people most at risk. The activities cover sport, the arts, and education and personal development. The sport activities include, among others; canoeing; climbing; abseiling and sailing. A residential experience is used as a reward to encourage young people to participate in the programme or to modify their behaviour, for example, by improving their attendance at school.
Support Vehicle Project
Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
- When an announcement will be made concerning the preferred bidder for the Support Vehicle Project; and[HL1144]
What is the current forecast in-service date of the Support Vehicle Project.[HL1145]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach): An announcement on the preferred bidder will be made on completion of the evaluation of the further bids received. On current plans this is scheduled for later in the spring.
The current forecast in-service date is April 2007.
Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
- What will be the impact on the deployable operational capability of the Royal Air Force of delays in the Support Vehicle Project.[HL1146]
Lord Bach: Under the existing concept of operations, the delays in the Support Vehicle programme will have no significant impact on the deployable operational capability of the Royal Air Force.
Gulf War 1990–91: Vaccines
Lord Morris of Manchester asked Her Majesty's Government:
- Further to the Written Answer by the Lord Bach on 6 January (WA 35) why the decision was taken to "drop pertussis from the anti-biological warfare programme"; and how many doses of the vaccine were used on veterans of the 1990–91 Gulf conflict.[HL1231]
Lord Bach: The information requested can be found in the MoD paper, Implementation of the Immunisation Programme against Biological Warfare Agents for UK Forces During the Gulf Conflict 1990–1991, paragraphs 10, 114 and 115. A copy of this paper is in the Library of the House. This paper is also available on the Internet at: www.mod.uk/issues/gulfwar/info/medical/bwa-htm and in hard copy as set out in my Answer of 20 November 2003 (Official Report, col. WA 341).
Lord Morris of Manchester asked Her Majesty's Government:
- Further to the Written Answer by the Lord Bach on 18 December (WA 176–77), whether the fax from the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Metters, was seen by Ministry of Defence Ministers; and, if so, whether a policy decision was taken not to act on the information it conveyed.[HL1232]
Lord Bach: In light of the MoD paper referred to in my Written Answer of 18 December 2003 (Official Report, cols. WA 176–77), it is very unlikely that the
fax originated by Dr Metters on 21 December 1990 was seen by MoD Ministers at the time.Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and WATCHKEEPER Programme
Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
- Whether they intend to purchase an off-the-shelf unmanned aerial vehicle to bridge the gap before WATCHKEEPER enters service; and what is in the in-service date for WATCHKEEPER.[HL1298]
Lord Bach: The WATCHKEEPER programme will provide an intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capability by integrating a combination of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems into the emerging military command and control digitised network, thus supporting network enabled capability. A formal in-service date will be set at the main investment decision point due later this year but we plan to deliver capability from 2006. Operational requirements are regularly reviewed and decisions on equipment acquisition are made on the basis of what military capability we need and how best to provide it. If we decided there was a requirement to provide this capability before WATCHKEEPER comes into service, it would be normal practice to consider a range of solutions, of which equipment acquisition and, if appropriate, the acquisition of a UAV would be one possibility.
Duke of York's Royal Military School and Queen Victoria School
Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
- What are the issues for further study arising from the quinquennial review of the Duke of York's Military School and the Queen Victoria School.[HL1299]
Lord Bach: The issues for further study are:
- work to establish legal constraints implicit in the warrants;
- examining the potential advantages of increasing bed-spaces at Queen Victoria School;
- the establishment of a tiered system of fees for the Duke of York's Royal Military School, which will increase the charges for non-serving parents;
- addressing the problems relating to the make-up and recruitment of commissioners at both schools;
- investigating the efficiency of continuing agency status of the two schools; and
- examining the possibility of using spare capacity to provide education to day pupils.
Defence Medical Personnel, Birmingham
Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
- What steps are being taken to provide military infrastructure, such as officers' mess accommodation, married quarters and single quarters, for the Defence Medical Services Centre of Medical Excellence at Birmingham University.[HL1300]
Lord Bach: We are currently considering options for the future provision of accommodation for our medical personnel in Birmingham. Preliminary discussions have taken place with University Hospital Birmingham NHS trust.
Defence Medical Services: Reservists
Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
- What action is being taken to prevent the overuse of the Defence Medical Services' reserve forces.[HL1301]
Lord Bach: The Reserve Forces Act 1996 sets out specific time limits for mobilised service under different call out orders, which limits the length of deployment for Reservists, including those from the Defence Medical Services. In addition to these limits, the Surgeon General has directed that, as appropriate, we should aim to mobilise Reservists in critical specialities for no more than three months in any 12-month period in order to prevent skill fade.
EU: Rapid Crisis Response and Battle Groups
Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:
- How many service personnel they intend to commit to the proposed United Kingdom-French defence force.[HL1398]
Lord Bach: There are no plans to set up a joint Franco-British defence force. There have, however, been recent trilateral proposals to develop capabilities in support of the EU's ability to undertake rapid crisis response operations. These advance the declaration made on 24 November at the Anglo-French Summit, and the greater demand for rapid reaction peacekeeping forces from the UN. As part of the Helsinki Headline Goal, member states agreed to develop rapid response elements available and deployable at very high readiness. The British, French and German Governments are proposing that EU member states create battle group-sized forces (1,500 strong including combat support and combat service support), deployable within 15 days, and sustainable for 30 days (but extendable up to 120 days). These battle groups would be available by 2007, and designed for compatibility with typical UN Chapter VII mandates (to restore international peace and
security). Member states would be able to offer such formations individually—as is likely to be the case for the UK—or on a multinational basis. There is, however, no standing European army or European rapid reaction force, nor any EU agreement to create one.
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