Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of food served in military barracks to armed forces personnel in self-isolation.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
The quality of food provision for Service personnel (SP), whether in isolation or non-isolation, is monitored and assured constantly by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and Front-Line Commands. No separate assessment is thus made on the standard of food served to SP in isolation. The standards of food quality are set out in Joint Services Publication 456, Defence Food Quality Standards.
DIO and its Industry Partners have produced guidance on feeding in isolation and are sharing best practice across the regions including undertaking additional assurance checks in collaboration with onsite teams at the point of delivery.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 1 September 2020 to Question 78846 on Armed Forces: Coronavirus, what progress he has made on making an assessment of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on levels of recruitment to the (a) regular and (b) reserve armed forces.
Answered by James Heappey
The position remains unchanged from the answer I gave on 1 September 2020 to Question 78846 to the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Morgan).
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on levels of recruitment to the (a) regular and (b) reserve armed forces.
Answered by James Heappey
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 1 September 2020 to Question 78846 to the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Morgan).
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much funding his Department has allocated to support armed forces veterans living in (a) the Local Authority of St Helens and (b) the North West in each financial year since 2010.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
The information for Local Authorities is not held in the format requested. However, details of all grants made by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund, by region, since 2015 are available on the Covenant Fund website at the following links:
http://www.covenantfund.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Local-grants-2015-16.pdf
http://www.covenantfund.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Local-grants-2016-17.pdf
http://www.covenantfund.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Local-grants-2017-18.pdf
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much funding his Department has allocated to the (a) Sea Cadets, (b) Army Cadet Force, (c) Air Training Corps and (d) Combined Cadet Force in each financial year since 2010.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The Ministry of Defence does not directly allocate funding to Cadet forces, but instead funds are disaggregated to the single Services through the annual budget process. The single Services do not hold discrete cadet budgets and the cost of delivering and supporting cadet activity falls across a wide spread of different business areas, agencies and organisations.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what estimate he has made of the number of armed forces veterans that live in (a) St Helens North, (b) St Helens Metropolitan Borough, (c) the Liverpool City Region and (d) the North West.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
An estimated distribution of the UK Armed Forces veteran population residing in Great Britain can be found in the 'Annual Population Survey: UK Armed Forces Veterans Residing in Great Britain', the latest edition of which (2016) is published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/annual-population-survey-uk-armed-forces-veterans-residing-in-great-britain. As at 2016, there were an estimated 2.5 million UK Armed Forces veterans residing in households across Great Britain and 279,000 veterans living in households in the North-West region of England.
The total number of veterans in St Helens North, St Helens Metropolitan Borough (Local Authority of St Helens) and Liverpool City Region is not held. However, information held by the Department indicates that, as at 31 March 2018, the numbers of veterans in receipt of an Armed Forces occupational pension, a disablement pension under the War Pensions Scheme or compensation under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme residing in each of these areas is as follows:
338 veterans in the Parliamentary Constituency of St Helens North.
772 veterans in the St Helens Metropolitan Borough (Local Authority of St Helens).
7,105 veterans in the Liverpool City Region.
As at 27 March 2011, from the responses provided in the Office for National Statistics 2011 Census, there were an estimated 2,780 working age veterans residing in the Local Authority of St Helens: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/census-2011-working-age-uk-armed-forces-veterans-residing-in-england-and-wales-index
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Arctic Stars his Department has awarded since the medal was struck in 2010; and in which country each recipient resided.
Answered by Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton
The Arctic Star was instituted by Her Majesty's Government in 2012. Since this time 18,756 have been issued. A breakdown of the countries in which the recipients resided can be found below:
Australia | 487 | Malaysia | 1 |
Austria | 2 | Malta | 14 |
Bahamas | 1 | New Zealand | 170 |
Belgium | 9 | Norway | 2 |
Bermuda | 3 | Poland | 1 |
Canada | 444 | Portugal | 4 |
Cayman Islands | 2 | Republic of Ireland | 41 |
Channel Islands | 42 | Singapore | 1 |
Cyprus | 8 | South Africa | 25 |
Denmark | 2 | Spain | 34 |
France | 53 | Sweden | 4 |
Germany | 4 | Switzerland | 6 |
Hong Kong | 1 | Thailand | 2 |
Isle of Man | 38 | The Netherlands | 9 |
Italy | 3 | UK | 17,259 |
Luxembourg | 1 | USA | 82 |
Zimbabwe | 1 |
| |
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to enhance the Royal Navy's amphibious forces as set out in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review.
Answered by Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton
The Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 made provision to augment the Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers and maximise their ability to support amphibious operations. Prior to the carriers being brought into service, other Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships will continue to provide support to amphibious operations.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will list the Department's funding for projects supporting Armed Forces veterans by local authority area in each year since 2010.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
This information is not held in the format requested. However, details of all grants made by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund since 2015 are available on the Covenant Fund website:
https://www.armedforcescovenant.gov.uk/covenant-fund-awards-2015-2016/
https://www.armedforcescovenant.gov.uk/covenant-fund-large-grants-2015-2016/
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many UK citizens are (a) employed by and (b) on secondment to the European Defence Agency.
Answered by Mike Penning
The European Defence Agency currently employs 11 British Citizens with a further two British Citizens working as Seconded National Experts.