Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of replacing real bear fur bearskin hats with faux fur bearskin hats for use in the military.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 25 January 2024 to Question 10427 to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Ms McCarthy).
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 14 December 2022 to Question 110598 on RAF Valley: Noise, what information his Department holds on the proportion of flying hours that Texan training planes have flown over (a) Arfon (b) North Wales and (c) overwater; and if he will provide a list of counties where training flights have taken place.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Texan aircraft based at RAF Valley operate over a number of areas, including the North Wales Military Training Area and the Valley Aerial Tactics Area, which extend over a significant portion of north and mid-Wales, as well as the Irish Sea. Through its flight planning and daily tasking processes, RAF Valley works to distribute training flights to differing areas as equitably and fairly as possible.
However, there is no requirement for RAF Valley to retain post-flight any details of specific areas or Parliamentary constituencies actually overflown. Therefore, it is not possible to provide detailed information on specific proportions of flying hours overflying any given geographical area.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent assessment he has made of levels of noise pollution from Texan training planes flying over Arfon; and what recent steps he has taken to reduce noise disruption.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
The Texan aircraft complies fully with relevant international aviation noise standards.
Arfon lies fully under the North Wales Military Training Area which provides valuable and regularly used training airspace for RAF Valley and other military aerodromes. This training area offers specific advantages in terms of scale, terrain and deconfliction from other airspace users that meet many essential training requirements for the RAF and the Texan fleet.
However, the Station plans the use of this airspace carefully, and works closely with the Texan Squadron to distribute training as equitably and fairly as possible. A significant proportion of Texan flying is undertaken in other areas, where these provide suitable conditions to meet essential training objectives, including overwater areas in order to minimise disturbance to local communities and ease the congestion within the North Wales Military Training Area.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the average career length is for an infantry soldier who joins aged (a) under 18 and (b) 18 or above, including time spent in training.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The average career length on outflow for Trade Trained Regular Army infantry soldiers who join aged 18 and under is nine years. For those who join aged 18 and above, the average career length is seven years. These figures have been rounded to the nearest completed year and are subject to available data.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many infantry enlistees were (a) aged 16, (b) aged 17, and (ci) aged 18 or above, between 2001 and 2020, and how many individuals joined the infantry as officer cadets over the period.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The data requested by the hon. Member can be found below:
Age of Infantry enlistee* | Infantry enlistee figures |
16 | 13,035 |
17 | 12,670 |
18+ | 42,686 |
Total | 68,391 |
*Figures relate to the Regular Army
2,634 Officer Cadets joined the infantry during this time period. Due to how the data was captured historically, data from the years 2005-06 and 2006-07 is not held centrally. Therefore, the data above is comprised of years 2001-2005 and 2007-2020.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what further steps his Department has taken to reduce noise disruption from Texan trainer aircraft operating from RAF Valley.
Answered by James Heappey
In training our future fast jet pilots, RAF Valley plays a vital role in our national security. It has taken a number of measures to minimise disturbance to local communities from the Texan aircraft, including spreading operational training as widely and equitably as possible, rotating regularly through training areas in any day; conducting an increased proportion of Texan flights over the sea; and increasing the amount of training conducted in simulators.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of Texan trainer aircraft operating from RAF Valley have been fitted with the Universal Water Activated Release System harness.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
All 14 of the Texan T MK1 aircraft operated at RAF Valley are fitted with the Universal Water Activated Release System harness.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to point 5 of his letter of 20 April 2021, reference MSU4.6.7.2, what progress has been made since on improvements to Texan trainer aircraft.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
Work continues with industry on the life raft and there has been significant progress on the Universal Water Activated Release System harness, with embodiment on all ten Texan aircraft due to be complete by the end of October.
It remains the case that Texan aircraft continues to routinely and safely operate over the sea. The modifications identified are to further enhance the protection for our aircrew, enabling training over the roughest of sea states. However, it also remains the case that we will always need to conduct essential training flights over land to ensure pilots receive training for all scenarios they may face when on operations and to ensure effective use of all available airspace and training sortie times.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Royal Saudi Air Force pilots (a) are currently training at RAF Valley and (b) have trained at RAF Valley annually in the last three years.
Answered by James Heappey
There are no Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) students currently training at RAF Valley. In the last three years 30* RSAF students have trained at RAF Valley.
We are unable to breakdown the total number of Royal Saudi Air Force students annually as training spans more than one year and individuals may be counted more than once.
*In accordance with the Data Protection Act and our obligations in relation to the protection of confidentiality when handling personal data, the data has been rounded to the nearest 10.
Asked by: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what ratio of land to sea training is planned for the T6 Texan once the certification issues have been resolved.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The set requirement of night flying on the Texan Ab-Initio Course to gain night flying qualification roughly equates to 95 per cent day flying and 5 per cent night flying. However, there has never been a military requirement in setting any form of ratio of land to sea training. The primary responsibility is to operate efficiently and safely within available airspace to deliver military training course aims.
For the Texan fleet, the Valley Aerial Tactics Area (VATA) and the RAF Valley/Mona Air Traffic Zones remain the most appropriate airspace to deliver many of these training aims. RAF Valley undertakes to distribute training activity as fairly as possible for all aircraft types based at the station, but the local airspace is surrounded by civil airways over much of the Irish Sea. Although a far greater proportion of Texan training is conducted over-water than a year ago, for all communities under the VATA airspace, a level of flying locally remains inevitable.