Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what his planned timetable is for updating Parliament on plans to mediate a solution with nuclear test veterans on their missing medical records.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
The Government is deeply grateful to all those who participated in the UK nuclear testing programme. We recognise their Service and the huge contribution they have made to the UK’s security.
I am fully committed to meeting Nuclear Test Veterans, organisations that represent them, and Parliamentarians to discuss the important issue of records. I held a meeting with a Nuclear Test Veteran organisation most recently on 31 March 2025, and I look forward to further engagement, including with Members of Parliament.
We understand the range of concerns from members of the Nuclear Test Veteran community and their families. The records exercise is a priority. While there is no ringfenced budget associated with this exercise, I have directed teams across the Ministry of Defence and Atomic Weapons Establishment to deliver the records exercise in a meaningful way so that I can then update Nuclear Test Veterans and this House about what information the Department holds in relation to the medical testing of Service personnel who took part in the UK nuclear weapons tests. Many officials from across the Department are involved in roles ranging from supporting the recall of files from various archives, to analysing the files. Collating information on the number of officials involved would be time consuming and detract from those officials delivering the records exercise itself.
At this stage, we cannot confirm when the records exercise will be complete. We are not currently certain how many files need to be reviewed, and the content of those files varies significantly over time and between the Services, which were under separate Ministries during the period of the nuclear tests.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what information his Department holds on allegations of medical monitoring of nuclear test veterans since 2022.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
The Government is deeply grateful to all those who participated in the UK nuclear testing programme. We recognise their Service and the huge contribution they have made to the UK’s security.
I am fully committed to meeting Nuclear Test Veterans, organisations that represent them, and Parliamentarians to discuss the important issue of records. I held a meeting with a Nuclear Test Veteran organisation most recently on 31 March 2025, and I look forward to further engagement, including with Members of Parliament.
We understand the range of concerns from members of the Nuclear Test Veteran community and their families. The records exercise is a priority. While there is no ringfenced budget associated with this exercise, I have directed teams across the Ministry of Defence and Atomic Weapons Establishment to deliver the records exercise in a meaningful way so that I can then update Nuclear Test Veterans and this House about what information the Department holds in relation to the medical testing of Service personnel who took part in the UK nuclear weapons tests. Many officials from across the Department are involved in roles ranging from supporting the recall of files from various archives, to analysing the files. Collating information on the number of officials involved would be time consuming and detract from those officials delivering the records exercise itself.
At this stage, we cannot confirm when the records exercise will be complete. We are not currently certain how many files need to be reviewed, and the content of those files varies significantly over time and between the Services, which were under separate Ministries during the period of the nuclear tests.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many staff in his Department are working (a) full time and (b) part time on the internal review of records relating to nuclear test veterans.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
The Government is deeply grateful to all those who participated in the UK nuclear testing programme. We recognise their Service and the huge contribution they have made to the UK’s security.
I am fully committed to meeting Nuclear Test Veterans, organisations that represent them, and Parliamentarians to discuss the important issue of records. I held a meeting with a Nuclear Test Veteran organisation most recently on 31 March 2025, and I look forward to further engagement, including with Members of Parliament.
We understand the range of concerns from members of the Nuclear Test Veteran community and their families. The records exercise is a priority. While there is no ringfenced budget associated with this exercise, I have directed teams across the Ministry of Defence and Atomic Weapons Establishment to deliver the records exercise in a meaningful way so that I can then update Nuclear Test Veterans and this House about what information the Department holds in relation to the medical testing of Service personnel who took part in the UK nuclear weapons tests. Many officials from across the Department are involved in roles ranging from supporting the recall of files from various archives, to analysing the files. Collating information on the number of officials involved would be time consuming and detract from those officials delivering the records exercise itself.
At this stage, we cannot confirm when the records exercise will be complete. We are not currently certain how many files need to be reviewed, and the content of those files varies significantly over time and between the Services, which were under separate Ministries during the period of the nuclear tests.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department has (a) budgeted for and (b) spent to date on the internal review of records relating to nuclear test veterans.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
The Government is deeply grateful to all those who participated in the UK nuclear testing programme. We recognise their Service and the huge contribution they have made to the UK’s security.
I am fully committed to meeting Nuclear Test Veterans, organisations that represent them, and Parliamentarians to discuss the important issue of records. I held a meeting with a Nuclear Test Veteran organisation most recently on 31 March 2025, and I look forward to further engagement, including with Members of Parliament.
We understand the range of concerns from members of the Nuclear Test Veteran community and their families. The records exercise is a priority. While there is no ringfenced budget associated with this exercise, I have directed teams across the Ministry of Defence and Atomic Weapons Establishment to deliver the records exercise in a meaningful way so that I can then update Nuclear Test Veterans and this House about what information the Department holds in relation to the medical testing of Service personnel who took part in the UK nuclear weapons tests. Many officials from across the Department are involved in roles ranging from supporting the recall of files from various archives, to analysing the files. Collating information on the number of officials involved would be time consuming and detract from those officials delivering the records exercise itself.
At this stage, we cannot confirm when the records exercise will be complete. We are not currently certain how many files need to be reviewed, and the content of those files varies significantly over time and between the Services, which were under separate Ministries during the period of the nuclear tests.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what changes have been made to the government’s assessment of future skills needs following the announcement on February 25 that defence spending would increase to 2.6% of GDP by 2027.
Answered by Maria Eagle
The Ministry of Defence is working closely with Skills England and the Department for Education to ensure the boost in defence spending supports the training and development of new generations of defence sector workers. The future skills requirement for defence is being assessed as part of the ongoing development of the Strategic Defence Review and the Defence Industrial Strategy.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many British Army full-time personnel (a) retired and (b) left the profession for other reasons in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
The requested information is published in the Quarterly Service Personnel Statistics, the latest edition of which (1 January 2025) can be found at the following address: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-2025
Table 5d - Row 43 to 60 shows the Army Outflow numbers.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department has banned the use of DeepSeek.
Answered by Maria Eagle
The Ministry of Defence takes security very seriously in order to protect its personnel, information, and systems. We do not comment on specific details.
The Government has a robust set of security policies in place to oversee how information is handled, within our buildings, on our IT, and by our staff.
We keep these policies under constant review to ensure they are applicable to new technologies.
The AI Playbook for the UK Government outlines that only corporately assured Generative AI tools should be used to process HMG information. The Mobile Device Management policy mandates that any application downloaded onto Government devices must first be approved by security and technology teams. Everyone who works in Government has a duty of confidentiality and a responsibility to safeguard any Government information or data that they process, access or share, and all Government Departments are required to meet a range of mandatory security standards.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many people began RAF pilot training in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
I hope the hon. Member will understand that his question engages national security considerations. I can reassure him that the RAF has a plan to recruit and retain pilots and a program is being made against this plan.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Royal Navy service personnel (a) retired and (b) left the profession for other reasons in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
The number of Royal Navy service personnel who retired and left the profession for other reasons by Calendar Years 2015 to 2019 can be found in the table below:
Calendar Year | End of Engagement | All Other Outflow |
2015 | 1200 | 1500 |
2016 | 1150 | 1480 |
2017 | 1180 | 1460 |
2018 | 1170 | 1450 |
2019 | 1160 | 1430 |
2020 | 1140 | 1420 |
2021 | 1130 | 1410 |
2022 | 1120 | 1400 |
2023 | 1110 | 1390 |
2024 | 1100 | 1380 |
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of food procured by his Department is sourced in the UK.
Answered by Maria Eagle
Under the terms of Ministry of Defences’ (MOD) food contracts, the procurement of all produce is the is the responsibility of the prime contractors.
Although the contracts do not specify the use of British produce, the MOD encourages contractors to source locally wherever possible.
All food procured for MOD personnel must comply with MOD food quality standards, which, in turn, comply with all UK and EU production standards, Farm Assurance or equivalent.