Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the proportion of maintenance downtime is for (a) tanks, (b) armoured fighting vehicles and (c) armed personnel carriers across the armed forces.
Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
It will take time to collate and review the information needed to answer the hon. Member’s question. I will write to him shortly and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of (a) Royal Navy, (b) British Army, and (c) RAF personnel are in frontline roles.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force do not have a definition for ‘frontline roles’ and the figures below therefore reflect the current Full-Time Trained Strength:
Royal Navy/Royal Marines – 28,040
Army – 70,860
Royal Air Force – 27,710
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what data her Department holds on the (a) delivery and (b) effectiveness of knife crime prevention training provided by police forces in schools.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), the government-funded what works centre for protecting children from involvement in violence, provides detailed, practical and evidence-based guidance for schools and education settings on how best to protect children from involvement in violence. To further understand how it can support schools, the Department for Education has commissioned research with 40 schools on the ways in which they identify and respond to serious violence and knife crime. The research report will be published later this year.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of bus service provision per capita in (a) Solihull Metropolitan Borough, (b) Warwickshire, (c) Worcestershire and (d) Birmingham City Council areas; and how that compares to the national average.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport publishes statistics on vehicle distance travelled on local bus services, which can be used as a proxy for bus service provision. These figures have been combined with Office for National Statistics population estimates to assess trends in provision per capita. The year ending March 2024 figures have been calculated using mid-year 2023 population estimates, as these are the latest available figures.
Data for Solihull and Birmingham is not available, so figures for West Midlands Combined Authority have been provided instead.
Table: Vehicle distance travelled (kilometres) per capita on local bus services from year ending March 2015.
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
Warwickshire | 25.6 | 22.1 | 25.6 | 24.5 | 24.1 | 24.1 | 16.8 | 19.9 | 20.8 | 18.1 |
Worcestershire | 19.5 | 17.8 | 19.1 | 16.6 | 17.7 | 17.1 | 13.4 | 13.7 | 8.9 | 9.0 |
West Midlands Combined Authority | 42.9 | 42.0 | 41.2 | 39.8 | 39.6 | 39.0 | 34.6 | 35.3 | 32.0 | 33.5 |
England outside London | 34.0 | 32.8 | 32.1 | 30.5 | 29.9 | 28.9 | 23.2 | 25.8 | 23.9 | 24.0 |
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure that the training received by combat medical technicians who are not qualified paramedics is recognised by civilian health care employers.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
The training Combat Medical Technicians (CMTs) receive leads to Higher or Advanced Apprenticeship qualifications which are recognised by civilian healthcare employers.
Initially, CMTs undertake a Foundation Medic course, followed by a Level 3 qualification as a Senior Healthcare Support Worker. Further to this CMTs are able to access Level 3 and 4 Pre-Hospital Emergency Care and First Response Emergency Care Apprenticeships and can continue to a Level 5 Diploma in Emergency and Urgent Care. In some instances, CMTs can also progress and complete a degree in Paramedic Science.
Further to this, those employed in Public Health settings also have the opportunity to access courses and qualifications in specialist areas such as audiometry, phlebotomy and the delivery of vaccinations; again these qualifications are nationally recognised.
CMTs work in the NHS whilst on Clinical Placements in both Secondary Healthcare and Ambulance Trusts with many delivering Emergency Care to the general populous.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 9 of section 7.5 of the Strategic Defence Review 2025, published on 2 June 2025, what his planned timetable is for the Cabinet sub-Committee or equivalent Ministerial group to meet.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s interest in space. The Ministry of Defence along with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and other departments, is coordinating space activities across government. Ministers from across government met on the 22 April to discuss space and, since the publication of the Strategic Defence Review, Ministers met on 7 July to follow up on our approach to space. We remain committed to establishing and evolving the right space governance structure to ensure that activities are effectively coordinated across all relevant departments.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much additional funding his Department plans to provide for space technology within the remit of the National Armaments Director.
Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Strategic Defence Review published earlier this year has recommended that Defence must urgently develop the resilience of its military space systems.
The new Defence Investment Plan, which will be published in Autumn, will set out how we will deliver the Strategic Defence Review's vision and will be both deliverable and affordable.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Departments is taking to assess the feasibility of retrofitting existing platforms for autonomous capability.
Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Strategic Defence Review recognised that the RAF must stay at the leading edge of combat air's evolution, through the transition from exclusively crewed combat air platforms to a Future Combat Air System (FCAS) with a mix of crewed, uncrewed, and increasingly autonomous platforms, integrated into the UK's digital targeting web. The future of the RAF lies in accelerating its adoption of the latest technology and innovation. That will be considered as part of the Defence Investment Plan, and in subsequent force development work.