Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of replacing ceremonial caps made from the skins of bears with ceremonial caps made using faux fur.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
There is currently no faux fur alternative that meets the required standard for the Queen’s Guards ceremonial caps. Bears are never hunted to order for use by the Ministry of Defence. Our suppliers source pelts made available by the Canadian authorities following a licensed cull as part of a programme to manage the wild bear population; Provincial, territorial, federal and international laws provide strict trade regulations to protect against unlawful trade in black bears both within Canada and internationally.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the average time for (a) processing and (b) concluding medical assessments is for applicants to (i) the armed forces, (i) the Navy and (iii) the Army (A) before and (B) during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by James Heappey
Royal Navy
The average time taken from the submission of an application to join the Royal Navy (Regular Officers and Other Ranks) to having a medical assessment was as follows:
Application Date | Average Timeline (days) |
1 April 2019 - 22 March 2020 | 141 |
23 March 2020 - 1 November 2020 | 115 |
Candidates are informed of the outcome by the Military Medical Examiner (MME) on the day of the assessment; this is followed up in writing.
Army
The median average time taken from the submission of an application to join the Army as a Regular Other Rank to having a medical assessment was as follows:
Application Date | Average Timeline (days) |
1 April 2019 – 31 March 2020 | 149 |
1 June 2020 – 30 September 2020 | 181 |
Note
The Army was only able to reinstate physical medical assessments from June 2020.
Candidates are informed of the outcome by the Military Medical Examiner (MME) on the day of the assessment; this is followed up in writing.
Royal Air Force
The mean average time taken from the submission of an application to join the Royal Air Force (Regular Officers and Other Ranks) to having a medical assessment was as follows:
Application Date | Average Timeline (days) |
1 April 2019 – 22 March 2020 | 125 |
23 March 2020 – 4 November 2020 | 192 |
Notes
Only includes applications processed via the digital recruitment system.
Only includes applications with a recorded medical booking date.
Candidates are informed of the outcome by the Military Medical Examiner (MME) on the day of the assessment; this is followed up in writing.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department is investigating allegations that the Saudi-led coalition deployed UK manufactured cluster munitions; and whether UK military personnel or UK aircraft were involved in the deployment of such munitions.
Answered by Michael Fallon
We are aware of reports, including from Amnesty International on 6 June 2016, of the alleged use of UK-supplied cluster munitions in the Saudi-led coalition campaign in Yemen. We take this allegation very seriously, have analysed the case carefully and raised the issue with the Saudi-led coalition.
The UK is not a member of the coalition and there are no Royal Air Force aircraft in coalition operations. British military personnel are not involved in carrying out strikes, directing or conducting operations in Yemen or in the targeting process.