Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the cost to the public purse was of providing training courses for the Burmese Army to date; and what funding for that purpose has been allocated for (a) 2014-15 and (b) 2015-16.
Answered by Mark Francois - Shadow Minister (Defence)
To date, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has spent £105,905 on Defence Education activity with Burma. The MOD's allocated funding for financial year 2014-15 is £139,530 whilst funding for financial year 2015-16 is still under review.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many buildings his Department sold in (a) 2010, (b) 2011, (c) 2012, (d) 2013 and (e) 2014.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Ministry of Defence does not record the sales of each individual building; however we do record our disposal sales, which range from large defence sites to smaller parcels of land which are listed below by financial year (FY):
FY2010-11 - 76
FY2011-12 - 100
FY2012-13 - 108
FY2013-14 - 97
FY2014-15 - 29 (up to 31 October 2014)
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, under what timetable his Department plans to phase-out use of telephone lines with the prefix (a) 0845, 0844 and 0843 in accordance with the Cabinet Office guidance on customer service lines published in December 2013 and (b) 03 and 08, where 03 is the primary number under a dual numbering system.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Ministery of Defence's (MOD) customer service lines cover a number of areas in three main categories:
(1) Services for Veterans are provided through a well-publicised free help line (0808 1914 2 18);
(2) Services for existing military staff are available on the MOD network. However, on those occasions where staff or their families need to call from outside the MOD, there are free (eg Army Welfare and Service Family Accommodation), national rate or business rate lines; and
(3) Potential recruits have a choice of ways to communicate with our careers staff, with increasing emphasis on Digital tools such as Live Chat and Social Media. Careers lines for the Army are now 03, and for the RAF both 0845 and 03. Royal Navy Careers are currently business rate (0845), but 03 numbers will be imminently available.
The MOD does of course have many other numbers, which are geographic or business rate (including the number for low flying complaints).
The MOD does not use any premium rate (09) numbers.
Asked by: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many telephone lines with the prefix (a) 0845, (b) 0844 and (c) 0843 his Department (i) operates and (ii) sponsors; how many calls each such number has received in the last 12 months; and whether alternative numbers charged at BT local rates are available in each such case.
Answered by Anna Soubry
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 18 November 2013 (Official Report, column705W)
The number of calls to each number for the period 1 June 2013 to 31 May 2014 is provided in the table.
Telephone number prefix | Operated by DFTS | Sponsored by DFTS | How many calls received in last 12 months |
0845 | 3 | 18 | 347,258 |
0844 | 0 | 1 | 73 |
0843 | 0 | 0 | 0 |