Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what role her Department had in formulating the walking out policy covering Libyan recruits being trained at Bassingbourn barracks; and what role (a) her Department and (b) the police had in monitoring that policy.

As an incentive to promote good behaviour and thereby improve the effectiveness of the training programme the Army proposed to allow the trainees some very limited unsupervised access to the local amenities. These proposals were discussed across Government (including the Home Office) prior to implementation.

The Home Office requested that the Army liaise closely with Cambridgeshire Police on the monitoring of such visits.