Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the role is of the five additional UK Royal Naval vessels situated in the Baltic.

The Royal Navy routinely allocates vessels to NATO's Standing Maritime Groups and Standing Countermeasures Groups, which are multinational, integrated maritime forces permanently available to NATO to perform tasks ranging from participating in exercises to intervention missions.

This year the UK's contribution consists of: three Mine Countermeasures Vessels, on four month deployments in rotation; one Frigate for six months, which is the first to be deployed to this task since 2010; and a Destroyer, from October 2016.