Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2021 to Question 88654, what specific costs were entailed in the £2.1 billion spent removing the British Army’s footprint from Germany.

The drawdown of troops permanently based in Germany since 2010 has cost £2.1 billion and has returned 20,000 service personnel and their families as well as civil servants, contractors and support teams to the UK. The Ministry of Defence considers that this drawdown continues to support the most advantageous basing laydown of our personnel.

The rebasing of personnel from Germany should not be confused with the decision in the Integrated Review to maintain a stock of equipment in Germany to allow more rapid deployment of land forces into the European theatre if necessary. This forward basing of equipment was largely already in place to support the training facility in Sennelager that was retained during the drawdown of the garrison. Support to this facility will require, on current plans, an additional 19 troops to be based in Germany from April 2022.

The breakdown of the £2.1 billion is as follows:

• £1.8 billion under the Army Basing Programme (ABP). This represents the cost of providing new or refurbished living and technical accommodation for units that returned from Germany, along with the associated moving costs. This included the provision of c.1,400 new family homes and thousands of new single living bed spaces as well as investment in local infrastructure.

• £293 million under the BORONA Programme. This represents the cost of initial unit moves which took place between 2010-2015, including the move of HQ ARRC from Rhine Garrison to the UK.