House of Commons and House of Lords Hansard Written Answers
Asked by Mr Nicholas Brown
(Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Asked on: 06 July 2015
Ministry of Defence
Trident: Expenditure
5612
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what amount was spent on the Trident nuclear weapons system as a proportion of UK GDP (a) across the lifetime of that system and (b) in each year of the Trident programme for which estimates for that spending have been made.
Answered by: Michael Fallon
Answered on: 14 July 2015
In line with the December 2006 White Paper, ‘the Future of the UK’s Nuclear Deterrent’ (Cm 6994), we estimate the in-service costs of the deterrent are around 6% of the annual Defence budget.
Asked by Brendan O’Hara
(Argyll and Bute)
Asked on: 08 July 2015
Ministry of Defence
Kurds: Military Aid
6155
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what military equipment his Department has supplied to the Kurdish Peshmerga since 22 June 2015.
Answered by: Michael Fallon
Answered on: 14 July 2015
On 22 June 2015 (Official Report, column 13WS) I informed the House that we were gifting additional medical supplies to the Peshmerga. This equipment includes tourniquets, bandage kits and dressings for wounds. No other military equipment has been supplied since that date.
Previously, we have gifted 50 tonnes of non-lethal support, 40 heavy machine guns and nearly half a million rounds of ammunition to the Kurdish Peshmerga.
Asked by Mr David Anderson
(Blaydon)
[N]
Asked on: 09 July 2015
Ministry of Defence
Unmanned Air Vehicles and Unmanned Marine Vehicles
6480
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department plans to produce a new joint doctrinal note or joint concept note on the UK approach to unmanned vehicles.
Answered by: Penny Mordaunt
Answered on: 14 July 2015
The Ministry of Defence (MOD)’s Joint Doctrine Note (JDN) 2/11 “The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems” was published on 30 March 2011. The principles contained within the note apply to systems and vehicles operating at sea and on land.
It is MOD policy that Joint Doctrine Notes remain valid for a limited period to inform future doctrine and concept publications. Work is under way to reflect and update the ideas contained within JDN 2/11 within new concepts and doctrine publications that are currently in production; at which point the note will be withdrawn. We expect this to be in the summer of 2016.
There are currently no plans to produce a new Joint Doctrine or Concept Note specifically on the UK approach to unmanned vehicles; however, the MOD reserves the right to do so in the future should the need arise.
Ministry of Defence
Unmanned Air Vehicles
6481
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department has undertaken or commissioned any assessment of the psychological effect of using unmanned air vehicles.
Answered by: Penny Mordaunt
Answered on: 14 July 2015
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) takes seriously the mental health of all members of the Armed Forces. The RAF Stress Management and Resilience Training Team has delivered stress awareness briefs to units operating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to give personnel awareness of the subject and make them aware of the wide range of assistance and treatment that is available.
While the particular stressors of their work are recognised, an assessment of the referral figures for MOD Departments of Community Mental Health from 2009-13 indicated that UAV pilots were no more likely to present with any form of mental health condition than the general Armed Forces population.