Afghanistan

Tuesday 1st May 2012 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)]

I wish to clarify answers that I gave in response to questions from the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) as printed in the Official Report, 26 April 2012, columns 1124 and 1130 respectively.

Column 1124

The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) asked the following:

In 2014 or 2015 when our combat role has ended, who will provide force protection for our trainers?

The final sentences of my response should have been:

The Afghan national officer training academy is being built within the perimeter of an Afghan facility, the perimeter of which will be defended by Afghan troops.

Inside this Afghan National Army perimeter, UK personnel based at the Academy will operate from within a coalition force Operating Base, and will therefore be protected by UK or coalition military personnel.

Column 1130

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) asked the following:

Because of the need to balance the Ministry of Defence budget, a number of service personnel will be made redundant later this year, including, I suspect, a number who have recently returned from Afghanistan and a number based in my constituency with the Royal Logistic Corps. However, those people have skills that are much sought after by local employers, so will my right hon. Friend ensure that MOD officials work with the local community to set up a social enterprise to ensure that the skills of the service personnel who are made redundant are made known to local employers as swiftly as possible, and so that as many of those skills and those people can be brought into the local labour market as swiftly and speedily as possible?

The first sentences of my response should have been:

Exemption from redundancy extends to anyone who is within six months of deploying to Afghanistan, is on operations, or is on their Post Operational Leave or any accrued Operational Rest and Recuperation.

Therefore, the majority of service personnel would be exempt from compulsory redundancy for a period of between four and seven weeks after returning from operations in Afghanistan.

I apologise to the House for the errors in my original answers.