Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will accelerate the conclusion of requests for resettlement by Afghan interpreters and other personnel employed by the United Kingdom, either by offering refugee status in the United Kingdom or by assisted resettlement in other countries.
Answered by Lord Astor of Hever
The ex-gratia redundancy scheme includes an offer of relocation to the UK for locally employed Afghan staff who meet the relevant eligibility criteria. Staff are relocated through a bespoke immigration arrangement, not connected to the UK refugee system. This system ensures that identity, health and security concerns are addressed without unreasonable delays. There are no plans to offer Afghan staff refugee status, which would not be appropriate to their circumstances.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many staffed and equipped field hospitals they have.
Answered by Lord Astor of Hever
The Armed Forces operate 14 Field Hospitals: three Regular Army, ten Regionally Recruited Reserve Field Hospitals and one Nationally Recruited Reserve Field Hospital. These are shown below:
22 Field Hospital (Regular) - presently deployed in Sierra Leone
33 Field Hospital (Regular)
34 Field Hospital (Regular)
201 (Northern) Field Hospital (Reserve)
202 (Midlands) Field Hospital (Reserve)
203 (Welsh) Field Hospital (Reserve)
204 (North Irish) Field Hospital (Reserve)
205 (Scottish) Field Hospital (Reserve)
207 (Manchester) Field Hospital (Reserve)
208 (Merseyside) Field Hospital (Reserve)
212 (Yorkshire) Field Hospital (Reserve)
243 (Wessex) Field Hospital (Reserve)
256 (London) Field Hospital (Reserve)
306 Hospital Support Regiment (Reserve)
Regular Field Hospitals have a permanent cadre of staff who maintain the hospital and its equipment in barracks. During deployments and exercises they are augmented with Regular clinical staff from the Joint Medical Command. At the highest level of readiness, one of these units is able to deploy its lead elements at five days notice.
The Reserve Field Hospitals' role is to be ready to deploy for enduring operations with a minimum of 18 months notice. This allows sufficient time to prepare both the manpower and equipment for the deployment. Reserves can and do also volunteer as individuals to deploy on operations with Regular units at shorter notice.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to expand the instructions given to RFA Argus so as to enable its medical facilities to assist all urgent cases from Sierra Leone or nearby states.
Answered by Lord Astor of Hever
RFA ARGUS is deployed to support the Government's efforts in Sierra Leone. Her primary role is to act as a logistics lift capability and aviation platform, with three embarked Merlin helicopters. RFA ARGUS does, however, have a limited medical capability on board to treat disease and non-battle injury. Treatment of those suffering from Ebola is carried out at separate facilities ashore, the first of which opened in Kerry Town on 5 November and will have the capacity to treat 80 local patients. Also at Kerry Town the UK military is currently manning a 12 bed treatment unit for national and international healthcare workers.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what Royal Navy vessels are currently taking part in NATO's Operation Active Endeavour.
Answered by Lord Astor of Hever
As at 29 October 2014, HMS KENT (a Type 23 Frigate) and HMS GRIMSBY (a Mine Counter Measures Vessel) are supporting Operation ACTIVE ENDEAVOUR.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the state of readiness of RFA Argus; how many patients she can carry; and whether there are plans to deploy her to the Mediterranean for humanitarian tasks or for rescuing endangered boat-people.
Answered by Lord Astor of Hever
We do not release information on the readiness levels of our units, on grounds of safeguarding national security. As an integral component of the Government's response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, RFA Argus was recently deployed to Sierra Leone as an aviation support ship with three Merlin helicopters embarked. RFA Argus also has the capacity for a 100 bed medical facility.