Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 23 November 2020 to Question 116502 on Saudi Arabia: Royal Artillery, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of disclosing details of the Army deployment in Saudi Arabia.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) made Parliament aware of this small deployment to Saudi Arabia via its annual report and has then answered subsequent Parliamentary Questions. The MOD is committed to ensuring that Parliament is kept informed of significant major operations and deployments of the Armed Forces, but does not provide advance notice to Parliament of every UK military deployment given the sheer number and variety of deployments, including for exercising and training purposes.